Artist(s): Dirt, Radius, Parable, Evolve
Song: Silent Candle
Word Count:
Soundscape: evolvE
Recorded: Parable’s old house (in the bedroom)
Album: ‘Broken Earth EP’ (a split EP released in 2003 with Dirt and Nazir)

Dirts favorite Line(s): ‘its God you’ll be forgetting, but thinking that God forgot you’, ‘blood and sweat removed from His divine spine to add to my spineless’, (Radius) ‘I try my best to stick out like Sammy Davis jr. from the Rat Pack’, (Parable) ‘to stand on mountains shouting “seek Heaven, forsake Hell’


Back when the old locustfist.com site was up and running, I was contacted by evolvE (Danny), an MC/Producer from a Chicago based crew, Nazir. The emails started with the normal encouragement that a fan usually sends, but I was really digging this guys steelo. Those emails opened the opportunity for me to meet with Danny and Nazir while on tour in 2000. They knew I was traveling through their area so they set up a show in the auditorium of a huge church. Besides finally meeting up with some people I had only known by email, I was born in Chicago and it aways seems like I am at home there, even though I only knew the city for the first two years of my life.
I was really impressed with the work the crew had put in to the show. It was probably the only show on the tour that was geared towards a hiphop crowd. When you are a famously unknown music artist, just at the crossroads of quitting and superstardom you go on these small tours set up with venue owners that could care less about setting their spot up for a good show. Most of the time they are so far removed from your culture to even have a clue on how to promote or prepare the venue for the show. They set up a mic attached to some cheap speakers and a mixing board, give out a few flyers, and go smoke a cigarette. Not the Nazirites! They had the spot decked out, turntables and a DJ ready, invited all the Bboys and Bgirls they could find, and the actual venue itself was amazing. It was in the basement auditorium of a massively large church built in the 70’s. Needless to say, that show was the highlight of that tour.
Afterwards the crew went the extra step, one of their friends worked at a hotel. He set it up for us to get in the penthouse of a 4 star hotel! The room had 3 TV’s, a juccuzzi/bath in the middle of the bedroom, a shower with 4 spray heads, and a bed that could hold the dimensions of a full grown sperm whale. The funniest thing is that all the guys in Nazir thought we were used to that kind of level of care. Little did they know that up until that point, every tour I have ever been on, a hotel room in the sleaziest part of town in between a brothel and a methamphetamine lab would be a welcomed break from sleeping in the car at rest stops. Again, needless to say, I enjoyed meeting Danny and the Nazir crew.
From there me and Danny stayed in contact via the internet. Though emails can be dry at times we actually grew pretty close. Somewhere along the way in my life, someone had introduced me to the term ‘Man Love’. It’s basically a term to use when you are no longer a boy and have too much machismo to use the phrase ‘best friend’. The fellas will say, “you’re in man love”, when they are tryin to goof on you about some guy you look up to. When a man falls prey to ‘Man Love’ it does not mean that he is homosexual. It just means that he really admires another male as a close friend. He values the relationship with the other guy and esteems his companionship highly. Ok…ok…some of that does sound pretty homoerotic! But I love Danny Hernandez and his family! And if you can’t handle that…then poop on you!
So anyway, in 2002 the Nazirites and I planned to make a big impression at Cornerstone (which actually turned into a live album), an annual music festival held about 4 hours south of Chicago. I flew back out to the Windy City a few days in advance to hang out with Danny and the crew. EvolvE had sent me a beat for a song that was to be recorded and put on Nazir’s first album release.
The track was called ‘Silent Candle’ and it was set to this moody piano loop and haunting vocals from ????. The concept, which inspired the name, was basically to create lyrics centered around the topic of having a ‘gift’ but not sharing it, to have a ‘light’ to offer this dark world, but to keep it hidden under a bowl (). Fear, anxiety and doubt often the culprit behind this travesty.
Upon arriving at Midway Airport, I didn’t even recognize Danny. The only other time I had seen him, he had a freshly shaved bald head and no facial hair. This time around he had grown a short crop of black hair with a decent tuft of a goatee all reminiscent of a Hispanic Shaggy (from Scooby-Doo fame). Eventually I asked, “Where’s danny?”, before I realized that he was walking right next to me, helping me carry my bags to the car.
We all spent the next few days hangin out and preparing for the Festival show. Late nights in the basement of Danny’s mothers house being loud and raucous. During that time we were able to also record our verses for the ‘Silent Candle’ song. I love modern technology and software that has allowed these high end studio’s to move right into the smallest corners of our houses.
We spent the next week in Bushnell, IL performing and fellowshipping at Cornerstone Festival. The night before I returned home, we all went to Parable’s house for a bible study/Nazir meet. It was actually at this meeting that a close friend of the Nazir massive, Nina, laid out a very meaningful and heartfelt plea to the group. She had been with them for a long time and had yet seen any recorded material from the crew. She reminded them that, after all, they were musicians. Where was the music? A lot of time had been spent on stage performances and visuals, but little effort on actual recordings that could be sold at these events and given out as promotional material. Her speech was inspiring and motivational. It was also at this meeting that I first suggested a ‘split EP’ (where two separate music groups contribute tracks to one album). I had quickly grown to love the talent and heart represented by all the Nazir group. By this time, their efforts had assimiliated into mine, and mine into theirs. A few years after meeting them all, they were ‘Shadow of the Locust’ and I was a ‘Nazirite’. So concepted an album that features the first material released from me in years, and this would be the perfect way to introduce Nazir to the world.
It didn’t happen overnight. It was another few months before I ever heard the final version of ‘Silent Candle’, and even many months after that I spent weeks in Chicago to record 5 new tracks. Collectively, with some material from the crew, it all eventually culminated to form an independently released album called ‘Broken Earth’.
‘Silent Candle’ quickly become a favorite of the fans. In fact it held the 6rd highest place on the MP3.com hiphop charts for a few days back in June of 2003. For around 2 weeks days afterward, it stayed within the top 10. Personally, I like the song but I can’t listen to it a lot. It’s rich with thought, sometimes too rich. I can taste from it, and that sample will last me for a month or two before I can come back and take encouragement from it again.