I started working on Trials + Truths in January of 2016. Before that I was in college, did 3 semesters then decided to try to do something I really wanted to do, and not do something that was feeling temporary
Through that I came up with this theme for the project, duality, and I landed on the title Trials + Truths pretty early on which means life tests, life results, or answers. You can think of "trial and error" like running a test, and truth being an answer on a scantron
My mother's on there and represents the life tests part, and I'm on there as the results. So when you hear "we want the truth" or "tell me something good" and any other "truths" references, I'm saying tell me the result, not tell me a lie. All of my moms audio is actually taken from a 2 hour conversation we had. I just took some parts that fit the music made them work. The link between what she's saying and what I'm saying is a little more coded than that, but I'll leave that to be figured out by the listener
The titles of the songs actually gives more meaning behind the theme running throughout. Like Think, Grow, and Prosper all represent stages. So you have Think which is like the birth of a situation, Grow is what you learned from the situation, and Prosper is moving on and out of the situation
City of Angels was a title I thought of as being no matter what the situation is, no matter what someone tells you, even with clipped wings you can find your glory and your heaven. That's a hint to my mom's skit on Think
The person on the album cover actually isn't me. My homie Acquille shot the cover and he's in Georgia now so I wasn't able to be there when he shot it, but I've known him since High School and we used a stand in model and got some great images and that one just looked like the right representation. The face is scratched out not because it's not me, but because it can be anyone. Anyone can relate to this storyline, even though I'm speaking specifically to my own situation. The blue and grey is actually supposed to mean a canvas, and I say it on the project. "Put it all on display" and "the art was critiqued" so I wanted to do a play on that
Once I completed this project I got a sense of relief and like pure joy. One, I finally completed something, and two I got these ideas off of my chest and hearing the project now it sounds more reflective than sounding in the moment like it did when I first made these songs, but it just shows that it's a life project and not just some songs put together
I've been waiting for a while to make something that I felt was worth putting out. I couldn't be more satisfied with this being the first representation of what I can do, especially since I made all the beats, wrote all my lyrics, recorded mixed and mastered myself. Now that this one is done, it's on to the next one. Next project will be called (censored) and will be out (censored)