With all the 20th Anniversary Editions of some of my favorite albums dropping over the past few years, I thought it would be an interesting exercise to dig into my oldest audio files and see what I could dredge up for the 20th Anniversary of my first solo project, Sittin’ Here.
I was not expecting to find lost gold, and neither should you. Sittin’ Here was created by a 14 year old kid who had no idea what he was doing. Most of the files I found are unfinished songs which means they are less polished than my most unpolished album.
But they have been rotting on old hard drives for 20 years, so I’ve gone through the process of converting them to modern audio formats. Now they can join me in celebrating two decades of solo artistry. Listen below to Sittin’ Here: 20th Anniversary Edition which includes the original 10-track Sittin’ Here album and a second They Were Just…Sittin’ Here disc with 14 unfinished songs and freestyles.
The Origins of Sittin’ Here
One shoutout that you’re going to hear multiple times throughout this double disc is “Liquid Records.” Maybe some day I’ll tell the whole story of Liquid Records, but for now I’ll tell the abridged version.
I came up with the name Liquid Records at the same time I came up with the name Rootbeer. I thought of the qualities of root beer. Lo and behold, one of those qualities is that it is liquid. That’s really the entirety of thought that went into it.
BullDogg and I created an album in 2022 called Kronik Dis-Order under the name The Caucasian Invasion. I knew from the start that this group could survive no more than two years. This is because, in 2004, BullDogg would graduate high school and it had always been his plan to join the Marines.
My original plan, in my mind, was to do a second Caucasian Invasion album. We were going to call it Instru-mentally Challenged and it was going to be 20 tracks – double the length of the original. I would use this opportunity to hone my skills as a writer, rapper and producer. Then, once BullDogg went to boot camp, I’d go solo as an expert of the home studio.
I’m not sure I ever actually conveyed this plan to anyone. We worked on Instru-mentally Challenged quite a bit, keeping our lyrics in a blue notebook where we wrote exclusively in red pen. One page of this notebook had the tracklist of all the song ideas we were working on. We even let sometimes-member o~Jé take the lead on a track called “Too Many Pills.”
The blue notebook and a handwritten list of the song concepts we had come up with
All three of us were contributing to this monster, but over time each of us became distracted by other things. While neither of their distractions were music-related, mine was the acquisition of a little piece of software called Cakewalk Plasma. Kronik Dis-Order was made by rapping over beats we made using MTV Music Generator, playing on the speaker of a 9″ TV in the background while we recorded in sequence.
I’m still proud of Kronik Dis-Order considering we put something of substance together at the tender ages of 13 and 16 respectively. Having that CD in my hand – despite having Microsoft Paint cover art, literally cut off of normal printer paper – it was a meaningful first step. But I knew the quality of the audio was something we needed to work on.
Thus, when I was finally able to scrape some money together and get a ride to Comp USA (R.I.P.) I had the goal of buying what seemed to be the highest rated industry standard digital audio workstation: Pro Tools lol just kidding it was going to be Sony Acid.
Comp USA did not have Acid. But what they did have was Plasma, which said right on the box that it’s better than Acid; and who can you trust if not the sales pitch on a product you’ve never heard of?
Yeah, I still have the box too
I’m not sure how my career trajectory would have been different had I made a different choice that day, or gone to a different store. What I can tell you is that Plasma was incredibly easy to learn, but that I taught myself some very bad habits that I outline in the podcast episode “Cutting Corners.”
Likewise, I can say that I am a creature of habit and TO THIS DAY I still use Cakewalk SONAR, which is the successor to Plasma. Every engineer I’ve ever worked with has encouraged me to switch to Pro Tools and yet I remain firm on my belief that learning is for children and that I currently have all of the knowledge required to be successful in life.
So anyway, I start fiddling around with Plasma, making beats using their premade loops. Meanwhile I’m writing songs intended for Instru-mentally Challenged. However, I felt like I had more to say with these new concepts. The verse-and-a-half I was used to writing for every song before handing it over to BullDogg became three verses all my own. I decided to lean into this creative episode and prioritize my own album.
One problem I ran into was that our family computer did not have an accessible headphone jack. Therefore, in order to record over a beat I’d have to play the beat through the speakers, and I was absolutely terrified of bleed. To prevent that, I would listen to the song over and over, then record the vocals acapella with the beat in my head. The results were not good and most of the vocals on Sittin’ Here are incredibly off-beat.
This early track list I found suggests Sittin’ Here was originally an EP. No idea what “When Humans ATTACK!!” was meant to be.
The name Sittin’ Here comes from the Kid Rock song “Only God Knows Why” where he opens with “I’ve been sittin’ here trying to find myself.” While Kid Rock soon found himself a conservative audience, it’d be quite some time and a few musical projects before I figured out who I wanted to pander to.
Truly that is what Sittin’ Here was for me. I knew I wanted to be heard, but I didn’t know what message I was trying to convey yet. I was having fun making songs no matter what they were about. Yet when I came up with something truly meaningful – a song called “Overwhelmed” – I struggled to write more than a single verse.
My dad did a system restore on our family computer in late 2003 so all of the project files for this album were lost. Anything on the They Were Just…Sittin’ Here disc that pre-dates the system restore was recovered because it existed on a burned CD.
Track-by-Track Memories
“It’s…Rootbeer” – This song is garbage but it contains two “signatures.” I had some ideas that I was committed to using on every album I release. The first is the line “I ain’t no honor roll student I’m a waste of material, #1 rapper, #1 serial killer.” I had used it previously on Kronik Dis-Order and I brought it back on “Whatever Works” from Obey Me but I think I stopped after that (Rawhide, correct me if I’m wrong). The other signature is using the last 15 seconds of a song to say “time to dance” and then putting in a random breakbeat. I did it on “Mathrap” from Target Practice and then on “Zorilla Dance” from Free Refills but I don’t think I’ve done it since (Rawhide?)
Original lyric sheets. Songwriting has improved. Handwriting has not.
“The Way I Am Freestyle” – This song in and of itself is another signature. I was committed to including a track on every album where I spit the 8 dopest bars I can think of over an industry beat. I did it again with “Say What You Say Freestyle” from Target Practice but I stopped because my perception of what “dope” is changed substantially.
“Myoozikulnis” – Pronounced “Musicalness” which is also not a word. I treated this as the first single off the album, though there wasn’t anywhere I could really market a single so I guess that means it’s the first song I’d show the other kids at school.
“Levi [skit]” – Re-recorded piece of a conversation we had over the phone because I thought it was funny.
“Know Life” – Unlike the other songs on this project where I made the beat, this was one of the beats you’d get if you searched for rap instrumentals on Kazaa. Crazy Tim agreed to do a verse on this song and I waited a long time for him to record one. So long in fact that he changed his stage name to DJ Sexah. When it became the only part of the album that was unfinished I decided to take one of the instrumentals he had made with Plasma and put that in place of his verse. Coincidentally, the day I burned the first copy of the album he showed up at my door and said he was ready to record.
“E=emcee²” – This is the one song from the project where I used MTV Music Generator to make the beat and recorded it Kronik Dis-Order style with the TV in the background. For that reason I am more on-beat than on the other songs. However, I forgot to finish the song before recording so there are a couple spots where I notice there is no line written and I try filling it in on the fly. That resulted in such brilliant bars as “smoke choke coke, back for more.” Also, BullDogg came up with the AFLCIO line. I told him I didn’t like it, which was true at the time. But then I sat with it for a while and ended up really liking it so I used it on my own song. He totally called me out but I was in his wedding party 10 years later so I don’t think there were any hard feelings.
“What U Want” – Ok this beat still slaps. I wanted to make a song for the ladies and this song definitely connects with the intended demographic.
“The Motherfuckin’ Man” – One time, shortly after I released this album, I was at the lunch table at school and we were talking about whether or not we want kids when we get older. I said I think I’d make a good father and then another guy quoted this song, saying “Rootbeer’s dangerous when he’s got a knife.” It’s been 20 years and I still have no children.
“Mixed Up” – I don’t remember the impetus for creating this song, though the early track list did not include it so it was clearly a late addition.
“Alone” – Also probably a late addition since it wasn’t on the early track list. Somehow this song holds up the best out of the bunch, probably because it’s the only one that doesn’t include homophobia. I quoted it 5 years later for the intro of “Alone with Myself.”
They Were Just…Sittin’ Here
The following is a list of the 14 bonus tracks and all of the information I can remember about them. I’m afraid in many cases I could not remember much.
“Enter” – File last touched: December 13, 2003 – I don’t remember creating this. It’s just a premade drum loop, and if I hadn’t added the sample of my voice from CI’s “Hooz Bigg” I wouldn’t even believe I made it.
“War is On” – File last touched: August 5, 2004 – Instrumental is from “WWIII” off Ryde or Die, Vol. 2 by the Ruff Ryders. My mental timeline is a little mixed up. I know at one point this was intended to be the opening track for a mixtape called War that would be released between Target Practice (2004) and Obey Me (2006), however the time stamp clearly indicates it was made prior to Target Practice, meaning the idea originated outside of that plan. The War mixtape morphed into Hood Release (2008). I took a few of the lines from “War is On” and repurposed them for a song called “48 Seconds to Dance” off the Free Refills EP (2010).
“Enth E Nd” – File last touched: May 5, 2004 – Intrumental is from “Enth E Nd” Kuttmaster Kurt remix off the Reanimation project by Linkin Park.
“Ghetto Superstar Freestyle” – File last touched: Unknown (late 2003) – This was a part of the Liquid Mixxxtape which was never uploaded to the Internet. The majority of the tracks on the mixtape were instrumentals made by DJ Sexah A/K/A Crazy Tim. G Money A/K/A my stepbrother Mike contributed a few instrumentals as well. All tracks I contributed to that mixtape are in this collection. As far as I am aware, my copy of the Liquid Mixxxtape is the only one that still exists.
$6000 and it’s yours
“Overwhelmed” – File last touched: May 26, 2004 – I referenced this song earlier when I said that Sittin’ Here was a project that I used to figure myself out as an artist and “Overwhelmed” was the first time I felt like I had stumbled on what I wanted to be. The problem was: I could never write a second verse for it. Perhaps an inability to allow myself to be truly vulnerable. I believe the 2Pac verse in here was meant as a sort of “vibe placeholder,” never intended for the final version of the song but to try and inspire a similar creativity for added verses. Yet, I never could figure out how to finish “Overwhelmed.” Even after Sittin’ Here I tried working on it still. By the time I was working on Obey Me, my writing and producing had matured so much that “Overwhelmed” felt weak compared to songs like “Esperanza,” “How Ya Feelin'” and “Loose Ends” so I gave up on it entirely and it has never seen the light of day…until now.
“Adambabadam” – File last touched: Unknown (late 2003) – Another one off the Liquid Mixxxtape. Mike used to say “mm-Adam-badam-adam” when he’d pass me in the house and one day I said we should make a song out of that. I made the beat, we recorded everything and I added clips from an audio file Tim recorded on our computer one day when, I assume, he was particularly high.
“If I Ruled…” – File last touched: April 12, 2004 – I actually remember this one! The last 16 bars of the song “Rhyme Renegade,” which was both a bonus track on Target Practice and a standard track on Obey Me were intended for a song called “If I Ruled.” This was going to be the beat for that song, but I could never come up with any other verses so I just tacked the verse onto the end of “Rhyme Renegade” and scrapped this beat.
“Myoozikulnis (Remix)” – File last touched: Unknown (mid-2003) – This was a bonus track on Sittin’ Here.
“ReMixed Up” – File last touched: Unknown (mid-2003) – This was a bonus track on Sittin’ Here. The goal was to use as many premade loops from Plasma as possible. I even included a segment where I used the drums, bass and melody from three different Sittin’ Here songs and then rapped over them. In retrospect, I could have stretched the use of Plasma’s premade loops a lot further if I had made separate songs out of them, but you try explaining that to a teenager with a new toy.
“I’m Stupid” – File last touched: Unknown (mid-2003) – This was a bonus track on Sittin’ Here.
“Red Rum” – File last touched: April 22, 2004 – Where do I even start with this one? In 2003, it was essential to have a Ja Rule diss track. While established artists focused on high-brow topics such as Ja stabbing 50 Cent, getting extorted, having a drug addiction, emulating 2Pac, and contributing to an overabundance of radio-friendly R&B songs, I leaned heavily into homophobia and hyper-focused on that one time he misspelled “Murder.” Note also my announcement to the world that I can’t freestyle. This song was never made for human ears.
“Unreleased Verse #2” – File last touched: August 21, 2004 – A kid at my school named Nick said he wanted to make a song called “Too Many Wankstas” (or something like that). Most of the time when someone makes an offhand comment like that you laugh and go back to talking about Grand Theft Auto or whatever. Not me. I went home, made a beat, recorded a verse and gave it to Nick. Doubtful he ever did anything with it so I cut out the open verses and made mine the center of it. That wasn’t for this anniversary project; I trimmed it and renamed it by the time the file was last updated. I’ll be damned if I remember what “Unreleased Verse #1” was.
Original handwritten lyrics for “Unreleased Verse #2”
“Scary Movies (Screamixxx)” – File last touched: Unknown (late 2003) – The instrumental here is from “Scary Movies” by Royce da 5’9″ & Eminem A/K/A Bad Meets Evil, off their self-titled EP. This was originally on the Liquid Mixxxtape.
“ReMixed Up (Hollow)” – File last touched: Unknown (late 2003) – This track was originally the closer on the Liquid Mixxxtape and it was always intended to be a gag. Produce 1 minute of music to convince people it was a continuation of the “Mixed Up” series and then spend over 6 minutes telling a blatantly un-factual version of history. It was inspired by this video which went viral the same year, in 2003.
I’m quite good at ending these retrospectives without any sort of formal conclusion so I’m determined to say something useful here. I spent a lot of time digging through old files to put this together and in doing so I uncovered enough to create two more albums worth of unreleased material. These songs vary in completion and quality and are dated from 2005 all the way up to this year. I’m committed to releasing everything eventually so your reward for reading this mercilessly long post is the knowledge that there is more to come, though I don’t yet know when or what format it will be in.
