Fitzgerald_

Light at the end of the tunnel... what the fux were you doing inside of a tunnel. #thatsodd

A man built a beautiful house and put everything he loved inside it. People walked by it everyday and said how much they felt touched by it. One day the rain came and his house was destroyed with everything else that he loved. Unfortunately, everyone realized it was built on a bad foundation but never said anything... because no one wanted to be looked at opposing his masterpiece.  #buildonfoundation

Talent will only get you so far in life. There are a lot of talented bums who make very beautiful boxes to live in. True love is learning your craft. #neverthinkthattodayyou'regoodenough

Set goals. Make them afterthoughts. Keep genuine people close to you. Keep the people that agree with everything you say, around long enough to still be there when they've agreed with two things that contridict each other. Then get rid of them.

Keep on.

Rappers. Emcess. Bearers of burden, burying our souls over samples and synths. Whatever we've been called, be it great or mediocre... we all have our own styles and story lines. What many of us don't have is growth. I remember how I sounded back in 2007 when I met Klarke skating in the parking lot of the barracks of Wheeler Army Airfield. I remember how good I was opening up for Geo and Sabzi (The Blue Scholars) at Next Door and University of Hawaii. I remember when I wrote the first verse of A Kid Love beta. I remember the emails from Outasight's management asking me to send some beats for potential placement on this "up and coming" artist's album. I remember never sending the beats to him. Between all of these memories I also have other memories that have nothing to do with music, hip hop, or sampled beats. Some of the faces are the same. The experiences are not.

I gander that's what helps me stay sharp. Not practicing a craft necessarily, but practicing life. One where the experiences are diverse as are the people and locales. It carries me further than the 3 minutes and forty-seven seconds of a song; two choruses and three verses. For a lot of people who haven't shown any growth lyrically, I tend to ask... is your life just a handful of musical plights and experiences... or are they experiences that bleed into your music. This "thinking out loud" stuff is how you lose friends, because only a handful of them are growing spiritually, musically... at all. It's cool to see my brother Klarke bearing his soul and telling his story. No part of that has caused him to shed his skill or his brand of music. He's a great example of what we're supposed to do album to album... grow the fuck up. I've kept my personal life out of my music for a long time... feeling like most people just wouldn't get 'parts' of it. Maybe I'm wrong. Next time you hear something from me, I guess you'll be the better judge. Ultimately we all have to ask if after it happens, as people can we #leaveitallbehind as artists. 

I remember the beat was named "Shadow of the Colossus" ...I ran with it. J. Haze had a crazy naming convention for the beats he'd send. Whatever makes a man name something he made a certain way should be preserved. Being able to build a story on top of that concept is what makes us artists.

Keep on.

RUGERS | Tracklist "For King X Country" LP