We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

(​(​(​echo chamber​)​)​)

by MC Paul Barman

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $10 USD  or more

     

1.
(((echo chamber))) Echo chamber. Let go danger. Steatopygia. They had no idea. I'm the nicest since Dionysius. The second well-paid, all of a sudden self-made. Rugged interdependence: lovers stand at the entrance, arms folded. Would it be blasphemy to ask you to shake that assphemy? Ayurvedic medicine, the flyer way to better skin. Five fingers divided cant even high five. Five fingers together can keep them all alive. But Mr. Fisticuffs didn't get dissed enough. We gotta listen to criticism-- a slap on the wrist isn't a bluff. There’s always room for humility. I got inhuman skills for you still to see. There's perfect settings all around. Tightropes pulled together make for solid ground. Double up on math and gym to graduate sooner. I wish someone had told me that before I was a Junior. OPEN MIKE EAGLE: They should call it L’apostrophe. It’s the capital of apple sauce and white wine. I saw a light shine. It was a beacon from the Keystone Pipeline. So then I got lost or maybe dropped off. It’s all a haze in the days since it popped off. My soul waves from the graves of the Choctaw. They always call. The old phase wanna run toward baseball. The new brains weren’t certain yesterday is gone cuz the time that we were slaves isn’t way off. I won’t play golf. I won’t pray to the sky and take days off. I wont wait to decide. I won’t sway to the side like my uncle that died of AIDS from putting needles in his veins raw. I like to hang around people with the same flaws in a roller coaster made out of chainsaws. Busta was right ‘cause everything remained raw. PAUL again Hey ya, got you all in check like a small insect. A veteran in rhetoric can pass a strange law. “Declined to indict” reminds me I’m “white.” Euphemism infuse a schism in truth and wisdom. “Decline to indict,” a new euphemism taken to filthy heights. Come Michael play in the milky night. How wrong can we say stuff and still be right? Like “organic evaporated cane juice.” Your brain boost is my main use. With each heartbeat repeated and fart meat excreted, I spark offense against the dark arts’ heat. Neat! Hindsight’s a divine right. So stay untrue to yourself and think your forethought through. Acknowledge we’re all brainwashed and you’re not you.
2.
YOUNGMAN speaks on (((race))) Race is a fake idea with real consequences. Don’t condescend like it’s somethin you’re on the fence with. How come blacks got blue black, redbone, brown, and high yella, and yet somehow there's only one type'a white fella? We should do shades of white based on crackers. Like, “Do you know my friend Jon the actor?” Who? “You met him last night! Glasses, skin tone Saltine, nah mean?” But we can't risk it to call ourselves Triscuit or Stoned Wheat. Once we cop to shades of white, then most lose their seat. White is the default, amirite? You always say light-skinned Black but never dark-skinned white. Remember when Irish were Black? Ha ha, that was rich. Even Jimi Hendrix was treated like ish by his label. He shot Electric Ladyland cover, they switched. While I hold heat like a pita with nary a hitch. “I'm not white I'm Italian” harkens to back when swarthy was almost as unworthy as Black men. Sorry hon, things change in a blink so your privilege exists now even if you'd rather not think so. Gringo ink flow, voice memo or Moleskin. Just cuz you’re repressed dont mean I should hold in. I’d rather admit I don’t do shit for the racewars than lie to myself bout my life, so face yours. I’m hood but my white skin works to my benefit and I should but I don’t fight for the end of it. Since everyone else is like me, I’m not at the side but at the center of it. Good thing my white tenants pay more rent in my tenement. Since Charleston and so on, all bets are off. Tiptoeing around hot buttons melts you cheddar soft. So scared to be wrong, you dont get across. Timbuktu wasn’t forgot in a day. We gotta start talkin or else rot and decay. Jews speak the language of both privilege and genocide, only recently invited to dress in their tennis whites. What y’all know about Ashkenaz vs Sephardic? Some say MLK was agnostic. Race is a lie. Keeps poor whites from getting a taste of the pie. Forget your feelings. Deal with real things. To heal stings.
3.
(((99.99999%))) For a perfect high five, keep your eye on the elbow. Whether bro hug or handshake I never can tell though. You had me at (((hello))). “Jinx, you owe me a cøke!” I said it first but my homie is broke. “No I said it first, jerk.” Chill, it’s only a joke. I trace today’s status back to the face tat. I asked for a lace pattern and got a placemat. Embrace the problem or it’s a race to the bottom. Grown man thinks he can own land. A bone hand emerges from the stone sand. Disturbed burial ground carry around spirits’ silence, a scarier sound. Update: guts to wait, cut bait? Stay put. Gray soot, take a pay cut. Each time I put my rhyme book away, I’m struck with another line hook to say. Fellas! If you invest in yourself and got a big breasted heifer blessed with good health dressed like the help, say OWWW. Ladies! If you understand a better world’s possible and wonder if man is the number one obstacle, say HOOOO. Animals! If you love global warming and pee on the ground until you see ovals forming, say MOOOOO. Drugs! If you’ll get me high just this one time and won’t have me out committing gun crime, say SOMETHING. Bugs! If you’re old school mesozoic, please go explain how you stayin so stoic, say BZZZZZ. Children! If you reject fake apologies and know it takes policy to save wrecked ecology, say YEAAH. Before you wake up, keep your eyes closed. You can control your dreams, fly over highs lows. Try prose. Even if you master rhymes, if you stick to what you’re good at, you won’t last through time. The person you like best don’t always make the best friend. When yes you question their loyalty, then spend less time with them. Before you lament the lack of corner office, remember you’re a former crawfish. By existing you’re accomplished. The 99.99999% is too big to fail. The game is rigged, throw the pigs in a jail. Please don’t call it a poetry jam or else Im’a have to go totally ham. The dude abides. A beautified smile despite feeling rude inside. The true face surfaces like a magic eightball’s. Word it’s us who controls our tragic fate, yalls. I swear to god, if everybody scared of oddity embraced death, they’d be spared the rod. Im’a ask today as if tomorrow I could pass away. Let me see see what my artist massive has to say: Get your dreams off life support Do some things to make your wife contort. I lov’em mean n tall and nice n short. I don’t believe people are humbled by victory. I believe people are humbled stumblin round liquor-free. 90% of showin up is slowin down. I been round New York town since everyone I knew had a 212 number that you didn’t have to dial, while you construct your brand with a hot glue gun. Here I come to pave the way! Til im a boss, must shave the gray. My favorite phrase: Don’t give up. I’ve seen a lot of stuff disappear and reappear. 40 years old on Earth but measure me in penis tears. So right-brained, I might frame light out of sequence here. Maybe if I balance it all out, it’lll seem more clear. If it’s all the same to you, then let’s look at it from the angel view. Im’a do what i came to do. What I say comes true. What do you know about pedestrian barriers? While you cry goodbye to equestrian carriers. The crossed heart is a lost art. Commit to your shit nitwit, give it a boss start. The psylocibin style o vibin. The elephant in the room is the gaping chasm. Shaking spasms. Scraping bottom. Only community can make things happen. We must ourselves be living documents. When the Constitution’s dying at the stake. There’s tickets to the arc and it’s icin on the cake. When we set sail, piers be crying at the wake. My got-up-and-went got a percent so my get-up-and-go sped up the flow. It’s a cryin shame. Enter the lion’s mane to the science game. Backwards labcoat like a smock. Grok: Fur trim. Heard him? True fact: From new jack to legend in less than a billion seconds.
4.
(((believe that))) DOOM “What the hell is the matter with you?” A response would be undignified for the wants of the dumb pig inside. I'd have to admit what I did. Instead I'll bounce, put on a wig and hide. The gig is up like a lawn chair tied to a hot air balloon on my way to nowhere but I got there too soon. Every day I'm dazed and confused that there's a million rappers yet I'm the one that comes with the phrase that's unused. I get a hit of dopamine for every broken dream, an openly mean coping scheme. Authorial distance from corporeal existence creates stories full of misprints. What's the difference if I pick this word or that word or the word picks me or if I'm half heard or if I channel challenges or walk around in bandages? I see you as a contemporary, one temptin carefree night of guns and hemp in rare breeds. Why do I wanna cry all the time? File this rhyme under “blunder.” I'm defiled by slime. Climb to the tiptop, rip shop with the best of em, wear bright colors, fight wonder that invades my work life. I'm always off-brand, soft sand, cough into my hand and then smell it. Uh-oh, I need a Tic-Tac! Kick back like a boss in a place I don't live at. I’m on one cuz I pull shit off like a condom and um i’m handsome. (((BELIEVE THAT))) “Girlfriend, your highlight is poppin.” I’ve got a childlike addiction to language not open for adoption. I like writing rhymes while I’m still bleary-eyed and let freshness be my cheery guide. This one nearly died when I opened my eyes. Whoever said “work hard, play hard” clearly lied. It’s a capitalist Puritan aesthetic. “Work well, play free” is much less dispeptic. My downstairs neighbors scream 24/7 and to stop wishing them death will take many more reverends. Plus they chainsmoke giving my family cancer and if I were a better father, we’d move to Jersey which I refuse to do. It’s not unusual to serve noodle stew to my picky eater three times per day. Freedom finds a way to decline and bray like a sheep. “Ba-aa-aah humbug,” work is play. Emergency! I got something urgent to say. Emerging media is never going away. Sea urchins spray you with saline like, “Yo what about us?” We’re like, “Sorry cow paddies are more important.” While we argue about abortion, we squander our fortune. Memory Man you’re not the boss of me yet you forcefully demand I come across on beats, particularly this one. You’re like, “It’s butter. I’m like, “It’s kinda repetitive.” Give into your fast styles, let it live. I got you open like to-interpretation. I’m impatient. If i just let it flow, is it what’d be called a based style? Meanwhile back at the ranch, I comb through a case file. Hmmm says here he’s been unseen ten years. Grenadine grenadiers, picks up dogs by dem ears. When they’re not screaming they’re smoking, I’m not dreaming or joking. My building is teaming with broken people and I’m scheming on leaving the whole thing. I know it’s a longshot but maybe we could own a bomb spot if this song’s hot OPEN MIKE EAGLE I write an American dumb star spangled verse and ride it to London where I can walk til my ankles hurt. I never came to Earth, I stayed on a broken ship, saying lines from Catcher of the Fade to the ocean fish. I keep my poker chips on my shelf in a studio. The name’s Jeffrey but I can tell them it’s Julio. They call him Sin Cara but I can tell that it’s Hunico who makes the bass that you can feel in your backside. If I was a wrestler, I’d make people tap from a backslide. If i was a preacher I’d use tap water to baptize children, ‘cause sparkling water would cost millions. I narrowly missed a real cool meeting with Saul Williams. I saw the picture and was “damn I shoulda been there now.” I was the missing step in the consecutive hairstyles I bear down with the pen when i feel anxious. If he was a brain surgeon his scalpel would kill patients. I feel ancient but real naive. Never gullible enough to vote for a Real ID. I’m very concerned that the police will kill my seed. Shoutout to Wu-Tang and High Chief Jamil I Reeve. I think I need some new curse words to fulfill my needs like when my new shirt breaks or if I spill my tea. Hold your breath and count backwards from a mill by three. Don’t exhale until I leave.
5.
(((being poor))) 1, 2, 3, 4, the holy grail is to slowly scale. My voice is as choice as Vincent Price's. for emcees convinced they’re nicest, it's instant crisis. Anything embarrassing or prestigious it'll pass, as we hold fast to the last vestiges of the middle class. Before you can save THE world you have to save YOUR world. I'm talking man to man as we're walking hand in hand. Marry black, white, or candy-striped, but never a poor girl. If I knew then what I know now, I'd snowplow slow down a slope and show how. If I knew now what I knew then, I'd tie up loose ends and have stayed a true friend. Please play this jam with ample force, loud. I wrote it to make my sons and the sample source proud. Camille Yarbrough, All Hid. If you’re gonna set the bar low, you better limbo or else be a small kid. 1, 2, 3, 4, run through detour. What to the slave is the 4th of July? What to a brave is the worth of an island? And what to a bird is fireworks in the sky? Iron Pot Cooker, 1975. Vanguard.
6.
(((art of war))) Strike at their gaps. Attack when they're lax. Never let the enemy figure out how to act (gun sound). One pound of food at the front takes twenty to carry it. In a chariot battle, reward the first to capture ten chariots. Harriet, send spies who go in with stealth. Yet invincible means knowing yourself. Delve into deceit. Strong appear weak. Full seems empty. Advancing, appear to retreat. Seek surrenda. That's top agenda to scientists. Next best, destroy their alliances. Third, attack an army fort. Fourth, besiege a city as a last resort. The way's the will to slay without kills. Never oppose those whose backs face a hill. Get in the loop, scoop the inside poop. Get in the heart of the enemy's troops. But if the group's too big? Then tire by flight. 1,2, Sun Tzu knew the dogfight.
7.
(((tourette’s))) Mostly sounds and facial tics and rarely racial flick’s epithets. That’s when coprolalia’s in your basal ganglia. By 18, the syndrome’s usually onset. Confidence is a vital sin unlike the sense of entitlement the accomplishments of being pompous beget. Young lady born in 1983 in an Old Navy baby tee, when you blow me, hold your hair back with barrettes. She’s a hoochimama with all the accoutrema, go “ooh aah,” then do pirouettes. When I came in from the fog, my girl wouldn’t snog. “You smell like a dog when you’re wet.” Compressors and limiters get on his nerves like reuptake inhibitors. Prozack gets the bozack. Everybody knows that. He’d rather wax and wane and act insane than let corporations attack his brain. He wanted to lessen his excessive expression but side effect include restlessness fatigue and depression. I guess he’ll just wait for remission from the syndrome named by and for Edward Brutus Giles de la Tourette.
8.
We been in the desert for years Time to get us out of it I climbed Mount Sinai Carved ideas in a tablet These mortals are horrible with immoral cavorting They must check these 10 Commandments from their LordKing Commandment Uno: I am the Lord thy God So similar to Commandment Two tho: You now knew no other gods before me. Leave Osiris behind. I’m ya highest authority To act morally, thou shalt not make unto me any graven image Forget all about your vintage pagan lineage Make a pilgrimage to the Third Commandment: Don’t take my name in vain, God damn it Fourth Commandment: Remember the Sabbath Day to keep it holy Sleep in late Saturday and wake up slowly Every other day, pay Me like you owe Me Fifth Commandment drops the bomb (((kaBOOM))) Obey thy pops and mom Sixth Commandment is a big deal, a'ight Thou shalt not kill… any Israelite Seventh Commandment: Don’t commit adultery That only works for Zeus. You’ll hate what the result’ll be Eighth Commandment: Thou shalt not steal Starve if you need a hot meal. Sorry! That’s the law. *God’s real.* Ninth Commandment: Don’t bear false witness unless it resolves the source of this hit-list Tenth Commandment: Thou shalt covet not thy neighbor’s wife if you’ve a life you love a lot And when I say “neighbor,” I mean neighbor next door You can take the lives of the wives of neighboring tribes while they’re in labor with sabres and knives Thou shalt also covet not thy neighbor’s house, ox, or donkey Thou shalt covet not. I can’t say it more strongly (((Ok God, that’s quite a double standard You covet our attention. You been in a bubble pampered.))) Eleventh Commandment is so underrated Keep church and state completely separated Commandment 12’s think for yourselves Who else but you can keep track of this game of shells? The road to hell is paved with magic spells Matter fact, keep those last two under your hat And climb back down the mountain with this smokescreen and thunderclap
9.
(((happy holidays)) Huddle up for the scuttlebutt. I’m the Dom sipper on Yom Kippur that gets props like sweatshops when third world debt stops. I’ve had my ups and downs from cups and crowns to humble pie, crumble cry and mumble why is there a man strollin with feet so swollen, he wears two walking cast shoes. I guess his real shoes were stolen. So I’m gift tossin from the wrist like a discus, a homemade coupon good for one dish washin. Two g’s and a god were like peas in a pod, discussin the reasons to even the odds and hold the reins to the chariot of the proletariat. I yelled, “The words we’re fearing require third ear hearing!” Nearing a forty story jeans ad, a square cut from the scrim by the guy who lives inside so some air could get in. I lobbed a peanut butter pinecone birdfeeder poppy seed rhinestone and flew off to the very next time zone. This job is killing me softly. Willingly offbeat. Bipolar people shouldn’t drink coffee. Hopefully, we’ll all build to peace but the killed deceased wildebeest still decreased.
10.
(((oh snap))) I said, “You rock” to a mom in a rocking chair. She got the runs. And I don’t mean a stocking tear. A woman in the elevator asked my son how long he’d been livin. He held up three fingers. But it was inside his mitten. Her self-hate’s got a shelf date. Well wait– I’m not just a hot guy. I do what i gotta do to not die. We only touch when there’s no more room in bed. Last time I saw your twat, it brought a human head. Let’s get extravagant and sex have again. Oh snap, after I snowcapped her whole lap, she gave me a…
11.
(((meat n bone))) Kings Play Chess Or Feel Great Stress. Phylum in a class of his own, order words to impress facts into his family's memories. Capable of anything, yet origin is as specs. Life is cheaper than talk. We sleepwalk so as not to deepen the shock. So how do we confront it? Don't want it in the pit if your stomach and what you postpone is most prone to call back on the ghost phone. Always got my number as I creep up the block. Hard to keep up. People weep when I rock. Rulers make wolves look like sheep in the flock. “You sank my battleship,” said dude who drank my stank asshole drip. News flash: your crew's trash. I'm gonna go out on a limb, hang off the end, pull a hook out a mouth, and throw it back out to swim to the scene of the crime. The meaner the rhyme the more it cleans up my mind. This beautiful stupid skill teams up my spine. Autorespond: “Whaddayawant?” Thanks in advance to the banks for the spanks in the pants. Rest assured, I'm the crested bird of nested words, homes. To each his own til sun bleaches endless trenches of meat n bone. Meat keeps its own enemy with bone deep identity. It’s that hardened shell that starts to smell. At one time, it guarded me well. But maladaptive strengths turn to captive feints and you become your own warden in hell. The term human nature must bloom in stature. When my reptile’s kept silent, there’s more room to mature, as an adult and as species. Distractions need cheat sheets. Eat beets before you get a double mastectomy Active intention that’s that habit of ecstasy. To be fully human is the same as divinity. Why would someone else if I won’t give in to me? I reverberate from a murderous invertebrate to perfect mate. Don’t even go there. Full disclosure: I pull out my nose hair. A septuagenarian repped an American arrogant kleptos expected slept on and buried then woke up in utopia. Presto, librarians turned knives to envelope openers Leaders wrote letters everyone’s hoping for. A word to the wise: First prize is that person averting his eyes. A burden to loved ones. It hurts, I can’t lie. Curtain rises on freaks, suits and ties in their seats expect unique performer back to normal by working week start. Sweetheart, streetsmart mnemonics for life. Economically stated canonical phrases raised to your conscience then gone quick. In a nutshell, butts smell. All kidding aside, I’m hitting my stride. And in the final analysis, my vinyls cause vaginal calluses and spinal paralysis. Birth. Death. First breath. Sperm squirm. Compete to complete term (year). Instinct steers tiny worms to egg (ovum). Drove ’em through birth canal. 2-hour trip, breadth & girth of gal. “Last sperm’s a rotten egg!” First one shall wend way in membrane, lay DNA in centa. It. Bubbles. Splits, doubles. Say “blastocyst” past the 6th day. Then brain sends lanes to form placenta. “Embryo, lemme know!” say shocked couples. Quadruples, octuples, for a time unseen. At 2 months, size of lima bean called “fetus.” Clitoris stays as-is or morphs to balls and penis. Heartbeat's a flashing pixel. So little, car seat's drizzle. Fast forward 2 trimesters, declutter, time-test nester, break water. Water break! Chew on ice chips. Nice hips, steer south. Vice grips, awful. Soft skull crowning. Clear mouth, no drowning please. Rotate head 90 degrees. Legs spread eagle, knee pull. Ovum oven open. People! Just dust. Last breath. Past death. Fresh corpse. Gas left. Livor mortis. Shrivelled tortoise. Turn blue. Lividity. Give it a description. Slips into rigor mortis. Stiffer orbits. Hold your horses. Algor mortis. Cold old orifice. Change in pH balance. Cells lose structural integrity. Autolysis. Putrefaction. Cooch inaction. Microbes blister like globes. Someone cover this guy with night robes.Leads to bloat like an airship. Maggots implant. Skin and hair slip. There, strip, where flip to active decay. Period of greatest mass loss. If on grass lots, cast-off fluids kills surrounding grass moss. Decomposition island. Pile on for advanced decay. Once handsome face kills surrounding grass moss leaving only dry remains. I.E., no eyes or brains. Vegetation resurgence. That escalated fast. Fat blades of grass stand strong. Teeth desiccated last.
12.
** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** ** Lyrical leapfrog put you in a deep fog / asleep cog in the wheel / steal like a cheap dog / reblog all you want / I'll kick a new style / true guile to do miles of damage while you manage to step in a doodoo pile / I got so many rhymes, they need to overlap / clover sap at the root to pick my own luck / struck by the thought that my label’s shoulder tap / older rap is newer / if you know what I mean / I hold a map in my headphones / rock stereo / there we go where we know / fairy grow barely no / hairy oh cherry blow / spare me tho / there's always something new under the sun / no one does it like you so it’s never been done / When I break new ground / take you down / quake through surroundings / crash land on a snare / cash band / pluck a bassline / twayang twang / face flying / mash hand / gas gland / plcccch / old styles trashcanned / yass man first line is second line like a brass band / last stand echo / how'd techno get so let low? two in one / new and fun for the lyrical leapfrog / precognition / wishing for recognition in two ways: clarity and mega-high-fives / when you have a.d.d., superlyricism is something to concentrate on / everything else is too easy / you trace the flows’ progress like a little dot / it rewires / requires your brain / keeps a unique log / seek opportunities to go hard as possible / obstacles include insecurity and bad habits and autocorrect / not so as checked / sometimes I’m mad (sad) I’m sad (bad) / I second that emotion / it’s called a secondary emotion / elementary notion / confusion fusion / cut through illusion delusion / intrusive thoughts / elusive slots / tandem / two things at once / I wish an Irish Sheepdog would arrive with cheap grog / people sleep like a log on me like a treefrog in a peat bog / “I plot a message in a mess of pottage” We're bugs. Beer suds. On a giant keg. Fear chugs. Iron egg. Near duds. It's clear cuz that we're ants. Mere plants. Deer ticks. Fear tricks. Weird mix. Lyrics. We're barely soot sprites. Good night.
13.
(((hairy moth owl 2))) I was chilling in Powell's, chatting with Gary Groth, when I spotted some owls dressed like a hairy moth. I said, “Excuse me Mr Groth, I got to go eavesdrop. I can't believe he's shopping and not asleep in a treetop.” He had a “New York is Book Country” tote bag and, wherever he walked, he left a trail of dope quote tags. I said, “You going to fortune cookie factory or something?” He said, “Whoo-whoo, yes! And my chariot's the Great Pumpkin!” We jumped in. He nod-gestured his driver named Esther Equinox. She dressed like she'd caught sequin-pox. And the squash carriage progressed over creeks and rocks. We coasted up to a treehouse that hosted deep freak-outs. Guests decked out in human costumes exhumed from lost tombs. I kept my eye on Esther as she rolled across the room. Monkeyboard played a funky chord. It occurred to me to check on our ride outside in case anyone was hungry for our gourd. Hunkydory, the girl from nord country drunkly poured from the berry broth cauldron. Hairy Moth Owl lounging with owl kin around him. They played hopscotch. Instead of a rock they threw a topnotch stopped pocket watch. Toss, catch. Caw snatched it from a moss patch. Darkness started to cross-hatch. Then he asked me, “Does your affect and cause match? Do you treat your life with as much care as you give a song? You write for posterity but your kids can't live as long?” I said, “Why were you at the bookstore? I thought you were nocturnal?” He said, “We looked for this. My bound blackboard chalk journal.” Prairie dog howled as her pup sucked a clogged dairy duct mouthful. Hairy Moth Owl Shorty parked, patient, peaceful. I stripped thorny bark off a branch for bare-tree bow dowel, bent them like a story arc to construct an easel. A productive way to weasel out of answering his question. He put his bound pad of mini chalkboards on the tray. Walked toward it then away. Made a sad sound. Whinnied, like seagulls that orbit the bay. I wanted to talk more, didn't know what to say. He said, “Cat got your tongue? Wrung dry? Stung fly pop flat your lung? Did the rung slat crack and for a hot sec you hung from one hand? Suntanned and clung? You better raise up like you're your own parents. Grown talent alone is prone to clone arrogance. I'm gonna go play now. If you think of something to say, then go and tell Greybrow.” He left me stumped like clear-cut old growth. He jumped, disappeared, steered toward the cold no'th. Greybrow's grey brows looked like my step-grandfather's moustache. Like a cigarette that's just ash. Like someone who don't trust cash. I couldn't tell if he was wake or sleep. Didn't make a peep. Space in front his face deep as a lake or pond floor. I picked up some chalk and drew a blind contour. Mind wandered like a flying condor. When I looked at the board, I was floored by what a blind line'd conjured. H was the legs. M was the wings. O was the head. Ear tuft, crown for kings. Upside down, so tight. Snow white on pitch black, mirrored the low light.
14.
UNDOING ALONENESS I never met a forward playmate I didn't trust. Feel ire each time I reach toward hidden lust. Even in a minaret or a kill floor, it's sure a must to keep your head up. That hostage ostrich bit the dust. I never metaphor wordplay mate I didn't trust. Feel ire each time I reach toward hidden lust. Even in a mina, rhetorical flourish, sure a must to keep your head up. That hostage ostrich bit the dust. Division of people. Division of words. The inner tyranny (tear-innie) you didn't even know was there, you thought you’d won over. And yet always comes despair (this pair). When confronted, why begin to split? Models taught us bottle up and allies (analyze) ain’t into it (intuit). Swing for the fences (defences). You think this in't too great (disintegrate). This solves (dissolves) nothing to forcibly mate (sublimate). I never met a forward playmate I didn't trust. Feel ire each time i reach toward hidden lust. Even in a minaret or a kill floor, it's sure a must to keep your head up. That hostage ostrich bit the dust. Who told you to think? I scrolled through a link that didn't hold true. Old's new in a blink. The global elite wrote a receipt for total complete hiring freeze on all dudes who refuse to die on their knees. I'm ill as the '94 crime bill but time will tell more than any rhyme skill. (((he's ill))) I'm triple o.g. like ogogog. Gog Magog, it's dog eat dog. I'm in a twelve gallon hat with a ten inch brim, bowl of bi bim bop while Boom Bip spins Bim Skala Bim. I’d rather look life right in the eyepatch than piss my pants pocket and mess my last dry match. A round of applause for anyone who found a nazi, gave him a pound in the jaws. Art is the answer, the be-all-end-all. Art saves, starts waves while Ken dolls free fall. Art. Art and only arts give solace to all this chaos and lonely hearts. (((kill loneliness))) Bad things can surface (cancer) when I hide from help. And when my brother dies, I'm beside myself.
15.
(((age war))) I’d rather be dead than afraid. I’m too set in my ways to be indirect or persuade. My point of view is true north, a gust of justice who blew forth. Confirm the old you’s new worth. (((New York))) Never underestimate the power of children. Find every adult you can and then kill them. They’re united against us. We’re fools not to unite. Yes, they out-weigh us. They tower in height. But i’d rather be dead now than cower in fright. We’re gonna die soon regardless. Let’s be free now and be godless. The hereafter’s a hustle, a fear factor, just a muzzle. Don’t be frazzled. I’m not. Because well, I’d rather be annihilated than uh-oh. The violators are cut-throat. For awhile we waited. It’s gonna take guts so I don’t scare easy. Bite the hand that feeds me death.With my last measly breath, this puny speck you’ll soon respect. With a nod and a wink I confirm that I think god is a dink. My rap’ll tell’em bout Falun Gong and Capel Calyn. I’d rather be ashes than hesitant and cashless than president. It’s evident that to erase the past, see race and class as just a state of mind. Don’t submit to nonsense they designed. They’re too old to create the kind of world we can live in, way behind. Bozos wake up dismayed to find they betrayed their own kind. You lose your driver’s license when you’re straight-up blind. Their citizenship’s revoked. We been sticked and poked enough. They were kids’ folks once but now a sick joke. They think being called C.E.O. will make their peepee grow. They’re already dead. Mentally, a baby step from a deli spread. We’ve been born and bred to be torn to shreds. I’d rather be dead than scared. I don’t care if you’re a parent, principal, or got horns on your head. I’d rather be cremated than frightened, be hated and fight friends, than deflated at night’s end. The strongest statement schools make is, “stay indoors.” Divorced from your instincts, they win wars. It’s a spinning door to spend your resources. Unfortunately, people are beasts and ceaselessly fleece whoever’s at peace. The worst bully at school becomes the police. And given a quota of one per day, at least. Baby boomers, drop dead yesterday or maybe sooner. Created tumors all over the globe and spread faceless rumors. It’s almost humorous, the depths of your treachery. Charge us for everything, then add an extra fee. Lecherous rapists with a measureless treasury, you’re over the hill. You lowered your skill so we go for the kill. Why conform to survive? I’d rather put our lives in the hands of someone who’s five. Age War battle, rattle your cage door. This is what fourth grade was made for. The deck’s stacked against us so what be afraid for? Acorn, we’re completely pressed against the wall. There’s no defense but offense to all. I’d rather be “beware all ye who enter” than make like a father who makes small moves to the center which is really far right, all right here’s your new dentures. Our fleeting visit to this planet is excruciatingly exquisite. Is it never enough joy or is numbness too explicit? I’d rather die alive today than die dead in decades, a smile mile-wide on my face instead of as sex slaves. Checkmate. If you kill every child, we still hid historical essays all over the land causing permanent headaches. I’d rather die a happy kid than a sad adult. They’re lighting the oily rags on their catapult. Unite your right with your left hand and bring sight with your breath. It’s a fight to the death. (((note from the lost children))) If you’re reading this, the children are gone. And you better believe those killed them are wrong. We lost a great battle in the Age War. Would you lie in your cell or rattle the cage door? We wrote this note on paper, on stone, and in scrolls. Hidden under boulders, in caves, and in holes. From shore to shore and between poles. The bible’s a mishmash of myths they brainwash you with. But the legend of hegemony ends with dead enemies. Don’t trust anyone over 12. Go for self. Overwhelm. The only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Not the lonely kings and staff who steer the wealth.
16.
((((((antennas)))))) ACE this animal style is like an annual trial / trying to turn state’s evidence with a manual dial / that’s hard / now zoom in and tune in to my frequency / steppin to the am, I slam em all in secrecy / my sound waves go deeper than underground caves / pitchin in Atlanta / you know I’m mowin down Braves / don’t be a hero cuz that’s a sandwich man / crazy plans in my land, you’ll get banished man / try me on Impeach / find me on the beach / grimy on the speech / just like an old Spanish man / “maricøn,” you can’t be me like a body clone / in the hoods where I kick it like Karate Tone / this man spit right in the face of what you transmit holding on to relevance hoping that your hands slip / and you fall into obscurity / walkie talkie antennas with no security / praying mantis / you really ought to weigh your chances / this yellow brick road stay stormy like a day in Kansas / and then another twister touch / I’m on a roll like I twist the Dutch P We’re all one, just different lumps of protoplasm. Every moment of joy counts as a bonus ‘gasm. Each pore is an ear. From the shore to the skier. The core of the tear is the doorway to the here and now. We’re an owl I’m an orphan in Syria. I’m a more fortunate peer. A warm tent appears near the torment and fear. Our origin is clear. We’re the source of the seer. I’m a self in sheep’s clothing. A wealth of cheap loathing. Knowing nothing full well. Compelled to keep going. Come for the wordplay, stay for the high voice. Return for the rhythms, move in with him by choice. If you didn't like me on other beats, you’ll love me on this one. I didn't change anything. Repeat yourself, it’s fun. Kids’ friends think I'm deeply flawed and if I fix ten things, ten more keep me odd. We feel conflicting agendas rise and fall. What we call our identity tries to synthesize them all. But there’s another option. Wise guys and dolls can watch them go by like flies on the wall. The Cindy mole is wabi sabi. The indie goal is job as hobby. Don’t hyperfocus on your diaper crocus. Just change your drawers and wipe your tochus. Beliefs are the police of the mind, chiefly designed to relieve us of our fiefdoms of time. Resigned. “Said no one ever,” said no one ever. Every text from my father was meant for my brother. I believe that we will win. Me and grief, my evil twin. My third ventricle got blocked but word tentacles could not stop so energy clogged, overheated, and hotboxed. So I pictured galaxies and reached out to Cathy’s anchor. And it yanked me to Earth’s surface, thanked her. I’m not doing a Patreon just to find another format for people to hate me on. I’m from the flirtatious Cretaceous era. Back when we asked girls on dates and faced the terror. But I’ll leave the bitchin and moanin to the rich Roman oldmen. Young cats make dope raps. Don’t act like there’s a glitch in the moment.

about

"If you work with words, like I do, there are a few achievements that we secretly fantasize about. Winning a Nobel Prize in literature. Having a #1 best-seller. College professors teaching our writing in their courses. But one achievement that most of us don’t even fantasize about is having an “original citation” in the Oxford English Dictionary.

The unabridged OED is the compendium of the history of English. Every time a word in common parlance was used for the first time, or in a new way, that usage and its author are recorded in the OED’s endless pages. Shakespeare’s got a bunch. Milton, too. These days, getting an original citation is like hearing the voice of God. It doesn’t happen much. But Paul Barman has one.

This is relevant to (((echo chamber))) only because it indicates the level that MC Paul Barman writes at. His rhymes are original in the sense of “no one has ever used that word like that before… but we will now.” Bring your brains. You’re gonna need them.

Not that (((echo chamber))) is hard work. It is perfectly pleasurable to bop your head along to great tracks laid down by ?uestlove and DOOM and Prince Paul, while MCPB says, “Meat keeps an enemy as a bone-deep identity. It’s the hardened shell that starts to smell. At one time, it might have guarded you well. But maladaptive strengths turn to captive feints and you become your own warden in hell.” And then in the next breath, “Would it blasphemy to ask you to shake that assphemy?”

If your ears are open, MCPB is gonna plug your brain in at voltages to which you are unaccustomed. He’s a social critic with a searing conscience that makes (“my”) comfortable bourgeois house of lies tremble with each jagged line on the PB Richter scale. Comfortable notions of being a “good” white person, blow up in the first two tracks, (((Echo Chamber))) and “YOUNGMAN Speaks on (((Race)))”. It takes MCPB just shy of three minutes to make this semi-observant Jew feel skeptical about the Ten Commandments. In ((((((Antennas)))))) he says, “we feel conflicting agendas rise and fall / what we call our identity tries to synthesize them all.” But he offers a solution, too. You’ll have to listen to the song to hear it. And at the end of the anthemic “Age War,” you’re ready to stand up, cheer, and then go join children in battle against the calcified bankrupt status quo. After all, it’s “already dead. Mentally a baby step from a deli spread.”

But, like any great poet (and MCPB is), he gets personal, too. I am certainly “a self in sheep’s clothing, a wealth of cheap loathing…” Aren’t you?

MC Paul Barman tells us, “Rest assured I’m the crested bird of nested words,” and that is no empty boast. In poetry, to rhyme both at the end of line and internally, in the middle of a line, is showing off. Which makes MCPB a crested bird indeed. There are songs, like (((Believe That))), where your eyes just go wide and you can’t believe the number of rhymes in a row that tell the truth. That much truth all placed in a row—you don’t see that anywhere. And it rhymes, on three levels at once.

MC Paul Barman is the most ambitious type of rapper. He is rhyming art. Why bother? It seems hard, and indeed the long hiatus between his albums tells us that it is. Well, MCPB has a reason: “art is the answer, the be end all... art, art and only art give solace to all this chaos and lonely hearts.”

So take some solace. (((Echo Chamber))) by MC Paul Barman is here. It’ll make your brain spin. And make you check your guts."

--- Adam Gidwitz, New York Times Bestselling & Newbery Award Winning Author

credits

released May 18, 2018

1 . (((echo chamber))) feat. Open Mike Eagle
Vocals by MC Paul Barman & Open Mike Eagle / Produced by Questlove / Written by Paul Barman & Mike Eagle / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove & Open Mike Eagle / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Conscious Pork ASCAP

2. YOUNGMAN speaks on (((race)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman & Youngman / Produced by Prince Paul / Written by Paul Barman & Youngman / Recorded by Joshua Sadlier-Brown / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Prinse Pawl Musick BMI

3. (((99.99999%)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by MF DOOM / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Lord Dihoo ASCAP

4. (((believe that))) feat. Open Mike Eagle
Vocals by MC Paul Barman & Open Mike Eagle / Produced by MF DOOM / Written by Paul Barman & Mike Eagle / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove & Open Mike Eagle / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Conscious Pork ASCAP / Lord Dihoo ASCAP

5. (((being poor)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Questlove & James Poyser / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP

6. (((art of war)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Questlove / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded at Brick Shop Audio / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP

7. (((tourette’s)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Memory Man / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Casual-T / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Memory Man Music BMI

8. (((commandments)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Memory Man / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Mark Ronson / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Memory Man Music BMI

9. (((happy holidays)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Mark Ronson / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP

10. (((oh snap)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Questlove / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP

11. (((meat N bone)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Questlove / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Joshua Sadlier-Brown and Chris Pummill / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP

12. (((leapfrog)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Memory Man / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Memory Man Music BMI

13. (((hairy moth pwl 2)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Memory Man / Written by Paul Barman / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Memory Man Music BMI

14. UNDOING ALONENESS
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Kenny Segal / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Joshua Sadlier-Brown / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Syndakit Segal Solutions ASCAP

15. (((age war)))
Vocals by MC Paul Barman / Produced by Questlove / Written by Paul Barman / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove & Joshua Sadlier-Brown / Mixed by Memory Man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP

16. ((((((antennas)))))) feat. Masta Ace
Vocals by MC Paul Barman & Masta Ace / Produced by Memory Man / Written by Paul Barman & Masta Ace / Recorded by Steel Tipped Dove, Joshua Sadlier-Brown, & Masta Ace / Mixed by Memory man / Mastered by Mark Donahue at Sound Mirror / Horn Implant Music ASCAP / Damasta Music ASCAP / Memory Man Music BMI

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Mello Music Group Tucson, Arizona

Hip Hop • Jazz • Funk • RnB • Soul

Mello Music Group provides music for the soul, from the heart of our cultural experience, opening the realm of the intelligent music experience through melodic evocations, beats that corroborate the truth, and voices that roar above the rising void and impose order on the terrible & triumphant moments of everyday life. This is the sound of Mello Music Group. ... more

contact / help

Contact Mello Music Group

Streaming and
Download help

Shipping and returns

Redeem code

Report this album or account

If you like (((echo chamber))), you may also like: