Welcome To The Presentation Remastered

Well I can’t believe it’s been five years since my most successful song blew up here in the B/CS. In honor of the occasion I decided to give the track a much needed overhaul. Back when I recorded the original I was using old software, a different beat making approach and I had a different delivery in my voice (which I can’t remember why I was doing that). With all that being the case, I’ve wanted to give the song a makeover for a while now. I have remixed the beat, re-recorded the vocals and remastered the track. Download the FREE mp3 on the Free Music Archive page here on the site, or buy it in any of the digital music stores (iTunes, Amazon, Google Play, etc.) if you want to help support the cost of making music. This song will also be on the upcoming “greatest hits” project I’m putting together.

I hope you enjoy this version even more than the original!
-Hush

Music Video – Fall To The Ground

This music video was shot in the beautiful area known as West Texas. I was visiting my relatives in Midland and thought while I was over there I could break off and shoot a music video using a fresh location I’ve never used. The wind farms out there are really cool. I knew I wanted to incorporate those. I also wanted to make a video that kept me hidden in plain sight. I don’t like how I look in general and I always hate when my music videos are mostly shots of my ugly mug rapping at the camera. In this video I was able to turn myself into a silhouette and let the landscape take the focus.

I was pretty pissed when I drove out to get my sunset shots at the wind farm in Stanton, TX and NOT ONE SINGLE TURBINE WAS SPINNING. I couldn’t believe the bad luck. There wasn’t so much as one gust of wind that night. I still got the shot, but it was as I was driving home that I noticed a nearby pumpjack and decided to grab one more shot of me rapping next to that. It turned out to be an absolutely perfect fit for the song. What goes up must fall to the ground. Not only do you have the visual of the jack going up and down, but in a time when the oil industry is hurting it represents that message in a real world example as well. Big thanks to my cousin Josh for helping me get the shots of me at the house that’s for sale and driving my truck. We basically drove around Midland trying to find something we could use that would make sense in the video and came across that house. The other road and landscape shots were ones I got while making the long drive home on my birthday. If you ever get a chance to drive the roads out around Rankin, TX you won’t be disappointed.

The song itself is about my habit of not getting excited about great things because I feel like I’ll jinx them if it’s going too well. I hate that I look at good moments that way, but I just can’t help but be suspicious. The other part of that is just the sadness that comes with knowing nothing lasts forever and anytime you’re on a high you need to be prepared for the moment you start your descent.

But to avoid ending this on a depressing note, I want y’all to remember the fact that I was standing alone out in the middle of a wind farm rapping for a camera on a tripod to make this video. I hope y’all enjoy it!

Z-Ro – From The South (Acoustic Remix)

I’ve done a few of these remixes in the past. I can play guitar (basic strumming that is), so sometimes it’s fun to go the opposite direction with my favorite rap songs by making an acoustic/kinda-singing remix instead of rapping to it. I don’t pretend that this is high quality work, but I make it for the fun of making it and doing something different. Hope you get a kick out of it.

-Hush

  Z-Ro – From The South (Acoustic Remix)

Looking Out For Texas Is Here

My new album “Looking Out For Texas” is now available! Sorry for the delay in posting about this. I’m very happy with how the album turned out. The title came from two things:

  1. My desire to be a staple in Texas rap music and my overwhelming pride in being a native Texan.
  2. Frequent flights back from Oklahoma after visiting family, literally looking out for Texas as I cross the border

I thought this was a cool way to mix both a literal and figurative concept into one theme. I cover many subjects, Texas pride, cancer (and how much I hate it), ups and downs of life, the things money can do to people, my love for a naked lady and much more. Haha. I hope you’ll check it out and find something on there you like. Visit the Buy Albums page to get this new music and start jammin’!

Thanks,
Big Hush

LOFT-Promo

 

Perseverance: Not Just A Title

I wanted to write a post that explains the reasoning behind my recent album title, “Perseverance“. Some of y’all have been supporting me long enough to know what perseverance means to me, but others might not know just how long I’ve been chasing this rap dream. I apologize in advance for the length of this. I didn’t mean to write a full essay but it just rolled on out once I got going.

Waaaay back in 1999 I started getting into rap and discovered that I wanted to give it a shot. In the beginning I did a ton of awful freestyling using Microsoft Sound Recorder as my “studio software” (you can guess what the quality was like). In 2000 I began writing lyrics instead of rambling off the top of my dome. I never really decided to work on an actual album until 2001 when I was in 10th grade. I also had no idea what I would call myself (“Big Hush” didn’t show up until 2003). Because of the popularity of the Freestyle Kings at the time, I wanted to make an entire “screwed” album of me rapping over popular commercial beats. Since this was “screwed” (slowed down from normal playback speed) I decided to name it “Slower Paced” (I thought that was clever at the time, but today I realize it was more accurately a description of my writing abilities then). So this was the first real album of work I created and thus began my repeated attempts at making something that would appeal to the masses and see me rise to Texas Rap stardom. Here I am 12 years later still working on that.

I won’t go into detail on each album, but I decided to collect the numbers and see what my stats are like at this point. I’ve never paid attention to how much music I’ve created because as soon as I make something I’m immediately focused on what I want to make next. This is one obvious reason why I’m terrible at the marketing side of this game. Anyway, here are the numbers from my first album all the way to my most recent:

Slower Paced (2002) – 14 songs
Southern Knights (2002) – 9 songs
On My Way (2003) – 11 songs
Still Crawlin’ (2003) – 13 songs
Two Word Title (2003) – 10 songs
Easy Come, Easy Go (2004) – 12 songs
Texas 6 (2004) – 17 songs
Texas Reg (2005) – 14 songs
All On The Surface (2005) – 14 songs
Texas Reg 2nd Edition (2006) – 11 songs
Handwritten (2006) – 15 songs
Livin’ Room Flow (2006) – 15 songs
Str8 From Bryan Tx (2007) – 19 songs
Daydreamin’ (2008) – 14 songs
One City at a Time (2009) – 17 songs
Music Over Money (2010) – 25 songs
Always The Quiet Ones (2011) – 16 songs
Can’t You Tell I Rap? (2012) – 16 songs
Perseverance (2013) – 14 songs

Random tracks with no album – 22 songs

Total Song Count: 298
Total Solo Song Count: 249
Total Count That Will Never Be Made Public Again: 114
Total Solo Count Available To The Public: 158

FYI: Four of the albums above were ones I did with other artists. This list doesn’t include three freestyle albums that were recorded or any collaboration/single verse tracks I’ve made.

All-in-all I have 249 solo songs that I have written and recorded in the past 12 years. A typical song for me has three verses at 16 bars (or 8 rhymes) each, which would put me at around 12,000 bars of lyrics written (not counting hooks). Unfortunately, roughly 114 of those songs will never be let out to the public ever again for two reasons: 1) Until I wised up and began writing songs that were true to me and how I really spoke, I was only emulating the rappers I had been listening to. I was using slang that I didn’t even know the meaning of, talking about lavish things I’d only have if I was a millionaire (also called “fantasy flow”), and I was extremely vulgar compared to my music today. Granted I’m RARELY offended by anything, and I cuss like a sailor in the company of my friends, but as far as how I wanted to represent myself in my music, and to the listening world, I felt embarrassed about the things I had been writing. 2) The technical side of recording my music has always been a trial-and-error process of me (with no professional training) trying to figure out how it’s done and what’s supposed to be used in doing it. This means that with every album the sound has gotten progressively better and easier to listen to. My first 6 or 7 albums have so many audible flaws in the levels, mix, back-up vocals, splicing, etc, that they’re honestly hard to listen to without cringing at times. Even some of the stuff I have available right now I know I could’ve done better. Every new song is a learning experience to some degree. But this is the substance behind “Homemade Hit Productions” and why that name is something I will always be proud of. I love the fact that what I do has always been done from my little bedroom or apartments and I’m just like all of you, except I make music.

Now with ALL of this said… With ALL of those songs that I’ve made and ALL of these years I’ve poured into this music, I want you to guess how many times I’ve had mass appeal/success… The answer is once. In 2011 I wrote a song called “Welcome to the Presentation” that was a tribute to everything I love about Bryan/College Station, the place I’ve called home for 22 years of my 28 year life. The funny thing is that I’ve made this same song so many times before this particular one, but all that matters is doing it in the right place and the right time. I was extremely fortunate to have the local top 40 station, Candy 95, get a hold of it and blast it to the B/CS population. Along with that came a news story on KBTX and almost 30,000 views on YouTube which for me might as well be two million. It was by far the greatest moment I’ve had with my music to date. The best part is that I didn’t conform to any trends or do anything other than just make a song that was true to me.

After that happened everything calmed back down. I’ve put out two more albums since then and I’m back to trying to find what will click for mass appeal while making something that I love. I’m no idiot. I know that if I would just stop making music the way I do and mold myself to fit what’s popular then I could have a much easier time finding success. But as any artist will tell you, staying true to yourself is more important than anything. Some artists choose to compromise that because they simply want success and don’t care how they get it. I would rather find success in my own time and be able to look back with a full chest of pride on how I got there. I might be the polar opposite of every rapper you’ve listened to, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have a fan base out there waiting for us to connect. My 15 minutes of local fame with “Welcome to the Presentation” proved to me that I can make something the way I want to and have it appeal to a large audience.

My latest album is called “Perseverance” to represent everything you just read, what I’ve gone through up to this point, and what I’ll go through in the future. It represents the haters, the doubt, the fans, the support, the talent show, the radio play, the TV interviews, the live performances in four different cities, the countless hours of perfecting mixes/making beats/writing verses/shooting videos/building websites/creating artwork, the paychecks & tax returns that disappeared in order to buy new equipment/press up CDs/print t-shirts, the social events and time with friends & family sacrificed for the sake of making more music, the confidence, the depression, the excitement, and the disappointment. Above all of this though, above anything else that I’ve put into this, it represents the fact that I started chasing a dream and I won’t stop until I catch it. I have been here and will stay here for as long as it takes to achieve success as I see it playing out. I will knock down every wall and dodge every obstacle to see that my perseverance pays off and this music I love to make is shared with everyone that loves to listen. I want you to be there to celebrate with me when it happens. Without you behind me there would be no point in moving forward.

Here’s to another 12 years,
Big Hush

Live Performance at Jet Lounge in Houston

On Sunday, March 11, 2012 I had the opportunity to perform at the Jet Lounge in Houston, TX. Big thanks to King Dirty Talk for hitting me up to be in the lineup. Never thought when I did that collabo verse for him via youtube/email that I’d end up performing in a show with him in H-Town. The turnout was less than expected but we still had a great time.

I had a 25 minute set which included Boss Taylor and SHELLZ so we broke it down nice and proper. The vibe was great and the energy was high so regardless of the small audience we performed like it was an arena show. Check out the video below for a recap. If you weren’t at this show then please get yourself out to the next one!

Stay in Chillmode,
Big Hush

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