Bad Daddy 2004 The Deadly Poet Vol. 1 by DP Da Reapa

dat's what consciousness is..not some esoteric, mystical crap, but knowin' D ledge, D edge, so U don't fall off. D hop is mobility, 'cause U gotz 2 keep movin'. Either move or U git moved on. We tryin' 2 move, we tryin' 2 help U move. Listen N. We hit U wit' D lyric, we hit U wit' D visual, we hit U wit' D lessons, we hit U wit' D wordz. But every lick is 1 2 grow on. Dis yo birfday site, U bin rebo'n. Welcome 2 D home of ReapALife, web and worldwide, all over dem bustas, frauds, and fakes. DP Da Reapa N here, yo war correspondent. Stay alive! Signed..Reapa

DP Da Reapa (Dr. Nikitah Imani) is Pres. and CEO of Reapalife Records in Harrisonburg, VA. He is from the ATL and holds a BSFS, 2 masters degrees and a Ph.D. He is assoc. prof. of Sociology and Africana Studies at James Madison Univ. He was the co-author of The Agony of Education (1996) on Routledge press.

Bad Daddy was originally a one album project. It started around the same time as two other Reapalife projects in 1998-1999, NUMB's Hard Times and Ned Vicious' Story of a Legend in the Making. It began as Ned and I began making beats and writing stuff together when we couldn't get samples cleared for the original official version of Hard Times we finished in 1999. There were actually five different incarnations of Hard Times, the first four going back to 98 and with lots of samples from underground labels. Still hot, but just couldn't get everything cleared. In the end, we began writing ourselves and it turned out that was best.

Bad Daddy had three original volumes like the early Hard Times, and got changed and rearranged often as my moods changed. The album was originally entitled Verbal Jujitsu and it was designed to showcase my oral stylings. It gradually became more autobiographical which resulted in disk one, disc two was the politics, and disc three was what was left of the more braggadocio old school stuff. It was released in 2001, but by 2004 our new studio facilities and new musical vibe encouraged me to remix a lot of the old stuff and create a bunch of new tracks and re-release the whole 3 volume collection.

Smokestack Niggaz was made to deal with all the fakers and frauds who are hating on the Reapa and the fact that an old guy was still up in "their" game. I was rhyming when these MC's were in diapers and in the other game before then, so I resent all this playa-hating.

Warriors in Babylon was written as a tribute to Robert Marley (RISE-Rest in Struggle Everylasting) and to the local Burg reggae and roots outfits that I vibed with at the time including Stable Roots, Iya Ites, Ras Greg, Ron B (Iron Lion), and Warren Weaver. Hopefully, some of the tracks Greg, Warren, and I flipped at Dave's Taverna will see the light someday.

Sharang 'N Demetric was dedicated to Sharang Sullivan and Demetric Walker. Sharang was a smart sister and an outstanding dancer whom I went to school with from elementary to high school. I found out that she had passed away suddenly at our five year reunion. What was disturbing was not that we were so close, but that she was kind of always there. I always expected her to be somewhere with her dance and that we'd always kind of run into each other. She was an inspiration although i never got to say so. I began to think about how fleeting life is. This came to mind again when I heard that one of my students Demetric Walker had passed away in a car wreck, while rescuing some other student friends (whom i also knew). Again, there was someone you just didn't expect to be gone so soon who was in the other realm. So I made this song not so much about death which we all experience, but sudden death that takes away people we just feel and for whom we barely have time to grieve.

No Haps and Breakin' Point were written largely as allegorical reflections on my failing marriage and the fallout for my skepticism towards relationships in eurocentric society which continues.

Natural Grass is my comment on the continued senselessness behind the illegality of marijuana use. Legalize it!

Dead Men (Do Tell Tales), If Only Dese Streetz Could Talk, and Got 2 B A Miracle are about growing up in a working class/lower class Afrikan neighborhood in the ATL and the odds against ya.

The Timebomb beat was one me and Vicious fought over after I wrote it for the Hard Times NUMB lp. He got it, but this is my revenge. I wrote my own version, remixed it and changed the arrangement a bit.

The Drug Deal was written in tribute to the Drug Policy Alliance and their efforts to end the senseless drug war wit' its relentless incarceration o' da black.

Eyes Dat See in The Dark is about the hidden serial killas of the ghetto. The "mainstream" in this society knows about the killas dat prey on the "important" people, but there are killers that roam free in the underground and nobody really gives a damn. I try to step inside their minds and the equally diseased minds of the rest of us.

Grand Imperial is about that colonialist US activity in Iraq. Some of us got dat PE-Flava vision and it still ain't blurry, son. We sees ya and God does too and he gone git ya'll.

The Ballad of Bad Daddy is a song to a another song from the original version of Bad Daddy entitled "Bad Daddy." Ya'll follow dat? Anyway, felt like I needed a theme song so I lifted a tag line from the original song and wrote new music and lyrics for this one.

Roots (Love 'N' Truth) is my tribute to my homebase for life. Dixie Hills ATL son, the NoWhat side. We call it Boothill. I'm yo blood and when we come up, we come up together.

No Trees 'bout the fucked up environmental picture in the hood. Place humans in anti-human environments and you get anti-human type behavior. Ya dig?

Hope you enjoy it.

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