The Projects (with Blue Kusaka)
Music by Blue Kusaka / Lyrics by Nicholas Nyemah

“Hip-hopologist with the scholarship.
I go for knowledge over dollars so I’ll never be profitless.”

Blue Kusaka is the total package. When we were band mates, Blue was our trumpet player, our keyboard player, our turntablist, our percussionist. An o.g. Krylon bomber, now Blue is an English teacher, a favorite among students, the kind that makes them love and appreciate reading and writing, makes them realize their importance, and makes them strive to do something significant with their lives. He is an exemplary father of two prodigies. He is a trailblazer and an adventurer, and he climbs big, humongous, extreme, hardcore rocks. I would say “go get him ladies” but he’s already married to a phenomenal chemistry teacher who’s an extraordinary mom, and she climbs friggin’ rocks!

When Blue gave me this beat, he had already named it “The Projects.” He might have been thinking about the hood (actually, he probably meant it as a multiple entendre). In view of the above though, I decided to make it a like school project, a marriage of English and chemistry, an expression of the art behind the science, and an articulation of the science behind the art.

I got formulaic and went with a straight-48 (3 x 16 bar verses). I used some internal rhyme, alliteration and all, similes, metaphors, and homophones, just talking about how I rap. I mixed in a bunch of hip-hop references, then I quoted Rakim because any rapper who’s legit has quoted Rakim. Crazy thing is, I didn’t really quote Rakim.  Check it . . .

I took the Tribe sample where Q-Tip said “turn up the bass and lay low on the treble,” but I changed it to “turn up the mass and lay low on the density.” Then I sampled Rakim’s “pump up the volume.” Why? If the mass of a substance in a flexible container is increased while the density therein is decreased or held constant, it follows that the volume of the substance must also increase. Only I changed “pump up the volume” to “pump up the intensity” because what scientists call sound “intensity” is what musicians call “volume.” That’s nerd! And Blue and I can talk nerd all night long.

Besides, I already quoted Rakim in the first hook of the last track.

THE PROJECTS:

Get the full album:
St. Nicodemus tha Lonestar
THE PEN, THE VIEW, THE ANGELS
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BONUS MATERIAL:

“Breakin’ heads of my rivals” – not in the violent sense, but in the sense of leaving them mystified.  Blue and I had a side project called the Headbreakers – a literal translation of the the Spanish “rompecabezas” meaning “puzzles” – along with Andrew Johnson (Kid Ajax) and Randall Park (Randruff) a.k.a. Kim Jong-un of the Interview  a.k.a. Louis Huang of Fresh Off The Boat.  Randy would call and be like “yo, slide thru Blue’s tonight – we gonna lay down a track about pizza – have a verse ready.”  And then it was.  Some EXTREME RARITIES right here:

Inspiration for The Projects:

Wu-Tang Clan – C.R.E.A.M.
Aceyalone – Mic Check
Boogie Monsters – Boogie
Jurassic 5 – Lesson 6: The Lecture
Boogie Monsters – Recognized Thresholds of Negative Stress
A Tribe Called Quest – 1nce Again
Eric B. & Rakim – I Know You Got Soul