This beat tape was formulated in 2008 during a time when I was uninspired to rap on my own beats. Thus, I began to like the idea of having the beats' samples tell their own story. As this batch started to formulate, I found myself focused on telling the story of a young man falling in love with a young woman and how their love would grow over time. However, I always wanted it to have a real lively, fun personality, and for whatever reason I could never really find that sweet spot I envisioned so after multiple frustrating tries to record the project it mostly went dormant, relegated like so many other beats to zip disks of my SP-808ex and for no one else.

Fast Forward to 2021: During the anxiety and insanity of the pandemic, I started messing with recording this tape again. This time however, instead of trying to record it in the standard fashion where tracks are separated, sequences are synchronized, and everything is polished shiny, I reverted back to my early days; Recording every beat in the same ProTools session, tempo mapping be damned, caution to the wind. Magically, the project I envisioned all those years ago started to come to life... Finally.

The project is really a throwback in time not only to when the beats were made, but to how they were made. Before I had any formalized training in recording techniques or music theory. To days, when I first got my sampler and would spend many hours per week banging out new beat ideas, which would catch the attention of my rapping homies like Tone Dogg and Ric. They'd always come over to catch a vibe and before they'd leave would often ask for a tape of the beats to bump as they whipped around town. So I'd grab a blank cassette pop it in the stereo, which I used as my monitors, and would record live performances of the beats direct onto tape. Record, pause, cue up next beat, and then repeat. No two tapes the same. No track outs, no sequencing, Mistakes, flaws and all. When I ran out of beats to add, I'd stop and if my buddies were on point, the next time they came through they'd usually bring the tape back for me to keep adding some new joints to it. Eventually, the tape would get filled, but only if they brought it back... Many times they would end up with half tapes of multiple sessions so they'd have to rewind to hear the one they liked again. It was a fun time of discovery for us all. Go and ask the homies about those tapes. I'm sure they will grin from ear to ear when they tell you how they felt bumping those at full volume! haha

Well, that is what you are getting with this project. You are getting the raw, uncut, live-straight to cassette shit. Flaws and everything, unfinished even with only Side A. You'd have to rewind the whole thing to hear it again back in the day. Luckily, technology has made that easier. Hopefully, you can feel that same thing we felt back in the day as you listen. I appreciate you taking the time to do so.

Peace - Cal