It’s loud as fu*k at the Benedict Park Place Apartments. Kids on Lyft scooters. Peeling out. Doing donuts. Every day. They own that parking lot. Those scooters are a hot commodity. They kick the little governor thing off the back wheel and get busy. really everybody be on dem damn scooters. I'm still in Five Points. How the hell am I still in Five Points?
This ground. This exact ground beneath the scooters and the noise. Used to be East Village. Low-income housing. A troubled history. Benedict Fountain Park area. Subsidized housing. Then redeveloped. Mixed-income. Benedict Park Place. It was housing for the '76 Olympics. Denver rejected the Olympics. They built it anyway. For low-income. Under DHA. It opened in '77. Progressive. No high-rises. Then it fell apart. Late '80s, early '90s. Private developer. Poor maintenance. Dying grass. Faulty fire extinguishers. Structural issues. Violence. Gang activity. Shootings in the lot. Bulletproof glass considered. 2,000 calls to DPD. Jan '99 to April 2000.
This whole scene. The scooters. The ghosts of East Village. It all loops back. Makes me think about the other noise. The noise inside my head. The beats. The rhymes. The colors. The lines. It's why I'm back in the studio. Back at the canvas. Back to the art. Back to the music. Back to all that other shit. This city. This neighborhood. It bleeds into everything. Always has. Always will.
PLAYER 1.5
And now this. What you're about to hear. This is me trying to get more experimental. Always been fascinated with chiptune, the raw sounds of old consoles. Don't have any of the actual gear, never have. But I downloaded some chiptune pack a while back. Threw it in the DAW. And now, well, here we are. This is the result.
This is the coolest thing i’ve seen happen on bluesky besides all of NBA twitter being over there.
Crates Crowns & Confessions
That's the title. It kicked off with some J Dilla sounds from Splice. Then I was in a real-world dictionary, flipping pages, looking up words that start with "Sed." Funny thing, I found out "Sedulity" and "Sedulous" are damn near blood relatives to "Diligence." And "Dillagence"? That's a classic Dilla and Flipmode mixtape. No coincidence there.
WhyGyp Players Magazine Volume 1
I got got a new project comin'. It's "WhyGyp: Players Magazine," an EP series. Gyp DaHip on the production, yours truly, Sedrick Avenue, on rhymes. First installment's channeling the November 1973 issue of Player Magazine. That's the vibe.
Every song's written! Expect cuts like "Plair (Player) Bones," diving into the "player" persona. Plus, a deep tribute for our fallen friends, sparked by my son, Byrd, and Joe's stuffed Hobbes. The EP kicks off with an untitled intro, dropping you straight into that Players Magazine world. It's so good.
Hitting the studio now for production and recording. Stay tuned, cats and kittens. This blend of vintage swagger and fresh sound? It's gonna be a stone-cold groove. Our previous records? Find 'em on Bandcamp. If the spirit moves ya, go on and cop a little somethin'. Show some love.
Good stuff. I remember when some folks got a hoop and put it up at Benedict so the kids had something to do, they would be out there balling, having fun, no problems, then clown DPD came and threatened them about the hoop and ultimately either took it or made them take it down. People shouldn't police communities they don't live in. Just speaks to the bigger picture and history of harassment and misguided policing of the greater five points area.