Ever since Nas called out Jay-Z for getting ripped by Eminem on his own track, any emcee worth his weight needs to make sure not to collabo with Slim Shady unless you got a hot verse. I also wanted to give the track the Spanish Hip Hop treatment while matching Eminem with a sick flow. We both touched on the issues we’re facing in the respective stages of our careers: Enimen is on top and I’m still coming up. Two perspectives, two languages, two emcees and one Music Biz.

This has got to be one of my favorite tracks ever because its so personal. First off, I looped a sample from Sade’s song “King Of Sorrow“. Everything that Sade drops I buy and I had always hoped to rip one of her tracks.


Secondly, the two verses speak about actual people I encountered at that time (2003-2004) who were so fake that they inspired the lyrics. I had just came back from doing an out-of-town show with Caliba when the rappers who gave us a ride took us to the house of one of their artists to drop him off first. This was the incident in the gated community, way the fuck outside of Miami. Right there on the sidewalk in front of his pristine suburb dwelling I started freestyling the hook “if you living in the suburbs don’t talk about guns and crack…” It all just came so natural to me. This guy had just dropped a mixtape, acting like Tony Montana, etc. etc. The first verse explains it all in vivid detail.


The second character is a guy who showed up to one of our shows down in Homestead, FL asking to be a part of Tha Union. I thought he was cool at first, kind of a bum, but a friend gave him a ride and was introducing him to us as a favor. I don’t judge anyone, especially when they are down on their luck and trying to make it. But his attitude stunk. Later on as we left Homestead we popped his CD demo into the car stereo and immediately were punished by his bullshit lyrics about driving a Bentley and wearing gold chains!!! I swear to you, I never hit eject or ever flung a fucking disc out the window so fast. HOLY SHIT! I hate crappy commercial rap music, plus I just met the fucking guy and he was bumming a ride because he’s so broke. After meeting him, my second verse was in the bag.


On the outro I was touching on the subject of conflict Diamonds and African Gold, way before Kanye West made it a big deal (which I’m glad that he did). The basic premise of this track is what Ali G always says “Keep it Real”. Enjoy!


(Note: I have not seen or heard from those two fake-ass rappers since. Goes to show that they wanted that “Get rich quick” song to pop-off but gave up on the music biz when it got too rough)

Here is a classic from my debut album The BumRush. I can still remember the day when I made this beat, writing the lyrics and the hook just came naturally sine the track was so crazy. On iTunes and Napster this song has become one of the most popular tracks off The BumRush. I touched on the subject of gentrification and a little bit of social justice. This is pretty much a protest song against stereotypes and barriers put in place to keep inner-city, lower-income folks from achieving “the American Dream” (whatever that means). I was fresh out of high school and still mad at the world. Otherwise, this is a banger that you can play loud as fuck!

This was the lead track from the Block Politics Mixtape hosted by DJ Epps. It was an official warning shot that Tha Union would no longer promote the “Ready 2 Strike” mixtape series. That particular DJ who was using the title pretty much stopped using it as well right after this track came out in 2005. This was a typical battle rap / lyrical track over a crazy beat to set the tone for the whole mixtape. Yes, DJ Choppa Jones is still up next, look out for a collabo mixtape with him soon enough.

This song is from the Block Politics mixtape featuring DJ Epps and it marks a turning point in my political philosopy. It was recorded and released in late 2005 when I was still a HARDCORE Democrat, trying to promote the idea of using the 2006 midterm elections as a last chance to remove the Bush Crime Family from office. Little did I know that the Democrats WOULD win that election, take control of congress and then let that asshole Bush and his fucking buddies walk off without a scratch. No impeachment! Back then I was naive enough to believe that the Democrats actually stood for the Constitution, the rule of law, justice, (yadda, yadda, etc and a bag of cookies). We now know that the Democrats are a bunch of coward ass motherfuckers and that the Republicans are still assholes. Fuck them both!

Recently when George Carlin died I was watching a bunch of his videos on YouTube and heard him say that he too abandoned the Democratic Party early on in his life, probably for similar reasons. If you want to know where I stand politically these days then listen to Common Sense. Peace!

I wrote this song on the rooftop of my uncle’s house in Santander, Colombia then performed it live for the first time in Bogota a few days later. This was during the 2003 tour with Tragiko and Cero and I needed an all-Spanish Colombian anthem to perform at every show (because most of my tracks were in English). I produced this beat from an old school Colombian classic to add to the overall theme. When I came back to Miami I recorded and planned on including it in the Rushed Again mixtape but instead debut it on “Tha Union: Blocc Hits” compilation.

This track was written and recorded when Tha Union and NBZ (DJ Epps) were the official Miami street team for G-Unit and Interscope Records. Daddy Yankee had just got signed to Interscope and this instrumental and track reached my hands before it hit the streets or the radio. I basically flipped it and spoke on some of the political stuff that was happening in Colombia at the time. If it wasn’t for the Interscope promotion gig I probably would not have recorded on a pure reggaeton track but I think with Snoop and DY on it the result was not half bad.

About:
When I first heard this Shakira song I knew I wanted to remix it because it reminded me of the Ol’ Dirty Bastard classic “Shame On A Nigga” from the 36 Chambers album. They both have a funk vibe and you can switch up your style and have fun rhyming on a beat like this. I just reinterpreted her story in a pair Spanglish rap verses on this Colombian Hip Hop tip!



Update 1/5/2010:
Checking out the web stats for ctraffik.com I found out that lots of folks are doing web searches for the keywords “ctraffik she wolf lyrics”. In that case I’m gonna give you the lyrics to both of my verses, the Shakira parts are up to you. Peace!


Lyrics:
Verse 1
Shakira, Ctraffik, Colombian Style
Ah! Home girl got loose
No wolf pack, hood rat, its high-heel shoes
Looking for a nice or an icy dude
She flashy, wild like Apaches do
Howl at the moon
Light up the room
All eyes on beau like YouTube zoomed
Lips say “cool” but the eyes say “ferocious”
The body say “commotion”
A venomous dosage
Left her man there posted
At home looking hopeless
He aint give her nothing that she wants, she’s coasting
Night club bouncing
Dancing on the tables and the VIP couches
Party all night like no other options
Drink like a fish and never get nauseous
Take caution!
Ha!


Verse 2:
El tipo tuyo ‘ta enfogonao’
Es un mamao’ dejado embarcao’
Apestando la casa como bacalao
Por eso te fuistes pa’ otro lao’
Cualquier lado, no importa now
You all up in the club, hair loose and wild
DJ spinning the Colombian Style
Party so thick, que esta pesado
Esta pesado, ’sta Heavy
Chica suelta como el confetti
No esta fea con cara de Betty
Esta sabrosa, loca y sexy
Estate’ listo,
Mijito
Si la loba anda en su gistro
Te devora por toda la disco
Y te pide mas?
Suerte negrito! (Que le vaya bonito)


Outro:
DJ Spinning the Colombian Style (x2)
Colombian Style
Dancing on the VIP Couches
Its that chico on the M.I.C.
La revolucion aint on the TV
It got canceled, catch it on the dance floor*


*Note: This is the intro to the song Mind Money

About:
The inspiration for this track came from an interview that Garcia (from Crazy Hood) had in a local magazine where he spoke on the subject of Miami artists who bring each other down “like crabs in a bucket”. The opportunity to record with him came up so I suggested the idea and Garcia appreciated it – A) because not many artists are on the same page as he is, and B) they don’t bother to read his interviews! So there is a lesson to you up-and-coming artist, research the stars you want to collabo with first, then show up with a topic and a beat that they will appreciate and you got yourself a timeless classic! This song appeared on Garcia’s “Anti-social Cutz” mixtape that was release to promote his album “Anti-social” released in 2004.

About
This song was another that was not written down but created as I rehearsed it over and over in my head… building it up until the story and the rhymes were catchy enough that I’d remember them again in the morning. I think I was obsessed with this song for months while I would freestyle a bit of it everyday to make it come to life. I have to confess that Wikipedia was used to get my facts right even though I already had an idea of how the verses would connect and which artists and genres I would mention. The song is based on the question “Where did Hip Hop come from”. I usually would reply “Do you want the short answer or the long answer?” The quick answer is “the Bronx in the 70’s” – namely DJ Kool Herc. But the long answer is this song, where I try to make the case that Hip Hop is as eternal as the first drum beat from the first Human beings to walk the Earth. If you got a beat and rhymes you got Hip Hop. Drawing on the cave walls was the graffiti, etc. I also try to make the connection that Hip Hop is a result of the evolution of America’s great music genres like Jazz, Rock, Blues and Ragtime. Its been like 30 years since Hip Hop was “born” and it’s world-wide impact proves that it’s one of the greatest forms of expression that mankind has ever created…. Bitchez!!!

About:
This is one of the newer songs that I recorded to complete Rushed Again and the idea for the title came from an audio recording of Thomas Paine’s “Common Sense”. I knew I wasn’t just going to sit there and try to read the whole thing myself I downloaded the MP3 and noticed that they named the file “tpaine” and quickly thought of T-Pain the “rappa turnt sanga”. The concept of this song came from the content of “Common Sense” and other things I’ve read that lead me to believe that once upon a time the USA really was a free country. A close friend of mine heard the track and commented that it sounds like “anarchy” and I responded, “yeah, that sounds about right”. The woman speaking at the end of the track is Becky Akers who was interviewed for the Lew Rockwell podcast, you can hear the full interview here. That’s some crazy shit the she’s speaking about. I’m just trying to awaken a few heads to the thought of demanding more liberty in our lives. You don’t really ever loose your liberties, you just let the State take them away because of your own ignorance or fear.

About:
Back in early 2007 when the immigration debate got ugly and Latinos took to the streets in massive protests I recorded this song which was later included in the Rushed Again Mixtape. Basically there was a group of idiots who called themselves the “Minutemen” (based on the colonial watchmen) who camped out by the southern border of the US in order to catch some illegal immigrants. This song was my reaction to them as you can tell from the title. I consider Fuck the Minutemen kind of like a sequel to the song Ole Ole Ole. In the photo (taken by my homie Jon Luna) I attended one of those immigration protests down in Little Havana. On that day I showed up with a sign that read “Me Cago En Bush” but one of the event organizers literally tried to snatch the sign out of my hands because he didn’t like it. I stood my ground and asked (in Spanish) “why even bother coming to this country in search of freedom if we can’t even excersize it at all?” The crowd that witnessed this all cheered me on and agreed with my argument but the vibe was that they all wanted the rally to be solely a pro-Immigration event rather than an anti-Bush one. Long story short, we walked the streets of Little Havana and returned to the Orange Bowl (when it was still there) and the grand finale featured the same dumb-fuck republican on a megaphone getting the crowd hyped up. His speech ended with loud “Viva Bush” cries which part of the crowd joined in to say it loud with him. I’m not sure if he did that on purpose to piss me off (and my kind who were there) but it sure was a slap in our faces! Fuckers…

About:
This song was recorded for the Blocc Politics mixtape and the title has nothing to do with Caliba and I smoking any weed (which we don’t… at least I don’t at the time of this writing) but the hook is based on us believing that the Ray Charles sample in the beat was saying “I got weed… I got Weed… she killed me mom, sumpthing sumpthin….”. So we flipped the hook and attacked the beat with crazy rhymes. I start off my verse saying “Bitch! Kanye got Jacked!” – some folks thought I said “shot”. Also, I was watching the Maury Povich show at the time (2005) and was obsessed with the crazy paternity/DNA-test episodes. At the end I actually recorded my self falling off a plastic chair but after a bunch of takes and a sore ass I got the recording that made the final cut. This is how we sacrifice ourselves to make classic hip hop records.

About:
This song was written and recorded back in 2003 for one of the first mixtapes by Tha Union. Caliba came up with the structure of the hook but we collaborated on the names of the rap groups we included and the final product. Funny enough, the rappers that I was talking about in my verse (sounding like Jay-Z and Juvenile) both hardly exist anymore. Remember that in 2003 Jay-Z was at the top of his game and had not yet dropped some of his later classics (like the Black Album) so for me to predict that those Jay-Z-sounding wannabe rappers would fade out along with Jay’s popularity was damn near prophetic (I should play the lotto). We had fun performing this song at many shows in South Florida especially when we had to take the stage right AFTER some wannabe rap jokes who took offense to this track! You had to see the mean mugging looks on their faces, but we didn’t care because the crowd loved it anyways.

About:
This was another track that pretty much was created in a headshot (freestlye) manner where I would memorize the song as I went along. This helps to keep the flow matching the beat at all times. The song starts off as a basic club track but progresses into a full blown protest song were tax evasion is pretty much promoted. Rappers these days rather beef with each other but none ever try battling the state! Crazy shit! It was created in 2007 but recorded in 2009 (I think) for the Rushed Again CD.