Wow, we made it. Fourteen song synopses. What am I going to do with all the extra time I used to spend writing blogs? Probably catching Doduos in the park.

For Promotional Use Only?

I know I said “PTSD” was the first song written for Fear of Success but that’s not entirely true. It was the first song written that was specifically intended for the album. Actually, all three verses of “Midnight Snack” were written before Whiteout! was released. They were three completely disparate verses I didn’t know what to do with so I was going to make a promotional track rhyming over the “Beamer, Benz or Bentley” beat – hence the reference to that song in the third verse – but we ended up having to scramble to finish Whiteout!. We didn’t finish it until the night before the album release party at Hurley’s in Potsdam so needless to say there wasn’t an opportunity to create promotional tracks beforehand.

As I was gathering concepts for Fear of Success I stumbled on the lyrics which were, and are still, in a file called “Cynical critics can sit on a dick and pivot.” They’re very good technical verses and, although they don’t really have an overarching topic, they’re a lot of fun. Basically, they’re the stereotypical white rapper verses. I knew “PTSD” was too heavy to be anywhere on the album but the very end. It represents the part of the day where you’re trying to fall asleep but your brain takes the opportunity to recall every trauma all at once. Yes, I’ve ended many nights that way, but throughout the Fear of Success creation process, it became less common. I didn’t want the last thing the listener hears to be “That’s me in the corner” and it wasn’t fair of me to leave everyone bummed out before the CD loops back around so I added a final chapter: those verses.

“Beamer, Benz or Bentley” being a couple years old by that point, and six years old by the time the album was released, the verses needed a new beat. The Will Spitwell produced one I went with had the perfect vibe to it. I recorded the verses over it but their presence in the Fear of Success album concept needed justification. When Rawhide came to visit and we recorded “Battle Rap” and “Standing Around,” I also had him do the skits between the verses to tie everything together. This is how I pictured it: As I was laying in bed overthinking everything, Rawhide calls me, says he’s outside and we’re going joyriding. By this point I’m exhausted, but like he convinced me to go to the club just a couple songs earlier, I get in the car and he gets me to start freestyling.

It’s because of all of you…

The album ended on a high note and my life was in a better place than it was when I started. That being considered, it felt appropriate to thank some people at the end. I certainly didn’t want to pull a J. Cole at the end of 2014 Forest Hills Drive. Hearing nine minutes of appreciation one time is more than enough so you’re likely to pop out the disc instead of letting it play through, and I wanted to release a project you could keep in your car for months. I told myself I’d thank as many people as I could in the time remaining with the beat at its current length. The guests and Dan were obvious choices, the rest helped me more than they may know.

The bad thoughts block out the counting sheep

There were times the thoughts in my head were so agonizing to me that I’d rather die than think any more. To a lot of people that might sound idiotic, and to an extent it is. You can never fully empathize with someone who is depressed unless you suffer from it yourself. Maybe you don’t understand and maybe a handful of the people I thanked don’t understand either; but they supported me. They answered my text messages at 3 o’clock in the morning and took my plight seriously. Whether they helped guide my mind back to a place of stability or they just helped me think about something else until I stopped crying, they all had a hand in making sure this album got released because I’m not sure it, nor I, would be here today without them.

Thank you, I love you all.

Alternate Ending

There was a short time I considered having a completely different ending to Fear of Success but I didn’t have the resources to make it happen. Since then I’ve actually written an entire album around that concept so prepare yourself for my next full-length project In/Stability: The Ultimate Ending.