DASHIEK - Urban Renaissance

URBAN RENAISSANCE

To me, this album is an aural portrait of my experiences as an individual and an artist. The title, Urban Renaissance, acknowledges the notion that there are polished, gifted individuals within the urban community that maximize the potential in their given field. This is a topic we can cover more in our DISCUSSION FORUM, so for now I'll leave that right there.

FEATURED TRACK - WHY CAN’T WE

Now this is just a good old-fashioned love song. I opted against going crunk on this tune to just let the song breathe. I’m not much for retro because I don’t believe we have to live in the past to find quality, there should always be forward progress balanced with a respect for history. But some things can’t be done enough, and here we have vocals, piano, and finger-snap soul! Myself, Richard Bonds, Brandon Crenshaw, Nosa Eke and Julian Morgan all lent our fingers to enrich the fullness of the ever-important snaps. While it is a straightforward tune with doo-wap harmonies in the bridge, the underlying goal in this song was for me to see how many different ways I could play a I-IV-ii-V progression (“Tracks of my Tears,” “Let it Be,” etc).
So many times in college I would hear my music professors say, “I prefer classical music because pop music doesn’t go anywhere harmonically, it does the same thing over and over.” I often wonder why is it then that they could enjoy a ground bass like Henry Purcell’s “When I Am Laid In Earth” (first performed in 1689), or any chaconne, passacaglia, or theme & variations form? If it’s good enough for Bach, Busoni, Beethoven, and Copland . . . anyway, back to the point. This song starts out simple enough, but by the end the piano is playing scales and adding expanded harmonies to the progression, I definitely had fun styling this one because there are no gadgets and whistles to help out the production, only musical experience.