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This is a tale of beats, bonds, and brotherhood, all made possible by Okayplayer.
One I think is well worth sharing.
We all know I’m verbose, but I’ll do my best Reader’s Digest here.
We interacted here and there, but I hit him up in 2016 after learning he produced. It started off as just chatting about gear via inbox, but then we exchanged numbers and got to talking about beats, gear, producers, basketball, life.
Over the years, those conversations became increasingly personal. The constant between us was our music, and at one point we came up with an idea for a group: Empire Saints.
He’s from St Louis, I’m from the Inland Empire region of So Cal. He held up his end, taking a few tracks of mine and elevated the everloving shit out of them. I didn’t hold up my end, because, frankly, I was going through some shit. Shocker, I know.
My head wasn’t in it, and I figured ES was dead in all but name. .
I shared a LOT with AB during this time. He got a lot of the sordid details of whatever was going on, and got an intimate insight into my mental state, so he knows how hard that period was better than most of my inner circle here at home.
About a year ago, I got much more serious about the music again. Last fall, I got serious about my mental health, and even more serious about the music.
And you know what AB did?
This man went and made a whole ass instrumental album dedicated to the growth he saw in me. He was inspired by those changes. Not only did he make the album, he included our ES joints, and made it a concept album that chronicled that growth:
Empire Saints: The Reign Of Greyson
I’m usually the one who makes grand gestures like this for people. So this gesture, from this man, completely blew me away. I was touched when he sent me one of the tracks and told me he was working on something for me. But when I got the finished product and heard the opening track? Damn near in tears. Because the time, energy, effort, and love he put into this was so apparent and abundant.
Who does that?
My brother, that’s who. And that’s who he is: my brother.
But this isn’t just about bigging up the man.
This is about bigging up the artist that is Arugin Boi, AKA Mr Whittaker.
And after some internal debate, I decided to share this beautiful work of art with OKP, with his blessing, of course.
I suppose it can be argued that this is, at it’s core, a “check out some beatz” post. But I think it’s more than that, I truly hope you give it a listen, because I do think it’s a quality collection of music.
Start with track one, “Nightfall”, which is not only a collaboration between the two of us, but it tells the basic story of how we came together as Empire Saints. But I do hope you listen to the rest 
My personal favorites are “Night Traffic”, “Low Eyez”, “Clear Eyes, Grey Skiez”, "drip walking", among others. The other collaborations between us are “Reign”, “Night Terrors” and “Light Venom”.
Not much of a reader’s digest I guess, lol.
But to all who read and listened, thank you.
And please give AB his props!
You can listen here: https://soundcloud.com/empiresaints23 -Sig-
“Why didn’t you do this in your own god damn country?"
-All Stah's view on undocumented immigrants wanting to be treated like human beings.
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