Let’s just call the genre on this one ‘Mike Patton’. Mike Patton is my favorite vocalist of all time and I wanted to do a light homage to his vocal stylings/genre-blending. Yes, that’s exactly why the ‘MP’ in ‘eMPty’ is stylized in uppercase. My producer Eugenius came up with this awesome music track…where he went ahead and did beatbox drums his damn self. 

Beatbox vocals by Eugenius.

Lyrics:

VERSE 1:

can you hear my voice inside the windowsill?
knockin’ tip-tap boom bap still.
you got to set the level when the sounds lack
non-stop body rock then jump back

kinda like me and you the guru
of saying some things in the new-new
when the lifeline is defined
speak and we will find
this the only way we can get with it on time

the beat is still outstanding
could we tear one moon apart
one side had told it
and it could never be the right time

and we know how redemption goes
treat it like your one-track mind
then run for cover
zip your lip one-time

HOOK:

and when you do say something
your voice will carry in my mind
you soothe and satisfy
but if you don’t mean nothing
grab your mic and say goodbye
your sound denied.

VERSE 2:

and i’m mapping out the words
trying to find verbs that aren’t absurd
when we gonna set aside
me and mine
you in line

what’s another level gonna be
you and me on the side three
in the silence of the melody
empty

BRIDGE:

oh
so empty (your sound)
oh
so empty (your sound)
oh
so empty (your sound)

oh
so empty (your sound)
oh
so empty (your sound)
oh - oh - oh
so empty so empty
(your sound) (your sound)

yay-yee
so empty (your sound)
yeah-uh
so empty (your sound)
yeah - eah - eah - yeah
so empty so empty so empty
(your sound) (your sound)

no
so empty (denied)
oh-no-no
so empty (denied)
no-no-no-oh-oh-oh so empty-eeeee
d e n i e d (hold and extend with line above)

HOOK:

and when you do say something
your voice will carry in my mind
you soothe and satisfy
but if you don’t mean nothing
grab your mic and say goodbye
……denied.

OUTRO:

release me
you replaced the heartbeat of the night
you left me so empty
your sound denied
eep-eep-eep

Credits:

From the full-length album Strangers Love Me (released December 8, 2023).
Production and instrumentation by Eugenius (Phillip Smith).
Words, vocals, and vocal arrangements by Abiyah (A. Rawers).
Mastering by Michael J. Collins @ Filthy Broke Recordings.
Recorded by Todd Uttley @ Fuzzy Eyed Studio.

Album cover art by Derek Toebbe.
Album cover and label design and layout by Steve Weinstein.
Album pressing by Solid Merch.

© 2023 Abiyah (Angela Rawers). All Rights Reserved.

eMPty

"Abiyah is the queen of all the mechanical parts of your heart. Her songs let you breathe underwater. She's the only thing your brain and your hips can agree on."
--Open Mike Eagle (LA-Mello Music Group/Hellfyre Club)

"Abiyah is the genuine article. A woman who is unique, talented and writes her own sh*t."
--louis logic (NYC-Fake Four Inc.)

"Asking Abiyah to give up her musical flights of fancy and pick one genre would be like asking a tigress to change her stripes. Forget it. Which Abiyah will be playing the festival? The chanteuse-over-DJ, the Punk priestess, the erudite MC or the avant-garde performance artist? Whichever, her music will be clever, danceable, sensual and confrontational." 
--Cincinnati CityBeat's MidPoint Band Guide - September 2005

Take a Soul Train dancer from 1974—one of them sistas who didn’t give a f*ck about cameras or Don Cornelius—well, if that sista made love to George Clinton and they had a baby girl and they let Patti Smith and Sister Carol raise that girl child in an embrace pre-dating same-sex marriage debates, that girl child woulda grown up to be Abiyah. By the early aughts, Cincinnati-based Abiyah hit upon a highly workable concoction: she fused her punk ethos with her love of Hip Hop, Dancehall, Dub, Alternative Rock and Spoken Word and racked up recorded collaborations and stage-to-the-page performances that resonate to this day—a poet published in the anthology Bum Rush the Page: A Def Poetry Jam (Three Rivers Press, 2001), Abiyah killed it on her impressive 2002 EP debut single “Free Wild Muse” produced by N8tiveSun, got all Grace Slick on 2004’s Coltrane Motion remix of her psychedelic cicada love song “Rise” and tweaked Bobby McFerrin’s notion of melodic vox on “Ring Around the Rosie,” an a capella/beatbox meditation recorded with Fairmount Girls’ Dana Hamblen and beatboxer Marty Spitfly.

A four-time CityBeat Cincinnati Entertainment Awards Hip Hop nominee and six-time MidPoint Music Festival veteran, Abiyah has performed at NYC’s Sidewalk Cafe with beatboxers Kid Lucky and Adam Matta, opened for avant-hip hop vanguards Mike Ladd and Beans, Brooklyn alt-rapper louis logic (Fake Four Inc.), Serengeti, Busdriver, Homeboy Sandman, Ceschi, and clipping., and, in 2011, appeared on LA art-rapper Open Mike Eagle’s second full-length offering “Rappers Will Die of Natural Causes.” She has also performed at the Vans Warped Tour on the Code of the Cutz hip hop stage, and is a well-known all-vinyl reggae DJ with Cincinnati- based Queen City Imperial Soundsystem. 

In March 2014, Abiyah embarked on her first tour, The First Ladies Tour, a two-week jaunt with then NYC-/now Oakland-based nu-R&B/hip hop singer Corina Corina. In October 2014, she performed at the first annual Louisville Outskirts Festival, a female-focused music festival, and also had the opportunity to perform for girl ages 10-18 as part of the Rockshops for Girls program associated with the festival. Abiyah is currently a member of the organizing and booking committees for Ladyfest Cincinnati 2015, and, in June 2015, she presented a strategy session, "Odd Woman Out: Being a Female Hip Hop Artist and Promoter," at the 2015 Allied Media Conference in Detroit. 

Abiyah is planning the release of the video for her noise rap song "Blup" (with Eugenius) in late July/early August 2015, as well as several other music projects this year, including a "duets" cassette EP, "Double Up," which will include Fake Four Inc. label head Ceschi Ramos, recording four already-written collaborative songs with Cincinnati art doom punk band Babe Rage, and a few solo EPs and single releases.

Recommended If You Like: Santigold, Open Mike Eagle, Dessa, Kraftwerk, MIA, Queen Latifah, Sister Carol