Branching out.

So I'm going to tell you a story about what happened to me last night.

I'm at work, helping customers as usual and listening to some kick-ass music while I do it (one of the many perks of my job). A guy and his girlfriend come in and they start looking at belts, and then belt buckles. The guy is dressed kind of "urban" and both he and his girlfriend look hispanic. They both seem to be very nice people. As I'm helping them, the guy (referring to a belt buckle in his hand) asks his girl if she's "ever seen a rapper wear something like this." So, being the sneaky little eavesdropper that I am, I ask him if he's a rapper and he says yes. Him and his friend have just moved down here from Chicago and are self-producing their own music under the name "Grindhouse."
Now, I'm a fan of pretty much all music, save for a few genres that just refuse to make their way into my bloodstream. But the first music to actually grab me by the balls and swallow me whole was R&B. Michael Jackson, Boys II Men, Janet Jackson, Bell Biv Devoe, these artists taught me how to sing and how to really "get into" music. I remember the first time I heard Bell Biv Devoe's "Poison" and couldn't get the hook out of my head, or Boys II Men's "End Of The Road" and singing it nonstop until even my Mom knew it by heart. When hip-hop and rap started using hooks from songs like these for choruses, and R&B artists singing on hooks on their songs, I was in heaven.
For some reason, I don't know why, but I asked this guy if he had needed anyone to sing any Robin Thicke or Justin Timberlake-esque hooks for their songs, and he looked at me like I just guessed his middle name. "How the hell did you know? We've been looking for a singer forEVER, since we got down here... do you sing?"
Okay, so I sing. Or at least I think I can. I've never been officially "taught" how to sing, just relied on myself trying to sing along to all the artists I couldn't get out of my head anyway. I've sung in a rock band that was together for a few years, and it was hard rock; but R&B-esque hooks on a hip-hop track? What the fuck was I thinking?
I told the guy I've been looking to do something like this for years, and gave him my number, half-expecting never to hear from the guy again. "Ready" (his nickname) gave me a copy of his album and went on his way. Sure enough, however, right as I was leaving the mall a few hours later, I received a phone call from him. "Hey man, me and my partner wanted to know if you wanted to swing by so you could hear our stuff and maybe we could hear you. We're only a few blocks from the mall, and we got pizza if you're hungry." Jesus christ was I hungry. I suddenly got very nervous though, similiar to the butterflies I had when I first tried out for my old band. Who the fuck do I think I am? I'm gonna go to the apartment of these RAP GUYS and try to sing on their tracks? Exactly how long will it take for me to be repeatedly stabbed? And how was I going to explain this mess to Nici? "Yeah babe, I met this rapper and I'm going to meet them right now at a place I've never been before. To uhh, eat pizza. And, umm, sing. Yeah."
I said fuck it. These are the situations that if you don't take advantage of, you end up regretting for the rest of your life. And since I've got more than enough regret than I should have to begin with, I found myself driving to some apartment where pizza and rap lived. For those of you worrying about my "safety," well first of all you're racist (hahaha) and secondly all worries went away when I pulled up to a very nice apartment/condo complex with some heavy security at the gate. After they gave me directions to the building, I found myself at the door to this apartment, knocking and being let in. Ready was there with the same girl he was with earlier, and his partner ZRO (Zero without the E. I didn't tell him he and my kitty had the same name, for fear of ridicule). ZRO was a huge, scary-looking tattooed heavy hispanic guy with two long braids in his hair. He introduced himself and didn't really give me much else... to tell you the truth, if I was him I'd probably react the same way. Who am I? Some "rock" guy who works at Hot Topic. I don't dress the part of the R&B singer who records with a hip-hop act. It would be like Tupac Shakur showing up to open auditions for the new lead singer of Iron Maiden.
So they sit me down, throw pizza in front of me, and start playing some of their new music. I'm immediately surprised by how high-quality it was. Recorded in their apartment on Pro Tools and then sent out to get mixed down and mastered, these guys are doing it and doing it themselves. The beats were just as good (no joke) as alot of the stuff on the radio nowadays, and they were genuine lyricists as well; they has skills. These guys weren't fucking around. This wasn't some local act trying to do be what they weren't; these guys had gained a big following in Chicago and moved to Miami because, well, Miami is basically now a huge mecca for hip-hop and is where all the labels are sending their scouts to find artists to develop. The butterfly in my stomach just became a fucking pterodactyl. That breathed fire.
After a few tracks I told them that what I'd like to do is mostly alot of falsetto work with their stuff, a la Robin Thicke and Pharrell Williams. Since I knew they wanted to hear me, I busted out the first few lines of Robin Thicke's "Lost Without U." Bracing for impact from a chair or something afterwards, I opened my clenched eyes to see 3 mouths gaping wide open. "So... umm, do you think you'd like that in your songs?" Even the big dude ZRO was actually showing emotion. He sat right up and went to another computer, which I guess was their "writing" computer and had songs that weren't completed yet. He seemed very excited. He loaded up a beat, and then a Word document which had lyrics to a hook they had planned out, and his rap verse. ZRO started the beat and explained he was going to try to sing how he thought the hook should sound like, and he wanted to hear what I would do with it after I heard it. So he went through it once or twice and then looked at me, and started the track again. GULP.
So the first half of the hook I sang like normal, and went into falsetto with the second half; I played around with it a little, and threw some vocal "flairs" into the mix. Again, I braced for impact.
I kid you not, these two friendly-but-serious and semi-intimidating rappers were dancing around the room like they had just won the lottery. ZRO, a guy who seemed like he was born without a heart, fucking HUGGED ME. HE HUGGED ME. Ready was hooting and hollering, running around the room, and his girlfriend looked like she just took a shit in her pants. ZRO says to me "look man, I don't give ANYONE props. Ask Ready. Any nigga can just come in and work with us and when they leave, I'm like 'fuck that nigga.' But you, bro, you're gonna work with us. You're unbelievable." He literally made me sing that same hook over a dozen times. Every time he's like "do it again!" like he's in disbelief what he's hearing is coming out of ME. To tell you the truth, I kind of am as well. Fast forward until I leave, and they tell me they're going to call me this weekend so I can sit in the writing process with them and maybe write my OWN hooks for their songs. I drive home on a fucking cloud.
I'm not writing this to flaunt my amazing voice or make you think I'm cool, because 1. It's not that great, and 2. I'm not. But honestly, everyone needs an ego boost every once in a while, and this was definitely mine. This was something I always, always, ALWAYS wanted to do but didn't ever think it could or would happen. To the point where I'd talk myself down, saying "who do you think you are? that's not you." Seriously, fuck definitions, fuck your beliefs about WHO you are and WHAT you are able to accomplish in this world. The doors you close on yourself only limit the areas that YOU will be able to explore. Never, ever turn down an opportunity no matter what it is or no matter what you think your abilities are or aren't. Practically every good thing that's happened in my life has happened because I had to convince myself to pursue it, and drag myself screaming, fingernails scraping the ground, towards it.
Here's to jumping in head-first.