October 27, 2011 marked the 5th anniversary of the release of a very little known collection of music entitled Madison Joints Mixtape. MJM would eventually become the only release from an obscure Hip Hop group based in Gainesville, FL called Native Imports. I was part of that group along with two of my good friends. It was a crowning achievement for three upstart twenty-somethings with a love for Hip Hop. As a tribute to our first experience in making music, we’d like to take a trip down memory lane.
What was only a few years seems like ages ago. This period in our lives proved to be one for the books…but seeing as how we live in the Apple age, we hope to immortalize these memories by providing some back story to the making of MJM on our website. We also want to celebrate the project that was the catalyst or precursor to what you now know as Generation ILL and The Weekly Beat Sessions.
This is a look back at Native I’s Madison Joints Mixtape.
The Pledge
Native Imports was comprised of illa (emcee/producer), Soco (emcee) and Kimistry (emcee).
On March 17,2006, we bought our first “real” studio for $318.90 US. It wasn’t much: One mic stand with a pop filter, an ART Tube Preamp, and a Rode NT1A Studio Condensor Mic with a shock mount. Oh, and a free music instrument catalog. During this time, the three of us were very deep into our craft. I was writing rhymes to no end but still perfecting the art of freestyling. PJ was still sharpening his skills in sample-based production off his pirated copy of FL Studio 5 (which he won’t admit to still using even today). And Kim continued to amaze us with her inherent ability to write dope rhymes.
Gainesville, FL is widely known as being the one of America’s best places to start a band. That fact was probably less prevalent in our minds when we decided to move there. We actually just knew the city as we had went to school there. Also rent was cheap. So, we decided to start our new path there to pursue a dream fueled by our passion for music. Our first big show had us as the featured act at the largest talent petition in the southeast. Imagine a sea of 1600 college kids– most of whom were hoping to hear snap or crunk music. Not that we didn’t appreciate that “dirty south” sound that was prevalent at the time– it just wasn’t what our sound was. It was rough but we got through it… and came away with a few scattered applauses. Once we got back to the floor we headed straight to the bar for that open tab. Something like that really helps you to binge, you know? Anyways, after that we did a few shows with local promoters and some student organization through the university. We soon realized that people who came out to the shows weren’t able to take our music home with them.
We decided at that point that we needed something to give to the people. We resolved to compile the random songs we had already recorded and planned to complete new songs for a potential mixtape. However, that process would prove to be more challenging than we expected.
The Turn
Back then, Kimistry and I were roommates and illa had been staying with his then girlfriend. We had our studio set up in Kim’s room since she had the walk-in closet and we were convinced that that meant better acoustics for recording. Writing and recording in that apartment with just the three of us would have probably given us cabin fever so, to combat insanity, we would often have people over during the sessions– musicians and friends– both as muses and distractions. The three of us were living check to check at the time and spent the majority of those days in that apartment. Instead of going out every night, we’d persuade people to come through and just chill. After brainstorming ideas for the name of the mixtape, we decided to call it the Madison Joints Mixtape– a play on the name of the apartment complex that we lived in. Our lives, both musically and socially, revolved around that place. It was fitting then and even now. Anytime I listen to it now I’m immediately brought back…
Our schedules often conflicted but we were able to set a schedule of meet-ups. Monday and Wednesday sessions were dedicated to writing and every Friday we would record. We would have finished the project in March of 2007 had we stuck to the schedule, but life has a way of getting in the way sometimes. Needless to say, we didn’t complete as many songs as we had liked. So, we called an audible and went to our Plan B– we ended up getting a hold of some artists to contribute music to the project. I got a hold of some friends of ours: Contact, an amazingly talented friend of mine who actually helped me hone my freestyling ability; we also got in touch w/Abe, a college friend who had formed a duo in Cali named The Heard. We also linked up with some folks on Myspace that had previously reached out to us: Lower3rds, a group from NC and DJ Nina, an aspiring mix-DJ from Cali. The last song on the mixtape actually features our girl Niko who was one of the first artists we met in Gainesville back in 2005. When we recorded Sacrifice, it was one of the first times she had come through. We had Niko get in “the booth” and just sing a few runs and adlib whatever. Well, that recording ended being the chorus. Also, original Generation ILL producers, Sideways and PMBeatz also contributed instrumentals for the mixtape
It was the middle of the year and we had gotten everyone’s contribution track(s) for the mixtape. The only problem was that we only really had a few completed tracks of our own. Some verses were still unrecorded while some songs were being completely reworked. For instance, we had recorded a song called “Believe This” over a Nicolay beat. One day, illa flipped a classic Ramsey Lewis sample and laid the vocals of the track over it. After we heard it, Kimistry and I lost it. We immediately changed the name of the track to “Jawn 3:16.” Despite the delays earlier in the year, production (as it were) started to pick up when illa moved out of his girl’s place and moved in to the Native I Music House.
To be honest, during the course of that year, there was a lot of personal issues facing each of us and it was pretty amazing we even completed all that we did in time to release it in October. I can remember that it was down to the 11th hour once the final version was mastered. We had DJ Spinfamous and DJ Loki of The Darkness Crew put the finishing touches with the mixing and transitions between tracks. Simultaneously, we had gone “on location” to downtown Gainesville to shoot photos for the cover. Mark (PMBeatz) actually designed both sides of the insert and made it look super official– he was the most versed in photoshop. I think he sent that over to us maybe a week or two before the release party. All I can remember is running around the city trying to get the cheapest deals on printing up the inserts. I’m pretty sure we got them printed up at Office Max, but they were going to charge us for cutting them up. So, we just took them over to Kinkos and fronted like we got them printed there just so we could use their cutters. We got the jewel cases with the hooked up Best Buy discount and got the nice looking printed CDs from some place on line. We were using 3 computers to burn copies of the mixtape until about 3 hours before the show.
Looking back, it was pretty much all last minute (we were good for procrastinating) but completely worth the stress. The release of the album and the subsequent events stemming from it would definitely make a mark on our lives and, over time, strengthen our resolve to continue making music one way or another.
The Prestige
The Orange and Brew in the student union at the University of Florida was the venue for our Madison Joints Mixtape release party. We were the featured performers for the closing ceremony of FilAm History Month that night. Come to think of it, we received a lot of support from UF’s Filipino Student Association when we started out and it definitely showed that night. There were so many people there. As I recall, we were always quite proficient at getting our friends to invite their friends to our events. We felt pretty official that night. We even had a merch table set up and had a ledger set up for people to sign in and leave a message. (Side note: During that time I was on the street team for Halftooth Records and I remember giving out all these promotional cds, stickers and posters away with each of our mixtapes. It seriously was a steal– who wouldn’t want our mixtape?) After the UFFSA did their thing, they introduced us and we hit the ground running. It was a flawless performance. We had rehearsed and performed these songs every week for the last year and at that point it was like second nature to us. Once the performance was over, you should of seen it– people were coming up to us congratulating us and asking us to sign their copies of the mixtape. We were taking pictures all night with friends, co-workers and strangers. From that point on until the time we left Gainesville, we became celebrities. Or at least we felt like ones.
At the beginning of 2007 (and thanks to the strength of our recent MJM release) we had a sudden outpour of shows that seemed to come one after the other. There was this one show where we opened for Suenalo Sound System and Umoja Orchestra– the joint was packed, everyone had their hands in the air, knocking their heads to every beat of our songs, dancing and just having a great time. What happened at that show, to me, is what I miss most about performing live on stage. Giving that energy to the crowd and seeing and feeling that crowd give right back 10 fold. It’s unlike any other experience I’ve had. I’m sure Kim and PJ would agree. We continued to do shows that year and actually began writing and recording songs for the next mixtape, album, or whatever we said we would release thereafter. As with all good things, however, Native I eventually disbanded in May 2008. You’ll notice it in many of the tracks that never saw the light of day– many of them had single verses or just 2 verses or no chorus. It’s eerie– like a testament to the downfall of our group.
Life kind of got in the way again. It’s funny, though. Illa and I used to have this conversation throughout this period in our lives: Is life the distraction from music…or is music the distraction from life? Some would say the latter. I always hoped it was the former. Native I may have never found the balance, but we continue to follow our passion for music along with others through Generation ILL and The Weekly Beat Sessions. Both, to be honest, may never have existed if it weren’t for the rise and fall of Native I and the making of the Madison Joints Mixtape.
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We’ve re-released the Madison Joints Mixtape and have also gathered all of the unfinished, unreleased, and rare songs by Native I in a compilation called The Lost Joints.
You can listen or download (just name your price) them both here:
Thanks for taking this trip with us down memory lane and I hope you enjoy listening to the music as much as we enjoyed making it.
Written by Billy Soco for Generation ILL
PS. Make sure to check out this week’s (11/08/2011) edition of The Weekly Beat Session. In celebration of MJM and The Lost Joints, this week’s sample is Marvin Gaye’s “It’s Madness.” The same sample was used by illa for the Native Imports track, “Stop For No One.” This week, producers across the globe were also given the acapella for that track and the option to remix it. Check it out for yourself!
