Thanks to B.Price of They Shootin’, I’ve rediscovered what is arguably the first full-song I ever wrote with just my verses on it. There’s a story behind it, right after this video. I wanted to celebrate and shout out some of my favorite mic rippers caught in action over the years….

I wrote this song one winter night in a dodgy attic, surrounded by guns, drugs and holy books. The only heat in the space came from the light of a small desk lamp with a red bulb in it. I was alone in headphones, sitting on a mattress with no frame. Everything was dim red.  I had a Newport for dinner and 80-ounces of Icehouse for dessert. This was back when my ‘closet’ was the space between one man’s couch and another man’s wall. All I had was a few notebooks and my folks. It was early winter in the Year 2000, and I was in a very shady attic. The first time I heard this beat, I knew it was mine, even though some of my boys had already written and recorded a song for it. But that was almost a year prior…and their song had since collected dust. The beat had called my name all year. I bided my time, and when they lost interest in it, I moved in. Flash forward, and I was in a freezing attic….twirling my pen in the dark with the shadiest of people downstairs. But wild horses weren’t gonna keep me from that beat. Sitting on that mattress in the red light, I put my hood on and my head down, clicked open my pen and began my life as a songsmith. I woke up the next morning with the beat on repeat in my headphones and a finished song in my lap. Some time later that day, Jae Ellis would hop into the booth and lay down an epic chorus harder than both of my verses combined….I still had a long way to go.

MP3 Download: Sumkid feat. Jae Ellis – “Just To Hear Me Rip” (1999)