Into The Wild

by Zack de la Rouda

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04:10
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about

Dear Friends,

After a lifetime as a city-dweller and years spent writing, recording and performing songs wrought with anarcho-primitivist rhetoric, I'm taking my own advice and am headed into the wild: on April 25, 2013, I will begin working and living off-grid for the foreseeable future, and, in the style of Lao-Tse, preceding my departure, humbly present this tape, featuring music from an anonymous producer.

See you sometime. Thanks for everything.

Sincerely,

Zack de la Rouda

credits

released 19 April 2013
Vocals/Lyrics: Zack de la Rouda
Instrumentals: catacombkid.bandcamp.com

tags

tags: hip-hop/rap conscious hip hop hip-hop maine rap & hip-hop rap alternative spoken word poetry underground hip hop Portland

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Track Name: Wander
when i sing these songs,
i mean, when i spit these poems,
i mean, when i take time on this tape to talk over these beats,
speaking crazy thoughts,
try to follow me, cause honestly,
my rhymes can help your mind think,
i'm like a drug, i advise you to try Z,
our life's looking like Brave New World
but i wanna make it more like Island:
Into the Wild, finally.

the choice is always in our own hands.
we can't ignore that, we can't hold back.
it's zack with catacombkid, listen up here,
bout to turn these girls and boys into grown men and women.
let's focus on the moment that we're in,
cause everything we're holding onto gonna fade within a minute
like smoke, life is not a joke, don't choke on it.
it's not a blunt, don't blow it.
your ego's not a rowboat so don't stroke on it.
but don't worry, i am always honest.
my audience is open-minded so i won't be modest.
that real talk, y'all, you know i'm on it,
and you should get behind it.
i used to drop bombs like fight music,
but i really wanna teach so i write prudent now,
like a rhodes scholar - not a globetrotter.
that local land-based living, i been sold on it. sold on it.

rewild or die, yeah that was the album.
now i'm going into the wild to find that wild life
i been about and bring it out,
and give it out,
cause education is the only way
we're ever gonna see our freedom found.
it's all good:
now that we've acknowledged the problem is babylon
we can bring it down,
or walk away,
i ain't gonna say which;
i mean i would but i ain't got a stake in it.
i'm just tryna stay living
and maintain.
i'm just gonna raise children
and stay sane.

cause i've had enough of this struggle,
i gotta get out the big house, wanna wander around.
y'all can come if you wanna get out
before the walls start tumbling down.
Track Name: How It Ends
if i'd had known when i was young
that being woken up would lead me to going nuts,
i never would have ever even started smoking blunts.
i would have just clung to my slumber.
never would have read jensen's endgame, straight up.
would have said daniel quinn's damn book sucks,
cause nobody gonna listen to a monkey.
i'd pop a blue pill cause the red pill got me feeling ugly.
i would give my left brain if i could abstain
from having these feeling that i'm stuck with,
but no matter how numb i make myself i can't escape myself.
i'm dealing with this culture's fucked-upness.
i'm getting rusty, sitting by the river doing nothing,
or else i'm in the city doing dumb shit.
have all the courage i can muster but that don't cut the mustard,
we need to pick it up on the double.

i dropped the album and everybody around me was proud of me
like i finally come out with something that sounds okay,
but i'm the only one who knows what comes out of me comes from out of me,
you're hearing god talking through my mouth, i mean.
i'm just a vessel for the message, I'm actually getting fed up with it,
but i could never stop, i could never give up.
i'm saying what's been said before,
it's just math but it makes sense to make it a metaphor for life.
when on i'm on stage gripping the mic,
kicking the rhymes i had written i've convinced that it's right.
i bring the light to the dark like a torch does, spitting out the fire like it's poison.
i'm just a voice with an intricate mind combined with evidence;
scientific studies have been published and then i have read 'em.
i'm recommending re-evaluating everything -
how long till we all gonna come around like a wedding ring?

we need love and trust, we need empathy.
it's about us, this is not about history.
we can't judge who we're meant to be.
maybe if our family tree was diseased, we've got the remedy.
the members of this generation could be the medicine
that the earth needed for recovery.
then we would be the answers to the questions that we're asking;
we could be the clues to the mystery.
if action is louder than activism,
i can't attack with this rap, i let my effort speak.
and if we have to get out of the trap we're in
it's no rest till we get our freedom,
but we go crazy holding up the weight of the world -
that's a great way to turn old friends into enemies...
like i can't tell the difference
maybe I've gotten trapped in the big picture like that chick in "The Witches,"

and i can't snap out of it.
i've gone mad and i can't back down from it.
i'm so sad that i can't laugh out of it,
flat on my back on the mat and i can't tap out of it.
but real recognize real, right?
if you wanna help, ask what can i give?
like, how can i live in a way that's gonna heal life?
we gon fix up the mess that's been left in our hands, for sure.
if it's a gift or a curse we've been given? i don't know.
am i jerk or have i got a vision? or both...
i'm tryna figure out this mission and then give it a go,
and put in work till i give up the ghost.
whoa, here i stand at the precipice.
life's difficult, it's not effortless - peck said it.
but i'll be damned if i ever quit,
get my fist lifted to the heavens till i never take a breath again.

it's for the bottom of the pyramid, represent.
it's for my ancestors, i'm an anarchist.
it's the truth, it should be self-evident,
but check out the television, we are not relevant,
so y'all should turn the box off quick.
they gon brainwash y'all, make my stomach feel nauseous.
that's why i try to not watch it.
let 'em go ahead with the program,
i ain't gotta know how it ends.
i already know how it is - know what it is,
so i ain't gotta know how it ends.
Track Name: The Breaks
when you take a minute in the middle of the day that you're in, to just chill? those are the breaks.
and when you're risking your neck for a race you could never win? remember, throw on the brakes.
and what's in between the beats and the bass, again? oh yes - those are the breaks.
yeah, it sucks when everything sucks but you know what? yup, those are the breaks.

nobody's perfect,
but nothing on planet Earth is so stop searching.
i'm not worried bout that, already buried that hatchet, but i've not forgot the lesson that i learned from it.
i'ma be about the tao if it's the last thing i ever figure out how to do - it's all worth it.
follow jah word with it, flow like the water in the riverbed, grow like the herbs in the nursery -
getting up. enough of this worthlessness, i'm coming back with strong workmanship
that's on point like a pencil or zerzan is: it's just words but it forces y'all to think, don't it?
what i said? everything gets better, get it in your head,
never forget it, remember it until the day that you're dead.
contentment ain't complacency cause we can get free
and still dream sweet when we lay in the bed.
peace within is common among winners of wars,
so i remain calm in the middle of storms,
and it's not like i never lost nothing, on the contrary,
i'm just not focused on keeping scores...

because we all got problems, and sobbing ain't gon' stop 'em, those are the breaks.
it's for the optimists in all of us, consider this the words of the gospel: those are the breaks.


yeah, it's like you're playing pool:
the frustration gonna make you want to change the rules,
but you always gotta keep your cool
even if you just sank the eight ball when you had aimed for the cue.
it's a shame, true, but it's all a game, dude,
you look like a fool but who could you complain to?
you can only blame yourself, which is just as well -
trace the rage. it never leads to somebody else.
but misery wants company,
so sometimes we might pick a fight with other just to make up,
cause we all need comforting -
but what we done to deserve this? nothing, that's the way that it goes.
i just shrug when the cookies crumble
cause it all had to happen how it happened, man, what you think you gon' do?
i'm ain't a fatalist, but i'd say that fate exists.
i only fear god and try to stay humble.


because we all got problems, and sobbing ain't gon' stop 'em, those are the breaks .
it's for the optimists in all of us, consider this the words of the gospel: those are the breaks.
yeah, it sucks when everything sucks but you know what? yup, those are the breaks.
so if you're stuck in a rut and about to give up, just throw on the breaks.
Track Name: Echoes (Instrumental)
I had nothing to do with the production of this track, but having this song at the end of this tape carries me away very nicely and may provide some space for the listener to process all that I've said over the years. This is the first instrumental track I've included on a project. I think it's a beautiful song, and it didn't seem to be begging for lyrics. I'm thinking about the echoes of an era - it sounds like we're hearing The Beach Boys through a broken transistor, solar-powered, maybe, found and retuned by our great-great-grandchildren.