Track-for-Track (TFT♪) Session
For What You've Lost
by Raashan Ahmad
In 2008, I took everything I accumulated during the college years in New Mexico back home to Texas and stacked it in storage. Just a couple of years ago, my cousin's grandfather, with his bare hands as he would say (and show) built me a sturdy massive "vinyl" shelf from scratch painted black with multiple partitions where I could "organize" all my vinyl, CDs, and cassette tapes. Before, all my music was stacked behind something, on top of something or inside of something... so the shelf acts as a space of access... a way to see what's there and to give those audios the light of day... especially now that I have the chance to pull out a record, reflect on it, and listen to it over & over & over again whether I'm in the car, at work, or exercising.
During the radio years, the goal was to stay current and to highlight albums we wanted a listener to anticipate & support. With the process of CMJ charting, receiving promos, spending money on records we wanted, downloading, sharing back at the dorms... before half the year was up we had already ran through more than a hundred projects. So today, with the Track-for Track (TFT♪) Session, as I'm listening to records collected throughout the years (and now), I'd simply like to take some time to document & share info on specific records. Whether its stuff I read about in the liner notes, find on YouTube, or discover on my own through potential interviews... I thought it would be a cool to leave a digital footprint of these records on free access points like Blogger and Twitter, especially for the web visitor out there stumbling through search engines or for anyone else that's down to check for something they haven't heard. I'm a big fan of book projects like Check the Technique by Brian Coleman and been following magazines like Waxpoetics since their inception... so this is just a fan's way of digging in the crates and files and sharing these notes on the world wide web. Note that TFT♪ will focus on records I got up there as timeless and won't necessarily focus on just Hip Hop or current music. These may also not be records familiar to the common classic album conversations we have or hear over and over again (same records, same points). I plan to cover records of any period and genre that resonate with me and that are pulled out of this shelf my cousin's grandfather built. So it will be my intention to deviate away from records we know we love and can't stop talking about (insert any of the Nas, Dre, Biggy, Wu Tang debuts here).
TFT♪ is also inspired by the first record I wanted to talk about and that's Raashan Ahmad's For What You've Lost. This goes back to discovering the Mission album in the old KRUX 91.5 fm Archive room, and learning about the Crown City connection through an aol friend, and on to following the music careers of all its members, especially frontline lyricist, Raashan Ahmad. As I mentioned in conversation, every time I hear Raashan Ahmad rhyme, I'm reminded that I need to reassess who I consider my "favorite" MCs. I think everyone should, especially if you haven't heard of Raashan Ahmad or the band members he rocks with.
For What You've Lost was a difficult record to come by where I'm located. The Twitter feed of TFT♪'s first session will highlight a couple of notes about that including a track for track break down of the artist(s) featured on this record as well as anything I'm able to find online (including videos, interviews, sounds, etc.).
To view the For What You've Lost TFT♪ Session you can click on the Twitter link below.
For What You've Lost (TFT♪) on Twitter: click here
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Peace!
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