The first of this new beat tape series is "Weird City." This is not my first beat tape by a long shot, if you count all the ones released on Bandcamp, but this is my first official tape to come out on all streaming platforms.
This one is different from the other's in this series, in that it was made on Logic Pro, before I got the MPC that I made the rest of this series with. This tape was originally made for iLL Chemist, but I had the wrong idea and didn't know it yet, because these are dynamic arrangements, not traditional or buffet style (See the thread "What is a Beat Tape?"), so they are most suitable for how a filmmaker might flip through a tape to get an impression. So each beat is consistent and a filmmaker can get the gist in the first seconds of the overall mood, then click in to get more detail if that first impression suits the scene they are building. By contrast, an emcee wants to flip through to something that is rap-able almost right away, but then grows more hype when they practice rapping to it and each part for each beat gets more hype, usually. Then they can identfy what got them hype because it only happens once in that song, and they can make notes and let me know the final arrangment.
By contrast, Weird City is like a movie that is mine already. Rappers and emcees are not typically into telling someone else's story. If I really expected to have rappers on Weird City, I think I would have to invite them individualy with the challenge of expressing the scene that is being described in the song titles. More so than on any of my other tapes, maybe ever, Weird City has song titles that are intended to be very literal and cinematic. It starts at a basketball court where no one os playing basketball and instead a fight breaks out. Next is "Night Bike" where it is presumed that the central figure evaded the violence on bicycle. That takes them to the Bus Stop which takes them Around Back where things are chill and then inside the Pool Hall where things are not so chill. Some kind of bad stuff goes down at the Pool Hall and the central figure is left driving around a Downtown area and being acosted by authorities. After that you have "Zoo Locks" and Canoe Escape" which together form a sort of Shawshank Redemption or O, Brother Where Art Though sort of tense but comical prison break.
I told you this city was weird...