All in the Cover

I used to spend a good bit of my free time scouring the allhiphop.com message boards. Years later, the reason as to why I went there in the first place and why I stopped going escapes me. 

On the boards, a member has the option to have an avatar under their name. This wasn’t a blue person from a foreign planet; it was a little square icon that could be of anything. Most users had either their favorite rapper doing this, that or the other thing or some naked chick doing, well, I'll let you marinate on that for a minute.

But one dude had an icon of a drawing of an LSBD surrounded by something blue looking up to the sky. I was immediately drawn to this unknown dude basking in the light and warmth of the sun.

It turns out this wasn’t just some illustration; it was an album cover. “Below The Heavens” appeared to be the name, by some fellas named Blu & Exile. I hadn’t recognized Exile by name, but it turns out I was familiar with his work as the producer for Emanon, though I didn’t realize this until years later when a friend  broke the news to me. As for Blu? I had no idea who in the hell this cat was.

The minimal chatter there was on the forums about that album was that it was supposed to be sick. It was supposed to come out in the summer of 2007. Even though I thought I hadn’t heard of neither Blu nor Exile, I was intrigued by the cover. It was an album I decided I should get.

Summer came in 2007, and I set out to my local Rasputin on Bascom Avenue in the 408 to go cop. Only problem- the mob-figga wasn’t in stock. I was frustrated, but not all that disappointed. After all, I hadn’t heard these dudes together, and I had no idea what kind of MC Blu could be. I simply shrugged my shoulders, telling myself I’d get the album eventually.

For months, that album cover would remain in the back of my mind. I put it down on my Christmas list for my parents to scoop up for me on December 25^th, but no dice. With the busy-ness of my winter and spring quarters of junior year in college coming up, the thought of the album started to slip.

Then the following summer started to come to a close. The thought of school always brings up a bunch of anxieties and last-minute things to do that I want to cross off the old checklist…and that’s when Blu’s sketched face, basking in the shine of the light from above- eyes up, content smile on his mug- moved to the forefront of my thoughts. Unable to obtain a hard copy, I went for the next-best option and nabbed it off iTunes.

I usually listen to music in the background while I’m handling other business, and the first listen to “Below the Heavens” started out as no exception. I pressed the right arrow in iTunes on the first track listed and went on surfing the net. 

For some reason I would not know until four years later (it turns out iTunes listed them in alphabetical order), the title track of the album “Below The Heavens, Pt. 1” came on first, even though it was the second to last cut on the album.

The horns sounded, and I was rapt. Nothing like some good horns to get a song going. Then the hook- 

Whose world is this? (Yeaaaaaaa-ah-eeeee-ah!)

Ok, I’m listening. Then the bars pour down.

I’m tryin’ to get to this place that my grandpa told me ‘bout as a child/ Told me only few can make it and the faithless ain’t allowed/ Be a star out your gang & aim above the clouds/ And if you miss, you at least be amongst your own crowd

Oh damn, this dude’s going where few dare.

My people it’s time to rise/ Realize it’s a heaven whether you think it’s inside or in the sky/ Reach for it, before it’s gone internally/ And you’re stuck here below the heavens for eternity

I could only smile. I am a man who believes in God and prays to God on a daily basis, yet I really don’t care for religious music at all. It’s hard for me to bump a song about God because it’s hard to do it right. But here Blu was, on his first attempt (at least to my ears), knocking a song about God out of the park. He had towed the line between preaching and keeping it 100 beautifully. But that’s just one song- could he keep it going?

Soon enough, it was time for me to get back to school for my senior year of college, which started out very rocky. Forget the actual school part, which, with being in an English class as a non-English major, I just couldn’t compete with the other minds in the room; my new bosses at work and I just couldn’t see eye to eye on anything, and I was getting worn out with my job…and I had a whole two quarters ahead of doing it. That’s when I started really listening to one of the next tracks alphabetically- “Dancing in the Rain”.

My boss is trippin cause I’m running late and ain’t no excuse/ when I’m bout to be 22 without a whip I could swoop/ fell like I’m finna shoot my own dome with chrome to escape/ Zonin out cause workin workin out ain’t worth what I make

Preach, Blu, preach! I would play this song each Monday night on my walk over to that English class I stood not much of a chance in, right after having put in a six-hour workday, with potentially more to do later that night after class. This dude was SPEAKING to me, and I was bobbin’ my head like BlakJak the whole time.

I made it through that year and got my degree. Time to celebrate- rolled out to Paris and Barcelona with my boys. We had this amazing three-bedroom apartment right by the beautiful beach in Barcelona. It was too good to be true.

On one walk to the beach, I just had to put on my headphones and smile to the chorus of “Show Me the Good Life”. Italicizing the lyrics of the hook won’t do it justice- the singing is literally off the hook. That male voice that comes in through to politely plead “Show me!” never ceases to get me to sing along. And that beat! I’ve never heard something so heavenly- oh wait, I had- it was the first track I heard on this album. But beat-wise, “Good Life” had “Below the Heavens” beat. I couldn’t even pay attention to the lyrics the production was so on-point. Strolling to a beach in Barcelona with this song playin’ on the iPod? Sheeee-yut, life was good.

I returned home and things were starting to click for me in one area of life that they almost never do- the ladies. Anyone who knows anything about me knows that I don’t put in a lot of work, nor really try to for a myriad of reasons that are better suited for its own article. But anyways, I was JONESIN’ for this one in particular, and I thought I was about to really get it in with her (and when I say “get it in”, I don’t mean literally; as Devin the Dude would say jokingly- come on girl, that ain’t how I handle ‘em; I mind my manners, except I’m a little more literal than a dude who tries to convince a chick his junk would go well with her broccoli and cheese).

One day, it just so happened that “First Things First” randomly played on my iPod on my drive home from work. The chorus played and again, I couldn’t do anything but grin. Before I even heard the words to Blu’s verse, I knew he was going to espouse my thoughts as if he was reading my mind. He didn’t disappoint.

I can either start off like ‘scuse me miss’, but shit that’s too old school/And I can flow to you but that’s too cliché/Plus I don’t bust to bust nuts, I bust over beat breaks…I can act conscious, but if we talk politics/You’ll notice that I’m out of the loop, cuz I don’t follow it…Darling you a doll, don’t confuse it with sexual/But don’t think I don’t think of having sex with you.

As sports broadcaster Gus Johnson loves to say after someone hits a big shot in a basketball game, ha-hah! This Blu fella might as well be my PR rep. I was VIBIN’ with this cat, and with this song as my soundtrack, I was 100 percent certain I was about to have a girl in my life.

Turns out that didn’t happen, for reasons that should probably also be reserved for another article that will never be written. I was disappointed and frustrated, to say the least, leaving me to think where in the hell I went wrong. I had struck out with a check swing at a pitch in the strike zone yet again. This whole ineptitude at having any sort of intimacy with a female was starting to piss me off.

I needed a pick-me-up. “Show Me the Good Life” seemed like a reasonable place to turn to, with its upbeat production and blissful chorus. But when Blu’s first verse dropped this time around, I actually listened. This wasn’t no Kanye and T-Pain kind of good life…hell nah.

I got a call from my girl last week/ She telling me about that time of the month, and how it may not come/ Dropped the phone right before she said I might have a son/ And I started asking God how come/ I got dreams I ain’t reached yet- ends that ain’t meet yet/ When it comes to being a man, shit I’m barely getting my feet wet/ Trying to hit reset, knee deep in debt/ Trying to figure out how to feed a mouth that ain’t got teeth yet

Blu was lettin’ the truth be told like Z-Ro’s ninth solo album. That whole verse is amazing. So is Aloe Blacc’s 24 bars in the second stanza. Another home run. The song wasn’t the reason I got through the disappointment of missing out on old girl, but it sure as hell helped to have this rockin’ on my Boses when I was going through it.

There are a lot of songs and artists I love, but there are very few MC’s who I can honestly say have really spoken to me throughout the duration of an album- and on my first listen to him, Blu did. I was pretty much the same age listening to his spits as he was at the time he recorded them, and he was pondering the same ish I was. 

Along with “The Narrow Path”, there are five classics on this album, the other four mentioned already, and no throwaway tracks. Hell, even “Juice n’ Dranks”, which I thought had no place on the album, started to make more sense to me on a fifth and sixth listen.

Three years after initially hearing it, “Below the Heavens” is my favorite album of all time. No artist has captured my frame of mind so wonderfully, and no producer has brought out the best in his MC quite like that for a tandem that wasn’t a full-time hip-hop group. Simply put, there wasn’t an album better-suited for me as a 22 year-old male.

Individually, I don’t even like either Blu or Exile all that much. They’re cool, but as “4TRK Mind” evidenced, they aren’t anybody I would check for and cop without hearing the album first. But together, these two are geniuses, or at least they were for that first album. They are about to release a second album in September (although the whole album was released as a stream last year anyways; I still haven't checked for it) and while I WILL cop that unheard, I doubt it will be able to capture my soul quite like they did with their first effort.

It’s wild to think that my favorite album is by two dudes who I had never really peeped before and have rarely done so after, but since they had such a dope album cover, the door was open, and Blu & Exile rushed through it so amazin’, steel blazin’.