Mountains of Things and the Valleys in Between

My best friend Tish lives an hour away in Macon, and every now and again--because her transportation is typically more reliable than mine--she comes for a visit.

Tish has been following all my various life pursuits for twelve years, and it was music that brought us together in 1998, just after I released my Hip-Hop CD. But it was The Fugees that actually sealed our fate. Unbeknownced to either of us at the time, we had both memorized the Chinese restaurant skit from The Score album, the one where the owner beats the crap out of the two squabbling customers with his "flying fists of Judah". Something in a conversation at the time prompted her to recall the first few lines from that skit, and I found myself finishing it, each of us playing the part of the restaurant owner and one of the unfortunate bludgeoned customers. And a lifelong friendship, rooted in some of the greatest music of all time, was born.

The word I've always used to describe Tish's musical taste is 'ecclectic'. It's one of the things I love most about her, the fact that we can listen to a Busta Rhymes CD, and in the next moment throw on some Carmen McCrae, then perhaps a little Chicago (though we'll forever disagree on which Chicago era was best, 70's or 80's. Which one's my pick? Well, I was born in '68 and idolized drummer Danny Seraphine as a kid, so you do the math). All this has given her--in my opinion--an educated and well-rounded opinion on all that I do musically. She was one of my first 'fans' as an MC, but is duly noted in the album thank-you's as being "such an honest critic" for her unbridled, unadulterated candor.

Nesrin and I were about four serious months into our musical endeavor when Tish came for a weekend visit. She had heard Nesrin sing Alicia Keys' "Fallin" during her last visit and was pleasantly surprised. And I was eager to unveil our latest masterpiece "Saturn" along with  "Neptune", another planet on which I'd placed a few lines Nesrin had sung in Turkish. The tracks had thus far received lukewarm reactions; I'd posted them on a couple music websites and they hadn't generated much hype, and so we looked to Tish's brutal sincerity to be a deciding factor.

She took a seat on the bed and donned the headphones as "Saturn" played. She listened for a several moments, then she got that look on her face. It's the one where the cloud of thought above her head reads: "Okay. I really don't like this. But I know how much Cyryus does. And I know how much effort and time she put into it....but....um....it's, um....((sigh))....it's just not what I expected, and it's really not my thing. So, how do I explain this without being an asshole or sounding like a douchebag, yet still making myself clear so she doesn't make any more weirdness like this ever again?" And, of course, there were Nesrin's feelings to consider as well.

She took off the headphones before it was finished and made a face as if she'd just sipped a watery cup of iced tea, expecting Coke.

I waited for a response, but Nesrin was way ahead of me. She'd read Tish's thought cloud fluently and heaved a deep sigh. "Okay. What?"

Tish took a tactful moment to collect her thoughts, then said to Nesrin, "Sing Killing Me Softly again. Or Fallin, like you did last time."

"Right now?"

"Yep. Right now."

Before the carnage could get any worse, I chimed in. "I have other tracks, different ones that I started before the planets stuff. Beats like Jill Scott or Heather Headley. We don't have much in the way of melodies or lyrics, though, but the tracks are done." And I did a quick search through my instrumentals for something I'd tentatively called "Ten Past Midnight". I let it play through the speakers, and Tish's expression soon softened to a pleasant grin.

"Yeah, see?" she said. "Now that's what I'm talkin about. This shit is nice. This is gonna bob heads. I dunno what you were on with that Saturn stuff. I mean, it's cool for what it is, the Ambient thing and all, but if you wanna sell CD's then I just don't think it's the ticket. Not at all."

I had a brand new set of computer speakers with the sub woofer under my desk, and the Ten Past Midnight bassline was bumping quite nicely. Then Nesrin began some improv, humming little somethings and tossing out some breathy vocal runs, somewhere along the lines of Billie Holiday or Sade.

Tish threw up her hands. "That's it. There it is. That's what you need to be doing. You need to stay right there in that groove and never ever leave. I'm tellin you. That's your money--that vocal style and this music. Not that...whatever it was...that dreamy, spooky, dark ambient Enya shit, but this. You wanted my opinion? Well, now you got it. Cyryus, make her do this style of music and don't let her do anything else. Seriously."

Nesrin blushed and smirked like a kid on her first date. "Really?"

"Yes. Really," Tish insisted. "I wouldn't tell you that if I didn't mean it."

And she wouldn't. That, I knew for certain.

And so it went. The final vote was in. We'd attempted a road less traveled to find that the only people on it were us, and now we needed to make a u-turn. Marketability became the word of the day, and if we were going to do this at all, then we needed to be strategic. We needed to work with our strengths as a singer and a producer, rather than trying so hard (too hard, perhaps) to forge a new niche. Once we established some experience and consistency, we could forge and trudge and bash as many square pegs into all the round holes we wanted. But for now, we had a solid direction in a successful genre known as Neo-Soul, and together we seemed perfect for it....