Greetings once again, Lime Nation!
It’s an exciting week for me as this Saturday I’ll finally be recording new music for your eager ears. With music from the group pushed to later in the Fall, I’m seizing the opportunity to record my first solo project, an EP centered around my comic book alter-ego, Professa Strange. I’ve been working on it quietly for several months and I mentioned it the last time I posted ‘A Peak Inside…‘, presenting a verse from the song “Open Your Mind”. Since then the project has grown and taken shape as Strange’s origin story, with OYM moving from the beginning to the end as his transformation culminates. My comic book collection has grown considerably as I pour throw the work of Steve Ditko as inspiration for my own. If all goes well this could become the first of a series of Hip Hop Strange Sagas ft. Professa Strange and the ideas for where to go next are bubbling over for me (spoiler alert: Mordo hijacks the recording process in Volume 2, totally meta).
For this project I’ve chosen The Bridge Sound & Stage in Cambridge, a recording studio that’s been on my radar for some time with a strong connection to the local Hip Hop scene. It should prove to be a live and productive afternoon with new connections and new potential.
With all that in mind, today we take a Peak Inside my notebook as I share with you a few pieces of Professa Strange, Vol. 1 and perhaps some insight into my particular creative process. Who knows what you all with think of the Strange-ness once it’s complete, perhaps its esoteric and bizarre nature won’t connect, but I think I’m really going to enjoy it so let’s rock.
In the opening track, aptly titled “Introduction”, we find our hero broken and alone, lost for inspiration, struggling for direction. He sits on a dock, attempting to bring life to the notebook in his hands, as the sounds of the ocean and the carousing conversation of two nearby fishermen form the background. In the second verse he voices his wasted potential, bringing together references to the X-Men, Henry Kissinger, Niels Bohr, and Albert Hoffman.
I need some inspiration
Yeah, Something to incite
A source of guiding light somewhere in this endless night
A minute or a moment
My notebook or my mic
An ancient omen to give me sight beyond sight
I’m a row boat in this ocean
And I’m trying to fly a kite
That’ll carry me to Pluto
On a fact-finding flight
Sisyphus with these sentences
They shoot the messenger
I’m a visage of the 60’s
Hippies and Henry Kissinger
Psychedelic the sermons
The magician and the minister
Made of Equal parts Professor X and Mr. Sinister
I’d split apart the atom
Like Bohr, Planck, or Pym
If it held the secret answers
To the condition that I’m in
I mean, everything ends where another thing begins
But my mission’s at a place
Where I’m just pissing in the wind
Suspended animation like a man in carbonite
But I’m intended for adventure like Hoffman on his bike
As our hero undertakes his search for inspiration, “The Journey” aims to remind him of the possibilities and potential that always surround us. It is a personal lesson of mine, one I feel I am continuously forgetting and then reminding myself at various stages of my life. The chorus pushes for that remembrance and touches on my own fascination with the Galaxy (and the Hitchhiker’s Guide thereto).
Hook:
Remember how it felt to be open
To be free
To be free
To be free
To be or not to be
Remember all the places that you still have never seen
And Remember it’s a great, big Galaxy
You can’t get where you’re going without being where you been
Where you been
Where you been
Where you been, mein kind
Take your stance behind the wheel
And set your sails for sin
Point your face to the sun
And surrender to the wind
For purposes of retaining some mystique, I’ll only reveal pieces from these two songs today. Stay tuned for all the latest Lime news and releases including photos of the session on Saturday, more insight into the creative process as the project progresses, and of course the release of Professa Strange, Vol. 1 – you’ll find it all at #JPLMagazine.
Open your mind, and Lime On.
For more takes on music, culture, politics and more, visit JP Lime Productions.
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