Roots - Dan Bull

At eight or ten I wondered why my voice wasn’t breaking yet

I was impatient to get from A to Z

So I’d break a sweat, play cassettes in my tape deck

Waiting for the day I could step to a stage

And get paid respect, paid a cheque

Maybe other kids would even play with me then

It’s great to pretend the tune was written for you

That’s why you sing with the radio while it ignores you

You perform awful but feel a lot better

Boom Boom Boom, Her Come the Hotstepper

Even back then my preference was funky

But less funky house than House in the Country

Syncopation, soul, anybody ill with it

Other kids had Whigfield, I was feeling Bill Withers

And to this day I’m still with him

Because nothing beats a sweet voice on distilled rhythms

I’m digging up my roots for you

Cooking up a little tuneful food

Come to the garden for a barbecue

And chill with me

Before I even saw South Park on TV

I know by heart the South Park CD

GTA: 1969 opened a life long affinity for Trojan

Return of Django, Skinhead Moonstomp

Music of Jamaican origin liberating my boom box

Too young for Appetite for Destruction

So The Offspring were my rock introduction

That was all I needed to be free

A CD with some power chords shredding like a power saw

«Fuck me, wow» I thought

How can plucked strings be this powerful?

But then I found another source of auditory debauchery

This naughty teen though was sweet

I bought a CD by an emineMC

Called «Hi!

My Name Is Slim Shady»

I played it on my hi-fi daily

It never seemed to cease to amaze me

He’d say some crazy things

That were great for a teenager that needed danger

I’d replay the lyrics amazed

At the way the images would flicker inside my brain so vivdly

An outsider, a country bumpkin

Sitting inside with the Outsidaz bumping

There’s something about the rhymes

Nothing else quite does as well, I love it

Cypress Hill: Live at the Fillmore

I’m not going to lie, that film was raw

Each rap I heard, each film I saw

Inspired me to build my skills some more

So I bought more CDs to imitate

Believe me, back in the day it was great

I had piano lessons after every school day

But my patience was thinner than an anorexic

I didn’t want to play ballads anyway

I had a daydream of breakbeats and a pen and paper

So I said I’d make the make believe real

And make some real reel to reels like B-real

But the magic’s made on computers today

So I used Magix Music Maker

Read the instructions, learnt all the book

Taught myself big beats like Norman Cook

Always cooking up a new track

Though with no microphone I couldn’t actually do rap

That was too bad, but it wasn’t too bad

Cause I’d already forgot and had a new fad

Threw away The Source, bought a new mag

Made new mates, talked in a new slang

I was a punk rocker now, proper loud

Would you believe I grabbed the opportunity to fuck about?

But what about the music?

I’ve gone and lost it now

So I grabbed a guitar and started rocking out

Made a band with my mates called Matrons Apron

We played around, made some tapes it was great fun

Full of belly laughs

Even received a brief mention in the Telegraph

Just a couple of kids, played a couple of gigs

And then my mated moved on but fuck if I did

Obviously too late, got a copy of Cubase

A lot of tunes made, now it’s today

I’ve innovated, took my inspirations in and made them

Into an original addition to you playlist

So now I meditate about how to elevate

Cause Safe was just the safety net to let me levitate

I’m picking my best fruit for you

You’re the one, and I’d like tea for two

Come to the garden for a barbecue

And chill with me