Back in 2000 or 2001 a friend of mine, Casey Johnson brought two artistes home by me for me to do some production for. One of them was singing soca, he sang two songs for me a kind of latin influenced soca tune called Maria and another double entente song called Rick. This artiste never came back but went on to win synergy soca star in 2006 with the song Danger and is now known in the music world as Fireball.

The other artiste Casey brought by was a young rapper by the name of Zeik. After hearing him rap the song Syndrome acapella it was clear to me that this fella was on another level. However, from his demeanor you would never tell that he could spit that type of fire. He was a very calm person that did not display the level of cockiness you would expect from an emcee on that level, so much so that I wondered if he knew how sick he was. It was not before long that we decided to work on an album that would showcase the material he already had written. The thing is, a lot of it to me was bordering on gritty/ gangster and I was approaching a point where I was ready to take a stance on the type of music I put out into the world.

Zeik - All About Z

We agreed to mix up the content on the album a bit so you would find that a couple tracks on the album are hard hitting while others are contemplative/ introspective and others are just a basic display of emceeing ability. Years went by as we worked on and off on that album, we finally completed it in 2005 and that became a milestone in both our careers, however I still saw untapped potential in Zeik and challenged him to challenge himself. I wanted him to push himself to the limits of his imagination and creativity.

About three days after issuing that challenge we were on our way to the studio by Chenko and I was playing some beats in the car. A beat came on which at the time was titled Haunting… Zeik started to spit some lyrics on the beat. I pulled the car over to the side of the road and started the beat over. Zeik started again… after regaining consciousness he explained to me the concept of the song. It was based on the conversations we were having and he wrote a song about him meeting a future version of himself in a dream. This future version of himself was more experienced and more mature as an emcee gave his present self some advice on mastering the craft of emceeing.

To this day, Ghost Writer has to be one of the most potent songs Zeik has ever recorded and one of those moments that will always stand out for me in the many years that I have been making music:

zeik – ghost writer

chorus:

storyteller ghost writer
shadow soul born out of fire
street messiah, prophecies of ezekiah
smoke kyah and breathe words to life
i shine like a burst of light when verbs hit the mic

to be or not to be an emcee was a dream
that played on my mind in my sleep so i dreamed
to formulate rhymes for the street
woke up to find alternate lines on my sheet
like a mystery but it wasn’t written by me
could it be that my mind’s playing tricks on me?
like bushwick b, trapped in a fantasy
can it be that i gotta question my sanity?
nah i looked again and again
saw lines written in pen
that i couldn’t comprehend
cause the origin must’ve been
from the future and me being born again
my brain storms like a hurricane,
feel the winds blow
i arose, saw rhymes on my clothes,
this time i was froze
dear lord let me know
if its my time to go
what the hell’s going on
at four hours of dawn
in the thug mansion
i ran like a madman
pen and pad in hand
thru the hallways like alice in wonderland
i wonder where i’m gonna land
if this falls in the wrong hands
came to a stance at the door
heard the voice of a maestro with crowd yelling “encore!”
put my ear to the floor
and heard them applaud
as the flow switched chords

chorus

My hunger and curiosity toppled me
thru a door of possibilities
What I saw looked shockingly back at me
While he accurately tries to devise strategies
for a new rhyme masterpiece
And magically he disappeared
into the midnight air
And whispered in my right ear
And told stories and nightmares
The type that might scare you
and would’ve taken a life here
despite fear, he felt jealousy and envy
And watched friends turn into enemies
These words are my memories
The paragraphs and melodies
that came from centuries of emcees
So take these words
have them close to the soul
And let ya mind grow same
time let ya rhymes flow
And teach those with their eyes closed
To see thru their blindfolds and TV consoles
That con your soul,
my food for thought will calm your soul
I give you the chronicles
in the form of a novel
Full of mysteries to unravel
Like a scribe to a pharaoh
To rise above the hard life
trying to walk the straight and narrow
When the mind journeys and the soul travels
Back in time to the everlasting line
That captured my mind

chorus

Then he said “follow me”
Into a music, art gallery
It seemed like a rap coliseum
A place where scholars’ dreams
Become stars to astrology
So the study of rhyme became astronomy
The cradle of lifetimes
The rhymes I write insight minds
To the rhymes I design
The soul divine, to shed light to the blind
And I’m giving you the gift of the last sign
Take this as a token
Speak words that were unspoken
And let your mind open
To transform into a sultan
And make the worthless perfect
Before you interpret the wordsmith
So when you rhyme all your words fit
And transform in the physical
Only in the third eye visual
That shows no residual
On an infinite screen
To make fantasies and dreams become real
To reveal I was only asleep
Similar to laying six feet deep
From your mind’s reach

chorus