Dedicated to Gifted Unlimited Rhymes Universal. 

Beats, mixing and mastering by Tapehead.
Vocals and scratches from 'Just To Get A Rep Acapella' and 'The Squeeze Acapella' by Gang Starr.

Visuals: https://youtu.be/wYH3_H5WaoA
Original upload: https://soundcloud.com/tapeheadloops/claiming-respect

Since I started remixing and remastering my old beats it's been really helpful to hear the difference and improvements in my mixing ability. The first beat in this track is a rework of a very old beat, probably one of the first 10 beats I ever made. I was so happy with how it came out at the time, particular the way Guru's verse from Just To Get A Rep flowed over it, and it was mad to be able to improve on the concept I worked out back then and execute it better here. I wanted to take it one step further with this one though, and decided to add a new remix as a switchup, flipping a different part of the same sample that I used for the first beat. I initially only did this because of Just To Get A Rep acapella is so short, and I wanted the track to be longer, but it ended being a really great way of building on the ideas and concepts I was playing with back when I first flipped the sample, and mixing that with all the ways I've learned and developed as a producer since then. I'm really happy with how it came out, and will definitely be doing this again with other old ideas and concepts. 

For the switch up I tried a few different Guru acapellas, but eventually settled on his final verse from The Squeeze. I thought it fit really well after the stick up story on Just To Get A Rep, with Guru essentially sticking up those in power and demanding what is rightfully is, it contrasts as an inverse against the story of Just To Get A Rep which worked mad well to me. Because of this I named this track 'Gaining Respect' off a line from the chorus in The Squeeze, with the original remix being called 'Claiming Respect' off a line in Just To Get A Rep, I thought that worked well in showing the progression and development between the two tracks.

Another interesting thing about this track is the original upload was the first of my tracks that @hightopsfeed liked and reposted, reaching out to say he rated it. That began the start of conversations and discussions that really enabled me to begin the process of developing and growing as an artist, and I'll always remember and associate that with this track.

Gaining Respect

Beatmaker / Emcee
Contact: tapeheadloops@gmail.com

<--MPC2000 Classic                     

Underground Airplay

Trying to give something back to Hip Hop - really appreciate any comments or feedback.

Peace

Welcome to The Fermentation Cycle – a 1940s industrial-noir duology told as a slow-burn audio experience.

Every day I drop a new chapter with its own lofi score running through a crackling 1940s radio: low drums, hiss, distant horns, machinery in the walls. You’re not just reading a book – you’re inside a failing dockside brewery, listening to the pipes, the ledgers, and the rats under the floor.

Book I follows The Violet Boar, a once-powerful brewery in a corrupt coastal city, held together by heat, debt, queer love, and bad decisions. It’s adult, cerebral, immersive: pressure, politics, undercity tunnels, rat “choirs,” and a city that launders violence into paperwork.

Start at the Prologue and move forward a chapter a day, or let the playlist run like a haunted late-night radio station.

🔧 Tone: harsh 1940s noir, queer, anti-capitalist, psychological, slow escalation
🎧 Sound: lofi, tape-hiss, radio crackle, industrial ambience
📚 Project: The Fermentation Cycle Duology – The Violet Boar & Rats

The Fermentation Cycle is an adult industrial-noir duology set in 1940s Brineford, where Dockstring Ward runs on steam, rumor, and the kind of “civic” language that ruins people with clean hands.
At its center squats the Violet Boar Brewery, a once-proud Kiln now being slurred as a Loom, sweating heat and debt into the street like a confession.
Elara Wexley inherits the place and its failures, walking under a city that keeps score even when it pretends it doesn’t.
Every pipe, ledger mark, and shipment becomes leverage in a quiet war between rival breweries, supply yards, and the polite enforcers who call it regulation.
The Ward itself is a chorus — bars, docks, backrooms, and watchers — deciding what the Boar is worth, and what Elara is allowed to be.
Below the surface, the undercity’s layered infrastructure and rat-choir ecology mirror the city’s neglect: history stacked like rot you can’t fully scrub.
The story turns pressure into plot: money, heat, reputation, and intimacy all pushing until something breaks and the break changes the map.
It’s harsh, cinematic, and funny in the dark, obsessed with inheritance, survival, and the cost of naming what’s really happening.