Music
Three projects and a long tail of singles, freestyles and remixes. All of it streams free. The old DatPiff links are dead, so everything below points to where the music lives now.
The Solar and the Fury
Started in earnest around 2018 and recorded in San Francisco with Faulkner. The title plays on William Faulkner’s The Sound and the Fury and on the name of the producer who made every beat. Faulkner took his title from Macbeth: life as “a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.” That line is the spine of the record. Around it is a postmodern hellscape: betrayal from inside the circle, hard times, debt, screens and noise, and a future that looks worse than the present. Against all of it the Solar side holds, a rebel cry against being absorbed by the matrix, from the arrival on ALPHA to the Judas in the posse on the closer, which ends on that same Shakespeare speech. Faulkner’s beats follow the descent: mid-tempo and bright up front, loudest on the title track, then lower and heavier as it closes.
The Solar and the FuryPlayer not showing? Open the album on Spotify
- ALPHAThe arrival. Name, hometown and independence stated up front, with the fury already in the ad-libs: “and no I’m not signed but I stay fly.”
- StargatesThe dream the matrix sells. Small digs to posh estates, a lavish life that turns out to be a dream you wake up from.
- The Solar and the FuryThe hellscape in full view. Power, media and a law that treats people as fictions: “Who told you this was democracy?”
- HeliocentricPulling out of orbit. Chess moves, karma and a reminder that the system is not the center: “check your system man, it’s Heliocentric.”
- The Woman in the Red DressThe matrix itself. A spoken piece on the distraction built to catch your eye: the illusion of choice, the noise, and who sets the time.
- Do Not Go Gentle (Rage)The rebel cry. Wu-Tang lessons, the Bay Area melting pot, and refusing to go quietly when speech gets banned.
- Dying of the LightHardship and the grim forecast: debt, diamonds on empty souls, food we could be growing ourselves. The light holds anyway, day or night.
- JUDAS BRUTUS OMEGABetrayal from inside the posse, ego against id, and a close on the Macbeth speech that gives the record its spine.
Produced by Faulkner. Engineered by Jorge “Mid-Fi” Hernandez. Cover art by James Hawkins.
First single · 5.22.20
Dying of the Light
Track 7 on The Solar and the Fury, produced by Faulkner. On the album it follows “Do Not Go Gentle (Rage)” and the two go together.
Dying of the LightPlayer not showing? Open the track on Spotify
I wrote Dying of the Light in August and September of 2019, and the title comes from a line in the Dylan Thomas poem “Do not go gentle into that good night.” The song is about Americans losing freedom of speech. The “light” represents freedom. Freedom of thought, freedom of speech and freedom to live unencumbered by thought police and draconian and engineered social orders.
The media is a controlled conglomerate. It brainwashed citizens, and now it gets mad that people have their own outlets online. If dissent is eliminated, the light of freedom is extinguished. There is an urgency to it, a call to action if you will. In the first verse: “I ain’t got time to play when I’m the Light and it’s Dying.” We can rage against it. We can battle it. We must not go gentle.
The Solar and the Fury is my most personal work to date, and social commentary has always been a primary purpose of Solar Wind, since before the “MC” was added. The betrayal side of the album lives in other songs, most directly “JUDAS BRUTUS OMEGA.”
My friend and producer Spenser has gone by the name Faulkner for as long as I can remember. I think it is reflected in the chaotic and unorthodox nature of his style as a producer, and it is certainly reflective of how we crafted these beats together.
This is not a beginner album, and the content is not really made for the radio. It is my life and my deepest concerns bleeding on to the page. It was made to challenge me as much as it is made to challenge you. I sincerely hope you listen to it, consider it and interact with it.
MC Solar Wind: Breathe Life.
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I AM SOLAR WIND
Originally slated for 12.12.12, released 12.21.12. Mostly recorded in San Francisco. More about revolution than typical hip hop. The title track, a spoken-word piece written after a Northeast snowstorm, is still his most-played song: “I was up late studying at the Bloomberg terminal when something strong, like a Wind, swept over me.”
- Graceland (Space-Time)
- I AM SOLAR WIND
- Breathe In
- Hi god
- Home in Death
- Reminisce pt. II
- Kamikaze
- Man on the Moon
- No Chains Attached
- Show Goes On
- Light Up feat. Amit Tyrant Dow
- Hey Mac Hey Wax
- Migrant (bonus, prod. Joey Ak)
- Orion (Light Up) (bonus)
Originally released on DatPiff, which is offline. The SoundCloud set carries most of the tape; the lyrics to the title track are on the blog.
Classic
Written 2007 to 2009, mostly recorded in Massachusetts, released in DC the week Snowmageddon shut the city down. Beats from Ivan “Dream It” Almeida and G-Ammo. One studio session, minor edits, the impurities of a young artist left in on purpose.
In his words: “Mixtape was released first on Datpiff but that site has since went down. I guess you could call this an Archive now.”
Written for the room
Some songs start with a brief. A company or a film crew tells him who they are and where they’re headed, he writes the song, and then he performs it live for the people it’s about.
Palo Alto Networks
Wrote a theme song for Palo Alto Networks and performed it outdoors for the whole company.
Machine Zone (MZ)
Wrote a theme song for MZ and performed it at the company’s big holiday party in San Francisco.
Big Dreams (Road to a Billion) · Sequoia Real Estate
Sequoia Real Estate commissioned “Big Dreams (Road to a Billion)” as the theme song for A Giant in the Making, the documentary that opens its Road to a Billion series about founder and CEO Kelvin Kam and the company’s push toward a billion dollars in annual sales. Directed and produced by Gary Seto. Produced by Sulto, recorded at Different Fur in San Francisco, mixed and mastered by Jorge Hernandez.
Under a week from studio to premiere. In his words: “We recorded this song on a Sunday, mixed and mastered it on Monday / Tuesday, scored it into the movie on Wednesday and premiered the documentary with a live performance to follow on a Thursday.”
The film premiered Thursday, August 19, 2021, at Landmark’s Embarcadero Center Cinema in San Francisco, as part of Sequoia’s 11th anniversary. He performed the song live at the opening, and it plays over the end credits. The hook: “Sequoia, big tree with a big dream / Small team in the Bay doing big things.”
In 2026 he brought it back for Sequoia’s holiday party at a rented mansion in the Bay Area, with a speech to go with it.
Commission a song or book a performance
A company milestone, a launch, a film, a party. Send who it’s for, the date and the room.
Between the projects
- 2020Dying of the Light (prod. Faulkner)SoundCloud
- 2020STARGATES (prod. Faulkner)SoundCloud
- 2018Rap Game (prod. G-Ammo)SoundCloud
- 2018Abracadabra (prod. Rex Mac)SoundCloud
- 2018Focus (A Space Dream)SoundCloud
- 2017All Lives Matter (Right) feat. SultoSpotify
- 20167 God vs 6 God (one-take freestyle)SoundCloud
- 2016Blur (prod. Ivan Almeida)SoundCloud
- 2015WishesSoundCloud
- 2014Heliocentric (prod. Faulkner)SoundCloud
- 2014Dead PresidentsSoundCloud
- 2013Dead GatsbySoundCloud
- 2013Stock Market CypherSoundCloud