A molten meditation on the beauty of life...

Zen Tempest live @ PlayThink 2021

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Tracklist:

1. Insight (Beat by Curtis Andreas)
2. Starship Zero (Beat by David Michael Tardy)
3. Options (Beat by CHiEF)
4. The Magician (Beat by MP Beats)
5. Free Flow w/ Kiyoshi to CloZee beat
6. Pandora (Beat by Nyrus)
7. Thrive (Beat by Kaliedofox)
8. Get Free (Beat by CHiEF)
9. Miracle (Beat by MP Beats)
10. Osmosis (Beat by MP Beats)
11. Apotheosis (Beat by MP Beats)
12. Bless It (Beat by Tom Misch)

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This is the live recording of an intimate and epic performance I gave at PlayThink festival in Kentucky this past weekend, June 18th. It was my first time in Kentucky, and they showed me such a proper welcome.

The body of work in this recording represents several years and thousands of hours of writing, recording, rehearsing, freestyling, and emceeing. And I'm super grateful to be able to share it with you all today.

It was a really special performance, and I got to share it with my partner Ronja Sebastian and my new friend Kiyoshi Shelton who came up and spit some freestyles with me. Shout out to Nyrus, Kaleidofox, CHiEF, David Miacheal Tardy, MP Beats, CloZee, and Tom Misch, who all provided instrumentals for the set.

And lastly, a huge shout out to Paige Hankla and the whole PlayThink family for creating such a potent and precious vortex in Kentucky. I am grateful and forever changed to experience the magic of your community.

Hope you connect fam.

Much love,
Zen

Zen Tempest live @ PlayThink 2021

Yo!

What's up family.

I don’t know about all of you… 
But I am feeling inspired right now! 

🔥 🔥 🔥 

It feels like I’ve been sitting on a near infinite wellspring of artistic and creative energy.  So much so that I just gotta do something with it. So, I am.

I’m going to make music.

More specifically, I’m going to record an album, one track at a time, and release it in real time.    This track is the first track in that series of releases. {Credit to MP Beats on the track.}

For the next 16 days, I’m going to record, mix, and release a new song every other day, such that by the end of this month I will have a brand new album of music.

~~~

Why am I doing this?

Because music is awesome. And I am a musician. A rapper to be more specific.

Or at least, I say I am, haha.   But the truth is, that even though I feel like I am constantly creating new music, I’ve been in a bit of an artistic rut.

Too much of my my time, money, and artistic energy is going into the processes of coordinating with mixing and mastering engineers, listening to mixes again and again, working with graphic designers, making beats, etc.

Now, don’t get me wrong, these things are important! But the truth is, I’m impatient. While I have A LOT of good things on the way, there is a part of me that just wants to give you all something to hear right NOW.

I’m ready, willing, and present to do the damn thing I’m here to do, which is not only to create music, but to share what I have created with the world, so that it can be received and cherished.

I want to inspire and move you with music. In order to do that though, I have to put it out there.

I want you to hear what I make. I want you to hear what I make as if I am a small child who just wants to show you the painting I made at school today, yes. A part of me wants to be seen and appreciated for the beauty I create.

But I also want you to hear the music I am making FOR YOU.   

Because I believe the music I make has VALUE to offer the world. Because I believe music can actually help you, heal you, uplift you, inspire you, rekindle something inside of you, or stoke that flame which is already burning brightly.

~~~

So, it goes like this.   I responded to a call from the universe. I bought a mixtape of beats from a producer online (at an incredibly reasonable price, I might add) and I am about to let loose on it. I’m about to paint my heart out.

I am going to do my best to bring you a polished product, yes, but I will also be allowing myself to fully disregard the over analytical inner critic that so often sabotages my creative nature. I am going to allow myself to express myself in an inhabited fashion, and share it with you all in its rawest most pure form.

~~~

So, if you love me, if you love music, if you love the unfolding of the artistic process, then come on this journey with me. Listen to what I put out there in the coming two weeks.

Like it. Engage with it. Share it with somebody you love. And, if you don’t like it, that’s cool too.

I can’t expect to hit a home run every time. I accept that what I make may not be medicine for everyone out there.

Thanks for your time, attention and energy.  Wishing you love and alignment on your life journey.

Peace,  ZT

Source Codes

I promised to release a song every other day for the next two weeks.

This is song number 2 in that series: Common Wealth.

An ode to the possibility of a higher vibing environment.

Shoutout to MP Beats on the track.

🙏

Common Wealth

This track is the truth, the medicine, the cure.

Track #4 in my challenge to record, mix, and release a new song every 48 hours for a period of two weeks.

Shoutout to MP Beats on the track.

The Cure

This is track #5 in my challenge to record and release a new track every 48 hours for a two week period.

{Shoutout to MP Beats on the track}

Osmosis is a term describing a tendency in the molecules of a solvent, such as water, to pass through a semipermeable membrane from a less concentrated solution into a more concentrated one, thus equalizing the concentrations on each side of the membrane.

It is a chemical process that occurs in order to achieve balance, stability, equalization, and harmony.

Since we are mostly water, this term applies to us. As living beings, we are constantly inhaling and exhaling hydrogen and oxygen, losing and gaining appropriate molecules in order to find equanimity within our constantly shifting human organism.

The term is often applied in regard to our capacity as human beings to absorb knowledge and information from our surrounding environment.

In a metaphoric sense, it speaks to our longing and desire for proper alignment with the universal force that has been described as the Tao, or the ever evolving flux of the present moment. To exist in harmony with the natural order of the Tao is to be constantly engaged in this dance of harmonious equilibrium.

We receive, and so we shall give. We live, and so we shall die.

This is an inherent and natural process that occurs in an essentially perfect and coherent manner, one that the logical mind can scarcely comprehend... but it is constantly happening none the less.

🙏

Osmosis

Each track I create allows me to discover something new about myself. 

Every beat invites me into a whole new constellation of archetypes within me.

Some beats invite me into a more playful part of myself, whereas others bring out more of my depth and intensity.

Some tracks expose a more humorous or sensual side of myself, while others evoke a more serious or somber texture within my psyche.

I’m actually getting to know and love myself in deeper ways through each track, which is super cool.  

In some tracks, I get to play the sexy saucy pirate rapper.
 In others, I get to play the mystic guru poet. 
In others still, I get to be the radical revolutionary orator.  

Sometimes, I get to play all 3 in 1 track!!!  

All of them are me, just different sides of me.
 And I like playing all of these parts of me.
  It’s fun. It’s liberating. It’s empowering.  

It’s also the least boring form of therapy I could imagine, haha.

It’s like I’m getting to see what reoccurring themes wind through my mind in real time. 

And then, I get to share that process with the world, and see how people react.  Quite fascinating really.

  ~~~  

Today’s song has a bit of an ancient future feel to it. One foot in the past, one in the present, and one in the yet to be.  

(Yes, my multi-dimensional body has 3 legs… at least.) 🐙   

There are elements of inspiration, peace, playfulness, empowerment, and hope. 

There are also elements of realism, sadness, longing, and frustration.

  But overall, like much of my recent work, the track is rather celebratory, a buoyant ode to our connection with timelessness, and that which transcends all of the pressing issues and intricacies of this mad world.

  ~~~

  If you feel inspired to listen, I think you might just enjoy it.

  I know I enjoyed making it for you.  

~~~

  This is track #6 in my challenge to record and a release a new song every 48 hours for a period of two weeks…  

Without further ado, I proudly present to you:  

Drumroll please…

  ~~~

  Ancestral Vessel

~~~

  {Oooooh, fancy name!!!}  

{No, but in all seriousness, it’s pretty dope}  

{Instrumental by MP Beats}  

~~~  

I pray that it serves you well my friends.
  Much love.

  🙏

P.S. 

Image credit to Autumn Skye:

'Wisdom of Ages'

What a brilliant artist!!!

Ancestral Vessel

Almost every CD I loved growing up had a bonus track on it...

A hidden gem, a special extra moment at the end of the 'actual' album as a treat and surprise for everyone who made it to the end of the record.

This song, a molten meditation on the beauty of life, is the 'bonus track' from my forthcoming release 'Zenith' which I recorded this past November. (Watch out for it on all major platforms soon...)

I hope it blesses your day and your life.

Love, 
ZT

Miracle

You are the one infinite intelligence masquerading as a singular separate self.

May you dream vividly, powerfully, and beautifully.

May you remember.

🦋

Instrumental ~ Like Water by Colbert

A New Dream

This song goes out to anybody who knows struggle, grief, addiction, and overcoming.
It’s about the journey of purification we all go through in order to remember our higher selves. 

Produced by CHiEF 
Co-produced by Hennessey
Featuring guitar by Jordan Latini

All Time High (Prod. by CHiEF)

A spontaneous collaboration after a chance meeting at Ecstatic Dance Festival  in Corfu Greece, Producer/Beat-Maker DJ Trotsky and Conscious Hip-Hop artist Zen Tempest created this sonically rich & deep meditation on the beauty and pain of life, death, and transformation.

Dutch improv vocalist Birkit Rietveld's voice weaves and floats throughout the track like incense through air as hearts and minds align, bodies and souls dance, and Cobras and Roses coalesce as one.

Cobras And Roses

~Music written and produced by Random Rab
~Lace, from the album aRose
~www.randomrab.com

~Lyrics written and performed by Zen Tempest...

Resonatin’ the Frequency
Circulation’ the vibe.

Never late, and I’m leaving
Precisely when I arrive.

Hesitated repeatedly,
Now I’m ready to ride.

Levitation is easy,
You need to open your eyes.

Respiration is key,
When you breathe it keeps you alive.

Reiki is a movement of energy,
It’s a vibe.

Reiki is a movement of energy,
It’s a vibe.

Reiki is a movement of energy,
It’s a vibe.

Playful as the fluid
In your body when it slides.

Penetrating, deep in
The arteries as it guides.

Regulating each of
The senses, they never lie.

But they certainly distort
A perfect portion of the pie.

Bored within the
Portal of the mind.

Warping metamorphosis,
Immortal and sublime.

Hopelessly enormous,
Getting gorgeous all the time.

Reiki a movement of energy,
It’s a vibe.

Money is a vessel,
The nectar that gets you high.

Is nestled with the flesh,
Of the melon, lemon, or lime.

If ecstasy is a crime,
I’m done, I don’t wanna try.

Aint gonna play the game that
They tell us should be our lives.

I’m chillin really, I’m fine.
I’m kinda kinky, I lied...

I’m really kinky, I’m kind,
I’m feeling deeply aligned.

I’m peeling back all the layers,
I’m pulling up all the blinds.

I’m feeling deeply aware,
I’m feelin deeply divine.

I feel the breeze in my hair,
I’m feeling heat in my spine,

I’m healing people with care,
With energy, it’s a vibe.

It’s a vibe...

It’s a vibe...

Reiki is a movement of energy,
It’s a vibe.

Temporary entry,
But eternities denied.

Been here every century
As the turning of the tides.

But I’m currently immersed within
In a separate sense of I.

Shepherds led the weak,
And while the predators survived.

Something that was living
Inside of them seemed to die.

Come and test your luck,
Against the 20 sided die.

Have to roll a 7 or
Higher or you resign.

Have to roll 11 or higher for
you to thrive.

Heaven is a 17 or higher,
Don’t be shy.

You seem I’m only
This character for the time...

I don’t really understand why...

All I really get is
That everything is energy...

Everything’s a mother fucking vibe...

Reiki (Beat by Random Rab)

Somewhere in the space between Alan Watts and Aesop Rock, Atmosphere and Allen Ginsberg, Immanuel Kant and Immortal Technique, Kahlil Ghibran and Kendrick Lamar, Rumi and RZA...

There is a special place.

A place where the majestic backdrop of boom bap music is populated by notions of prosperity and peace, where cityscapes and celestial horizons meet in a glorious display of poetic union.

This is where you’ll find Zen Tempest.

Miracle

Zen Tempest

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