LIT UP LIKE A ICE CREAM CONE
Hey everyone -
Welcome back to Buddha’s Blog and thank you all again for being here
For this blog, we will be giving background and context for the 3rd episode of The Making Of “The Musical” Ep. 3: Ice Cream Cone
In this episode, we are introduced to Tayyib Ali, a recording artist from Philadelphia, Pennslyvania
Some quick background on how I met Tayyib:
I believe I found out about Tayyib Ali’s music during my senior year of High School (I graduated in 2011)
This was a year when a bunch of artists right around my age were starting to blow up on Youtube and Datpiff
A lot of people refer to this time as the “blog era”
Artists like Kid Cudi, Curren$y, Wiz Khalifa, Mac Miller, Joey Bada$$, A$AP Rocky, even Drake and Kendrick Lamar - all of them really started to blow up during this blog era
So as I’ve mentioned before, after I graduated High School in 2011, I moved to Pittsburgh and started filming a ton of music videos
Around that same time, I started filming college party videos for a company called I’m Shmacked
And I’m Shmacked was founded by Jeffrie “Yofray” Ray (who is still a good friend of mine to this day, and has also been mentioned in some of the earlier blogs)
Yofray is from Philadelphia, and after meeting Yofray in 2012, I found out that he happened to grow up and be close friends with the artist Tayyib Ali (who I was a fan of)
Flash forward about a year later…
Another artist named Mod Sun was on tour and had a show in Pittsburgh
I knew Mod Sun because I had filmed a music video for him a year earlier on the Warped Tour
So I went to go film Mod Sun’s show in Pittsburgh
This show was at the legendary Pittsburgh venue “The Shadow Lounge” - which has unfortunately shut down since…
Below is a photo I took of Mod Sun as we smoked a blunt in his tour van outside the venue, and then a photo of me filming him as he walked onto the stage
The reason I bring all this up - is because one of the other acts on the tour with Mod Sun happened to be Tayyib Ali, so I got to meet him for the first time that night
And being that we were both friends with Yofray, we quickly hit it off
Here is a clip below from when we first met in the basement (green-room) of The Shadow Lounge
Quick story from that night:
After the concert, a bunch of us went to Ritter’s, a diner in Pittsburgh (and another legendary Pittsburgh location)
At some point during the meal, Tayyib showed me his fake ID and I was flabbergasted about the fact that:
A. it looked absolutely nothing like him and was from IOWA of all places… and B. I thought the guy in the picture looked like Charlemagne Tha God lol
Anyways, after Ritters, we all went to Treejay’s apartment
Treejay was Mac Miller’s hype man and one of Mac’s best friends, and his apartment was underneath the new ID Labs (the iconic recording studio in Pittsburgh)
This was a super fun night
Another recording artist named Tolly was there, who was one of the first artists I ever filmed a video for in Pittsburgh, and sadly passed away in 2020 (LONG LIVE TOLLY)
We shot some scenes for a video for him while we were there that night
I also met Brennan Pierson that night
Brennan is a SUPER talented photographer/filmmaker, and also an incredibly gifted recording artist too, going by the name Forget Brennan
You will learn more about him in future blogs…
Here are some blurry still-frames of us together in the background of some of the shots from that night. Tolly was walking around using my camera here lol
So anyways, that was a huge and memorable night for many reasons, but for the purpose of this blog today - it was the night I met Tayyib
And the next time we met was only a couple weeks later…
I was in Los Angeles for my first time ever. I had gotten flown out by a recording artist named Ty Flo from Harlem, New York
Ty Flo’s full name is Tyler Dean Flores, and he is also an actor
At the time, Tyler was only 15, and he was staying in Los Angeles for the month with his dad to go on auditions during what Hollywood calls “pilot season”
I met Tyler because about a year earlier, he had played a role in Christopher Nolan’s “The Dark Knight Rises”, and one of my friends did an interview with him about it
I helped my friend film the interview, and while I was there I learned that Tyler also made music, and I offered to film a music video for him
A couple weeks later, we shot a video in Harlem with him and all his friends
This is the video below titled “Take A Ride”
And then after that, his dad offered to fly me out to Los Angeles to stay with them for a week and film another music video
So while I was in LA with Tyler, the Mod Sun tour that Tayyib was on came to LA for a show
I wasn’t able to make it to the concert, but Tayyib came and picked me up with his tour manager one day, and we drove around filming scenes for a music video
Unfortunately that video never came out
I just didn’t have enough footage to make something that I thought was good enough, so I never finished the edit
And I REALLY LOVED the song (and still do) so I didn’t want to make a music video that didn’t live up to it
This is the song below
Such a banger
But anyways, that was a super fun day with Tayyib in LA
And I think the next time we saw each other was in New York during the Summer of 2014
The I’m Shmacked guys had an apartment that summer in Little Italy NYC, and I would go in there from time to time to help with promo videos for the tour we had coming up
One night, Tayyib came by, and we were all going to a Yung Lean concert at Webster Hall. I think it might have been Yung Lean’s first concert in the United States
Nothing really crazy happened that night, but my two core memories that stuck with me are:
A. Yofray and Tayyib tried lean for the first time in honor of the fact that we were going to a Yung Lean concert lol
And B. I was editing all day and hadn’t ate anything, and when we were in the cab on the way to the concert, I got carsick and had to ask the cab driver to pull-over so that I could throw up out of the car
I think the driver made us get out of the cab after that too lol
Ok so flash-forward a bunch now…
When I started working on the album in 2022, Yofray (who was also living in Los Angeles at the time but has moved out since) came over and I played him all the beats I had and was telling him the ideas for the songs
At one point, I played him a beat called “SAVA 180 (melodic)”, which I had labeled as “Ice Cream Cone” based off one of my paintings “Brandon & The Ice Cream Cone” (inspired by Brandon Walker of Barstool Sports)
When I played Yofray the beat, he said “you gotta get Tayyib on this”
I had reached out to Tayyib already to be on the project, but hadn’t sent him the email with all the concepts and beats yet, so I added this one to the list
And after I sent Tayyib the email with all the material, we set-up a session for March 27, 2022 at his apartment in East Hollywood
Now we are going to jump into that session and the 3 songs you see us recording during the episode…
“Good Night’s Sleep”
So at 01:36 into the episode, you see Tayyib recording his verse for a song called “Good Night’s Sleep”
And if you listen closely, you can hear Wayne Jetski on the song before Tayyib starts rapping
If you’ve been paying close attention to this series and the blogs so far, this is the song Wayne Jetski wrote the chorus for and sent me alongside “Big Balloon Bang”
After Jetski did his part, I decided this song would be a “posse-cut” at the end of the album, where a bunch of the artists on the album all do a verse and their own version of Jetski’s chorus
So when I showed up to this session with Tayyib, I brought this song with me, and he wrote a verse real quick on the spot and recorded that right at the start of our session
It turned out absolutely fire and this song is a huge moment on the project (shoutout to Jefe on the beat for this one)
And now onto the next song…
“Silent Goat”
At 02:35 in the episode, you see Tayyib rapping a song called “Silent Goat”, on another beat produced by Jefe
This song didn’t make it onto the main project, but is a bonus song that I might release at some point
The story behind this painting is pretty funny too:
Yofray had a birthday party in the Summer of 2020, and a bunch of people were over in his backyard
At one point, Yofray and I were having a drunk conversation, and he started saying “bro, we are silent goats!!! We are goats but we don’t need to talk about it and let everyone know!!!”
I loved this and thought it was hilarious, so I created a painting based off it (the painting you see above)
And then when I started working on the project, I knew I had to have Tayyib try that song concept, because Yofray is our mutual friend
The song turned out sick, but there was just no spot for it sequentially to fit on the project
Also another quick tidbit…. you will see/hear Tayyib’s bulldog panting during that clip in the episode lol
His dog hung out for the first song or two, but eventually had to leave the room because the breathing was too loud
Such a cool dog though and made for great company while he was there
And one more quick tidbit before we move onto the next song…
The night of this recording session with Tayyib was March 27, 2022
Which was also the night that Will Smith slapped Chris Rock lol
At one point during the session, I remember checking Twitter and seeing the headline, and being so confused not knowing what happened
What a wild time
Ok now onto the next song, and the MAIN EVENT…
“Ice Cream Cone”
At 03:10 into the episode, you see us start to work on a song called “Ice Cream Cone”
So a little bit more back-story on this song…
As I mentioned earlier in the blog, one of the beats I sent Tayyib was called "“Sava 180 (melodic)”
And you might remember a couple blogs ago, I wrote how Wayne Jetski sent me a bunch of beats he had been given from random producers over the years
One of those beats he sent me was this one
And for the record, Jetski works regularly with a friend of his named Sag who is a producer
So when he sent me this beat, and I heard the beat tag at the beginning that says “Have some fun Sava”, I assumed it was saying “Have some fun Sag”, but just pronounced differently
I even spoke to Sag because he was sending me more beats, and when I mentioned this song in passing, it seemed like he knew the beat and that it was his
But eventually when I started to mix the project, I had to get the beat-steams from all the producers, and I reached out to Sag for this one and he didn’t know what beat I was talking about. I played it for him and he was like “yeah that’s not my beat”
So I ended up going into my email from Jetski and finding the original sender that he forwarded me the beats from. And it turned out… the producer was not Sag, but another dude named Sava…
I then searched Sava’s name on Jetski’s followers list on Instagram, and boom - I was able to find him
Funny enough, Sava happens to be from Pittsburgh too
He is a younger producer though, so he wasn’t in the scene during the years that I lived there. I don’t think he even knows a lot of the artists who I used to work with. He just happened to be a Barstool fan and sent beats to Jetski the exact same week that I would be hitting up Jetski and asking him if he had any beats.... Crazy world !!!!
Once I found Savat’s Instagram, I reached out and showed him the song, and he absolutely loved it. I also paid him of course for the beat that we used of his unknowingly. Huge shoutout to Savat !!!!
Also a bit more background on the painting that inspired this song
“Ice Cream Cone” is a painting of a cartoon version of Brandon Walker from Barstool Sports
This cartoon depiction of Brandon first started with a painting I did of the full cast of Barstool’s show “The Yak”, a daily show that I am a huge fan of
One day on “The Yak” back in 2021, a cast member Nick Turani expressed interest in getting a tattoo of himself with a “front-ass”, and all of his castmates trying to lick it
He put out a call-to-action for any fans of the show to design the artwork
I created a painting of the scene in response, and was even lucky enough to have my painting displayed on the show as they spoke about it with me over Facetime
Out of all the characters in the painting though, my depiction of Brandon Walker was the one that most people found to be the funniest
So I did a few more Brandon Walker paintings after that, including the “Ice Cream Cone” one that this song is based on…
And now onto the actual recording of the song…
The clip you see at 03:10 is my first time ever hearing what Tayyib wrote
We pulled up the beat, and he rapped it while reading the lyrics off his phone
As he is performing it, I am just thinking in my head “holy s*** this is freakin incredible”
Also, one of the ideas I mentioned to Tayyib before the session for this song - was that I am looking for it to be a similar vibe to one of his older songs called “Power Button”
If you listen to “Power Button” and “Ice Cream Cone” you will notice that both of the choruses start very similar
On “Power Button” the chorus goes “Still ride around the block on 4’s… my brother still in the hood tryna get dough….”
And then on “Ice Cream Cone” he goes “Still on my grind man gotta get dough…. cup full of mud so I gotta sip slow….”
He said “yeah you told me you wanted something similar to ‘Power Button’ so I just flipped the chorus”. Absolute genius
So after he went over it a few times, he started recording
Here is where you will start to see some of the magic of what is yet to come in this series…
I am not going to give away too much here, but just watch the episode and you will see a few sneak-peaks of how this song is going to eventually evolve
“Shooting Star”
The next quick scene in the episode starting at 05:56 shows my DM exchange with an artist named Robbie Maxx
Robbie grew up close to me in a town called Westwood, New Jersey
He is a few years older than me, and started releasing music around the time that I was a Senior in High School
I started filming music videos for him after I graduated, and we became good friends too
Here is the first video we ever filmed together, and the day we met too
Robbie is also an exceptional basketball player (and all-around athlete)
He is one of the ONLY people who I will admit is better than me at basketball…
And he has earned that right with how many times he’s embarrassed me in 1-on-1
But anyways, when I started working on this project in January 2022, I reached out to Robbie to be on a song
I sent him an email with the concept for a song called “Shooting Star” based off my painting
We spoke on the phone about the idea too, and he mentioned at some point “I might have Nate try something with it”
Nate (Nate Ouellette) is an artist who is also from Westwood, NJ, and Robbie was managing him at the time
Nate had just graduated High School and was ONLY 19 at the time of these events in 2022
So the day after I spoke to Robbie and sent him the concept, I woke up to a Facetime at around Noon my time on the West Coast, so 3pm’ish East Coast time. I had probably been awake until like 6 or 7am (I have a terrible sleep schedule)
Robbie was Facetiming me - and when I picked up - he was in the studio with Nate and a recording engineer, and they were playing me the song
I was blown away as soon as I heard it, but also having just awoken out of my slumber, I was having a hard time even comprehending what was happening, and who the other people in the room with Robbie were
So I got up, grabbed my Starbucks, and then Robbie emailed me the song
That is when the messages with Robbie took place that you see in the episode…
And the song is an absolute HIT RECORD
I have very vivid memories driving around LA those first few days after I received this song with my windows down blasting it, thinking “I cannot believe this song is a part of my album”
This song really opened the doorways too for a lot of what is yet to come, as we start to explore more genres…
And sure enough…
When Robbie forwarded me the email with this song, I noticed a familiar name as the original sender, and I realized who the engineer was on Facetime with Robbie earlier…
“Water On Mars”
At 06:18 in the episode, you see a continuation of my DM exchange with Robbie
I realized the engineer he had been recording with was a guy named Stephen Kellner
Stephen Kellner, also from Westwood, New Jersey, is an absolute legend
In the mid-to-late 2000’s, Stephen was the lead singer of a band called Van Atta High
This was during the peak “Myspace” “emo” era, when pop punk and emo bands were becoming really huge
Stephen’s band Van Atta High (named after the school in Full House) really took off during that time, and I was a huge fan
Their first song that caught my attention on MySpace was called “Close To Comfort”, but then eventually they dropped a song called “Call Me Jersey” and that just became THE ANTHEM
I even went to one of their concerts at “The School Of Rock” venue in Hackensack, New Jersey when I was I think a freshman in High School
And I saw their set at Bamboozle in I think 2008
They were really big at the time
If you go on Youtube, you can even see old videos of them performing acoustic sets in FYE (CD Stores) with all their fans singing alone
A true staple of that era
But anyways, Stephen was about 5 years older than me and from the town over (the same town as Robbie), so I didn’t know him personally growing up
We were Facebook friends, and he knew some of the artists who I filmed for, but him and I had never met or spoke
Robbie was now able to change that though !!!
I told Robbie that I was a huge fan of Stephen’s music and that I would want to get him on the album if possible
He said he could probably make that happen, and a few days later - sure enough - he did !!!!
Robbie told me that Stephen wanted to be involved, and from there, a HUGELY IMPORTANT PIECE OF THIS PROJECT had been added
You will see a clip at the end of the episode showing a sneak peak of Stephen’s song on the project, but trust me when I say, Stephen’s impact on this project has spanned very far and wide since then. Stay tuned and you will see…
And that about wraps it up for this recap of Episode 3 of The Making Of “The Musical”
Thank you all so much again for watching along, reading along, and all of your support in general !!!!
This would not be possible without all of you and I can’t wait for you to see everything that is still to come !!!!
Also Episode 4 “Bicycle” has just recently dropped, so please go watch the new episode when you get a chance !!!! I’'ll be back to recap that soon in the next blog…
Love you all and thank you again !!!!
Ben