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My Life... 10 Years Ago

A collection of messages from my oldest brother D, then my Aunt H, then D again. Then my grandma. Then me. Then some collection agency looking for my brother. What can I say? There was a time when I was obsessed with answering machines... and no one in my family picked up the damn phone. #phonescreenersFTW


While preparing for my radio show this week, I came across an mp3 of an "answering machine" freestyle made by my younger brother and his best friend, who were living in New Mexico at the time.

In 2005, I had been out of college for 2 years and was in the middle of the beginning of what was to be some long, drawn out family shit. Some (much?) of it is detailed in the archives... maybe? I don't know, I haven't looked at it. I'm pretty sure that back in the day, I posted these tracks; if you're a long time listener, you already know the deal.

The answering machine freestyles came about while I was doing an unpaid internship at a very small, very independent record label in OKC... while teaching German to 8th and 9th graders at my high school alma mater (because I needed money). At the time, I guess I wanted to work in the music industry. I was semi-interested in producing, i.e. I could make some shitty beats and thought that I could potentially get better at it... and make a living at it(?)... if only I practiced enough. In reality, I dicked around with music in between grading papers. Also, I lived in OKC and, at the time, the rap scene was severely splintered and didn't know what to do with itself. 

I don't know if that has changed. And, to be honest, I don't care at this point. But back in 2005, I made some beats and fucked around a lot with production software. My brother Remy and his friends liked to freestyle into our answering machine in the early hours of the morning and I liked to record those sessions and set them to music (either my own beats or other hip-hop instrumentals). So, Remy and his friends would call and leave freestyles. I would take them and set them to music. 

As I mentioned, I came across one of these freestyles on an external drive. This compelled me to look for others. I know they were out there... I uploaded them to the internet archive. 

So... 10 years later... I present you with what I saved on the internet with regards to what I was doing 10 years ago for fun.

Note #1: The audio is barely decipherable in some cases, because it's from the answering machine...

Note #2: These guys grew up to be upstanding members of society... fathers even...
and this was just my dumb hobby years ago anyway...

Note #3: It's still hilarious to me.

"Degrade These Hoes"


"Used To Be The Shit"



"Thanksgiving Freestyle"


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