September 9, 2002

It's such a beautiful day. I was away from Florida for a few days on vacation. I spent some time with family and friends. My mom and I stayed at the house of a good friend of the family. She just bought a lovely new place and the car she's wanted for a few years now. We spent Saturday driving around in her new car and visiting different places. She was very hospitable as always. She's been friends with my mom since before I was born.  

I had a really great time. I spent hours talking to my cousins which was great. I hadn't seen them in 2 years. One of my cousins has a son who is now 4 years old. The last time I saw him he was almost 2 years old. He is such a little sweetheart and so adorable. He is so well mannered and well spoken.

He's very intelligent for a 4 year old. He asked me if I could read and if I could read a book to him and I did. He showed me a cartoon his dad bought him on DVD. When I was a kid, cartoons were on VHS. Yes, that statement makes me sound old doesn't it, even though I'm only 25.  

I bought this machine while I was away on vacation. There weren't a lot of them made. The one I bought is a bit old and needs repairs, but I'm looking forward to fixing it. I might put it in a video. I'll let you know if I do.

I recorded a track last Monday that will be featured on a soundtrack I'm producing. It's a song I wrote years ago and I made some changes to it. I'm currently writing the the last song for that soundtrack.

I'm really excited about two new groups I want to sign. I want to get to know them better first though. I have a lot of songs that would suit them and I would produce the songs they've written as well. I'm working on so many things right now. I'm still finishing up my album as well. I'm almost finished recording my CD. What's left to record and mix is not difficult at all. The bulk of the work has been completed by God's grace.

I'm really excited about the record and I'm looking forward to touring more than I ever have before. For a long time, I really wasn't excited about the idea of being on stage, but over the last couple months, I've developed a different view. Still, I do prefer being in the audience. 

Well, I've got a lot of work to do, talk to you later. 

September 11, 2002

Today has been a very emotional day. It is the anniversary of September 11th. I wrote about how I feel on the sound off page. Please read it, thank you. God bless you.

September 13, 2002

It's 12:29 am, Friday the 13th. I don't believe in the superstitions that people like to attach to that day. I don't pay things like that any attention. It just makes people fearful and superstitious and that's wrong.  

Thanks for all the nice emails you sent through the contact section. I enjoy reading them. I really appreciate that you guys took the time to write to me. The messages and questions from the interact page will be on line shortly. Thanks for participating. 

I hope to have the interact page as a regular feature on the site. I put the page on line because I wanted to communicate with you, but I do not want a message board. So, I tried to think of ways that I could communicate with you and by God's grace came up with the interact page. I feel it is the best solution. God willing when the album is released, I will include items like on line chats to tie in with that theme.   

When I say God willing, it's because in the Bible it says not to boast yourself of tomorrow, but rather to say if the Lord is willing. It's not lack of faith, it is out of respect for God. So when I say that, that's what it means.  

I recorded this afternoon. Prior to that I did some MIDI work, mostly arranging. The recording session was nice. I was singing! I mean belting out those notes. I'm going to put a clip from another song from the album on line in a few days. It's one of my favorite songs on the album. It's a ballad called "The Love Of My Life."  

I'm almost finished writing that track I mentioned a few days ago for the soundtrack. It's the one I mentioned that is the last track I had to complete for that album. I've written most of it now. It has a really nice melody that I like.

I'm still not dating anyone right now. I want to wait until I complete the CD and release it God willing, before I start dating. It just doesn't seem like the time for me to be dating. I'm working 12-14 hour days right now and some guys wouldn't understand that.   

I've been sleepy for about 4 hours now since a rehearsal earlier in evening. I'm trying to stay awake to finish up some more work. You know the kind of sleepy where once you lay down, you're asleep within a few minutes. 

I've been drinking more cranberry juice lately (the one without the sugar). I like the taste and they say it's good for you. I still like orange juice too. Hey, I grew up in Florida. 

Please read the Sound Off page again today, it has some good advice on it.

September 14, 2002

Today, I finalized several important details for the other projects I'm working on. God willing, I want to put them out right after I put out my CD, so those projects have to be ready as well.   

Contemporary Girl is available for purchase via mail order using the link on the front page and in a few days you will be able to purchase the single on line by credit card. I'm working with retailers right now and the single will be in stores shortly, followed by the album and the other CDs I've been working on and telling you about. I'm really excited about these records. I've been having such a great time writing and recording.   

I talked to my sister via instant messenger today. I talk to her almost everyday now on the computer. She is so sweet. She makes me laugh with her jokes and we talk about different things. God willing, she's gonna spend a weekend with me in a few weeks.  

My god-brother and his mom are here visiting today. They are hilarious. They are like family to me. He's 12 years old and so smart. He showed me his new glasses he got and his new sneakers. He told me about school too. He is really enjoying school and I'm glad. He had a soccer game and basketball game today. They lost, but he played well. His mom was embarrassing him deliberately by cheering for him loudly and saying things like "woo look at #47." He gave her one of those embarrassed looks (Aisha laughing). 

I made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner. Well, my god-brother is ordering me to get off the computer now and have dinner with them. So, I'm gonna go have dinner now and watch a movie with my family in the living room. Goodnight.

September 20, 2002 

I saw a great sermon on TV last night. It was on TBN. They televised one of Juanita Bynum's conferences. It was very insightful. I enjoyed the sermon a lot. I respect the fact that she doesn't compromise her message. That's something that I think is very important. I know she ruffled a lot of feathers with the things she said, but she was right and I'm glad she preached so uncompromisingly.

Like one of my other favorite preachers named John Hagee. His show is called John Hagee Today. By God's grace I've learned so much from watching his show. It's on TBN too. I've been watching his show since I was about 16 years old. Wow, it's been almost 10 years already. God bless them both.

I've got to get back to work now. I want to do some recording tonight before I go to sleep. I hope you are having a goodnight.

September 24, 2002

I'm having a good day. I slept so well and woke up ready to work. I was tired because I missed a night's sleep. You have to thank God for each day you wake up though. Too many people take that for granted. 

I've been having a great work day. Getting a lot of good ideas by God's grace. I did some more work on the promo tour. It's looking really good. I also did some work on the new Sonustar site. The Sonuvision site will be launched soon as well. I've also been mixing songs today, so far, that's what I've spent most of my work day doing. 

I'm concentrating on signing new acts. I know exactly what I'm looking for. I have a lot of material. I want to release their material right after my own. This is the part of the industry I love. I basically dislike most aspects of the industry because it is very immoral, but working with artists is one of the best things about the business.

Right now I'm working on six albums in addition to finishing up my own and a couple soundtracks. Yeah, it is a lot of work I guess, but by God's grace I'm able to do a lot of work each day.  

September 25, 2002

I'm having a great morning. I programmed several beats for one of the albums I'm working on. It's a rap album (and I will tell you more about that soon). It was great, I really enjoyed working on the album. It took me about 2 hours, but I programmed the majority of the beats for that record (with only a few more that I have left to complete). I thank God it turned out so well. It was a lot of work to complete in a couple hours.

I laid down the music template for the album. I knew what I wanted the record to sound like but now I can hear it audibly instead of just in my head.  

I have a lot of work to do each day except for Sundays. Sometimes, I will have a project or idea in mind or a task I have to complete and I'll think it's going to take a lot of time, but then by God's grace I usually finish it quickly and it becomes a reminder to me that I should not have worried about it taking a long time in the first place because that can sometimes create unnecessary anxiety and occasionally procrastination. This album was another example of that for me. Thank you God. I really appreciate it. 

I have friends and family that live in so many places. It's kind of funny when you have to calculate what time it is where they are before you call them, whether it be in Jamaica, England or California... and when you are away, then having to calculate the time from that place.

September 28, 2002

I spent hours yesterday morning mixing tracks for my album. After I mix them, I burn them unto CD, so I can listen to them while I'm out or if it's at night, I listen to them on my headphones before I fall asleep in bed, so I can listen for any changes I want to make. I love how the mixes turned out. I love the way the album sounds. It's great hearing it on CD. I love my album. I haven't mixed the entire record yet, but I love what I hear so far. I thank God that it's going so well. 

They've been filming the follow up to a major motion picture here in Miami. There is more than one big budget shoot in town this week, but I watched the filming of a scene for a highly anticipated sequel. I speak like a movie announcer don't I (haha). Well, actually there are two highly anticipated big budget sequels being filmed here this week. 

The scene they were filming featured the main actor in the film. They were filming a scene with the actor driving in a car and speaking to another actor. They attached the car to a truck and slowly drove up and down a short block. The director of the film has directed seven other films in about the last 10 years, this one is his eighth project.  

Films are great. I've seen them film quite a few projects here. The first one I remember is from 1992 when I was about 15 years old. They were filming in Brickell which is a city in Miami and is also a main financial district. 

For that shoot, they hoisted a helicopter to the side of a building and had it propped up about midway in the window area of a skyscraper (which was like at the 15th or 20th floor). I just remembered, for that scene in the film, the script called for a helicopter crash into the side of the skyscraper. Thinking about that now is sad after what happened on September 11th.