i description cont.

Surprise cover. Bet you weren't expecting me to upload another video for the rest of this year. Hey, neither was I.
I wrapped up the arrangement and recorded everything over the course of a single day. This is kind of a rush job, honestly. I altered the chords in this cover to be a little different from the original song to make them more diverse and hopeful-sounding. More progressions of 7ths, less emphasis on the bassline during the verses and elsewhere.

I've thought about arranging up this track for 3 years now. The pop-funk-soul-fusion instrumental slaps hard as shit, King Kendrick spits with heart, and it's got a beautiful, uplifting message. But I guess I forgot about it and never got around to it. However, due to a strange surge of resolution, perhaps fueled by current events, I've finally decided to arrange and cover the track in its entirety.

The song is nothing without its message, which has never ceased being relevant. It's quite simple. Keep your head up. You must love what's inside you, even if everything outside you is perpetually in deep shit. True strength is shown when one refuses to let the world bring them down. Kendrick wrote this track for an album universally hailed as a masterpiece because of how unique, gripping, and fucking disgusting it was (have you HEARD Alright?). It spoke truth loud and clear in 2015. And it speaks just as loudly today, because nothing has changed.

So I guess that's why I suddenly felt like playing this track today, after 3 years of leaving it lying around. Because the message is still important. A lot needs to change in this country. And through everything, we've got to keep our heads up.

But what the fuck do I know, right? I'm just some lonely nerd playing music in his basement. Yeah, I guess. More than anything, today I simply felt like playing a cover of one of my favorite songs, from one of my favorite albums, by my favorite rapper. And that's that! No matter what's going on, I'll be hunched over my piano shredding the keys, or sitting in my basement putting these sticks to work. You'd better believe it.