WELCOME

Ian: I found this sample and I was like, hm, this loop is raw as fuck. It just needs some raps. For real though, I remember buying EPMD's "Unfinished Business" and waiting for the drums to come in on "Please Listen to My Demo." Of course, they never did - but that song remained my favorite off that album. Just some rhymin over a raw loop, and it worked.

Verb: This one is really simple: great beats tell you how to rhyme to them. I just wanted to do a straight raw ass rhyme - no hooks or any other arrangement stuff. Just rhyme

GET THERE

Verb: Ian would send so many beats that I would sit on, that some would literally get lost in the shuffle. I was working on some Dolla and I came across this beat and 20 minutes later there was a song. Literally. How did I forget about this beat? This is a song about journeys; journeys to cop records, to equality or a real sense of community. It’s also about the things that make you start journeys in the first place.

Ian: I just thought this loop was ill. It's just one of those jazz loops that works for me. Shout out to DJ Center for putting me on to that jazz record. I always loved Ish's (Butterfly from Digable Planets) voice, it worked real nice for a hook, so once that was together I just gave it to Verb. I think he sat on it for awhile before writing. Really dig how this track came out, it's more than beats and rhymes, it has a real, full song feel to it.

THE GROOVE

Verb: For years, I was doing spoken word poetry and I was cool with writing real personal. But when I went back to full time MC-ing (I haven't done a poem in public in years, and don't miss it), I figured it would be on some battle, raw shit. So I'm always thrown off when my rhymes come out so fucking personal. When we laid this song about the personal side of music, playing and remembering songs because they make life better (not just make good samples), it was hard to feel cool with coming with this much...self. Ian didn’t let me back off of this track, and challenged me to revisit it and record a version that was up to Dolla standards.

Ian: I probably used about 20 records to make this song, but originally this was just the first loop. We had three verses recorded, but when we decided to make this a finished product, I kinda took a chisel to it and reworked the whole thing. The stories I felt needed a different feeling for each verse, and I remembered back in the early 90s there were songs that switched loops constantly - think about the early Hiero ish, like the classic b-side "Burnt." I felt it showed not only production skills but your musical depth, so I figured I'd try something similar.

HIPSTERS

Ian: When I lived in Brooklyn, where hipsters swarm like roaches. Shit, I think they swarm everywhere you go these days. This was a simple freestyle over a simple loop that we did as a joke but people were diggin it, and the truth is that in-between our record adventures we'd always have to deal with these fools, their arrogant attitudes and their condescending racist bullshit. So it's funny but definitely part of the making of this record.

Verb: I own a Mac, check Turntablelab.com daily and even wear some hipster clothes. Ian hates me.

DREAMZ ft. Gabriel Teodros

Ian: This was the first beat I made after my basement flooded, damaging around 1200 records. Came home from work, looked downstairs and...muddy water and the smell of burnt plastic (the water hit some outlets and fried my computer). I lost all the covers but was able to recover most of the vinyl. So for about 7 or 8 months, as I cleaned and recovered, I plugged one turntable, my mixer and did what I could. On this one I know the sample is super-crunchy, but hey, we're the Dolla! It stays crunchy, plus symbolizes how dirty and raw things were for me at that point. A few months later, the homie Gabriel Teodros came to town, and I knew he had to be on the album...

Verb:
What can you say about Gabe T? That dude is amazing. I have no idea what I was working on (school shit probably), that made me miss recording with Gabe, but he really gave this cut a direction and cohesiveness. Actually, I had originally pegged this as a song about that elusive record you can never seem to find, but Gabe took into a spiritual realm and I followed along. This is also one of the rare spots where I let myself nerd out on music trivia - in this case how music legends. Although, I'm not sure that Hendrix died of a needle injection overdose. I'll let the trivia police catch me on that one.

THE DRUMMER

Verb: This, along with Every Record, was one of the first of the Dolla concepts I came up with. When you really look at it, DJs and producers and diggers are just playing what other people put their heart and soul into. When we make records, it's the same thing. I wanted to do something to pull out the human side of the breaks and beats - somebody sat at a drum kit and played all the breaks that hip-hop is built upon. This song is a dedication to those cats, an ode to finding records in the most unexpected places and a remembrance of Black people in the South during some dark times in American history. I'm kinda humbled it came together the way it did. This is also my first real recording and arranging on solo joint, taking Ian's beat and making it fit the song. Word...The Drummer.

Ian: I made this beat a long time ago.

IT'S THE DOLLA

Ian: It was late at night and I wanted to make something raw. I had this drum pattern that was simple but I thought was ill. I usually start beats with the drums, even if I end up changing them up later. Sometimes I'll just put some raw drums together, then get up and rock some cuts over 'em for like 10 min, meditate on the shit, feel the track out. Anyway, I flipped through a couple records before I found the sample - nothing super-rare or anything but shit just was mad dark, on some Beatminerz type of shit. I recorded my verse just as a kind of "test verse" just to fuck around, and hopefully inspire something in Verb - I did this every once in awhile, just drop some silly shit over a beat and send it on over via gmail, kind of give him some concepts to fuck with. He was adamant I keep the verse on this one however.

Verb: Ian did this joint and sent it, and I was in the middle of a paper or something, listened to it, thought it was raw and went back to schoolwork. I rediscovered it some time later, and realize that Ian left some free space at the end of the track. What I wrote was built off of Ian's verse because Ian's verse is the shit. Flat out. I love the shout out to The Wire in here (what up, Bubs?). This one is one of my favorites - a Dolla Bin highlight for me.

MOTION

Verb: I really don't like spouting blatantly political shit, but the times are so serious that not saying anything is really fake and forcing censorship on myself. Plus, I bumped into Sonia Sanchez and she was bemoaning the state of the world. When I responded with some cutesy, flip, "be here to see this period in history" crap, she looked at me like I smeared doo-doo on my face. Sonia Sanchez has seen some ill times in this world, and when she tells you it's foul out here, you better listen. So, we write songs like Motion.

Ian: Dug this sample up in Portland in the 50cent bin. The dude on the cover was cheesing but I knew he was definitely on that early 80s fusion feel. There was this interview with De La Soul - really just Trugoy and Maceo - on NPR from around 2000. I have it on a tape. For a good part of it, they talk about digging for records, and how much obscure records influenced their music, how they view music. They even spoke what hip-hop cats look for when they dig. And since then, in my mind, I can alwys hear Maceo's voice saying "...we look for certain things..the year, who's playing..and the FONT on the record..." The font on the record. Yeah. Not to mention the placement of the font. If you're a beathead, you know what I'm talkin bout

EVERY RECORD

Ian: I love this song cuz it's so true and heartfelt, the things you do when you're going through it, just to set your mind at ease. I made chopped up an old vocal record into the main loop, with different drums, as an interlude for this little solo project I did that never really came out, some "get it off my chest" shit. Verb heard it and was like "Yo I gotta use that!" This was like in 2004. He sat on it a bit and recorded several verses, choruses...but nothing quite connected. The original title was "Dark Moods" but he had freestyled the part where he said "Every record I flip / sets me free just a little bit" and I was like, yo that's the song right there. It was just so true. Still, we felt stuck, and packed it away for later. Then I played it for a few heads who were like, yo that's a song, it's dope, it needs like one little thing and you're done. And I realized we'd just been sitting on it and thinking too hard. Before I finished it, I thought I'd tweak out the end a bit, let it ride.

Verb: This cut had so many versions, takes, arrangements....fuck. I never felt like I could figure it out. This is actually one of the early Dolla concepts I had, and one of the most personal. Digging as release and mediation was one of the reasons I got so serious about buying records, so it was driving me nuts not killing it. But, leave it to Ian to pull this song together - he took a hodgepodge of ideas and turned them into a song. One of the better ones I think.

CITY 2 CITY

Ian: Since graduating college, I've had a chance to check out cities all across the country, and somehow I've usually managed to make it to a record store (or three) while there. I remember in Birmingham there were like three dope record stores in walking distance from each other, and after going for years missing out on cheap copies of Bob James "One" I found two in one day. Anyway, this is the sequel. Some darker, harder - yet funny - shit bout our travels. The sample is some abstract jazz record I pulled out for like $3.00. There was like a crazy creature with one eyeball on the cover.

Verb: The crate heads know what it is. Every place you go you gotta check the vinyl situation.

STYLES YOU CANT AFFORD ft. Toni Hill

Verb: This is the Dollabin Statement of Purpose. This is who we are, what we're about and why we're about it.

Ian: Again, the beat here began as a simple loop but expanded to much more. I also brought back a beat I did it in 2003 for Gabriel Teodros, but he had to move before he could record to it. Then another group wanted it, but let's just say...whatever. So it sat around. I didnt want it to go to just anyone, I felt like there needed to be some really ill shit on it. After listening to the verses Verb had recorded for this song, I realized the final verse was that.

Still, the song wasn't done until Toni Hill came through and blessed it. The woman's voice in the first two verses is all her - the only thing I added is a bit of reverb. She filled out the song and made it complete.

PRAGMATIC

Verb: We talked about this track in the liner notes of the One More Crate EP. You don’t have that joint? It’s free! Get that shit! These days and times call for some Pragmatic thinking, so we put it on here as a bonus. Gotta get real with ourselves, yo. No more faking for making each other feel better. Let’s just get better.

Ian: This seemed to be the audience favorite from our 2006 release. Again, shout to EVERYONE who downloaded that One More Crate joint! Word. I just love this cut so much. And no, I’m not revealing where I got that loop from.