Due to your unexpected and overwhelming response yesterday I contacted the service providers and told them to drop it. When asked for a new release date, I replied “NOW.” Spotify was like alright, bet. iTunes and the rest to surely follow in the next few days. So here we are. I wasn’t going to release this, or anything really. After Mikes tribute broadcast I left the studio, locked the door, and it took me about 6 months to summon the strength to unlock the door and go back in. And everything was just as I had left it. The mpc was littered with beats, somehow frozen in time - capturing all of the hope and anxiety of the ongoing pandemic. Eventually I compiled them to listen to, but as my life devolved I realized there was no purpose in hoarding these - perpetually promising myself I’d release them if and when they were “perfect”. Art is never perfect. And if we’ve learned anything, it’s that tomorrow surely isn’t guaranteed. My last conversation with Mike. What started as the homie “just checking in on me” became the typical sprawling affair filled with laughs, inside jokes, remember that times and the inevitable talk about music. He asked me what I was working on. I said I was making some beats and he said “for what?” I laughed hard. “I don’t know!” We both knew it was just who we are. Would keep doing it till the day we died even if it never came out - half calling, half habit. He said “don’t forget those black ass high hats!!” To which I responded “you motherfu*ker!” He was referencing long talks we had had driven through parts unknown, just each others company to pass the time. He would lament the move away from drum programming, and specifically, hip hop producers not using hi hats anymore. He would argue that it was a combination of laziness and not being able to “feel the funk” - getting high hats to swing correctly often can be the separation between great production and paint by numbers boom bap. And to accentuate his argument he’d reference classic breakbeats and the importance of the high hat. Contd..