CitizenMofo

Description : Groovy headbopper, or at any rate, bops my head. That's why I make these things - dancing in my bedroom. I'm actually that kind of whacko. This one has some great, weird vocals that I got from looperman probably a couple years ago, don't remember whose. They fit me quite well - I watch people, too - and that's why I used them. This is the 2nd or 3rd draft of this piece across a couple years and laptops. I think it's got a sweet swing to it, tho there are still one or two parts that make my fingers itch a bit...

Description : OK, so "H E Y" was a misfire. I see that now after making this one. This is my redemption. If you're like me, it'll pull you right out of your chair. If you're not like me, well then you'll stay sitting down and you won't hurt your neck head-banging on this like I do. Built on killer, precision loops from StrideFire, TrapKid, BeyodPeace, DustHill and DaFatmanDubstep. I laid down two basic, very simple tracks and then layered them with different equalizations to create different effects, variety and momentum. Please let me know what you think. (Yes, I'm in Amsterdam right now, inspired by all the art everywhere and in particular the graffiti. I plan to use this piece to make a graffiti video once I get out there and get some stuff recorded...)

Description : Crank it up, bang yo haid.
I wish I could remember whose loops I used to build this - 'twas a bunch - but I seemed to have misplaced the durn file. It'll turn up (I hope) and I'll be ashamed that I didn't recognize the great loopmakers who give us so much inspiration and great bricks of gold to build our magic castles with. Thank you.

Description : Jazzy groove with a dark turn. (I put it in the "dance" category because it makes me dance.)

Description : Piece I made a few days ago after the Zimmerman verdict, not to take a stand one way or another on the verdict, but to offer some historical perspective. The piece features about 2 minutes of an MLK speech that brings me to tears every time, and then a devastating coda by Bobby Kennedy in 1968. I made this piece to be the foundation of a video (featuring, of course, MLK and Bobby Kennedy) which is posted on YouTube under Citizen Mofo. I lived through all this stuff and I still can't believe the power that MLK had to move an audience, and the absolutely8 tragic loss of his voice in this country through violence. Sometimes it seems we take a step forward only to take 10 back. All I wanted to do here was provide a musical setting for the power of the vocals. I hope you get as much out of the words expressed herein as I do.

Description : This is a straight-up pop/rock song built on a dude's pella I downloaded a couple years ago (can't find the creator now, to thank him) and another member's guitar/choral loop that's very beautiful and whose creator I also can't find. If anything rings a bell here and you recognize these loops/members, please let me know so I can thank them. (As always, I can do nothing without the work of others to build on and with.) Tweaked the pella a bit to make it say what I wanted; other than that just tried to let the music help tell the story and provide the structure. Very much would appreciate comments and input from my fellow loopers on this one. Thanks.

Description : When a machine denies that it's a machine, perhaps that's a form of enlightenment. Or the beginning of a transformation, Pinocchio-like. This track explores this thought with a series of cinematically interlocking grooves. Or something like that. I really, really appreciate people's comments, so please do; if you have criticisms, please share - that's how we learn and improve.

Description : A tasty hard-driver with a melody of grunts and shouts and guitar rips for punctuation. Genre stumps me every time - let's just call it "dance" and I'll bet that you can't keep your head from bopping and maybe even banging a little. I know I can't. Try it and see.

Description : I did a first draft of this piece a couple years ago and thought it was da bomb. Then I started hating it. Then I went in and started tweaking it and fell in love with it again as it took on some new sounds and shed a bunch of clutter. More and more I find that doing another draft of two, just as with writing, makes the tracks much better, brings them to a higher maturity and clarity of sound. At least in my ears, but then again I'm partly hard of hearing. Also I find that it's almost always better to subtract than to add. Anyway I hope you dig this piece, and I made a music video of it on youtube at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0F76bNLGFw

Description : This is about the complexity of the feelings of attraction - how there's a sense of doom and dread mixed in with the wild joy of surrender. Now don't cringe at the idea of the 'spoken word' - I think this piece rocks. The structure is a basic call and response, or question/answer, with most of the piece being an answer to the question posed in the first part. All the loops came from this site. I almost just posted a music video for this piece under Citizen Mofo on youtube; I'd be honored if you'd check it out and let me know what you think.

Description : I wanted to create a political music video about the surveillance of US citizens by the gov't. The words are FDR's from his First Inaugural Address. All the loops are from this site, gathered over years, forgotten, refound, manipulated in a thousand ways, and voila. You can see the video on youtube under Citizen Mofo.

Description : Combo of trap and spoken word. I wanted to do something ridiculous and fun. No big theme. No politics. Just fun lyrics and a ridiculous story. And a deep bassified voice, because even though it's ridiculous, it sounds better. To me anyway. But what do I know?

The music is this amazing piece by BradoSanz:
https://www.looperman.com/tracks/detail/168513

It's a trap that's been looking for a rapper since 2015, and never found one. Brado says it was his first trap, which is incredible because to me the piece is flawless. A great trap beat gets my lyrical juices flowing anyway, but this goes way beyond that. It's a full-on song structure, with evolving repetition and booming returns. There's a lot of beautiful intricacy in the music (which is all orchestrated loops from looperman) that keeps it interesting from start to finish. The more I listened to it and worked with it, the more appreciation I had. The lyrics came very easily, as though they rose up right out of the music and I just had to catch them. I hope I didn't mess it up too much with my vocals. The only thing I changed was to lower the volume to fit the vocals in.

I hope you have fun listening to it!

Description : RnB? It's possible.
This is a simple, heartfelt song about the most important thing you can do as a parent, or what I think it is anyway. It needs a beautiful-voiced singer but I was the only one in my living room at the time so I did my best. Any volunteers?

Loops used are from mamagbeats, blackmansta10, thecosmiceffect, calibror, rasputin1963, and the chill-out sax loop from danke.

Comments always and very much appreciated!

Description : RnB?...maybe. This song is in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr., one of my top two American heroes, the other being Abraham Lincoln. Both men of eloquence, of compassion, of peace, of justice, and of great strength. It's part spoken, part sung. I think perhaps my voice works ok on the verses but it would be much better for a beautiful-voiced singer to do the choruses; infinitely better. Maybe I can work that out with someone. From Australia.

The music is all loops. Opening piano by hbsamples, as well as the harp plucks in the chorus. Beat is take-it-slow by retrocrushlm. Whoa-yeah bg vocal by antranita. Reggae rhythm in 2nd part by franko75. "More than everything" loop from steklo's pella "stay-this-on." Guitar in 2nd part of verses by danke. Chorus piano by sushilbawa. Thank you all for your generosity!

This is a bit off the beaten path and I'm very much interested in what you might think about it.

Description : Time to give y'all a break from my vocals...
So, I was going through songs from years past on my laptop - there are hundreds - and came across this one that I'd nearly forgotten about, even though I love it.

There's a story that comes with it. Way back in MySpace days (yep, going back) I connected with a singer in the UK named Kymberley Kennedy, an amazing singer, just fantastic voice. She liked my tracks so we agreed to work on some tracks together. I sent her this song, and she and her boyfriend Mo, the producer, put a sample together, a minute and a half. I loved it. But then Kymmie got interest from a record company and dropped the project. So I was left with an incomplete song - only part of one of the verses and the chorus. What to do? I brought in a guitarist and extended the song to full length with a music bridge and some repetition. Had to. And this is the result.

So then last night I was checking Kym out on YouTube. She's got a bunch of videos up, with some modest success. I listened to some of them and yes, they're great, but at the same time they sound a lot like a lot of stuff out there. What attracted me to Kymmie's music in the first place was that it was raw and real, it expressed a real personality, it had a vital edge. The record-company songs don't, to me. I listened back to some of the songs - some are just samples - that Mo & Kym sent to me way back when - their stuff - and I like it much better. I googled and found some of the finished results - I like the first drafts better. So I started messing around with a couple, extending them, tweaking, just for my own personal delectation. To me, they sound freaking incredible. So I think that's an important lesson, to me anyway and maybe to all of us - watch the overproduction. Don't get too fancy. Keep it raw and real. Keep it human. Perfectly flawed is so much better than flawlessly perfect.

Description : I made this a few days ago. Wanted to write a song about the overwhelming feelings I experience when holding a little baby. I have a little granddaughter. I call it redneck hiphop bc I don't know what else to call it. Me doing my best with the voice I have.

Used loops from ternix, hbsamples, sushilbawa, rasputin1963 and jakatta033. The guitar in the bridge is from ferryterry but I reversed it.

I'm very curious what people think so please let know. Thanks!

Description : Another redneck hiphop piece from the ugly-voiced singer. My melodic talking thingie, but this is further along the sing-y side of the continuum. This song is about how kindness is infectious.

In the orchestration I used loops from blackafer, wally6, weazelbeats, 6sbeats, lankframpard, snobbymasta, joefunktastic, silencekills and josephfunk. The piece de resistance is lankframpard's yoshi soup vocals, the looped female vocal bit; I had some of the song written and then when I dropped that in it changed the melody and I added the "after all" part, which then became the heart of the song. Inspired, as always, by all the amazing creativity on offer here so generously.

Please let me know what you think! Thank you.

Description : Spoken word - melodic talking - redneck hiphop - dubpop - I dunno. This song is part of "The Love Offensive" where I'm writing a bunch of simple, direct songs around the theme of more love, less hate. Just going with the flow of my natural weirdness. Orchestration is 5 loops from rmce, thedarkflamemaster, bosni, rasputin1963 and blackmansta10. Please let me know what you think.

Description : I'm writing some simple, direct songs these days, mainly because I have a theme. I'm working on a project (which gives me an excuse to make a lot of songs) called "The Love Offensive." The theme is: less hate, more love. I've written like 30 songs for the project, but am trying to exercise discipline and whittle it down to the 8 or 9 best. Your input can help with that.

This song is unabashedly from the heart. I'm not much of a singer - not blessed with a beautiful voice that you would listen to no matter what it's singing just cuz it's so beautiful. My voice has to carry meaning and feeling to work. I do something I call "melodic talking" which is part talking, part singing, sometimes a little more one or the other, depending. The music consists of loops from philemonster, vis3ctrix, sushilbawa, travle7 and tmanpro - thank you; without your loops, I couldn't make songs. This is probably not trip hop, but there's no "redneck hiphop" category, so...

Description : The music here is Matthaus' "Bolivian Picasso - The Come Up," which is still posted on featured tracks. That's it. The music called out to me, and it was downloadable, so I got to work with some lyrics and this is what I came up with. OK now, a word or two about my voice: It's ugly. I'm an ugly-voiced singer. Kinda like wrangling a chainsaw. But as I'm presently unemployed, there's no money for studio time or session singers, just me, my living room, looperman (without which I wouldn't be able to make any music whatsoever), my excellent little Blue Snowball Ice mike, Audacity for mixing, and my determination to make something beautiful out of something ugly. No amount of pitch correction or production fanciness will turn my voice pretty, so I've decided to feature the ugly & the raw up front & center. Very interested to hear what y'all think, so please don't hold back. I can take it.

Description : "Funk"? I dunno, why not. Anyway, hey all, it's been a few months since I've posted anything. A few twists and turns in life and time goes by. I've been doing a lot of new music but first I have some unfinished business with the 55 tracks I made with Sunny War last year. As time has gone by, my faves have emerged from the pack, and this is one of them. Sunny's vocals are perfect, as usual, and I love the subtlety of her guitar work throughout. The song itself ain't so bad either.

I made a video for this song (I think it's my best video so far) which you can watch at: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H4vJfNmh1IE&t=20s

All of the songs from the Sunny sessions are available at thesunnysessions.com. Please enjoy - thanks!

Description : Probably not hip hop really but don't know what genre to call it. Recorded this and an album-ful of other songs last summer with Lisagaye Tomlinson on vocals, then sat on it til now. The music is all loops. When I first wrote the song, there was completely different music, and this was the music for another song. But that wasn't working, so I moved this music over to this song and it seemed to work so I kept it. Very interested in your take on this.

Description : I can't believe I never shared this track with this community. In the first half of last year, before I met Sunny War and started recording with her in December, I recorded an album called "Woman" with Lisagaye Tomlinson, an old friend from Florida days (we both live in L.A. now). All my songs, orchestrated entirely from loops from this site, with Lisagaye providing the vocals. When we finished last summer, for some reason I just sat on the album and did nothing. Then I met Sunny. Was just listening to these and really liking them. So I'd like to get some feedback from you guys! This particular song came out of an experience when I was driving up to San Francisco at 3 a.m., and the words "just let it go" welled up from inside of me three times and left me in tears. Yes, it's so classically spiritual it's almost funny. I think it came from my Mom's spirit. Or just from my own need to - after divorce, losing everything, and so on and so - just let it the f*ck go. I was so much more at peace after that experience, and so of course I had to turn it into a song. Still brings tears.

Description : This song started out years ago as the bridge to another song, but the bridge demanded to be expanded into its own song, and so here it is. With vocals and guitar by the great Sunny War on top of that powerful gospel piano (or slow rock ballad piano chords, as rasputin1963 calls his loop). The song is just 3 verses joined by musical interludes, no chorus or bridge. I think of this track, and the video I created for it - https://youtu.be/b6o59mjXep4 - as a peaceful moment amidst crazy times. I hope you like it.

Description : I wanted to write a song about walking down the street, which is something I do a fair amount of, and to capture the nonsense that runs through my head as I walk and how it tends toward the spiritual, as nonsense does, and to write a happy song for once. This is the result. It's the first song on the "Rising" album, vocals & guitar by the great Sunny War, on top of loops provided by this essential community. I made a music video of it yesterday which I couldn't wait to post this morning because I'm proud of it, I hope you check it out: https://youtu.be/Yr8s_MdWEnA