Tuesday 15 June 2010

Brief story of "Emancipation EP"

I'm working on the follow-up to my album "Emancipation EP", so let me tell you the story behind the first one. Each song on the album has it's own story and started to live its own life long time ago. The concept for the album came when I was released from Yarl's Wood detention center where I was locked up for two months by mistake and then I won my case. I came out in January 2008 and I wrote a blog somewhere on Myspace, the words just came to me as a poem, I wrote about the feeling I had, I could smell freedom and it was all so unreal. My friend Nathan who knew how I was getting by used to say all the time "You should release a Yarl's Wood album, I'll be the first to buy it!". So I put those words on music and called that song "Nothing Like My Freedom". I got acquainted with Marc of the Infirmary through Myspace and he later came to record his part on the track. The other song "Emancipation" came to me first as a beat, I made it in January 2009 and put the lyrics down a couple of months later and it was my first ever song released on iTunes in July 2009. "Please Forgive Dem Lord" was originally written after my bass guitarist was beaten up by 35 neo nazis prior to our scheduled performance on Bob Marley Festival in Moscow in 2006. I changed it at least three times, made three beats and eventually it was included into this album. The video was made by Bumble Bee Productions in 2008 and it can be viewed here:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iC0iY_v366o
(I uploaded it twice on Youtube)

The lyrics for "The Price of the Beauty" was written on a small piece of paper somewhere in Charing Cross after I found out about my unplanned pregnancy in autumn 2007, then I came home and made the beat within a couple of hours in the middle of the night.

Music and words for "Sad" came to me simultaniously in summer 2009 and it was a result of long talks with my close friend about fame and the price some people have to pay for it. I did picture some real people while writing this song.

I met Rephlex while shooting a test video for "Emancipation" with Black Jack in summer 2009, Rephlex just happened to be shooting his video at the same time somewhere near Canary Wharf. He later expressed that he liked the beat to the song when he heard it on Myspace and would like to spit on it. So I invited him to my studio and he recorded the lyrics to "Emancipation Remix".

Oxxxymiron came to my studio to record "Yeti & Deti" for Hip Hop battle in Russia, we were so happy about the work that day that he ended up recording the "Skit" to the beat I made before that. It is truely freestyled and expressed in his words on the track.

"Losinourselves" was originally written when I was in the middle of the circle of working really hard, drinking a lot, sleeping much less and partying like crazy, getting used to life in London after I moved here. It was before I had my daughter of course, since I had her I’m a good girl now :)

BUY album:









1 comment:

  1. Dear Jahna,
    there ius a price to pay for everything, you know. I am very impressed about how many things you learned and experienced in your life despite you being a very young woman right now. I can see the words naturally flowing when you write your though, when you mean things, when you tell your life. I can see the strenght and the power of your writing that sound genuine and inspiring. It is as strong as life itself. Experience forged your temper and made you strong and safe. You're safe though because you know, because you've seen and went through unjustice and knowing you was innocent. It may be very hard to overcome such a distressful time I know. See the other side of the medal and bear with what you actually gained from the whole awfulness of being innocent and wrongly prosecuted and rise as stronghold for all the innocent mistakenly oppressed and humiliated by the fooliness of a few insane rulers.
    Sincerely,
    F. Carta

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