Party people in the place to be…
I hope everyone is doing well and taking good care of themselves.
I suppose it’s that time of year and perhaps a look back is a healthy thing to do before tackling the challenges of another year.
2022 was prolific year for me. I didn’t expect 2023 to be as prolific but I released three dang albums! Super Dope, Punk Rock B-Boy and North American Adonis (with Jel and doseone). And in addition to that stuff, I was featured on a few tracks made by friends. I’m almost finished recording another album (another collaborative project) but it might be a while before it sees the light.
I have a policy. After I finish a project, I avoid listening to it for a while. I like to gain some distance from it so that I can give it an honest assessment when I finally do listen again. The hardest part of recording an album (for me) is getting into the right headspace. There’s some re-wiring of the brain that has to happen. When I’m done recording, it takes a while to shake it off reset that wiring. I suppose it’s also a bit like painting a mural. When you’re up close - doing the work - your focus is on all the small details. When you’re done, you have to step back to see the whole picture. After working on an album for many, many months, that step back feels like a thousand-mile walk.
A few days ago, I listened to Punk Rock B-Boy for the first time since finishing it. I love it. I found it to be a very enjoyable listen. It’s tight. It’s muscular. It’s fun. I feel as though I executed what I set out to do pretty much perfectly. It will take more time to know for sure but I think it might be the best album I’ve ever made. I think of King Of Drums, Super Dope and Punk Rock B-Boy as a trilogy and I’m quite proud of what I accomplished there. I worked my ass off and if nothing else, I hope that comes across.
The thing I’m working on now bares virtually no resemblance to the albums of that trilogy. It’s the dark side of the moon. I’m purposely working in the opposite direction. I’ve been breaking a lot of my own rules and making myself uncomfortable. In a few different regards, it’s very loose. I’m writing on topics. I’m getting a bit personal. I’m allowing myself to get… weird, I guess you could say. I’m also inviting a few friends in to do feature verses, which I’ve never really done before. A few days ago, I was hit by a strong blast of inspiration and ended up writing and recording a song about a talking dog in a matter of a few hours. It’s completely unlike anything I’ve done before and I can’t stop listening to it. To be honest, I don’t quite know where it came from. It’s kinda moving! I wonder what you’ll think. I’ll keep you up to date but like I said, it could be a while before this album comes out.
If you’ve been reading Vertices for a while, you may recall that at this time last year, I said I was working on some exciting collaborations and that I’d be teaming up with some heroes. A handful of those collaborations came out in 2023, a handful are still to come. First to see the light of day was the posse cut on Awol One’s album, Scribbleface, which came out back in January. Then came the Escape From Grenades! album by Meaty Ogre (I’m featured on the song “Savage Attack”). In October, there was the Many Headed EP by A7PHA. It was a thrill for me to appear on a song with Self Jupiter of Freestyle Fellowship, Aesop Rock, WHY?, doseone and Mestizo. Craziness. And finally, on December 1st, Atmosphere released the Talk Talk EP. I appear on the song “Hello Pete” with Slug and Kool Keith! As you may know, Kool Keith was one of my first hip hop heroes and so I’m very grateful to Slug and Ant for hooking that up. Incredible. And there are more thrills to come!
A big, big part of my 2023 was North American Adonis - an album that took 25 years for Jel, doseone, Mr. Dibbs and I to make. It’s bonkers that it happened and I’ve been thrilled to see how well the album has been received. More than half of my most popular songs on Spotify are Adonis songs. And the album only came out a month ago!
Side note - I mentioned my most popular songs on Spotify… It surprises me a little bit (pleasantly, I suppose) that my #1 most popular song (by a fairly wide margin) is “Whispers Of The Waves” from the 20 Odd Years album. That’s the song I recorded with the late Gord Downie who is a god-like figure in Canada. I can only imagine that the song’s popularity is largely driven by Gord’s fans. I do think that it’s a good song despite all the trash I’ve talked about that album and my major label output. It was very interesting working with Gord. He taught me some valuable things. I miss him.
Here’s another thing I wanted to mention, real quick: I recently did a bit of a deep dive on Chicago rapper Mick Jenkins. I’ve spent quite a bit of time with his album The Patience, which came out in August. I first became aware of Mick when I saw the cover of his debut album, The Healing Component, which came out in 2016...
Look familiar?
2023 was the first year in a while that I didn’t play competitive baseball. Do I miss it? Yeah. Has the phone been ringing with guys wanting me to join their team? Yeah. But you know what? I’m okay. I’m still riding high off winning nationals here in Canada last year! Memories of that week pop into my head regularly and I feel like I lift off the ground every time. That’s some fuel that will keep me going for a long time. Man, that was awesome. I’m still playing a bit of softball. It’s just enough to keep the arm loose and the wiring for my swing connected.
So here comes 2024. What’s in store? Well, like I said, I’m working on finishing an album now. The goal is to have it finished (or close to it) by January 1. If possible, I might try to knock out another collab project by the first week of March. Feels like a tall order but who knows? The plan would be to spread out those two albums across the year. Maybe one in the spring or early summer. Maybe the other in the fall? As I mentioned a few weeks ago, there won’t be another full-on, top-to-bottom Buck 65 album for a while. Could be a few years. With that in mind, think about putting in an order for a physical copy of Punk Rock B-Boy. You can do that here. We’re expecting to have the CDs and cassettes in hand soon. The vinyl is in the pipeline now. I’m proud of the album. If it ended up being the last Buck 65 album, I’d be okay with that.
I wanted to leave you with a funny little something from the archives - a video clip from 1993 (30 years ago!). It’s me breaking a beat on Jorun’s turntables as we were getting ready to play a show later that night. Jo is behind the camera and doing play-by-play. It’s quite the nostalgia trip. I remember it like it was yesterday.
Forward march!
Until the next.