robin samples drunk, talking, and recordin dat new new

In my hometown of Boulder, Colorado, Radio 1190 provides AM college radio to the local community. One of its most highly acclaimed programs is Basementalism, a three hour show that features hip hop spun by local DJ's. Not your typical radio DJ's but hip hop DJ's, the kind with vinyl records. The kind who scratch and mix those vinyl records and call DJ-ing Turntablism. The show started years ago with a dedication to playing rap artists who created their music in their basements. Sometime during the Summer of 2002, the Basementalism elected a Robin Samples song their Local Track of the Week title. The song was about the wildfires going on in Colorado at the time, and its lighthearted nature was not well received by the DJ's. Nevertheless, they played it. The underground music culture has changed in the years since the show began, and nowadays the term Basementalism could be used to describe the art of how professional of a recording one can produce by spending the dough to pimp out a basement studio. If you check the website http://basementalism.mypodcast.com/ you will see that 75% of the artists played on Basementalism these days have been well established in the indy and even mainstream rap scene for many years. New jacks are lucky to receive a spot on the show, and the more professionally sounding the recording, the better chance they have to be played. My disappointment with this system is not in Basementalism, but in the culture. It's easy to make a listenable recording. Creativity is not the main factor in what sells or gets played on radio shows.

Posted here are several songs that were recorded between November 2nd and 4th, 2009 in my basement. The sound quality on the vocals is sub-par, the p's pop and the a's crack. These are home recordings on a shoestring budget. When I run into a sound quality problem, I don't ignore it, but I don't go out and buy all the latest toys to build a superstar studio. I get writing right away to up my level of creativity, and just try to do better on the next song.

-Robin Samples 11-7-2009