STAND FOR NOTHING, FALL FOR ANYTHING
by Kodiak Brinks (aka Adam Mansbach)

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1. Coalition
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – electric piano
Brian Horton – flute and saxophones
Jonathan Powell - trumpet
Ameen Saleem – upright bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
I wanted to do a track that called for unity and action, but without being all corny about it – something that addressed the need to get together as artists and as people, but also acknowledged the kind of apathy that plagues the best of us, and the absurdity of the kinds of things we let distract us. I did an early version of this song with Kelvin for one of his albums, and this was one of the first cuts we recorded for this project. To me, Brian’s horn arrangement is the flyest thing on this whole album – he did it the night we recorded it, played it for us the next morning and blew everybody away.

2. More Like It
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – organ and melodica
Brian Horton – flute and saxophones
Ameen Saleem – upright bass
The Apple Juice Kid – percussion
DJ Frane – turntables
To me, most of the jazz-hip hop fusion shit that’s been coming out fails because it doesn’t allow cats to really stretch out and do their thing, It’s either a jazz record with a little breakdown to accommodate some rhymes, or a rap song with some horns or whatever squeezed in. This joint is like the centerpiece of the album, because you get to hear everybody get busy in a solo context. Every time I listen to this, I’m taken with the level of musicianship, and how lucky I am to get to work with these cats. Brian, Ameen and Kelvin structured this tune around a line from a Joe Henderson song I’d never heard – Kelvin finally played it for me months later, and it’s like the funkiest joint in the world. I love everybody’s solos on this one, but extra props to Mr. Sholar for bringing the melodica back!

3. We A Di Don (featuring Jah Daniels)
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Jah Daneils - vocals
Hotta Fire - vocals
Kelvin Sholar – clavinet
Ameen Saleem - electric bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
DJ Frane – turntables
Our take on the Jamaican soundclash tune, with Jah Daniels doing the reworked hook to an obscure Johnny Osbourne joint. The cats laced this one, no question, especially Ameen with the thick-ass bassline. I wrote the lyrics in Greece, right before the session, and we put it down in one take, based on one of Juice’s beats. I had to sing the chorus myself initially, before we got with Jah Daniels, in my bullshit Dave Chapelle-as-Mr-Nice-Guy-why-would-I-wear-dis-hat Jafakin accent. So for months, I’d be playing people the rough mix and saying “you just gotta ignore the chorus.”

4. Letter from a Birmingham Bus (prologue to the novel Angry Black White Boy)
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – clavinet
Jonathan Powell - trumpet
Ameen Saleem – upright bass
The Apple Juice Kid – kalimba and percussion
This is from my new novel… we built the beat from scratch in the studio, with Juice on the kalimba and the four-on-the-floor drums, and Jonathan bobbing and weaving on the trumpet. Kelvin murders this one, I think, as he does everything he gets on. He’s just so versatile, so tasteful, and so knowledgable. One of my main joys in life is going to Kelvin’s crib… you got your fruit salad, your herbal remedies, your bookshelf full of philosophy, science and music theory (including a book Kelvin himself wrote, and which I can’t even begin to understand), rows and rows of CDs from Tatum to techno to Indian music, and you sit back, listen to some of his new stuff, and talk about an expansive array of non-bullshit. Say word.

5. Unfuckwidable (featuring Vega Victoria)
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Vega Victoria - vocals
Kelvin Sholar – organ
Brian Horton – flute and saxophones
Ameen Saleem – upright bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
DJ Frane - turntables
I wrote these lyrics in my head while I was walking along the train tracks from Stockholm to the suburbs – seems like I always write more when I’m out of the country. Kind of an ode to Brooklyn, kind of a free-floating joint with a lot of interlocking thoughts in it. I was in LA a month after we recorded this, and randomly enough, I saw Natalie Cole at a party. I considered telling her about this song, but then I figured I’d better not.

6. Word Around the Planet
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – electric piano
Ameen Saleem – electric bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
DJ Frane – turntables
This is one of my favorite joints, probably because I wrote it the day before we put it down. The beat is based on a blues record I looped, and Juice just kills it – I’ve played with him longer than with anybody else, from street corners in Croatia on up, and I’ve never found a better hip hop drummer. Juice has such a profound understanding of the kind of space and dynamics the music requires, and his feel is incredible. Just as all the great jazz drummers, from Elvin back to Papa Joe, had to understand how to play behind singers, Juice really knows how to complement an MC. He listens at an unparalleled level. In the last year, he’s started producing too, and now he’s winning all the beat-battles they have down in North Kack, so watch out for him.

7. Contradictions
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Brian Horton – saxophone
The Apple Juice Kid – percussion
DJ Frane – turntables
When I first met Juice, in Europe, he was traveling with just a djembe and a cowbell, and we had a trio with a saxophonist, so this track is kind of a throwback to that era of playing five or six forty-five minute sets a day for spare change circa 1997. Europe showed us love, man. We made more than enough to eat, sleep and travel by, and local hip hoppers were always taking us out and putting us up at their cribs. Try finding that kind of hospitality here.

8. Frontlines
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – clavinet
Brian Tester - guitar
Ameen Saleem – electric bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
DJ Frane – turntables
This is a piece from my poetry collection, genius b-boy cynics getting weeded in the garden of delights – a pretty self-evident lyric, I guess, inspired by a lot of “hip hop academics” I’ve come across over the years, and also by Gil Scott-Heron’s poem “Brother.”

9. Brinks & Stik, Pt. III (featuring Stik Figya of the Darkside Crooks)
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Stik Figya - vocals
Kelvin Sholar – keyboard sitar
Ameen Saleem – electric bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
DJ Frane – turntables
The whole time we were recording, me and Juice kept trying to get Kelvin to play this weird-looking instrument he’d brought up to Brian’s with him. For some reason, he didn’t want to. Finally, on the last track we put down, we convinced him, and this beat is the result. Stik Figya is an MC with the Darkside Crooks, a sick-ass crew out of LA that Frane produces. Stik and I had done two previous collabos, one in LA and one with my man Eucho (www.eucho.com) in Brooklyn, and neither one ever came out, so I knew we had to get together on this project. Peep Stik’s voice – one of the most unique and recognizable in all of hip hop. He’s a lifelong LA dude, so sometimes it takes me months to figure out his references, like the J-Ro quote on this tune… I love it.

10. Bedtime Stories (featuring I Witness, Deadeye Willie Waterhouse and Flipside Nefarious of Seven League Boots)
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
I Witness – vocals
Deadeye Willie Waterhouse - vocals
Flipside Nefarious – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – organ and melodica
Brian Horton - saxophones
Jonathan Powell – trumpet
Ameen Saleem – electric bass
The Apple Juice Kid – drums
DJ Frane - turntables
I Witness is from Harlem, Deadeye is from Wheeling, West Virginia, and Nefarious is from Baton Rouge. We all met in the mid ‘90s, rocking open mics around NYC, and I’ve wanted to do a joint with these cats ever since – except that the beat wasn’t long enough, so I’m only on the chorus! This was some ol’ having-fun-in-the-studio type shit – I actually hadn’t seen Deadeye or Nefarious in years, so we had a little reunion on the mic. Keep in touch, fellas.

11. Still Life Moving
Kodiak Brinks – vocals
Kelvin Sholar – organ
Brian Horton – flute
Janathan Powell - trumpet
Ameen Saleem – upright bass
The Apple Juice Kid – percussion
Another poem from the collection, about my old block in Harlem. Everybody just sounds beautiful on this, I think, from the Latin stuff Juice and Kelvin put down to that pretty flute line Brian plays. I still miss that neighborhood sometimes. Especially the stickball games on the corner.

12. We A Di Don Remix