Narrator:

You know son, I've been around a lot of folks in my life, some loud, some fast, most of them forgettable

You want me to be honest, hey, but every now and then you meet somebody different, not just smart, not just talented, somebody truly real, the kind that don't fake a damn thing

I tell you, I remember when he first started all this. Nobody saw the vision, believe me, I heard it from him. He came to me when it got bad

Hell, most folks laughed

Thеy were saying it was too raw, too honest, too strangе to ever catch on, especially in an environment that was so hostile towards rap

But he didn't bend, nope

He didn't chase approval, didn't water it down

He just kept building, brick by brick, track by track

We used to stay up till sunrise talking about it, art, faith, his Catholic journey, that is, heartbreak, the whole deal

He said, if I ever disappear, I just want the music to speak for me

And damn if it doesn't, he took every loss, every scar, every piece of his story and turned it into something that lasts

While the rest of us were trying to forget, he was remembering, piecing together the parts of himself the world tried so damn hard to erase

That's what this is, son, this whole thing

It ain't just songs

It's his whole being, his process, his emotions, his life

Proof that even when life breaks you, you can tape yourself back together

For him, music was his way of doing this

Folks call it an album

But me, I call it the lost tapes

Because he was never really lost

He was just waiting to be heard

Prod. Emerald (Talking):

They just look at how this guy makes music; he's probably nothing

It's like, dude, just because I don't work a means-to-an-end job where I work at a 9-to-5, in a cubicle doing power washing, or detailing cars, like get outta here with that

I'm making money off of my passion

And I'm reinventing a genre of music while bringing up small artists with me

I think it's pretty awesome what I'm doing right now, and I’m tired of the disrespect so—

Yeah, I'm riding solo for the most part, but, I-I’m, you know, being unheard is not amazing