Contingency Plan

Nothing really unusual about the way this song came about. It was one of the last songs we recorded for this album. Joe played this beat for me at the end of a session. I had this idea for remaking the intro to the first Black Sheep album. I always liked the idea of a non-gangster doing a song in the voice of a gangster. Felt a little funny about making this the intro track at first. Didn't necessarily want this to be people's first impression of Dirty Water. Not really our style. It's a parody; a commentary on the whole gangster thing and the current state of affairs in the industry and the plight of the struggling independent artist. Originally I had two verses on this track. The second verse wasn't as strong as the first, something about going to the Source Awards with 22s and 44s if they didn't give the album 5 mics. Joe wisely replaced it with his. Then we threw that old Buckshot chorus in there for good measure. Came out cool.

Love Your Style [Background vocals by Florence "Flo" carey and Jamila Hogan]

Last summer Joe was working on a solo project called Preacherman. This was one of the first tracks he recorded. It didn't have a chorus at the time, but we worked out this funky little call and response thing and started performing it live. It went over extremely well. Everywhere we went after a while, people were begging us to do this song and it wasn't on any of the underground releases we had put out over the years. It wasn't until production on this album was well under way that we brought in the homies Flo and Jamila to do the background vocals for the chorus. We wanted to have the same vibe as the stage show so the four of us are on about four different tracks doing the responses.

Automatic

Joe played this beat for me one day in the studio and started mumbling the cadence. I took the beat home and wrote the first verse and chorus. Joe added his verse sometime later. It's really all about how quickly things can happen out on the street. One minute you're having a good time, the next minute you're in a life or death situation. It's automatic. If you're out there long enough, something is bound to happen. If you could pause life during one of these unfortunate predicaments, you could probably think your way out of it. But it all just happens so fast. That's the idea, anyway. That's me doing my Snoop Dogg impression in the background of the chorus.

TDK

This song is kind of old. We did it in between projects sometime last year. When this beat comes on during the live show you can see people's faces change. Joe recorded his verse and the chorus then brought it over my man Hustle's house, fresh from the lab. The hook is a snatch from an old ODB song. It's sort of a tribute to him and the whole Wu sound in general. I voted to cut this song from the album, for a reason I can't remember. Luckily Joe is the levelheaded, sensible one and insisted we keep it in the lineup. For all you eighties babies who don't know what TDK is, it's an old cassette tape brand. See, with cassette recorders, you used to have to press play and record simultaneously to record. A lot simpler than burning CDs, I think. Takes longer, but definitely simpler. And tapes don't skip.

Call Me [Background vocals by Florence "Flo" carey]

Joe and I went down to Atlanta sometime earlier this year, hooked up with Dialo and Fonzo and started 40th Street Black. I had this hook in my head for months. I started singing it to the fellas and they insisted we record the song as soon as we got back to DC. This song has gone through several transformations, but this is the best version. That's Flo again helping out with the hook. Before she added her piece the song was all right, probably wouldn't have made the cut. Her voice sells it. It's really about those of us, male and female, that are probably too busy to be in a relationship at all. But who wants to be alone? How do you make something like that work? You find somebody who is also busy and doesn't require you to hold their hand all fucking day.

Sawflee

Up until a few months ago, this was just half a song. Joe and I were fucking around in the studio one day and came up with the idea of using the Andre sample. Originally I had just laid a few verses down and forgot about it. I thought it was funnier than anything else. But when other people heard it, they went nuts. I didn’t think it was ready for the public as is though, so we redid it, added some verses and it came out funky.

Eat My Breakfast Alone

This song was on our first underground release Drowning. Originally it was just 2 minutes long. It was the very last song we recorded for that album and turned out to be the most well received track. They even played it on the radio a few times, which is no small feat in DC. After a few months it seemed like everybody at the show knew the song by heart. Whenever, wherever we perform, this song is always in the lineup somewhere. But as much as they seemed to like it, people did start asking us why it was so short. Well, honestly, I had never intended for this to be a serious song. A humorous interlude is what I had in mind. Sort of like BIG's Playa Hata. Nevertheless, people took it seriously. They would be like, "Man, it's like you read my mind and turned it into a song" or "It's about time somebody spoke on some real shit." Fonzo and Dialo insisted that we include the track on this album, but we all agreed that if we were going to keep it in mind as a single, it needed to be longer. Joe and I both hate doing the obvious thing. We're funny like that. Not that we're into being different for the sake of being different, which I personally feel is pretty corny, but we just both feel like if it ain't original then it ain't gonna be but so tight. The obvious thing would have been to add a rhyme, but I don't think either of us was too excited about that. This little bridge had been running through my head for months. Everyone seemed to like the idea but once we recorded it, it felt a bit anticlimactic. That's when Joe came up with this doo-wop business that ended up on the final version. I'm not sure who came up with the idea of playing it again a cappella at the end but knowing that we're capable of displaying this kind of range as artists makes me feel like we're in the elite class, you know.

Voice Mail

Another oldie but goodie. Before you say it, I acknowledge it is rather Stan-esque. Wasn't intentional. Just sort of came out that way. Originally, it was just supposed to be a song about a guy leaving some messages on a girl's voice mail, but I got bored with the idea. Felt it needed a twist. Otherwise it would have been a little soft for Dirty Water. This beat is another gem. Joe's range is incredible. At some point I asked Joe if he was letting the beat ride too long at the end. Then he said, "That's like saying the beat isn't important." I had to give it to him. People don't let the beat ride anymore. The attention span of the average hip-hop fan is getting shorter and shorter. If you listen to most of the songs on the radio these days, the vocals start as soon as the beat does and the beat ends as soon as the vocals stop. That's so backwards. In other words, the beat is not the canvas, the CD is the canvas. The beat is another color in the painting, not to be overlooked or placed in the background.

Be My Friend

This is a really old track. Joe and I put it together some time ago, but it never seemed finished and I was really unsatisfied with the verse I laid down. Joe has always loved, but for reason I wasn’t really excited about it. When it came time to finalize the album though, Joe insisted that we resurrect this joint. We laid down some new verses and suddenly I saw what he was talking about. It’s a beautiful song, if I may say so. I look at it kind of a Dirty Water theme. I’m imperfect and so are you and don’t you wanna be my friend.

Ballad of a Bright-Faced Girl

Joe came to my house and played this beat for me one night. He was really excited about it. Started doing that old Morris Day dance. I find that he's most excited when he feels like he's done something different. I gotta give it to him. This song was already written before I got there. The beat told me what to say. The second part came weeks later after I recorded all the vocals. Before Joe played it for me he was like, "I added something to the track. You might not like it. Tell me if you don't." Fucking artists. How could anyone not like that shit? It's incredible. Without the movement at the end, this song is just okay. It puts it all the way over the top of mediocre hip-hop narratives as far as I'm concerned.

Wish You Were Here

I was in a real bad place when I wrote this. I found this beat on an old instrumental CD Joe had given me years ago. I listened to it for a few days and this is what came out. Due to circumstances beyond my control (things I really can't discuss for legal reasons) I hadn't seen my daughter for 6 months. She lives with me now, but back then it felt like I'd never see her again. The second verse is about my sister Deirdre, who was murdered back in the early nineties. Let's just say it was a somber night in the studio. Joe came up with the chorus on the spot. We recorded this song for another one of our underground releases Love, Lust & Everything in Between. It was a concept album. Great idea, but it didn't go over too well. We may revisit it one day.

Crown Victoria

For some reason Crown Victorias are really popular in DC. If you’re in the hood, it seems like every other car is a Vic. The cop cars down here, up until a few years ago were all Vics. So people would buy used police cars, complete with the crash bars and flood lights. Sometimes you can still see the police decal through the paint job like in Blues Brothers. I don’t know if they do this anyplace else, so I felt like it deserved a song. If DC cats aren’t good for anything, they’re good for doing things that may seem utterly strange to outsiders. Gotta love home.