This is going to be a long post so for those of you strapped for time I’ll frontload this mess: Fear of Success, my first solo project in six years is available, in full, to stream, download, criticize and promptly delete.

Click here or, you know, on the giant button above the post to download it FREE.

It’s in 320 kbps which is a high quality MP3 format, which also means the file sizes are bigger. I wouldn’t have even considered doing that to you at a time when that would be half an iPod storage capacity but we now live in a world where you can equip items to your Fallout character from your phone so if the files are too big for you, convert them yourself.

If you want to preview it before committing the hard drive space, or maybe you’re on a work computer, you can stream it on Bandcamp and YouTube.

Physical copies are coming soon. They will be available first at shows, then on the website.

After you’ve given it a listen or two, consider coming back here. I want to tell the story of where babies come from. Music babies. And why this one gestated for so long. It’s not a story I can promise you’ll find interesting so grab a beverage first. Surge is back in some stores. If you can’t find that, I’m partial to Polar Blast Hawaiian Punch. Though maybe a root beer would be the most appropriate drink. Anyway I’ll be here when you’re good and nourished and then you can follow me on the journey that was the creation of Fear of Success.

Acknowledgements

There are so many people without whom this album would not exist but I want to take just a moment to thank the people who actively contributed to it. First and foremost, I met The Rawhide Kid in a writing class freshman year of college that I only needed to take because I failed the AP English exam senior year of high school. This being at a college I applied to at the last minute to be closer to someone else, even after being accepted to several other universities. It’s hard to not be a determinist when any little part of that story could have changed and we would have never met. I truly believe our paths (and streams) (and dicks) were meant to cross because here we are, nine years later releasing a project I know we’re both proud of. This album is truly as much his as it is mine.

Dan Bouza mixed a mess and mastered a masterpiece. That sounded like the MC Pee Pants line that precedes “612 Wharf Avenue” (right next to Melon Shakers). But back to Aqua Teen Bouza Force. I mixed every song on this album myself and then one day I happened to notice the balance in my checking account getting bigger. I don’t budget myself – I eat trash and buy Fallout DLC that I can’t play because I had to write this stupid post no one will read. It just so happened my job was paying me enough to live like a fat recluse with a little bit to spare. So at that point I had a decision to make: do I start saving to buy a house, or do I invest in this music thing? Ultimately I decided on the latter because I didn’t want to regret not doing so later on. There are always homes for sale, but record labels don’t sign too many rappers older than 30 for a debut album.

So I reached out to Dan who I also went to college with (he mixed “Without Cheating” on the Whiteout! project I did with Rawhide and was also once in a production of The Rocky Horror Picture Show with me) and sent him all my mixes along with the stems. He then broadcast his studio session live to me from Long Island to Schenectady (because the future is now, baby!), and we mixed them again, together. By “together,” of course, I mean he did all the work and I complained about certain things being too loud or quiet. He insists he doesn’t hate me but I do think I should get him a gift basket.

Figure 1: Dan and I mixing a track off Fear of Success

Chris Prythm, Will Spitwell, Knowle’ge, Mike Larry Draw, Shayna – thank you all for contributing your various talents to this project as well. Andrea, you developed much-needed imagery to complement the audio, which will without a doubt enhance its legacy.

Genesis

After Whiteout! I graduated from college and, facing the “real world” (vs. Road Rules Miami) for the first time I put music on hold. I got a real job – no more serving iced cream to little fuckups who spill their sprinkles. Then one day in late 2011 creativity hit me in a surge (not related to the drink we have already established is back in some stores). I wrote a verse. It was about a part of my life I’d largely ignored in my music: my parents’ divorce. Divorce never hit me like it does with some other kids. Honestly, I was just happy they weren’t beating the shit out of each other any more. But the drugs my parents were doing during that time turned them into completely different people, ones who truly scared me. I put that to words for the first time and that became the first verse of “PTSD.”

For the next four or five months I proceeded to write the bulk of Fear of Success. I had already decided on 9 – 5 life after college as the overarching theme and had even laid out the chapters. Rawhide and I traded ideas over the phone, but on March 11, 2012 I sent him a Facebook message that got the ball rolling. Here it is verbatim:

Assuming last night broke my awful writer’s block, I’d like my next album to have ~15 tracks plus an intro and a skit. I’m planning on buying 3 beats from Chris Prythm (Hell of a Time guy) for the opening track (which I believe I’m going to call “Rush Hour”), the track I wrote last night (called “PTSD”) and the closing track (“Midnight Snack” — think along the lines of the bonus track on Recovery). I also have a couple beats picked out from a producer I found online named Caleb Sarikey. I was hoping you could do the honor for the other 10 songs. I’m not sure what they all are yet, but I’ll explain the few idea I have.

“Integrity” – The same concept as Jon LaJoie’s “Radio Friendly Song” but obviously for hip-hop. I’m basically going to listen to the radio nonstop for like a week and write down all the words I hear an unnecessary amount. Then I’m just going to list those words in the verses and the chorus is going to be a sung collection of hook-friendly names like Rihanna and Bruno Mars. This song has to have the most generic, pop radio beat possible.

“Standing Around (The Club)” (featuring The Rawhide Kid and one other person TBD) – I mentioned this to you months ago. Your standard club song but instead of getting drunk and dancing we just stand around looking creepy. Instead of a chorus should be a mini skit that helps change the persona from rapper to rapper. For example if I deliver the first verse, then there is a brief skit where you and I are talking until a fat girl comes and rubs her ass on me. Then you pick it up from there.

“Day Old Doughnuts” – In this song I will compare a dozen of the most popular rappers to a dozen doughnuts because extended metaphors make me look smart.

“Battle Rap” (featuring The Rawhide Kid) – I’m fucking excited for this one if you’ll do it. Basically you and me go back and forth Red & Meth style having a Pokemon battle. I really want this album to count, so I was thinking this could be a viral YouTube song if we perfect it enough. I was thinking the beat could heavily sample the battle music from the original Pokemon. I’m not too worried about copyright because I was going to give this album away for free this time around.

“Psychopathic” – Out of my element but yes, a horrorcore song. How is it Rootbeer? Well there are three verses and three girls I know named [redacted], [redacted] and [redacted] (though I won’t name them). You do the math.

“Perfect for Me” – Love song because I need to balance the inevitable lyrics about gay sex on other songs.

I also plan to record with [redacted] and possibly his group [redacted] but I’m not sure what we’ll be thinking conceptually.

Anyway really hoping you can cook up something for these tracks because your production and my voice is never a bad combination. Also, how’s life man? We never talk any more.

As you can see, literally every one of those concepts made the final project. There were a few of the floating ideas that didn’t. For example, I chose to exclude the song with the Caleb Sarikey beat when the subject of the lyrics fell on harder times. Also, some of the guest spots didn’t pan out. But like I said before, I’m a determinist. This album came out exactly the way it’s supposed to.

About a month after I sent that message to Rawhide, I went to visit him at his home. We had a listening session where he played me over 70 beats he made – some specifically for this project, some he just thought I would like. By the end of that weekend, I came home with thirteen beats – nine of which made the final album. Also we watched Big Money Rustlas starring the Insane Clown Posse. Not italicizing that title because it doesn’t deserve it.

Intermission

Did I lose you? Do you need to take a break from reading to play Fallout DLC? I won’t be offended, but do remember to come back because there is much more self-aggrandizing to be done.

Finding the Title

Fear of Success was not the original title for the album. The working title was Short Shifts, Long Lunches.

I was actually thinking about putting little skits between songs too, but then good kid, m.A.A.d City came out and I couldn’t release an album with the same storytelling mechanics AND have a title with a comma or people would think I was biting Kendrick. I threw out the skit idea immediately after that album came out and moved the title into the metaphorical “maybe” column.

There was a time I considered splitting the album into two projects: one being Short Shifts and the other being Long Lunches. That idea also got scrapped because I didn’t want to make a bunch of filler just to have enough tracks for two projects. The fate of the project hung in the balance until two separate relationships went up in flames.

It was after the second breakup that I wrote “Cold Turkey” and asked Rawhide to send me an instrumental for me to record it over. In true fashion, he sent me fifteen. One of them became “Cold Turkey” and several others have found purpose for future projects. That relationship ending also launched a phase of me learning to love myself. Every decision I’ve ever made was true to who I was as a person. Sure, I didn’t like who that person was, but I realized that if I had made my decisions differently then I would have been deceiving myself. I had made poor choices, we all have, but none of mine were inauthentic. I learned to stop asking “what’s wrong with me” and start wondering “why can’t more people be like me?” It sounds arrogant, but as long as you don’t start acting elitist because of it, existing as yourself in the world becomes infinitely more bearable.

So many artists in their 20’s discuss their dead-end jobs, earning just enough to eat so they can focus on music. That was never my plan. Those rappers live hip-hop and work for survival. I work for a living and make hip-hop for survival. While my choices were practical, my depression and anxiety held me back from feeling a sense of accomplishment. The heavier songs in the first half of the album represent the distractions in an ever-active, racing mind. Those horrible thoughts that keep us from growing, from breaking the cycle. Being financially stable does not equate being successful because success is a state of mind; one that I was incapable of letting myself reach. With this realization, it was only natural I landed on the title Fear of Success which, by that point, was already a lyric in “Ghost of my Past.”

Setbacks

In 2014, most of the album was recorded and Dan and I had started doing our mixing sessions. However, not all of the tracks were accounted for. One of the biggest reasons I chose not to have any features on my 2009 project, Alternate Ending was because, for earlier projects, other artists always proved to be unreliable.

With Fear of Success I reached out to several local artists who were established enough for me to think they would take their craft seriously. Rawhide recorded his verses with me so, of course, he wasn’t a problem. Knowle’ge was another college acquaintance who has built quite a buzz for himself in the 518. After writing my two verses of “Ghost of my Past” I thought of his song “Do This Again,” with his own self-criticism and knew only he could finish it. He slaughtered it. Originally I was going to have L One on “Standing Around,” but Mike Larry Draw got back to me first. Remember how I said everything happens the way it’s supposed to? Because Mike absolutely slaughtered that track. L One got back to me later on and slaughtered the “Rush Hour RMX,” as did Hired Gun.

There were other artists, however, that gave verbal commitment to the project but never contributed. Dan also had a very busy schedule so I would sometimes have to wait months between sessions. I set May 2015 as a deadline for myself. When it came and passed, I was determined to finish the project without leaning on anyone but Rawhide and Dan.

Twelve Months to Success

In abandoning my pursuit of new collaborators, there was a vacancy for the song “Being Offensive,” which an eager and undoubtedly aroused Rawhide Kid filled, first with his penis, then with a classic verse, then again with the same but now slightly less rigid penis. Another track got scrapped and, in its place I recalled a song concept a former coworker pitched to me: “Workplace Hot.” It fit the album theme perfectly, and I already had a Rawhide beat that captured the mood. Rawhide and I set up a weekend to lay his verse, then lay pipe to one another, as well as adding energy to “Workplace Hot.” That weekend coincidentally fell during E3 when they showed the first Fallout 4 footage; a game which I will remind you I am currently not playing because I’m writing what is now going on 2500 words. This is pretty much a chapter of a book or an entire Joseph Conrad novel. Speaking of Joseph Conrad, did you catch the reference to Heart of Darkness in “Lost in my Depression?” Of course you did. You’re a cultured bunch. Anyway, those were the final changes to the Fear of Success tracklist and the last recording sessions. Thus began my distantly-spaced but highly-productive final production pow-wows with Dan.

We recorded the “Battle Rap” and “Perfect for Me” videos; the former in a field next to my dad’s house, the latter in my apartment. Did you catch the guest appearance from my piece of shit cat at the 1:09 mark? Fuck that bitch.

Andrea perfected the artwork. The Intro and “Business Call” were recorded, and I actually had to buy a selfie stick to record the former properly. It was a great recommendation on Dan’s part but I still keep the thing hidden under my driver’s seat because I’m ashamed of it. My perception of self has improved, but owning a selfie stick is not helping me maintain that progress. As my album was getting its happy ending, I sent the Intro-less and skit-less half-master over to Rawhide on October 15 so he could give himself one. I’m going to end this post with the first official review of Fear of Success, which is what he sent back to me less than 48 hours later. Spelling errors have been retained for authenticity.

To anyone who actually read through this whole thing: you are a true fan. Thank you for your support, or even just lending me your boredom time. Please share the album with everyone you know who has ever enjoyed a hip-hop song. Tweet me your feedback. I hope it’s positive. Would it help if I told you I love you? Because I do. It is because of you I am no longer afraid to succeed.

-Rootbeer

Fear of Success Review by The Rawhide Kid

So after around 10 listens and several masturbatory sessions I have decided to masturbate you…r ego a little bit and provide my review on “Fear of Success” and what the songs mean to me in the form of yearbook superlatives. Lets get started.

1) “Rush Hour”- “Song Most Likely to Get Me Super Pumped.”
-I’ve already talked about how much I enjoy this song and how great of a choice it is to kick start your album. I can’t wait to hear the fully mastered Remix with all of us; mostly because I can’t remember my verse and I hope its good but also because of how dope everyone elses verse is.

2) “Being Offensive”- “Song Most Likely to Permanently Damage Our Professional Careers”
-I’ve always envisioned this as a spiritual successor to “Beating Around the Bush” I will admit that I’m glad [redacted] flaked. I really wanted to be on this song from the minute you told me the premise. I think it has that vintage, Potsdam Junior year, R & R feel that I really think people will love. I think the tone of my voice in the chorus may have accidentally reavealed a little too much about my feelings toward gays lol. #Trump2016

3) “Day Old Doughnuts”- “Song Most Likely to Make Me Hungry”
-I’ve always found this to be a very fun song. You have a really bouncy flow on this that I enjoy a lot and the metaphors are out of this world.

4) “Lost in my Depression”- “Song Most Likely to Resonate With Millennials”
-God I fucking hate that word; Millennial. That superlative is accurate though. I do feel like you put words to the feelings and the thoughts and the struggles that I, and many of our peers go through after college. We’re told to go to college and get good grades so we can graduate with honors and get a good job. Well what happens when you do all that and you don’t get the payoff you expected? What happens when life hits you at 90 mph and you realize there are no more essays? Just a job you probably don’t like and bills to pay and barely anytime for the things you used to enjoy? I think you could have easily also called this album “Post Grad.”

5) “Integrity”- “Catchiest Song About Shitty Catchy Songs”
– Not only is this song a great take down of shitty substance-less radio songs but its also an incredibly catch song. The chorus to this has been stuck in my head for two days. If that was intentional then that was fucking brilliance. Also that Danny Brown impression slays me every time.

6) “Cold Turkey”- “Song With the Most Visceral Two Bars in Any Rootbeer Song Ever”
– “You used to be the one I thought I could retire with/Now I wanna throw you in the fire pit while the fires lit” Wow. The delivery of those lines and the emotion in it just burrowed deep into my head, and even my soul, and just stuck there. I’ve made Echoes of the Mind, many horrorcore songs, and said some pretty horrifying things on record but psychologically those lines are some of the scariest I’ve ever heard in a rap song. I find this song to be incredibly dark in a more subdued way; I enjoy that a lot.

7) “Ghost of my Past”- “Best Guest Verse/Best Production/Most Haunting”
-Knowle’ge really brings it on this track. I hate when I listen to songs where the guest has a verse that has nothing to do with the song. He fits the theme perfectly. Conceptually I think this song ties in perfectly to “Lost in my Depression.” I’m really glad you chose to put other songs between this, “Lost,” “Cold Turkey,” “Perfect” and “PTSD” otherwise it would have been the most soul crushing and depressing 25 minutes or so of my life. I don’t want to brag about myself but I really enjoy my production on this, I think its one of my best beats ever and definitely one of my favorites. I know I told you a couple days ago I didn’t have a favorite song yet but I’ve decided that this song takes that title.

8) “Psychopathic”- “Song Most Likely to Have Been Ghostwritten by Matt Gardner”
– You said it best yourself this is the most Matt Gardner sounding song you’ve ever made. That is until “Lawnmower Man” sees the light of day. All jokes aside this is actually a really great story-telling track. The story happens to be about kidnapping and rape in regards to (possibly) underage girls but still great delivery and vocal inflections nonetheless.

9) “Battle Rap”- “Song With the Most Insane Attention to Detail”
– I still laugh at how we made this a great song but also put a good amount of research into making sure it is 100% factually correct; for a song about Pokemon. I enjoy this song because it reminds me of hanging out with you and creating it and that’s a great memory.

10) “Workplace Hot”- “Most Oddly Specific, Yet Funny Concept”
-Even though this was a later addition to your album it still fits the overall theme perfectly. I really love how you took this thing that I’m sure pretty much every guy experiences at least once and gave it a name, then wrote a whole song about it. It kind of reminds me of how Derek and I come up with hyper specific, and sometimes very stupid, topics to make songs about. My favorite thing about this track is how because of the way the beat is constructed it allows you to vary your flow a few different times throughout. It really shows off your skills as a rapper.

11) “Standing Around”- “Song I’m the Most Outshined On”
-Boy do I get killed on this track haha. Another song with an excellent guest verse, this time in the form of MIke Larry Draw. I actually really like the energy and the vibe that we all have on this song, it just sounds like we’re all having fun with it. This is another of those songs that I have great memories associated with.

12) “Perfect for Me”- “Song Most Likely to Get You Signed/Most Relate-able/Best Flow”
-I know I’ve been talking to you about this particular song the past couple of days through text and I think my superlative says it all.

13) “PTSD”- “Song Most Likely to Make Me Cry”
-Holy shit man I think this is the most personal, most real thing you’ve ever written. The only song that comes close for me is “He Doesn’t Understand.” I’ve never really gotten too in depth with you about this song because I didn’t feel comfortable outright asking you about the events you’re talking about. That’s a good thing though. This is powerful. So what 50 Cent got shot 9 times. So what Jay had to sell crack to support his family. This song to me is more real than that. If I’m understanding the events of this song correctly then what you had to deal with growing up makes you more hardcore than most of these rappers out there (except DMX, he will forever be more hardcore than anyone) This is what Budden meant when he talked about wanting to make the pen bleed and see how you feel.

14) “Midnight Snack”- “Most Fun”
-Lyrically and technically this song is really dope. This may be the quickest spitting you do on the album. I would have to count syllables per minute between this and “Perfect” to find the true winner. The best part about this track though is not my wildly exaggerated reactions but the fact that you sound like you are really enjoying yourself. It’s really infectious and it puts a smile on my face every time. I also like that you do shout-outs at the end no one does that anymore.

All in all I loved every second of this album it really did live up to my expectations. I will be interested to hear what it sounds like with the intro and the skit included because it does actually feel like its missing something in this form. I also think Dan did an incredible job mixing it and if I had the money I would totally have him do my stuff because I hate mixing so much. The only issue I have is that there aren’t more songs. I enjoy this album so much that I desperately want there to be more songs on it. Thats why I’m excited for the Intro and the skit. I know you have more stuff you’re working on so I know I won’t have to wait too long. Now I just need to get my ass in gear and get my album done lol.