Thanksgiving and Questioning My Destiny

The mixtape is finally released! It was a hectic but enjoyable ride for sure. I’ll get back to this in a second.

Now playing: Robocop - Kanye West
(Originally hated this song, but Yung really got me to listen to it again and it’s one of my favorites!)

Thursday was Thanksgiving, this year we went to my Great Aunt’s - usually it takes place at my Nana’s - but for some reason this year that was not the case. We were going to obviously pray, then go around the table and say one thing we were thankful for. For some dang reason I really over thought what I was thankful for…but at least it made me think. One of my friends asked me what I was thankful for…I told her that I was thankful for knowing a God to fear, and a God to love. For having an understanding and very supportive family for me in general and my music because I know a lot of people do not have this. I was thankful for having such connections music wise and having great friends that I can talk to life about. I was thankful for being blessed with certain opportunities that some people may not have been shown or possibly might not be able to afford. Then my friend asked me to narrow it down to a small top 3 list. My top 3 were: 1) God 2) Family 3)Friends - mainly because I think that is the order priorities in life should go…and I feel blessed in each of those 3 aspects. Then I was like, “Frick…my top 3 seem so bland and not well thought out and I don’t want to say that on Thanksgiving…I want to be different.” I over thought what I was going to be thankful for, for about a week. Finally I decided to say that I was thankful for my blessed opportunities and blessed with a supportive family. So for those who comment, what are you thankful for?

Now playing: Little Saint Nick - The Beach Boys
(One of my favorite Christmas songs, it reminds me of that Coca-Cola commercial with the polar bears…however that is not why I like it.)

Gah, right now I am so confused. There is this girl whom I have known for a couple years but never talked to until the beginning of this year. She was a friend of mine who sat with me at lunch, and this girl sat with us. She is attractive no doubt but I just never got to know her. She was in my history class Sophomore year…but I got the vibe she didn’t like me…I was quite the class entertainer that year mainly because I was one year older than everyone - and there were many attractive girls I felt the urge to flirt with. But this one particular female sat across the room and for some reason I never got to know. So anyway, finally this year we talked. I was making her laugh and stuff, obviously my flirtatious side appeared because know I could talk to her. A week or so after we started talking at lunch daily she stole my phone and added her number without telling me. So I’m thinking…this was her subtle way of saying “Hey, text me later…I want to talk to at other times than lunch.” So I’m thinking, ‘Fricken great. That was easy and a good sign that she wants to talk and not just me.” That night I text her and was thinking this would be the only time we talked…don’t ask me why, it was just an inclination. But I was dang wrong! We still talk today almost all day texting and talk on the phone at night for at least an hour or two. What I’m getting at is that I am freakin’ confused! I mean…I really love to talk to her and I like how we mingle when we are together. Certain things about her is very different, but I think it might be just a phase or something…I am so confused about it all. I dream about her almost every dang night.

Now playing: Starlight Love - PraiZe
(Ironic eh?)

I guess I’ll close this blog out. Hope everyone had a great thanksgiving!

Before I completely close this off, for the past few years I’ve done Christmas themed stuff…so it’s become a tradition. I want to carry on that tradition this year! Here is what I’ve done in the past.
1st year - Christmas song
2nd year - Elf Skit
3rd year - Christmas video

I am wanting this year to be different than the rest, even if it is a video or song or skit…I want it to be different.
If you have any ideas at all please do let me know!

Now playing: Rudolph, the Red-Nosed Reindeer - Gene Autry
(Brining back the Christmas vibe, with one of the most well-known classics!)

Oh, I know I said I'd talk about this mixtape...I don't really feel like it so I'll say it was a dang hectic time setting up for the live show. The show ran smooth, somewhat...the call-in portion was a bit unorganized. So far we are getting good reactions to the mixtape, so what more can we ask for!
If you want to download it...here is the link: http://www.mediafire.com/?i1zziujmtyg

God bless y'all!

True Love

I see the beauty in her eyes
It falls upon the beholder so delicately
Intimately a moment open with beauty
Is reconciled by the faintest attraction of love
Because how do you recognize the faintest sign
Of a love called true love?

Love is an art form, a beauty, a work
Constructed in the eyes of the lover
Refuse to give into such temptations as of hate or hatred
For the one you have or still hold a deep romantically interest
Giving into such temptations will turn your friendship into a passion
Not a passion of love, but a passion of hatred toward each other
Remember to look in her eyes, remember that first glance

Because if that first sighting
That intricate interest of love
Is forever forgotten…
You will never find your one and only true love
The chance for true love comes only once
Capture that moment…
And hold it forever…

"Welcome to Yungtown"

Hey everyone! Dang it’s been a crazy long time since I’ve posted anything. I really want to be more consistent…even if the blog has no dignified purpose…I could shoot out some words of wisdom that God blesses me with.

Anyway! As you all know by now…I had the privilege to fly to Alabama 2 weeks ago to hang out with, a long time friend of mine, Yungtown! You can check out his music at www.myspace.com/yungtownmusic - I have known this man since the beginning of freshman year of high school and he’s been such an inspiration to me musically and a good friend to listen to my life and give me advice on anything. We have done 8 collabs since we met back then, and it seems like each one was a dang hit - and we didn’t even work in the same room! This was when I first started, so no doubt it was mostly him carrying us through the charts…but hey I consider myself inspiring. Psh.

Anyway, so my birthday rolls around and I was talking to my dad’s friend and he couldn’t believe I had never met Yung. He said - “Y’all make such nice songs across the country, imagine what you could do in the same room!” Little did I know, that night he talked to my dad and my dad contacted Yungtown and next thing I know I’m on a dang airplane on my way to ‘Bama. At this point I was very excited, mainly because my anticipation kept being delayed. What I mean by that is…the original date to fly out was the 24th of October…which was then moved to November 1st, which was then moved to finally…November 7th. So as the weeks get closer to me going we started talking on AIM more about what we had in plans to do just so we had an understanding and everything wasn’t going to happen randomly. So anyway, we were both excited and I was very surprised to find out how excited he was as well. I was just glad it wasn’t one of those things where I was excited, but once I got there…he would be just like sleeping all day or some junk like that. It was a mutual fund of excitement. We had thrown around the idea of what exactly we wanted to accomplish song wise…and possibly even a mixtape. It was his idea that we did a mixtape. We were going to do 2 brand new songs and just compile them for download with all our old stuff. And on later thought that was revised, which I’ll get to later.

Alright so, I wake up Friday November 7th, 8:00am and get ready to head to the airport. Both flights going were smooth and no complaints. I had a very slight layover in Dallas both ways. Up until I boarded the plane that I knew was going to Alabama, I was fine. But once I sat down and thought about it my excited ness mixed with straight up nervousness. The lady next to me was nice, quite the drinker, but nice the same so it helped me relax a bit. I mean don’t get me wrong…I wasn’t like hyperventilating or anything like that…it was just very surreal. So the plane landed in Alabama and I got off…before I go on the dang Birmingham airport is small as frick. Like I told Yung, the car garage is larger than the airport. So anyway, I had to use the restroom and I wanted to contact Yung to make sure where he was at and my phone was being messed up so it gave me a chance to fix that. I walked out into the lobby of people and I’m scanning mad frantically for this tall dude with a beard and a black hat. Nothing. So I head downstairs cuz there was really no where else to go. No one down there so I finally got a hold of him and he was upstairs and was going down. Next thing I know the guy is walking down the stairs…in that moment it was like looking at a picture that popped out suddenly and became real. We greeted and the surreal ness was in effect until we started actually working together and got situated with each other being in person…at least for me anyway.


From the airport we headed to this restaurant called “Moe’s” - it’s like this burrito place that makes burritos and stuff of that fashion. Before we walked in he was like, “Alright, when we walk in they’re gonna be like…’Welcome to Moe’s!’” and sure enough, they did. So we were ordering and someone walked in and next thing I know Yung says it along with the staff “Welcome to Moe’s!” That cracked me up and was my first taste at seeing Yung’s strong character in person and how he interacts with people. Then when we were getting drinks, I sat down and these two girls came over who were in their mid-20’s and as Yung said, “Fairly attractive.” One sat down in the booth next to me, and Yung who was still getting his drink stopped and said to the girl, who had hair that was red and curly - “I like your hair a lot, it’s red…like fire.” It was just so random and cracked me up. This being within one hour of seeing him in person for the first time really made me look forward to the rest of my stay.

So from Moe’s we went to Game Stop to look for a game for his brother, which they didn’t have. So we went to the local gas station and got us each a Nos energy drink to keep us focused that night for our studio time. We got back to his house, which was also surreal to see just based on the fact I’ve seen it all in his you tube videos. I got to meet his 2 brothers and his sister immediately and met his mom and dad later. Actually, I didn’t actually meet his dad til’ Sunday before church.

Surprisingly we got started right away and we had beats already in mind on the table…I spent a few weeks almost everyday just browsing for stuff that I think would inspire us to do something mad hot to. So we found this beat which had this crazy guitar riff and we were talking and I was like…”I just want this song to be heard and people will be like, ‘are you kidding me!?’” So about 20 minutes later we hadn’t really come up with anything so we harnessed the concept of “Kidding Me.” and over 24 hours later we did the final render. Hook took 2-3 hours to write, that’s not even recording or mixing. Like I said once we started writing and bouncing ideas off of each other, for me at least I just felt really comfortable. It was crazy how we each just contributed ideas for flow…melody…lyrics…and overall composition of the and structure of the hook. We started recording that’s when the process started of the dang mixing. I won’t take y’all through all that. I’ll just say I learned a lot…mixing wise on how to just put everything volume wise and what effects to use. It was a lesson I’ve been wanting to learn for 4 years and it finally happened.

So that night, we did not go to bed til’about 7 or 8am. We worked on music til’ about 6 then he grabbed some food and we watched a bit of Family Guy. Then he’s like, “PraiZe, sleep in my bed.” So I’m like, “Yo man, it’s your bed…I don’t want to intrude on your life and take your bed like this.” He’s like “Nah dude for real, it’s broke in one part…but freakin lay that junk out.” So I laid that junk out. We talked for an hour at least and finally fell asleep. I woke up at 11, so 4 hours of sleep, give or take an hour. This dang fool slept til’ 4. Every once and awhile he’d complain about his brother and his brother’s friends being loud playing their Wii. So 4 o’clock rolls around and he lazily gets up off the floor and I’m all on KJ board tempted to be like. “Ooh look at dang me…my name is PraiZe and I’m posting this from Yungtown’s computer…ooh wee.” But I held back.

We finished Kidding Me soon after he woke up then started brainstorming for what to do next. We came up with the idea of doing the mixtape…but we did not want to just put a couple songs with a bunch of old junk. So we started thinking of which song we wanted to bring back. We came up with the top 3 that really made an impact on the internet world…which were, Ride With Christ, Represent, and Missing You. We almost immediately just took out Represent, because that song would be pretty intense to re-do and almost impossible to live up to the impact it left the first time around. So it was narrowed to Missing You and Ride With Christ. So we decided to just re-do Missing You with same hook, but include us both on that hook and re-do the verses. THEN we decided to just completely remix the heck out of Ride With Christ.

We then went to Arby’s and met this girl named Whitley, or something like that. I thought it was Whitney…which is normal. But hey, I’ve been wrong before. But anyway, her and Yung was doing his thing talking to Whitley, and once we finished eating he walked over and dedicated a dang bell ring at Arby’s to Whitley. “This is for you Whitley!” FFTTAAANG - The bell said. There we went to Target to get some toothpaste, because the security guard at the airport in Phoenix took me freakin’ paste. But we didn’t actually buy anything. However, we did run into an attractive friend of his…and it seems we ran into someone he knew everywhere we went.

So that night after Target we went back to his crib and started Missing You. We were going to record, but his dad text him saying that we had church and we should go to sleep. So I took a shower and got in his bed, to sleep. He was obviously on the floor though. Just wanted to get that in the clear. Anyway….we just started talking about music and the KJ board and just certain aspects of life and how it relates to music. It was great for me, and I think for him as well…we were able to just bounce life off of each other on a 1-on-1 level. It was a time to get to know each other a lot better I think. We talked for like 5 hours then I had him give me performing tips…which he like dedicate himself to. I really appreciate that from him…I learned so much in such a short amount of time it was difficult to retain it all. So by now it was time to get ready for church. So far from Friday morning at 8, to Sunday at 8am…I’ve slept 4 hours.

So we get to church, and this was the first time I’ve seen ‘Bama in the daylight and it’s so beautiful. Just the trees are crazy colors and all layered like some puzzle picture or something. Plus the weather was nice a chilly, but it was windy that Sunday morning which didn’t please me. Probably didn’t please Yung either, cuz Heaven forbid his hair is out of place. I say that based off the fact it took longer for Yung to get his hair right before church…than church itself was. (Pokes fun and Yung like the Poky Little Puppy.)

We got to his church and it was HUGE. It had like theatre seating and floor seating it’s like a dang concert. There was
a Starbucks there, which we got some cold drinks. Why cold ones? Ask Yung. So we sat down, and church started soon after that and we stood up and they played their music. We sat down and I felt like a jerk, I could not keep my eyes open for the life of me. If someone looked at me they probably thought I was possessed cuz my eyes kept rollin’ in my head and I couldn’t tell you one thing the pastor said. But hey, it’s the thought that counts right?

Alright so after church we did like the ninja sprint to the truck, well he did…my pants were falling off so I couldn’t pull off a swift zip line to the truck. We got in and this dude drives mad fast and jams out to the Zelda soundtrack. Yungtown, for those of you who care…listens to EVERYTHING. I figured I’d hear hip hop…but he’s got Zelda and Mario Galaxy tunes and he’s so pumped over it. “Like dude, this was in the game and once I heard it…I was like blam that was epic!”

So yeah, we got back to his house and we were like awake…and willing to work. But we decided to take a short nap and just refresh our mind. 2 hours later I woke up and wrote my verse for Missing You. He took awhile to wake up. I finished my verse and waited on him to finish his…cuz he ran to the “Movie Gallery” to return his game, because it was due that day and Yung didn‘t want to have a ‘late return‘ on his game returning record. So you know I had the extra edge on writing. So we laid out that track easily. We drank coffee and then that night DPB called and asked what was going on and basically he was like “I can come out tomorrow morning if you want to see what y’all are up to.” So that’s what he planned on.

Later that night we took pictures and did some extra junk that may/may not be heard. I was very excited/very nervous to meet DPB simply because of the fact of what he’s accomplished and his level. So yeah, we stayed up that night. Yung took forever to shave…in that time I just searched for beats and kicked back and just did some unproductive music stuff. It was 6am and after enduring many Morgan Freeman impressions (which were hilarious) - we headed to Jack’s for breakfast. It was cold as heck outside and I was so dang tired at this point. I just wanted to sleep. So we got back and slept like an hour or 2 and DPB called 12 fricken’ cuz we were past the time when he was going to be at Yung’s house.

DPB got there an hour later or so and it was just so interesting for me to hear all the wisdom DPB has to offer. I
learned a ton in those 5 or so hours that he was there. I got to hear a lot about Yungtown’s upcoming CD, just beats that are in question…concepts and promoting ideas. He then listened to some songs we had done and helped us out with some concepts. He recorded the hook for Ride With Christ at this point as well, which was awesome to watch progress.

Yung drove me to the airport and we said our goodbyes.

This blog is getting lengthy, so to not delay the end any more - basically my flight was cancelled from Dallas. So I spent the entire night in the Dallas airport staying awake…for an 9 am flight to Phoenix on 7 hours sleep from Friday. Morning at 8...until the present time.

But yeah, my overall experience with Yung was so much better than expected. I learned a lot and felt we became even better friends than we were before, which to me…was expected.

So be on the lookout for the “Collaborative Reinvention” mixtape which will be out soon!

President Obama

I have not done a written blog in who knows how long, leave it up to Daniel to get me to go again. I cannot think of a better topic for my debut than the ever popular, and most important topic at this point in time. Yes, I am talking about the Presidential race of 08’.

Before I get into detail I’m a right out front say Obama 08’. By saying that I immediately exclude myself from the rest of my fellow Christians. I am basically now alone on an island full of politically intelligent people. I don’t mean to say that people who aren’t in support of Obama are not politically intelligent, I just feel they are politically naive. Being a Senior in High School, I hear it a lot of people’s political opinions, or rather…their parent’s political opinions. Given the fact I attend a Christian school in Arizona (John McCain’s home state), I hear it far too much how Obama is a Muslim terrorist who is the Anti-Christ and who is going to get shot in a week of becoming President. I must thank people who say that because they recognize that Obama will become President, however they are wrong on every other account.

OBAMA IS NOT MUSLIM. Newsflash, I’m sure y’all are like “What!? Are you freakin’ serious!?” Yes I am serious. Just because his father was Muslim and his mom was Atheist, does not mean that Obama is Muslim. He went to a freakin’ ‘Muslim’ school for a couple years and that does not classify your religion. As I said before I attend a Christian school and I’m going to say right now that 50% of my peers are not saved Christians. Just because you attend a private school does not mean that you believe what you are taught. Just like Christians are taught evolution…that doesn’t mean you are going to believe it. Once again Obama is not Muslim, if you think different you NEED to stop listening to your parents who believe in Church and state.

OBAMA IS NOT THE ANTI-CHRIST. Again, I’m sure y’all are like “What!? Are you freakin’ serious!?” And once again I am serious. If you are “Christian” and believe he is the Anti-Christ, I question your knowledge of the Bible. The Bible teaches that the end days will not arrive until God’s Word has been preached in every corner of the world. That has NOT been done…yet. Also there are the ever-so-popular 7 signs of the return of Jesus, a little less than half of those have not yet happened, therefore the Anti-Christ is not upon us. I am sure he is a little kid right now, meddling in his ways of sharing toys in Kindergarten and learning how to read…but I assure you he is not about to win the Presidency of the United States.

OBAMA IS NOT GOING TO GET SHOT. “What!?” Yes, Obama is not going to get shot. In my opinion, if someone were to get shot…it would have been Bush. After 8 years of failed policies and revengeful wars, (which I will cover in the next paragraph) I am positive more insane people have to urge to kill Bush than there are any amounts of KKK members or any other skinheads. Sure, JFK was shot amongst any other President but think of the times. Security was not as tight as it is now…I mean c’mon how hard is it to shoot a guy who’s riding in a drop top convertible? Presidents don’t do that these days, so I guess we have something to thank Kennedy for. Security in this 21st century is much more advanced that it is dang near impossible for a President to be assassinated. If Obama were to be assassinated, I’m sure it would have happened by now. So you people on the island of uneducated politics…I am sorry to disappoint you but our next President is not going to be Joe Biden.


Like I said before…revengeful wars. The only reason I think we are in Iraq right now is because President Bush Jr. is hurt because Hussein attempted to kill his father during his presidency. So since we got attacked on 9/11, that gave our current President the excuse to go in and hunt for Hussein and Bin Laden. The following is a direct quote from President Bush: “Even if only my wife agreed with my decisions, I would still carry them out.” He is basically saying he would do whatever he did even if the ENTIRE country did not support him. Not a smart thing to say as President, sir. Seeing how McCain has voted over 90% along with Bush, I fear another 4-8 years of the same idiotic, ill-tempered, and poor judgmental Presidents.

One more topic that arises by reading Daniel’s blog is Obama’s Pastor, Jeremiah Wright. The Pastor was taped once by saying one thing that who knows, might be right to say. America, right now is not a place that I think God is very happy about. Look what we’ve done to His creation and look how we, as a society has deformed His children. Maybe Pastor Wright’s use of words was not the most appropriate, but I see exactly where he was coming from. Obama attended that church for many years, and I think just 1 incident caught on tape is not enough to justify Wright’s whole outlook on preaching. This example is very weak when it comes to making a choice on who to support in the candidacy.


Now, as Daniel stated in his blog, each Candidate has their own flaws…however, McCain’s are more abundant. When the center of your campaign becomes a guy named “Joe the Plumber,” someone who has never paid his taxes and is an ex-convict…you know you have basically lost your campaign. McCain’s entire campaign in the last few months have been all attacks on Obama. America does not want to hear your attacks, we want to hear your ideas on how to strengthen the U.S. McCain’s slogan is “Country First,” and my question is…which country? Because right now I’m thinking Bush and McCain are thinking Iraq is first. All countries have to do is attack us and we will come in and try to fix them up, history has shown this. In the last Presidential debate, McCain said “I am not Bush,” yet there is video of McCain saying that he voted along with Bush more than most of his Republican peers. Do we really want another Bush? McCain supports abortion as well. Another topic “Christians” should be concerned about. Not saying that I support abortion…but I think there is more to abortion than killing a baby in a certain stage while inside its mother’s womb. What about preventative pregnancy medication? Condoms? Don’t they all prevent a possible life from a chance at living. Basically, all of McCain’s flaws lays within Bush.


Obama, sure he is not against gay marriage, but that does not mean he is for it either. Just because you support the fact that homosexuals have the right to get married does not mean that you support them. I strongly believe that marriage should be between a man and woman, but there happens to be people alive that were wired differently. They should still have rights as I do. I’m sure you would like to have rights if you happened to be gay as well. I don’t see how anyone getting married that’s gay would effect me in any way, so why not give them the rights. Don’t get me wrong though, I don’t support homosexuality. But we need to accept the fact people are here that are that way and we should treat them as Jesus would.


Now for Palin, who was chosen by the Republican party and NOT McCain. That’s a major no-no, the Presidential candidate should always personally choose their running mate. I think she was only chosen for the fact that she’s a woman and they wanted to recruit all of Hillary’s supporters who had not yet made a transition to Obama. They pulled the inexperience card on Obama so many times, but look at Palin. Obama is a lawyer, Palin is…a governor for a few months of Alaska? Nice experience…The only thing she did was put her state 20 million dollars in debt for a hockey rink. Most people know of this…but not everyone knows how this happened. She built on land and when the owner came home, they had a hockey rink on their property! How dumb can you be? Building on land that you have not even purchased or had clearance for. That strongly shows her lack of experience and poor judgment and her unreadyness to become a Vice-President. For goodness’ sakes, she doesn’t even know what a Vice-President does. Don’t make me even mention her ’bridge to nowhere’…which she supported until it was proven to be a freakin’ joke, then to save her behind she abruptly was against. Don’t make me mention her appearance on SNL, which was immature and ridiculous. How sad would it be if our next VP was on SNL to make fun of herself. Better yet, how sad would it be if our next President/VP was McCain/Palin. Oh, and best of all…she makes her son seem all patriotic and hero-like for fighting in Iraq. When actually, he had the choice to either go to jail or to fight in Iraq because of drug charges. Good job Palin. We’d be better off having Carrot Top with McCain than Palin…or is it the same thing?


Obama has the ability to restore our status with foreign countries. I’ve heard some people say this was unimportant, but how can that be so? If that were unimportant we might as well nuke all the other countries that are unimportant to us and salvage all the oil and other natural resources that we can. With Obama as President we can become the well-respected nation we used to be…before Bush. Obama’s overall policy would prove much more efficient as opposed to McCain’s…in every area so I do not feel the need to go into more detail.


I have already started calling him…President Obama.