When dropping my first album on the Mid90s record label I was met with questions I didn’t have the answers to. Sure I knew about the power of a good single in building hype for a project but time wasn’t on our side for this product launch. The planned release date got pushed back a couple of times due to making edits on final tracks and even waiting for our guest features to come through. But Murs mentioned something that stuck with me as we worked through the final touches on this project. He told me “pressure makes diamonds” and that little quote inspired me. The pressure that he spoke about was us watching the game clock making it’s way to 0 while we needed to turn in the project to have it release on March 10th, 2023. So while we didn’t have a true single for this project, we did have a completed EP that we felt was dope. If you haven’t peeped yet, here is the Speak N Spell EP from Murs and Wiardon.
And little did I know that all of this stress in releasing this project would quickly subside and the cards would fall in place. And me overthinking what the true “single” for this project would be would actually simply be determined by Spotify’s algorithms. It’s just so fitting too because my whole life is based on data and algorithms so who was I to try to come up with a track that I personally thought people would be into. So while I wanted to go with “1928” for the single, Spotify’s algos slid “Spaghetti at the Ghetty” on your Release Radar playlists and I never would have guessed it.
It’s so fitting that my professional career is based on spiking algos on digital platforms and now I get to run with what Spotify’s data is telling me is the single. While I don’t know the music industry, I do know algorithms so I’ll gladly feed the beast and put more energy into “Spaghetti at the Ghetty”. But man… I really had to have a spelling mistake on this track? It’s supposed to be The Getty yet I have The Ghetty listed. The word play might have worked if I went with “Spaghetti at the Ghetti” but nah… I went with “Ghetty” and it’s funny to see the YouTube thumbnail above which has “Getty” listed… And here I imagine nobody even noticed this but my OCD ways will keep this at the front of my mind for the rest of my life. Real talk! But what’s done is done…. “Spaghetti at the Ghetty” is the radio song.
But what is a single or even a radio song nowadays? Radio is dead and singles are just ways where you can try to catch people’s attention through some engaging content. I didn’t have any budget to produce a video to push a particular song but you better believe I had ideas of being in a rap video and dumbing out. But nobody cares about me. But I thought they might care about my story and the whys behind this project’s release so me and my buddy Garv from Vizual Rhythm dropped this documentary. This was our version of a Vice or Noisey style video which I thought was a good promo piece to push the EP.
So now that the Speak N Spell EP has been out for 3+ weeks I need to come up with ways to keep this art at the front of your minds. In the TikTok days we live in, we can capture your attention for a hot sec but then you’re on to the next one. Murs told me I need to water this project like a plant so that’s exactly what I’m going to do. I’m working on the merch behind the scenes and starting with some fresh tees for y’all. More info on those when they drop but with thatguyyams on the art direction you know things are going to come out fresh. See below for what we’re cookin’ up! Btw, don’t sleep on Yams’ new project Locked and Loaded available wherever you listen to music.
So how do I know that “Spaghetti at the Ghetty” is the single you ask? Well, below are the stream counts on Spotify since this project was released. As you can see, “Spaghetti at the Ghetty” is 2x - 3x what the other leading tracks are doing. Check out “plays” below and don’t sleep on liking a song and adding it to your library. The algos love this type of activity so let’s see what kind of noise we can make here.
So how do we double down on the early success we’re seeing with this track? Conventional wisdom tells me we need to make a music video for this. And I imagine just when you see the words “music video” you probably think of Jay-Z and UGK on a boat filming “Big Pimpin” with fine hynas all over the place in their bikinis. I’d love to get there at some point but we gotta build before we start poppin’ bottles.
I probably for $1K to throw at this type of content so we gotta “$ave Dat Money” and be scrappy to catch your attention. Shout out to Lil Dicky on this video and while you probably feel a certain way about Lil Dicky, this video is amazon and so is his show DAVE on FX. The show is one of the best shows out right now outside of Ted Lasso so don’t sleep. Seriously… Don’t sleep.
So yeah, we gotta start planning out how and when we’re going to do this video. And when we launch this video it’ll give us all fresh content to bring people back to the Speak N Spell project and to the song “Spaghetti at the Ghetty” itself which will give us a spike in streams so it can hit more playlists and reach more ears. And I can’t just stop there… I need to have a remix to bring even more buzz to “the single” aka “radio song” aka the song I’m trying to get y’all to hear. So hell yeah I’m going to do a remix of “Spaghetti at the Ghetty” and add more flava in ya ear. Shout out to Diddy on the best intro of a rap song ever and RIP to Biggie and Craig Mack.
Remember how I mentioned that I don’t have a lot of cash for a music video for “Spaghetti at the Ghetty?” Well, the same applies for the remix of this track. I need to make a dollar out of 15 cents on this bad boy and try to hit a home run on the artists I put together. And a remix can go a lot of ways… It can be a complete beat change which is obviously an option but it can also just be an extended track with a guest feature. Or shit, maybe it’s both?? At the very minimum, I’m getting a guest feature on this remix. So who am I thinking on this guest feature? Probably some emcees you’ve never heard of and that’s alright. I just need the emcee to keep up with Murs on the rhymes and Wiardon’s drums. That’s not an easy task but I think this list of emcees are up for it. Check the playlist below full of emcees for a potential feature and let me know who you want to hear on this beat. Drop it in the comments. Hit me with a DM. Shoot me a text. Thanks for following me on this journey!