TheBattleDrums.com

The concept for the “Window Seat” remix is simple: Its about being Misunderstood. You ever get the feeling that people just judge you based on how you look, what you wear, how you speak and your general behavior? And without having known much about you, they automatically make assumptions about your personality. Like for example, the other day one of my newly made friends at work asked “hey, you drink don’t you?” and I said “no.” She said “oh, I thought you did”. And with a little bit of a laugh I said “why?” She said “I don’t know I guess it just looks like you do”. (the conversation went on after that, I didn’t really think of it as offensive or anything). But later I thought of it to be very interesting.

I know many of times I’ve used references to Islam or muslims or muslim things in my music, and people have misunderstood that as me being Muslim. Or people that know I am a follower of the Sikh faith, have questioned why I feel the need to make such references. What they don’t understand is that I was raised in a small country next to Iraq called Kuwait, and that in America, Muslims face just as much discrimination as the Sikhs,  and Islamophobia not only affects Muslims but also affects us as Sikhs. So in many ways, I feel a sense of Solidarity with my Muslim brothers and sisters and I stand alongside them in our struggles.

So in the “Window Seat” I say things like

“I AM, Misunderstood man, they ask no questions/often, get salaams like Im Muslim/ which is Peace and I know we could use some/ but the race is human so why should I choose one?”

And what I found exceptionally beautiful at the end of this whole ordeal, specially at the end of writing of this song was put into my last two lines

“….but yo, Imperfections got a beauty of their own/man my God walks with me so I never die alone.”

Anyway, I can’t wait for this video to be finished so everyone can see how the music and the video all compliment the concept of being Misunderstood.

I think its also important to mention that the core concept for this song and video came from the last few lines from Erykah Badu’s Window Seat:

“they who play it safe are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. they move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another. they feel more comfortable in groups, less guilt to swallow. they are us. this is what we have become, afraid to respect the individual. A single person within their circumstance can move one to change; to love oneself; to evolve.” – Erykah Badu from “Window Seat”

Happy Monday people!

Today is going to be madd slowww. So to make your time go by faster at work, i’ve decided give you this blog to read.

This weekend was RIDICULOUSLY tiring, but overall it was extremely productive and a lot of fun.

First off, I just wanna give a big shoutout to my man Harjus Singh from Cincinnati, Ohio to drove all the way to D.C. to come do this video shoot for me. Much love to the brother and a HUGE Congratulations to him for getting his movie “Through the Ashes” accepted into the Cannes Film Festival in France. If you don’t know about the Cannes (pronounced Khan) Film Festival, it is probably the world’s oldest and most prestigious film festival. Movies like Pixar’s “UP”, “Inglorious Basterds” and directors like Tim Burton are just some of the BIGG names in the film industry that show up for Cannes. So for a Sikh man to have a movie accepted and being shown at this festival is a HUGE deal. I wish my mans Harjus the best of luck and congratulate him again on this tremendous accomplishment!

So with that being said, this weekend the both of us set out to make a music video for “Window Seat” (Eykah Badu remix), which is going to be set as the 3rd or 4th single to be released from The Battle Drums mixtape.

Headed out to Georgetown in D.C., on saturday morning, and realized we don’t have a boombox. We had nothing to playback the music so we couldn’t shoot anything.  So then we spent the next 2 hours in a city filled with the most complex and high end retail stores, and not a damn place still carries a BoomBox. I miss the 90’s, when people would just carry Boomboxes with them as they walked the street. Needless to say, I have a new appreciation for Boomboxes.

3 Hours behind schedule. We finally began the shoot on the beautiful Georgetown University’s Campus and its surrounding areas. Then we shot some scenes near Howard University’s campus and finally we shot some scenes at the Famous Ben’s Chilli Bowl (this was REALLY dope). After a 12 hr work day, we called it a night, and went back to DC again on Sunday.

Sunday Morning, the weather was kinda awful. But with God’s grace and my “Rain Dance”, the weather was finally nice enough for us to shoot.

Also I wanna give a BIG shoutout to Jassimran Singh from D.C. Gatka Dal for helping us out throughout the day on saturday, and a Big shoutout to Mandeep”icanteatmuchcauseimvegan” Kaur for playing a special role in the film along with “Gupt ‘Shopper’ Singh” Shout out to all of them for helping out with the project.

(to be continued)

Whatsss Goood my peoplees? (all 50 of you that actually take the time to read this) This is the first blog in “The Battle Drums” blog series. I’ll be using this space to update you all on the progress of the mixtape, the ideas that I have, and all that other exciting stuff.

As of the now i’m real excited, cause past weekend we OFFICIALLY started working on the mixtape, which is titled “The Battle Drums” and HOPEFULLY i’ll be able to release it by the end of the summer, so like around August maybe?

My most favorite part of this mixtape is that I’m going with NO COLLABS. Absolutely no collaborations on this mixtape! I think a mixtape is a place for an artist to build credibility and prove themselves as artists, so I don’t really see the point in getting other people to rap or sing on your tape when the whole point was to build your own credibility. So for this mixtape, Nothing but SaintSoulja for your ears. Also, this time I’ll mainly only be using industry instrumentals as compared to using original productions.

So far, we’ve recorded the following 5 tracks for the tape:

- I’m Beamin (Lupe Fiasco remix)

- Top of the World (Ace Hood remix)

- Wack MCs (Slaughterhouse remix)

- Window Seat (Erykah Badu remix)

- Just Begun (Reflection Eternal remix)

I’m gonna try and just go through all the tracks and record as many as I can, then go back and edit and re-do whatever needs to be re-done. Once everything is cleaned up, we mix n master and finish! (sounds simple, but these things take ALOT of time and effort)

I’ll also try and do some video blogs for you guys as well, take you inside the ghetto basement studio, show you some production magic, and of course give you some snippets of the kind of music we’re working on.

I’ll be back with a new blog next week after we’re done with a video shoot this weekend.

- Peace cause we need it.

p.s. enjoy this weedieo of the collab performance from Lahir (NY) 2009. featuring G.N.E, MC G-Singh, Hoodini and Humble the Poet

There must be at least 6 inches of snow outside my door right now. Which I def. can’t be mad at, cause I’d rather spend the entire day chillin at home than spending another 10 hours at work like i was supposed to today. Any who, I figured now is probably a good time to blog since I know I don’t get this sort of time during the week. If you didn’t already know, your boy SaintSoulja works at a small CPA firm which means I have no life from Jan 15 – April 15th.

But this blog isn’t about my resume. It’s about a t-shirt. And not just any shirt. But THE shirt. Let’s just take a minute to squash some of the common misconceptions and clear the air a little bit.

I think the most common question and response that we’ve gotten from the t-shirt is “whats’s wrong with bollywood?” I think people are under the impression that just cause someone says “Death to Bollywood” its means that they are on a rampage to boycott ALL of bollywood and their lifegoal is put the industry out of business.

Not the case in this situation. The primary goal of the t-shirt was simple: to provoke discussion. It leads people to say “hey, whats with the shirt?” Well, our goal isn’t to start a hate group against Bollywood or to assassinate its directors. Our goal is to educate our community about the strategies and techniques politicians use to manipulate a community’s image. More importantly our people need to be far more conscious about how we are portrayed in the mainstream media and what are its direct affects on us. There are plenty of Bollywood movies I like, in fact I saw “3 Idiots” today and was pretty much in love with the movie (I also like some of the other Aamir Khan movies, i think hes amazing at what he does).

But long story short, the point is, be more aware of what takes place in mainstream media. They might be making movies like “Sinngh is Kinng” and “Rocket Singh” to make us feel good about ourselves (not my opinion just a general consensus) but at the same time there 2 other movies in production that are glorifying murderers like Indira Gandhi and K.P.S Gill. (links are below)

BTW, we also have some dirt on Amitabh Bachan. Read below

http://www.sikhsforjustice.org/?q=content/amitabh-bachchan

So if theres anything that you want to take away from this post, or from the shirt its this: Be more conscious about what you watch, be aware of how mainstream media portrays your community, how those portrayals directly affect you and your community, and learn that sometimes its ok to say “no, thats not acceptable”. Our forefathers taught us never to turn the other cheek so lets try to follow in their footsteps to the best of our ability.

http://www.bigoye.com/news/Sanjay-Dutt-to-play-KPS-Gill/118262

http://www.santabanta.com/cinema.asp?pid=28983

http://www.bollywoodhungama.com/news/2009/11/20/13501/index.html

P.S. I like what my good friend Humble the Poet had to say about the t-shirts. I thought it was funny.

“His DEATH TO BOLLYWOOD Tees have dented the bootleg Hindi film industry to a point that they can only produce 18 000 movies this upcoming year (41% drop from 2009).”

Until Next Time.

- SaintSoulja