Falling ill at the start of the year and breaking my laptop by midyear, 2019 had been a sobering year in my car.

I wanted to try something I’ve not done before.

That year I took some time off from projects and worked odd jobs to survive and for a new laptop- from cleaning houses, hauling stuff, taking photos/editing, working at a diaper warehouse, assisting, crew, street performing etc

But despite the struggles, 2019 opened the doors to a lot of firsts – including waiting tables, working in a kitchen, washing dishes, crew in a documentary and short films – where I got my first acting job – among many others.

It was a year of changes and flow, breaking out of the old and embracing the new, breaking apart, adapting, flourishing.

Things don’t always go as planned.

Plans didn’t work out for a studio time to work on a new album while in Texas, and I decided to make one (until I upped it to 3).

No laptop and studio.

I wanted to try something new – something that would surprise me – something I don’t know what to expect.

This 3 part album has been one of the most daring (not just musically) I’ve done – partly because I didn’t know what to expect would come out of an iPad, but more so, I’ve never done any electronic stuff before. The music was out of my league and style- or so I thought.

When you have been doing things for a while and it works, you just don’t do it all over again, backwards. It is time consuming and takes more effort.

But what if I’m wrong?

But before I could do that, I had to let go what I knew and suspend disbelief. Which isn’t always an easy thing to do.

I had to trust my instincts and play instead of think and filter out what’s right or wrong. Like a blank slate, everything was new to me. And like an experiment, it was all trial and error.

As always, I’m wrong, and glad.

So here’s a bunch of loops, samples, random sound/audio, beats etc cut, pasted, edited, mixed together – sometimes it comes out like this.

I’m so excited to share this with you.

This is the first part of a 3 album series: Herbs & Essentials | X Y …
Special thanks to my TX family for taking care of me while there crafting these stories in music form.

This goes out to all my homies who’s supported me from the start.

Thank you all!

Love,

rktoy

https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/weareetal/herbs–essentials-album–x

**All tracks in this album were made in Garageband in an iPad from stock beats, loops, samples, audio, random sounds etc…