Music video out now (spoken word poetry)

Failed fantasies is the first single from the album Fruitless...
Produced by Ogi Feel the Beat

Watch the video now on my channel
The full song is streaming now on all music apps

To get the full-length album (1+ hour long) 3 months before it streams, buy the book of poetry which includes lyrics and an additional illustrated poetic fable that expands on the themes of the album. Purchase gives you instant access to the music.

The story
A mask maker accepts that he will never earn an invite to the famed garden of immortals and begins creating for himself... But when the garden takes notice, he finds himself with one more opportunity to fulfill his fantasies...

The book
Includes a 90-page poetic story, illustrated by Tanate Asami, that weaves together the lyrics of the album into a sweeping narrative. It's a big collection (276 pages!) but breaks up nicely into 3 parts.

The music
Lush, complex, and ambitious in its scope, the 1+ hour of music is produced by trip hop musician Ogi Feel the Beat and performed by the poet to capture the rich rhythms of the text. (Some people have said how much reading along with the music has given them a deeper appreciation of both.)

#musicvideo #spokenword #chillhiphop #experimentalhiphop #lyricalhiphop #poets #animatedmusicvideo #inspirationalpoetry #inspirationalmusic

Lyrics preview
...
Fruitless...

Three years since I planted the last tree...
a ficus...
and what has it produced on its dry branches...
Fig leaves???

Nothing that could take it to the big leagues—
still mild mannered...

Yeah, the truth stings when you lose focus...
Tell me, is the proof in the product?

The loose strings on the puppet’s old limbs
open them to both sides of freedom:
release from control,
and a free-wheeling future...

(if only I could re-open business...)
(if only I spoke what I’m thinking...)
If only my nose didn’t shrink when
I close my mouth while it matters most...

If only I could grow farther
I’d show you everything I know...

…but nope,
I fold to my doubts,
I choke down inklings,
I push sinking gut feelings to the blind spots
to avoid where they might cause friction...

My predilection for tempering the wind
to the shorn conflicts with my original syndrome,
discordant with intentions...

But how do you provoke
from out of a sound fiction?

How do you drop ego
long enough to see through
the predefined outlines
your thoughts unfold from
ad infinitum,
and invite a new kind of fire?

If only I could grow
farther I’d throw out the art of this all
and spark a lighter
to everything I know...

We mostly live in the molds
we’ve grown to hold
as self-evident
that, though we don’t control everything,
it sorts itself out,
driven by some old internal engine,
a fossil of hope for the tidiness of being...

Without it though,
do I know what to think
with no central leadership?

And as the pressure grows to commit,
I feel the impulse of an entropic drift...

(Continued in the album and book, available now on writtenbydaniel.com)