Today was an AMAZING writing day for me. It was just one of those days where I felt hella inspired, and got into a flow state super easily. I felt so good after brainstorming and writing up 2 new short film ideas.
I literally only got the chance to write for so long today because my seminar on Zadie Smith’s NW was cancelled in the morning. I have my Uni email notifications turned off, so I only found out the seminar got cancelled when I walked into the empty classroom lmao.
So I got the opportunity to chill (literally, my toes were fucking freezing even through my timbs) in Russell Square for the 2 hours I would have been in the classroom.
Getting inspired as a writer/creative
I clocked that a lot of the ideas or themes that I’ve wanted to flesh out, or write about in the past have recently surfaced up again in a slightly different, mutated form.
As a creative, you can get inspired in different ways, sometimes it just might be a random person you talked to that inspires a whole new perspective on an idea that’s been quietly bubbling away in your subconscious.
This is why I think that living your life is really important – like not just existing but making sure that you’re really present, and taking everything in.
Lately, I’ve been listening to a lot less music and audiobooks when I’m walking about Central – I just want to be present in the moment to observe shit around me, and also to give my brain space to process all this information.
Being more open like this, I’ve found it a lot easier to write. It might be that because I’m looking for inspiration, I’m finding more inspiration.
Try-lingual Raps
Riding out the wave of inspiration and focus I had in that 2 hour session in Russell Square, I wrote some bars for my next song. It’s going to be a tune where I’m trading bars with my little brother.
Recently I’ve found a more solid identity for myself as an artist, and I’ve been trying to incorporate Cantonese and Spanish into my lyrics, like Mach-Hommy, and Your Old Droog do with Haitian Creole and Russian respectively.
Try is the key word, as my Spanish and Canto are nowhere near fluent, I’m conversational in both, my Spanish is better than my Canto (I only started properly dedicating time to learning Canto last year).
Writing rap lyrics in a different language actually helps the language learning process so much, it helps cement your understanding of vocabulary, because you gotta really understand the nuances to make sure you’re saying what you wanna say, and also it helps you remember it, as you repeat and practice the lines.
Here’s a lil 8 bar snippet of the tune:
Cyun4 bou6 Go2 Di1 rappers seng4 jat6 gik1 Sei2 (all those rappers are always fucking annoying)
jan4, mou5 mat1 mei, m4 soeng2 sik6, bei2 (there's no flavour, don't wanna eat)
Faan1, Full of hot air, zing6 hai6 jit6 hei3 (give it back, only hot air)
Lyrics hou5 sai1 lei6, keoi5 dei3 wui5 cit3 nei5 (lyrics are sick, they'll cut you)
Corleone w my bros, what I might do
Is make the hit, if you afraid, oh - the mic'll
Kill em quick, Esto lo que pasa con el chino (this is what happens with the Chinese)
Godfather to the game like Al Pacino
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