Drug Runner EP

Reflections from Solocypher

It’s been a real pleasure to make this record with Bernard James. Being on tour with the Preciptoman gang when I first joined the label made me feel like a proper rapper again after a general hiatus; at that time I was going through a hefty bout of depression but being amongst like minded artists really helped me cling on and keep the love of rap music an anchor during a turbulent time.

Working my way through mental health issues and into a much more positive mindset and hugely improved level of health I have encountered an awful lot of information that continues to excite and interest me and makes me want to share it with the world. Much of it I see as incredibly enabling not just for those with difficulties, but for everyone in general who are looking to improve or optimise their life, and this EP marks the start of this ongoing journey.

Sharing information and strategies that have helped me is the essence of the concept behind 'Drug Runner'. Our bodies are incredible instruments and by doing things such as running, engaging in sports, meditating, working towards big goals and with many other strategies we can actually reverse engineer our neurochemical systems to essentially become our own drug dealers.

While working with Bernard James on this project I was given a masterclass in how to collaborate… the creation of music and development of the tracks was great fun and sonically I love the results, I hope you do too!

Kick Your Own Arse Music

Kicking your own arse can be a dangerous game; when spiralling into depression I often heard, especially from family that I was being too hard on myself. This was true at the time and if I ever fall into that hole again I really want to be reminded of the point. However I have re-emerged into a much more positive mode of thought and am working on ideas and projects that do require a lot of effort. Therefore it is important to know how to motivate yourself, and giving yourself a little boost pep talk like this can actually work wonders (apparently mantras are also pretty good!) Listening to this track while out running I am very pleased to report that it can help me punch out a slightly faster pace as I think ‘Yo, I kicked my arse enough to write and record this; I can do some other cool sh*t today also’.

“Only one route to truth, you got to earn wisdom, drunk scientists pursue a blurred vision”. I try to consider myself a rationalist and love the benefits of science. Here I am contemplating how science can shine a light but we must be aware that the beam can sometimes be very narrow. Hence the need to earn wisdom, in whatever ways we can. I have found daily meditation in the morning helps me immensely and provides me with the space to reflect on problems I have encountered in the past in a new light.

I’m just tryna unearth dirt
In this absurd system
Obtuse adjectives dont help compound sentences
If the sentence has no penitence
Or modicum of effectiveness

The above is a general dig at the current education system; the unearth dirt a double meaning in that we are taught very little about the degradation of soil which, along with climate change, is having a devastating impact on our global ecosystem while at the same time the education systems with their obsessive test based orthodoxy breeds stress and apathy in both teachers and students and often ruins the joy of learning.

I became trapped into a downward tailspin when I realised that my professional life as a teacher working within the system in the UK was coming to an end. I couldn't deal with the inherent contradictions and corruption I see as endemic within schools and surrounding industry. A classic example is going into a classroom with tonnes of displays on grammar and rules plastered all over the walls. Impressed but daunted (I was never formally taught grammar) I began quizzing the students on the meanings of all the impressive displays. They didn't have a clue. It was all for show. A sad reflection that encapsulated my experience… Make the data look like everyone is learning, skew the figures, make the graphs look good… in my view is the whole thing is a shambles, so I’m just trying to do what I can from the periphery as I work out better ways to help improve...watch this space!

“So all I can do now is inspire..”; I am constantly impressed and fascinated by the technology around us (the fact that we can accurately gauge our VO2 Max levels through GPS and Smartwatches to help us improve our athletic capacities is amazing to me, as is all human ingenuity reflecting back to when early man saw and began cultivating fire)...so this verse sees me doing my motivational best rolling through the rap scene, a version of me in my rap superhero mode; going off on a bit of a mad one. I think I’m juggling words to encapsulate a sort of computer game power up experience that can only come from spitting a load of ridiculous bars, with references to chakras and such which brings to my mind art works by the likes of Alex Grey; playing with the ideas of natural physiology with more esoteric visions of spirit and energy.

After all the hype there is the inevitable dip and in the third verse I mention the naked dream state that seems commonly to signify states of anxiety. When teaching I had many restless nights when I was worried about whatever deadline or inspection I was facing the following day; living with that level of anxiety with a constant build up of adrenaline and cortisol was not healthy at all. In a new mode of life where I have to set more of my own, healthier, targets and goals it is important to have strategies.

I reference a motivational ‘hack’ the comedian Seinfeld is reported to have found useful. Needing new material he forced himself to write a new joke every day and then mark this achievement with a big cross on his calendar. The aim was to not break the chain, and as a result he was, over time, able to build up a huge reserve of jokes.

‘Working till we bonkers’; again referencing my own experiences but also reflecting on the nature of work in general. Is it useful? Is it of benefit to humans, to other species, to the earth? Time spent considering these questions is vital if we are to leave legacies that future generations will appreciate rather than just bemoaning our wastefulness. It might be more useful if we carve out more time for weight lifting and contemplating the universe in every moment like Eckhart Tolle recommends in ‘The Power of Now’. Once you have a plan, there will always be roadblocks and this track aims to help with blasting through obstacles or thinking strategically and becoming like water (in the philosophical ideal of Bruce Lee) to flow around the obstacle, ignoring it, or using its strength as a catapult to help us achieve our aims, whatever they are.


Legal Drug Dealing

This track is my favourite in terms of the message I’m trying to convey across the project and is where I go into a bit of depth on some of the specific neurochemicals that affect our mind states. The more I learn on this subject and begin to implement strategies based on this knowledge, the better I feel and the more able I am to work with and help others effectively.

Hence the opening line “I’m just trying to stop suicides”; by raising awareness of and potential solutions for mental health issues I am helping myself, and hopefully others by osmosis. Trying to lead by example I mention briefly the time I spend in the kitchen; ‘spend an hour with the knives out, veg for the soup’ preparing and cooking my own food, an incredibly important activity that is foundational to our bodies ability to regulate itself and help produce the chemicals needed to keep us happy.

In particular I focus on dopamine is also known as the ‘motivation molecule’ and is what gives you the feel good feeling when you achieve something. It is extremely powerful and one of the reasons we get so addicted to our phones (we get a hit everytime we click through some sort of notification) so approach dopamine inducing activities with caution!

“Write down every goal, then go out achieve it,
Cross it off the list; dopamine hit, recieve it....”

There are a huge variety of ways for us to receive dopamine, many of these are through achieving goals. I found that even the smallest, simplest task can provide that feel good feeling. So next time you're feeling a bit glum just write down 3 tiny, achievable tasks and then get that dopamine hit when you cross it off!

In order for our bodies to effectively manufacture dopamine we have to ensure a healthy diet. Just one of many good reasons to up your intake of almonds, apples, avocados, bananas, beetroot, chocolate, coffee, fava beans, leafy vegetables and green tea! Exercise and good sleep is also vital for keeping our general brain chemistry in a healthy state, but we can also hack the process a little…Oxytocin provides us with warm and fuzzy feelings and we get this with contact with other people; next time you meet and greet a good friend see if you can go in for a hug rather than a handshake and see if you notice the difference! Also whenever you need a pick me up jump on youtube and watch a quick couple of minutes of your favourite comedian. Laughing is one of the best ways to release a mini flood of feel good chemicals...maybe I will do a comedy album next...

Run

I loved writing this song as it gave me a chance to express some of the many joys I have experienced while developing as a long distance runner. My good friend Chris Lopez suggested I run to help cope with depression, and as a result I found out about the amazing Park Run organisation. Park Runs are completely free 5 kilometer (3.1 mile) races held in parks all over the world at 9am on Saturday mornings. Entirely run by volunteers they provide a brilliant sense of community, bringing people together to really maximise the benefits of running.

In this track I mention running round the ends with friends I have met through running; this is all of the back of Park Runs so large up everyone involved, especially the Burgess Park gang! The song was initially purely about running but as the chorus developed it gained a bit more of a political edge. Going back to my critique of the education system successive Governments in Britain have sold off thousands of school playing fields right across the country, and then wonder why we have an obesity epidemic! Working in schools the lack of time and resources being put into physical education is a disgrace, so for me storming into parliament with a bunch of fitness freaks could maybe have some effect!

I love this track and it has a bunch of my favourite rhymes and tries to be as positive as possible. I am always on the look out for hip hop music with a message and was devastated to hear of the death of Nipsey Hustle so I had to throw a shout out to him in; RIP; his The Marathon Continues (TMC) clothing line still going strong and showcasing how important entrepreneurial spirit is to help build communities.

“Yeaaah then I'm listening to literature
Long distance finish tapes finessed up
With a scimitar”

This is a reference to a strategy I have found incredibly useful of the last couple of years; namely listening to audiobooks and podcasts while running. Through the apps SCRIBD and Audible I have now listened to hundreds of books on a huge variety of topics. The amount of enjoyment I’ve experienced from doing this has been massive, and the benefits to my professional life through being able to acquire more information than I had ever thought possible has really been remarkable, so I would highly recommend doing the same!

Space Hopper

I was worried about writing these sleeve notes as I wasn’t too sure how well the woman who had been pushed into the road by an unknown jogger had recovered. A quick search and I do believe she has recovered well; however the bloke who horrifyingly pushed her in front of a bus has still not been found. A tiny demonstration of just one of the many impacts that austerity has had on english society in the past decade. I also throw in a bit about the United States’s president, Trump’s high stakes gambling attitude to foreign policy which sets the song up as one that could be fear laden and doom mongering. The track quickly switches up however, as I’m attempting to show that despite such negativity and fear that gets pumped at us constantly; we can actually break out of the fear cycle hence the ‘expand and smash’ and pointing out that ‘muscles are the machines of our genes, so go move’ hopefully inspiring a bit of action into our generally sedentary, consuming lifestyles.

The bit about genes was inspired by reading Richard Dawkins “The Selfish Gene’ which is a fascinating read (did you know it was he that originally coined the term ‘meme’?). I massively respect his work, but at the same time he is one of the ‘drunk scientists’ I allude to earlier in Kick Your Own Arse Music’...drunk on the power of rationality; I’m not a fan of how easily he dismisses all spiritual and esoteric concepts. Similarly the critique was also against Oppenheimer, the genius behind the Manhattan Project which developed the Nuclear Bomb, whom I make direct reference to in this track with his quote about being the destroyer of worlds. It is a bit of a conflagration of his thought and my own internal machinacinations around depression, in which you can feel that you ‘have become death’ itself. However, much like Shiva, the destroyer is also the creator and there cannot be one without the other; so although dark there is always the promise of a brighter future.

Positive and negative concepts mingle throughout this song, especially with a brief reflection on my status as a privileged white male who was born in Australia, a country still plagued by huge racial injustice. My lyrics here could in no way fully ‘set the record straight’ but I have always felt the need to get something like this down in verse form, so here it is. As the verses draw to a close I try to bring a bit more of the spirit of positivity as ultimately the chorus is an absolute banger full of energy; which I hope you will enjoy as much as I enjoyed recording and now love singing along to while running around London town. ‘Rapping ace with the great doctor’ is a reference to three heros of mine, Hippocrates the Ancient Greek Founder of Modern Medicine, Doctor Who the cult BBC character who travels the Universe trying to do good, and my good friend Doctor Chima Anya who is an inspiration in both his work as a GP and incredibly talented and hardworking MC. Nothing like repping your inspiration! Until next time, Energy and Peace!


Shout Outs

My gorgeous wife Sherma
Bernard James
All my family and friends, especially Esme and Willow and all those who helped me get out out of the dark, you know who you are
All Park Run Volunteers & Runners
Jody Djonte