More New Music!

Aiiight, so today I am real proud to announce the release of Kharakter's sophomore album, the Composition of Karma. When people talk about "Oh, thats my boy from way back in the day!", Kharakter is literally one of my closest friends from way back when. We used to kick freestyle raps in parking lots at family functions, trying to act like we were hot, putting on a show for a bunch of little kids who would care enough to listen. Regardless, we've come a long way since, and so for us to both get on this track was half destiny, and all necessary.

I got an IM from Kharakter about 2 weeks ago, talking about how he was pushing to finish the album and he wanted me to hop on a track with him if possible. I told it was nothing, and since I was in Boston at the time, I told him it was going down, word to Yung Joc. He sent me the beat, with a rough draft of his verse and so I started building off of that. Initially, the vibe from the beat was very different from most of the stuff that we, Green Street, work with. But, as you can tell, it was a banger, so I got to scribin'. I took his first line "I'm '94 fly, turn the dial, I'm on 94 five..." and ran with that to start my verse. Honestly, I had no idea that it was turn out like it finally did, with the hook and Flipside's 3rd verse, and so when I heard the final version, I was lovin' it.

So, enjoy it and do yourself a favor and check out Kharakter's whole album, as well as a lot of other material from his label, On Trak Entertainment at http://www.ontrakent.com/artist.html. Got it? Hit me up, hit him up, and let the world know. Until next time, I'm outtie, peaace.



-A-live

New Green Street!

"All I See", the second single off our forthcoming neo-soul/jazz-hip hop instrumental album, has been up on our Myspace for several months now, but we haven't properly introduced it to you. For the amount time we put into making that joint, it's worth telling the story behind it for sure. Like most of the joints off this new album, it started out with Ken laying some guitar licks over one of my rough drum patterns. We had no real direction for the song to begin with, but when we got Malcolm in to add some rhodes to the mix, we knew it was gonna be one of our singles.

We'd been in contact with Oddisee of the LowBudget crew for a couple years, and after doing a drop for the intro on our first album, we wanted to get a verse from him on this album. For all who have never heard of Oddisee before, trust me, you are missing out. Not only is he one of the most down to earth people we have met, he is one of the freshest artists coming up right now, and he has worked with artists such as Talib Kweli, Jazzy Jeff, Little Brother, Kenn Starr, and Kev Brown, to name a few.

He dug the instrumental we sent him, and he agreed to drop a verse on it after we rolled him his loot. A-Live hadn't written his verse yet, so he got to it. It took a real long time to get the verse right. He wrote the verse during the week down in New York at school, then came up to the Bean for the weekend to lay it down. We ended up pulling an all-nighter trying to get the rhythms tight, but it really paid off.

Next order of business was the chorus. We had a saxophonist Ken played with in high school, Toby Forman, come through to lay down some horns for the chorus, but it wasn't sounding right. We ended up filtering what he played for the chorus in putting in in the intro and in the bridge, and it sounded fresh. The final piece was figuring out the vocals for the hook.

We wanted some soulful vocals for the hook and contemplated getting in touch with Oliver Daysoul or Darien Brockington for it, but we decided to stick with Ken, our in-house vocalist, and dude came through. He put in work writing the hook, then really delivered with his performance. Props to Ken, he never gets enough credit for all the work he puts in with Green Street. He saves us a lot of times when ish hits the fan. Dude is crazy versatile. Besides being a filthy guitarist, he's an ill song writer and can more than hold his own on bass, keys, and vocals...

Once the track was layed out, there was no rest for the weary. With all the instruments and filters, this track took a crazy amount of time to produce. In all we probably spent over 500 hours on this song, so I hope ya'll like it! Peace.

-Ren


Oddisee's myspace: http://www.myspace.com/oddisee720

Oddisee's blogspot: http://oddiseemusic.blogspot.com

What up world!

What up world! It's been a long time coming, but we are back, officially revamping the Green Street Records movement. A lot of people have hit us up recently, asking us what we've been up to and why we haven't been putting out any new music so its time to let y'all know. Despite the fact that things have been crazy lately, (with me living out in NYC and Ren just getting back from Spain), we have recorded over 50 songs over the last year, and have plenty of more in the works, so despite popular opinion, we have been working!

This blog has been created in order to get back in touch with our fans, let people know what we are currently working on, what we have done since our last album, as well as post unreleased tracks that we have done that just never saw the light of day. However, in order for this to work, we need y'all to be supportive and hit us with feedback. From reactions to songs we post, questions about our future projects or how fresh my Nikes are, we NEED to hear from you. TRUST me when I say that we have big things in the mix, but it won't work without the love and support that y'all have given us since our LHS lunch block days.

So, thats all I got for now, stay tuned because over this week, we will be posting a bunch of new stuff. Shoutouts to everyone who has held us down over the last couple years and everyone who hits me up on some 'What has Green Street been up to!? Put something out!', I appreciate y'all to the fullest.

Also, shoutouts to the family- Ken, Malcs, Ralphis, Prosper, Wondermaxx, Kharakter, Stephen Jones & the whole Introspective fam, Papa E, Dennis, Deej, Arms, Ray, Dev, Derik, Kai, Gabbie (for helping us with the site!), and errebody else I forgot. I'm out until the next time, one love.

And as always, our music can be heard at http://www.myspace.com/greenstreetrecords

-A-live