Track Commentary: “Lost in Translation”

January 27, 2015 The Nerds of Color

by Adam WarRock | Originally posted on tumblr

All this week, I’ll be doing track-by-track commentary on the new EP. You should go grab the new EP at my bandcamp site, PHYSICAL COPIES OF THE CD WILL ONLY BE FOR SALE ON MY SITE UNTIL END-OF-DAY FRIDAY. If you want a copy of it, get it now, or get it at a show.

There’s something about rapping in 3/4 time that can drive some crazy. I know some people hate it, I actually think kHill hates it, but I love it. It’s the same as a lot of tracks I’ve released, like the “Paperman” song I released. It’s such a refreshing challenge to write, sometimes taking your flow and delivery past the end of the measure, sometimes stopping cold a half beat before it ends, connecting the rhymes in the unlikeliest of places. It’s like figuring out a puzzle, and something that not a lot of rappers can do.

Sounds like I’m tooting my own horn (and I am, obviously), but one thing I’m very proud of the crew that me and kHill are a part of, people like Sulfur and Tribe One, and in an extended manner people like Dual Core and Jesse Dangerously and so on, is that we are emcees who actually have a lot of technicality in our writing and delivery. It’s something that I notice when I talk about craft with people outside of our crew, where I know I can talk about complex rhyme schemes (something like an ABBC/BCCA or something weird like that) with Tribe and Jesse, and they get it; or I can talk about time signatures and technical musical elements of a beat, and kHill’s already there before I’ve finished. Others don’t get what we do. There’s a reason for quality.

The song “Lost In Translation” was the first track I finished for the EP, after hearing a bunch of beats Mikal had lying around. It’s a weirdly angry song, one that is more about frustration than straight up rage. The song is about the misunderstanding that people have about what kind of music I make. In fact, just a few weeks ago, I heard the old favorite:

Them: What do you do?
Me: I make music about like, pop culture
Them: Oh, so you’re like, Weird Al?

And sometimes, I kinda am like Weird Al, though not as parody-based and/or funny, I guess. I dunno, sometimes you feel like you’re helping carve out a niche for nerdy people; sometimes you feel a bit like Bill Murray doing Japanese commercials, wondering what is happening. Hence the name, “Lost in Translation” (from the movie).

Mikal calls this song my Atmosphere song, notably the confused hook towards the end, which is something that Slug did a lot on Lucy Ford. Lucy Ford is one of my favorite albums of all time, and well, I learned to rap from listening and copying Slug. So in a lot of ways, I’m okay with this EP being my Lucy Ford. There’s no “The Woman With the Tattooed Hands” on this album, though.