I am sat on a nice leather seat in the luxurious and futuristic confines of the San Francisco International airport, about to fly to LA. I am tired, hungover, and full of a great joy and wonder and thankfulness. I have had a amazing 5 days here in San Fran. I knew nothing in the way of detail about this trip, had no hotels booked, no studio booked, no dates or times or film crew… I just knew I was going to, somehow, make a record and a video with Issue, Spread Joy, and have some experiences… and that’s exactly what happened – in a fashion bigger, better and greater than even I had dared hope.
Thank you SO MUCH to all the wonderful people who showed me such a joyous and excellent time and helped me have some of my greatest adventures.
(I tell you about some of them when I get a bit of time. Like the one about saving a girl’s life when she collapsed during the eclipse.)
That pic up there was taken at Isoptope comics today, by the way, where Issue and I were filming the WORLD’S FINEST video, and doing an interview. I have a snapback tan line. Life is ace.
Issue tweeted these just now, which confirms that my Joy Mission is working, and that is a beautiful thing.
Amen.
Here’s some photos from the past few days adventures.
BOOM! Have you some footage of me and Issue during our rather epic 13 hours session in Fremont’s legendary STREET SYMPHONY studios yesterday, with the ultra G Deegan Mack Adams!
It was an amazing time. We were working on our collaborative LP, World’s Finest. We made six songs! Six very ace, inspirational, trippy, weird, and joyous songs. It was an honour and a provedle to spend time and create great art with the young enigma ISSUE, who kept his mask on the whole time and writes verses in the time it was taking me to discuss the approach to the song… and it was a joy to work with Deegan, because as a production minded rap engineer he does exactly the same sort of shit with vocals and the song’s beat I would… but better. And for the first time in a very long time, all I had to do was write my raps and perform them in the booth.
I was also blessed to talk with E-40 on the phone, who apologies for not being able to make it down to the studio and was very flipping nice. “Enjoy it, and make every second in there count,” he said, wisely.
I will write more tomorrow, but right now i gott run and get the BART back to Frisco to take part in this crazy wacky races shit that’s going on today.
Well, I did it. 24 hours after leaving London following 2 hours sleep and the release of Unkillable Thunderchrist I was settling into my hotel on Columbus Avenue feeling like a cotdurned CHAMPION. What a day I’d had! Ten hour on a plane sat between two female jetsetters, discussing pop up shops and racing and watching Game Of Thrones. Two hours queuing at immigration, ater which I was met at the airport reception by a wonderful human called Andrew, AKA The Dreadlocked Predator, who proceeded to drive me around all day showing me the sighs of the beautiful BAY, because he loves my music (ever since Living In The Future!) and is a TURBO G.
He also took me to In N Out Burger, which was a near religious experience. I got the off-menu ANIMAL STYLE Double Double burger with ANIMAL STYLE fries, which means loads of copped up onions and cheese and special sauce. AMAZING. They put the fries out back from REAL POTATOES, that place is amazing. You get slices of lemon in your unlimited refill soda. GODDAMN Americans do fast food amazingly.
Today I am gonna wander around and look for advnture, and tomorrow I am gonna be recording with Issue ALL DAY LONG… whihc is very exciting. So fold tight. And if you haven’t yet, go cop that UNKILLABLE THUNDERCHRIST! Sonic Shocks just dropped a review, saying nice shit like:
“Akira The Don may be one of the most prolific hip-hop artists going in this internet age… right from the offset we remember why Akira can call himself The Don, as he raps with a feeling of social consciousness… This is nicely settled within the first three tracks of D.R.E.A.M (Debt Rules Everything Around Me) and the brilliantly sampled Lemmings and Weird And Creepy (sampling Fox News anchor Shepard Smith’s reaction to Mitt Romney’s speech after Newt Gingrich dropped out of the Republican Candidate race)… Envy brings a lot of emotion throughout her appearances: anger on Fuck You Pay Me and sadness on the haunting Give Me Something, while Time crafts a fitting tribute with Akira to MCA on Too Sweet To Be Sour.
If you don’t know Akira this is a good starting point, hell the man manages to do a cover of THAT Beiber song and make it listenable.”
And now for a word from our host, Adam Jan Narkiewicz, AKA Akira The DON!
Brothers and sisters!
HAPPY DON DAY!
Yes, the stars are barelt visible through the big purple rain clouds here in Nu Olympia, the giant illuminated triangles that make up the new stadia are strobing away, and I have been on this particular mortal plane for thirty two songs.
Songs? I meant years. Song years. Swag. Yes. ANYWAY! On this day of celebration I am happy that I have spent most of it rendering audio and making website pages and youtube players and soundcloud players so that people can listen to this music in as many ways as they wish.
I hope you enjoy this music. I worked very hard on it, and put all my love into it. I’d like to thank everybody that had faith in enough in me to preorder the thing, and I’d like to thank all the incredible artists that contrinuted to this beautiful artwork that will outlive us all. I’d also like to thank Eric Esquivel, from whom I borrowed it’s most excellent title.
It’s midnight here in Nu Olympia, and I must now stop fannying around with metadata and prepare for tomorrow morning, when I will fly to America and have adventures and make songs and videos. When I come back home I am going to start recording my third album.
But all that’s the distance. Right now, it’s THUNDERCHRIST time.
I have been getting Unkillable Thunderchrist ready all day. Serious, all I have done all day apart from an hour to have lunch with my mum is work on the technical shit one has to do to out a record out in a way that makes it as easy as possible for you all to hear it. It just went out to preorderers, and will be with the whole world within the hour. SEE HOW I LOVE YOU?
Rah though, look what my mum and my wife surprised me with earlier, while I was rendering away!
LUCKY MUD!
Yeah mane. Anyway, go order my new shit, I worked my whole birthday on this ish. IN THE MANNER OF THE HEAD OF A COMPANY! Which I am.
New music for you, brothers and sisters! Produced by me, Akira The Don, mastered by Gaz Williams, and featuring the exquisite rhymes of Denver’s very own Time.
I’ll let this speak for itself, for now. From Unkillable Thunderchrist. Out tomorrow on Digital, CD and ltd edition print. Order here.
Tuesday, May 22nd, 2012
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