My first song post, and it's someone else's tune!

Paul graciously encouraged me to put some rhymes on his Nagraan 5, so I did.
Last night I busted a little freestyle over the first part, up until the breakdown around a minute and a half in. From there on, it's the same as before.

Nothing deep here, this is not indicative of my usual writing style. It's just a little MC flow; I practiced a few times, then I let it rip! Added some background jabs afterwards. Hopefully the mix is ok, it's hard to tell with my setup, plus I just threw this down really quick.

Hope you like - thanks Paul!
http://www.sonarama.com/1.0/zina_index.php?l=8&p=c02/174/newNagraan5-freestyle3mp3.mp3&m=1
Edit: UPDATE!
I pumped the vocals (prolly too loud now), and made the whole thing a bit hotter. Please give another listen!

Hi Jamester

do you have a download link? cos my streaming keeps stopping every bar

glad you overcame your shyness. <g>. I have always enjoyed your posts and your avatar makes me feel like I'm on vacation. Nice feeling. THink you could go back quickly and compress the fellow-I'm losing the words and the rap is too soft feeling for the music. I'm digging it-but a little processing would give it some life.

Thanks

Hi J

This rap is in the wrong place.
It should be 2/3 of the way thru.
pls email me privately at either the cpop address on the website or this one 'paul ATpi2 DOt com DOT sg' - yes the sg is essential.
If we're gonna do something we should do it well, so i'm open to moving things round a bit. This new direction for me has been so well recieved in the local music industry that I'm thinking of taking it further, so it might be worth putting the effort in.

Hey Jamester...Now listen to me...I am 100% not BSing you...And you know how I have always felt about this genre....but dude .I thought this tune was awesome...I am really glad I gave your tune a listen because there is now light in the caves for hip-hop/rap that once was a dark tunell of disenchantment!...(pretty dramatic eh?)
Nice job bud...
This one is going in the ipod
Mark

Jamester,
You've got a smooth flow man. Hearing some of your stuff was definitely worth the wait. The vocals could definitely be louder. I'm sure they will be in the final version. It also might be worth re-working the beat a little to leave more room for vocals (like remove or lower the volume of some of the bell-like percussion). This is cool. Post more post more....

Steve

Thanks guys!

Paul- I will email you. I wanted to put some vocals later on also, but like I said I did this right quick.

Michael, Mark, Steve- Thanks so much for the compliments! I'm pretty shy about my voice and flow, so it really means a lot. I'll post something of my own very soon- as you'll see, my 'real' writing is very different from these off-the-cuff lyrics.

I had a feeling the vox might be soft. On my stereo speakers the vox are pretty loud/up front. On my headphones it's the opposite. In Media Player/laptop speakers on my computer the vox are perfect. Which to trust?

I put the vocal track through Cakewalk FX Compressor, with the "Medium Bright Vocal" preset (or something like that), didn't seem to do anything. Ended up using volume envelopes in places to smooth it out. aaargh!

I would recommend to anyone, "If you only listen to one hindi hip-hop track all year, make it this one." Nice touch with the synthy strings, and the plethora of sounds. Interesting music!

James, nice rhythmic flow. I was waiting for an explanation as to why there was a lovely Indian vocalist behind you, it's was kind of like having the proverbial elephant in the room and no one apparently noticing. I'm I being to literal?

It also might be worth re-working the beat a little to leave more room for vocals (like remove or lower the volume of some of the bell-like percussion). This is cool. Post more post more....

I've been in touch with James and set up an ftp account for him on my server so that he can send me the rhymes. Then I'll stick em in the right place and lengthen the groove accordingly to make room.

Hey James, maybe we should do a whole album like this