Go-Go / funk flavored old school rap with a positive message and a remarkable story.

1 MP3 Songs in this album (4:37) !
Related styles: Hip-Hop/Rap: Old-School Rap, Urban/R&B: Go-Go, Mood: Upbeat

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Details:
After over 29 years the "Wishcan William" odessy continues. This song was first recorded on April 2, 1982 when rap was in it's infancy and six months before Lil Wayne was born (September 27, 1982). This new track may be among the first to have a rapper on a track with his kids and GRANDKIDS!

Story Behind the Song

Way back in the year 1981 my first bandleader, Wesley Ford, and I were sitting around talking about the late 60's when we were out gigging around Washington, DC. I was a teenager. The group, The DC Playboys, had long since disbanded by that time and we hadn't seen each other in a good while. Rap music was just beginning to catch on and somehow the conversation shifted to how a lot of negative influences were starting to creep into the lyrics of the songs. Wesley knew I liked to write so he suggested that I should write something positive. Having already introduced me to what he called the " I AM " philosophy, which has to do with the power of positive thinking among other things, Wesley encouraged me to use it as the theme for a rap song. That's how the whole thing started.

Little did I suspect at the time, all the changes I would go through to arrive at the present incarnation of this work in progress. My own kids, who were 6 and 11 at the time, are among the voices in the background. They are 36 and 40 today, and we all get a big laugh out of listening to the track. Also my dear friend, the late Tyrone Anderson Sr. with his friend Judy Seeger gathered up her kids, nieces and nephews and they all ate peanut butter sandwiches in the back of my van on the way to Bias Studios in Springfield, VA. Douglas Graham (aka Mr.D) put up his hard earned money for us to record.

Six years later in February of 1988, I went back in the studio (Omega Studios /Kensington, MD) with James Adams and Forrest Palimery who were among the kids on the original recording. We made another demo with them doing the lead rap instead of me. They were about 4 or 5 years old at the original session and 10 and 11 when we did the second recording session. Remember on this one, they are rapping to their own background, recorded six years earlier! Today, of course, they are grown men with kids of their own most likely. Maybe when I catch up with them their kids can be overdubbed as well.

Nineteen years later, I decided to update the beat and musical background. First I went back to the studio with the old master tape, frazzled edges and all, and dubbed the kids voices off the multi-track and onto a CD by themselves. CD's werenât even around when we first started this project. Next, thanks to todayâs state of the art technology, I was able to add the old voices to the new track and sync the rhythm by using my son's home Pro-Tools setup. For those that donât know , Pro-Tools is a computer based recording system that has editing capabilities that would have been impossible with the analog tape we started out with.

Now comes the amazing part!!!â¦.. I was then able to overdub my five grandchildren so that now they are on the same track with their parents when their parents were children. Actually my first grandson, Aloysha, is older than his father was when we first recorded over 29 years ago. So there you have it, three generations on the same track and who knows maybe more will be added in the future. Alexander, my fifth grand and most recent overdub-ee, was born a few days past the twenty-seventh anniversary of the original track and has upstaged the whole lot of us with his spirited performance in the first few bars.

Now, does this song have a story or what ? !!!

Credits :

Douglas Graham (Mr. 'D') / executive producer, original release (1983)

Children's voices:
James Adams (Man), Wayne Seegers (Fatty), James Seegers, Forrest Palimery, Donna Palimery, Vanessa King, Pam Diggs, Nicquel Ross (Nikki), Lincoln Ross IV

(plus recently added grandkids)
Lincoln Aloysha Ross, Alyssa Sally Ross, Zion Xavier Wynn, and Jayr Barack Wynn, Alexander Evan Ross

Lincoln Ross III (aka âgrandpaâ) / very old school rapper