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PRE​-​BOARDING | mixed by DJ Spinna

by Malkovich Music

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1.
2.
Love 05:16
it's a child's bedsheets. it's more diaper-changing, less sleep it's giving up this week, next week giving up your whole year then repeat it's how to keep from killing that fucking parakeet all it does is shriek and now you need therapy it's doing it for you, the hell with me. it's doing it for the L O V E it's January 2009, D.C., a crowd in a line, waiting patiently behind a gate from five to eight in minus eight thin-ass jacket on but I was straight it's my steak on your plate. it's a slice of cake at a wake it's the price of hate, and hate’s its own price so you lost twice, we call that the breaks fuck this. mufukas don't even know what love is... it's a rumor everyone saying the songs and playing along but they’re just words, they don’t make em that strong but fuck a meaning, it’s a feeling, and feelings are what we deal in but love got about a million enough to write a thousand books, just ask William this ain’t a Shakespeare play dear on my eighth beer, I fear I may veer and if I go there, don't mean I don't care just means I'm tryna live this life before I'm outta here maybe stick to beer two, objects appear more clear in the rear view but I want my cake and eat it too, yeah I do I want it all. why wouldn't you? fantasies become disease, and real soulmates dont grow on trees so I'ma have me some fun, and find me the one then I'm done. peace of mind, that'd get me some flew too close to the sun, hit the ground, and all I know is to run women with tears in their eyes, love in their hearts I kept us apart, to lie in the dark for someone who may never come or maybe she done come and gone and I was too dumb married to the future, lost in minutiae pretty lights, the city life'll lose ya please let me not fuck this up, for real please let me not fuck this up, she's real she got heart and smarts and soul and style and jokes for miles and tits and ass and lips and sass and she goes hard, full steam and she wants to make my dreams more than just dreams love is a friend, forget all of this.. it's a friend, that's all it is after all the meddling, backpedalling when everything is crushed, leveled and the dust's settling love is a friend. I repeat when all you can do is cry for help cuz you can't recognize yourself somebody to remind you that you're not by yourself
3.
the anomaly, the prime nominee Iranian Muhammad Ali in your coliseum ancient Rome your Superdome, bloodbath a puff of smoke, puff puff pass, all they saw was a mustache at the convention, flexing my new invention Malkovich saved the world, haha.. don't mention you don't wanna know what I'm benching, it's depressing so keep your eyes on your paper cuz times are testing peace to my peeps in the streets of the whole middle east hope you get a little peace now shit'll cease when we get a hold of ourselves man's a animal and we gotta keep the beast down Crips and Bloods and Christians and Muslims mothers, brothers, sisters, and cousins it's the future, let's get on some Jetsons shit money, prosperity and everybody getting it congratulations to Southern Sudan now your lives are in your own hands Japan, this too shall pass, handling it with class if that was Los Angeles that'd be our ass I start a school in the Caribbean with a few billion so a few brilliant minds won't have to scrub kitchens billions become a few bazillions, me in Rio with a few Brazilians barely legal in a pair of Speedos, killin em. rest of the world knocking and you can't stop it how long you gon keep it all in your own pocket there there, gotta share, selfish, you just scared no more gimme gimme, that was last year we way past fear like troops on the border in Kashmir you want fair, you ain't got cab fare fuck outta here, don't matter where you're from everybody walk to their own beat, only matter how you hear the drum everybody wanna know the secret, yo leak it print it up, put it on a t-shirt.. nope, this one's on me, kid game is to be sold not to be told but now it's free shit, yeah, we hit the reset everybody looking for the money it ain't turning up maybe the hole in the ozone layer burnt it up maybe they took our credit limit and turned it up or the bankers came and took their eighty percent cut like damn, can I even get a piece of mine? someone gimme a sign, lord would you be so kind? can I get success? can I get some peace of mind that me walking out this door won't be the last time? can I get love? or at least a little satisfaction then you give somebody some and somebody give you back some.
4.
left my life to be a part of this. drive-thrus and freeways and all of this watched America on TV when I was six Baywatch, Eddie Murphy popping s**t moved here, and got on it quick. every day toothbrush polish my kicks and them kicks ain't even fit, but they looked good, so I rocked with it Book of Bush, psalm 3:6, somebody gotta eat s**t so you can be rich sell em whatever you see fit and if they die off it that’s something their dumb ass gotta deal with well right now we the b**ch doing whatever we gotta do to feed the itch and it’s at a fever pitch. but it’s gotta end... it’s the American requiem the people who invented democracy had other people chained up like property and today they still can't shake poverty and you still tryna sell that equality they still broke, and you still rich and you don't see how the two might possibly be connected? now that’s comedy that’s clowns and monkeys at the f**king Carnegie I wake up every day in the US of A and I thank my lucky stars, my astronomy the winner makes the rules, even if he cheats and in this game all the players do it's the way the world works, ain’t nothing new I'm tryna get it, I don't know about you I’m happy to be here, this is true but I know where I’m at, I ain’t no fool Slavery 3.0, no color lines, just one line, white, black, dumb, blind this time they don’t own us, just everything else everything we see, touch and smell same dudes selling the bullets and the band-aids and we're too ready to blast ourself gotcha half dead, digging all in your own head cuz you can't even afford the f**king lead so everybody’s like now what? nothing left to do but work from the ground up cuz everything you know’s been ground up, like coffee beans and you think you probably seen this before? outta luck. the world broke, if you noticed things look the same but it feel different, don’t it? everybody on TV's still loaded and you over here living moment to moment but the ground’s getting hotter every other day it’s going down, it’s already underway is America America without suckers? we're about to find out... so good luck a silver lining: the dumbass in us is dying and the dumbass is us, no denying so let me propose a toast to the death of stupidity and what we're gonna be
5.
Ambition 03:20
here's the picture like Mozilla from the land of no winter, a melting pot set on slow simmer a low heat, turning up slowly sending me and my team into the streets boldly for them proceeds outlines, plans and diagrams, blown out, just lines in the sand regroup, throw the alley-oop, recoup and buy me a coup NY, my own brownstone, buy me a stoop fuck a ball court. hoops ain't gon help cats the world's messed up, get your thinking caps, think facts used to write till my hand had ink tracks now I tap my Blackberry till the space bar cracks between making nuff calls to leave my SIM card taxed each heist is my new best... just feels like I'm losing less I feel it pinching at my chest... in this life there won't be no rest for every day I spent just walking with no clue what to do and got nowhere to go all I know is something's calling the slower I walk, the louder it gets and when I'm sitting it's driving me outta my head age ten, they said the kid is ambitious years later, the shit is a damn sickness love withers, friends keep their distance yeah it's painful, but nah I don't blame you if I was smart, I'd do the same too but I got heart so I say fuck it and stay true and that's a story for another day boo, anyhoo that's life in my shoes, ten and a halfs I sleep in em, no bedside tables, no bibles life got rules but I only learn when I lose friends got advice but I never liked jewels that’s pride fooling you, like a rock can outshine you like you gotta taste hell to see heaven, who lied to you? we ain’t gotta make nada right now's perfect. take it like a bank robber, in today's honor the sun's shining, life is good.. so why don't I feel it like I should? friends say chill, stop tripping like I'm the only one who sees the clock ticking my religion's ambition there's only one life to live, and there ain't nothing after this and so I'm living life on the roam, roaming left me all alone but roaming's all I know, so give me the strength to keep on going. we don't need answers, don't need passwords just need to move anywhere but backwards and if we should ever be in doubt.. fuck it, we took the scenic route this a marathon through the Amazon, through Babylon the Matterhorn, the catacombs, each day's a hundred hours long we at the Travelodge, ten rappers large tryna figure how to camouflage this catalog to get it past the castle walls our numbers slashed, we're cut to half I know it's tough to grasp, motherfuckers in the past, nothing last and those left are in the desparation of great expectations and again, they say patience be gracious in the face of complications though joy’s evasive and grief be your close acquaintance cuz faith is the basis, we're in space and it’s the spaceship a world unglued.. faith sticks someone special told me that ain't believe it till she left, now I know that's a fact.
6.
took a wrong turn off the freeway... had nowhere to go anyway engine smoking and the radio's broken and my driver window and this Heinie bottle won't open American made, not a damn thing works but who gives a shit, you look great, it's the American way no gas from here to Pelican Bay Escaped Convict signs on the freeway, look, they're getting away, run! fools won't last day one desert'll fry yall to steak, pass the A-1 all they saw was sand, ran to the edge of the sky and just saw more sand and then Jesus, two more believers must be your plan, like every windfall and bad scam on my course landed me on this scenic overlook with this small van and this tall can and all these grand ideas that's just sand through my hands I'd be you gladly, I get so bored of being me it ain't personal, I'd go crazy being anybody all this waking up, straining to make a buck making love, making mistakes and breaking up till fate says enough and clocks me out now you got me loud, don't worry, this next shot'll knock me out and you won't hear my mouth for like an hour at least get some driving done and maybe I'll get lucky and dream all I seen, walls the color of cream, plasma screens that's all static everything smelled like gasoline, and woke up going what the fuck does it mean? under a tree with dogs licking me and kids kicking me and the engine picked now to spring a leak ran out of chippers, yeah, figures and oh yeah, LA had its earthquake, the big dipper, it's history now your dreams are realer than your memories you got a clean slate, a new life, works for me if we don't move we die, and we only move when we're missing something so maybe mistakes keep us alive and half of mine are the smartest things I ever did so the only real mistake is not doing shit, so everything's cool so why do I feel like that ain't true? too little, too late, 2am chasing a drink but this is Cali, you assed out, your team's passed out in this hick-ass town and shoulda been put the fucking glass down why you hanging round? lay your ass down but I ain't tired, I'm wired like I'm nine and don't wanna miss a thing like I'm driving ten miles with my turn light blinking like I'm high and can't stop thinking, I ain't got a inkling I don't know shit, wanna walk? walk quick I'm contagious, lemme get close, I'm gon stick
7.
the fog hung like a problem over rows of stucco from the windows, a faint glow the UFO flew low, but all they saw was palms the captain waved and they carried on back on the ground the animals rummaged through the rubbish two drunkards in an alley, gone that Cali bomb got the world looking badly drawn like God’s a lefty, and everything he draws smudges he pauses, mutters 'fuck this' and rushes what results is unfit to publish now it’s all over the world in leatherbound covers it says we need to be punished, guess he holds grudges now I’m after them stones like I’m Mike Douglas I’m Indiana Jones with a bullet and one wish the devil leans in for the tonguekiss motherfuckers is rolling like aborigines rowing blast to starboard, call Napoleon window wound down, blow a blow dart close to the mark barely missed and hit Noah’s Ark the sky exploded in feathers, the man remarked later on as he wrote in his letters his wife back home kept ‘em stowed in her dresser two drawers from the bottom, below the sweaters when her manfriend would show up, she kept her mouth shut photographs face down, then she went face down can’t look him in the eye, but she can play around don’t know why though, she never makes a sound the man snorts and heaves but the woman stays dryer than autumn leaves.. that’s guilt and she wonders why every plant in the house wilts working on drink seven, yeah yeah another booze reference wonder why I need booze to admire a flower’s arc a church squire, a quiet hour in the park we built this empire on blue sapphire whisky sour with the Cutty Sark.. the money, the power like that, white rule emerges from the dark destined to come apart from the start pain keeps a man moving, fear keeps a man improving victory is ruin, just gotta keep doing day after day, facing that ocean, diving in the deep blue the breeze blew, peaceful, and he grew bolder with each move leaping over boulders deep into the far jungle where no one go no drum solos, just grunts and low rolls my whole life I been heel-toeing but right now me and fate got a deal going.. my force field glowing observations on the road I’ve taken I seen a man die in Shanghai, don’t ask why ran with magpies and gadflies, bad guys with bad eyes and we all travel standby, so pack light, bring a flashlight sailors and salesmen, bailiffs and bailsmen a thousand soldiers about-facing and bailing a million demonstrators scaling the railings cuz civilization failed ‘em on Thursday it took up one column, page thirty the walls came down, it made page thirteen the currency crashed and half of the newsroom laughed Marines showed and it made page three they beheaded the king, now to page two yeah, better keep an eye on this thing then rebels took the pipeline.. hello, primetime.
8.
Bumpy Road 05:03
I'm in D.R. at the bar poolside with some broads. pardon the phrase, ma they're in their bras and all these El Debarge looking cats around are making it hard for me to starve nighttime we lay back and stare at the stars is there a god? and pull out tarot cards spent the night with an arrow lodged in my chest, yes Cupid take a bow and a round of applause girl name Monica.. and oh lord. cooked me beans with the vegetable oil, no lard. she helped me practice my Spanish, no charge now I roll my Rs like they roll them cigars almond eyes, and they twinkle like glass rocks the acid-washed jeans with the sprinkles on the ass got a little Creole, a little Puerto Rico got a little B.O. but it's all G though got a little hijo, and a baby daddy about 300 pounds and six feet four showed up at the door, time for Malky to go on some Looney Tunes shit, adios amigo. let us blow to the next episode a pickup, a big cup and a bumpy road let's go, yep yep time to go a pickup, a big cup and a bumpy road let it flow homeboy, let it flow a pickup, a big cup and a bumpy road let us blow to the next episode a pickup, a big cup and a bumpy road we got these tall boys from the liquor store we gonna drink these, then we gonna get some more and ignore them cats hanging by the front door they gonna get you for whatever they can get you for it's all about that girl down in number four she got every dude on the block itching to score she know what she's doing in them little shorts stepped to her real fast, like 'what you take me for?' now I got a lil partner, a good chick nice with the car stereo, she don't play no bullshit good with my fetty, she don't let me buy no bullshit dresses like Salt 'n Pepa circa era Push It heaven scent, she make my ride smell sexy we spend more time in the back seat than the front seat but more and more these days she wanna front see cop a lil funky attitude and try to punk me told her get right or get left, get some ackrite or get effed shotgun driver still wanna ball and shout then she passed out when she woke up we were at her mama house
9.
in the sunshine and all my stars are aligned, I got time. how to make a minute out a second? I figured it out in and out, keep stepping. yall sweating a printout? life ain't got no receipt, and religious beliefs are deceitful that shit's stone-age man, it's all see-through evolve beyond, eighty years and we're gone, so keep the heat on early morning I sip my Ceylon looking for a cracker to spread my Brie on bread and cheese, get your cheese, my G now we're eating like Dom Delouise, my G I take 'em crumpled or in bundles, the same to me I don't grumble, that's that one dude, it ain't me six million sperm in a load and I made it so this is all icing on the cake shit they call me ADHD cuz I can't choose between all these pretty ladies an outside table please, so we can enjoy the breeze and when I lean in we accidentally knock knees it's all a man needs, me and you at the crib, cmon, kick your feet up a little Aretha, a little reefer, if you want pizza we can put it on my Visa remember when shit was crucial staying frugal, eating noodles, basil if you wanna be frou-frou but this month I'm bubbling so get whatever you wanna get, booboo cuz pretty soon 85 degrees and by the sea, goddamn right, this is the life for me my door stays open, fuck privacy. I got nothing to hide, you see sold my Honda for two gees, yeah they got a deal now I roll the Oldsmobile, I'm in the driver's seat stock 16s, scheming on 20s, got a CD player for them hot sixteens scheming on pennies? not me player.. premium gas, yeah see me I'm fast I understand yall needing yall cash but 33 cents ain't really all that cats live like they're destined to fail, I spend like the check's in the mail hustle hard, every month is a downtown shot but I make it every time and sit down to much applause think like a pauper? that's all you gonna get I think like a baller who ain't made it big yet key word - copping new angles at lunch with Spielberg, working the half-Jew angle on that note let me get out your way gotta shit shower shave for them big power plays you see, by nature we do this, rain or shine and everything we want comes to us cruising, got the wheel in each hand PCH air smelling like beach sand pardon me, but i'm feeling every part of me and I'm ready like the R&B band, sing that shit.
10.
Home 04:02
stray dogs, and every one of 'em, we feel like they're ours this is home chase cars, break hard, car crash, bomb blast.. thank god another day watching time pass in a land that time passed one strap slippers and dirty rivers and everywhere we go you know we got our whole family with us quakes kill half the city.. electricity till three kids make baseballs and throw rocks twelve hours in a sweatshop gets hot no work, all we do is make babies nothing but pretty ladies, can you blame me? been gone a long time.. but in my heart that's home for all time burning hot car seats wear shorts, burn a leg on, hot sidewalks, fry an egg on cars is European, and leaking or Subarus with the hood superglued, creaking they're traffic jammed up, and beeping and they might be stuck in that shit all weekend drive down our street, we all peeping but just cuz we curious, no reason nah we ain’t scheming, most of us decent but you always got them certain cats beasting peace in the field’s an achievement but as long as people ain’t eating it’s got no meaning it’s a sequence.. the names change the timeframe'll change but the shit keep repeating been gone a long time, but in my heart that's home for all time no shoes, hard soles, black feet, no dentist, bad teeth but in a race they'll lay you out like a man asleep no gym, no trainer, natural athletes soccer game in every backstreet and them boys don't even stop for rain kids play like soccer's all they got, a shame it ain't true but if they think so, it's all the same cops'll lock you up, stock and chain, for not a damn thing and people will not complain and you're lucky if you're getting out and don't ask my cousin what them marks on her back are about just brainwashed sick and ain't got shit it's the same old shtick, they just act it out been gone a long time, but in my heart that's home for all time get me outta here.
11.
it's a Green Card jihad he punched a hole in my shit it got recalled, now wait for my row to be called right hand, I solemnly swear long as we're here to rep US me and Yussef, y u s s, yes, two s the floor cheering, black president swore me in we're going hard all weekend, more Cristal just glad they ain't line us single file and shoot us through the head Schindler's List style party? no preference, no difference put me down for whichever dude's parents was the immigrants we're the militants building businesses like Egyptians with them pyramids and now your kids are mixed good genes, honor roll, never caught a cold they cook, clean, daughters beauty queens, sons all swole half Brit, camel jockey, karate, Somali Haiti, Kuwaiti babies, my lil Gandhis
12.
Kenyatta 02:51
midnight and this Greyhound's about to break down it's making that shaking sound runaways and scared flyers.. one kid sleeping with a pair of pliers high noon off the Belize Keys, sweating in a packed taxiboat getting crunched, I hope fatty float cuz if the shit flip I’ma grab his throat morning, I slide through customs easy white last name make my life easy looking at me weird cuz I don’t have the beard in the photo so what? gotta go.. no back room for me my uncle fell asleep in there once and woke up in Turkey he’s a good guy but the return visa still took five.. I could cry dawn and the sun’s creeping.. all I hear’s the train squeaking then like a beacon the town unfolded, homes, cars and streets postcard treatment had me geeking so hard this old broad had to nudge me now I’m in your country, sun on my neck bag around my neck but I’m punchy, streets are chunky music playing, peeps is bumpy, girls chonies is lumpy the song got my ears ringing then suddenly everybody in the crowd starts singing and it was nothing I understood but it was all good.. again and it was like a light went off in my head and everything I saw said.. and we clapped our hands sore and danced our feet raw and I told myself I never wanted anything more and then the band said

about

Iranian/British-blooded, Italian-born, and raised across the Middle East and Europe before moving to Los Angeles, homeless traveling rapper Malkovich presents Pre-Boarding, his new mixtape mixed by DJ Spinna. On Pre-Boarding, Malkovich raps over African, Caribbean, Brazilian, Indian and Cape Verdean world music classics from Alice Coltrane, Shaan, Serge Gainsbourg, Rob, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Contonou Dahomey, Mulatu Astatqe, Augustus Pablo, Tim Maia, and Orquesta Joe Cain, as well as two compositions from L.A. producer Computer Jay. Omni, Sum, Chris Clarke and Ali Baba Abnormal also guest. Malkovich shares a dedication to love, an ode to his idea of home, his experience of becoming an American citizen and a eulogy to imperialism across Pre-Boarding’s 11 tracks, written in the Dominican Republic, Belize and Jamaica. Pre-Boarding is Malkovich’s second full-length release since throwing away all his possessions to travel the world; the first being 2013’s Great Expectations, which received support from DJ Premier, The Source and the Wake Up Show. His 2011 mixtape Ayatollah Presley - mixed by deejay/producer House Shoes – featured Dibia$e and Prince Po of Organized Konfusion, and his verse from “NOLA Redux” kicked off Gilles Peterson’s 2009 Best Of HipHop Mix. Malkovich recently began #1BAG, a multimedia project where he finds producers across the world on Twitter, collaborates with them in their countries, and documents the experience through music, video and articles. Pre-Boarding marks “the true beginning of my career,” Malkovich says when asked about the mixtape’s title. “I always dreamed of documenting my world travels through music, and after 20 years of rapping, my dream's my reality.”

credits

released October 23, 2014

tape mixed by DJ Spinna [@djspinna]
a Gilles Peterson Worldwide Premiere
music mixed and mastered by Yamin Semali [@yaminallday]
special thanks to Alice Coltrane, Shaan, Serge Gainsbourg, Roy, Orchestre Poly-Rythmo De Contonou Dahomey, Mulatu Astatqe, Augustus Pablo, Tim Maia, Joe McCain and Mazzi.

cover art shot by Chuck Chilla

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Malkovich Music Los Angeles, California

HOMELESS TRAVELING RAPPER

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