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LO FI GLORY

by Noyz & Dusty Loops

supported by
Narvir Singh
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Narvir Singh Perfectly crafted album. Proud to own this beautiful masterpiece. Favorite track: LO FI GLORY.
angadsingharora
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angadsingharora Im surprised music like this doesn't play on the radio - outstanding Dusty & Noyz. Favorite track: The Sickness featuring Big Rube.
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1.
Open my eyes and rising/ Woke up my soul and I’ve been applying pressure/ Guess I’m refining my coal in diamonds/ Learning as newer scholars/ earning pursuing honors/ Grew up with bluer collars and knew what we do for dollars is turn the given to greater/ Taking the lo-fi and making the most by aiming the scope high/ Shoot for the stars/ I’m off in pursuit for the cause/ No running from shortcomings, finding truth in the flaws/ In my ear I’m hearing Lucifer’s calls/ The other side, I’m hearing the cries of an angel like its music through walls/ Never could make the words out, I freestyled the rest of it/ And reroute and rebound if we found a precipice/ Seek out the best of us/ peeped how the lesser was a label that we carried and buried Alter perspective As I rose higher when hope and desire been frozen and mired in colder environments/ Throw fire and light a trail/ so whether it’s flight or fail, we might avail/ Understanding follows the feeling like we’re reciting braille/ I write a tale that’s deeper than blood and bone/ Of those seeking a peace so they’re reaching where wasn’t known/ People keeping a piece of defeat as another stone to build on the base as a feature of how one has grown/ So I’m opening eyes and rising/ whether we’re 9 to 5ing, or enterprising/ Yet still I find that we’re improvising/ but made a way through grinding/ The day to day providing, redefined it/ and made an art form out of surviving
2.
LO FI GLORY 02:25
Krylon colored over the cracks in black pavement/ The days spent riding the train in fact raised him with/ backpacks and cans/ Vandalism to a man arisen with a canvas and hands in rhythm/ Visions of his youth when he'd only see heroes on the wall in the rest in peace murals he'd recall/ So he draws with the greys in the smoke cloud sounds that he saw when the shades in them spoke loud/ Red and blue hues in lights that the cops flashed/ browns in the rust on the tracks that he walked past/ Green and white from the product that was pushed often/ the gold trim on a wood coffin/ The old skin never could soften/ souls brim with a glare brighter than city lights they stood lost in/ Caused him to stay sober/ couldn't bottle his spirit/ Told the way but it was hollow to hear it This is the glory/ that LO FI GLORY I write the unheard, eyes that drag baggage and blank stares/ Grey hair and the prayers sent from hands calloused/ The fam balanced on pop's shoulders/ kept the lights on to show love when he could not hold us/ Mom grew sick, body temperature dropped colder/ stayed at her side until she got over it/ 12 but thoughts older/ All we had is us, always had enough/ alchemists turning rubble to pillars until it added up/ Penning lyrics after hospital visits and i could only find self when losing myself in it/ Felt limits don’t apply/ dove inside of the mental, mended below the mind/ So defining my truth/ flow in timing with love/ there's no dividing the fear/ they coincide in the booth/ Know the rhyme and its use was therapeutic to the human condition/ Pursuing beauty, making due with the given/ Been on a mission for the glory/ that LO FI GLORY
3.
Even in darkness, still seeking to spark this/ and restart, feeling I need to breathe in a cartridge/ Driven by reason and heart/ see that I fought with old thoughts, I leave them in chalk/ Feet in my Clarks as I march on/ Living this art form/ and swimming harder with blood in water and sharks drawn/ Through my father instilling honor, it’s not long until I would follow the motto they hollered in Pac songs/ Locked on and learned more than what I hear in class/ my grandmama dropped jewels from an era past/ Studied on Killah Priest more than Kerouac/ and Mick Foley showed me how mankind can wear a mask/ Clear a path where there was none, up jumps the unsung/ Slung thunder under the humdrum and then some come alive/ And we call it a vibe/ so trust in what you feel and know it doesn’t lie [Chorus] City on a wave, feel it in the air/ Know it ain’t real if the feeling isn’t there/ It’s telling me, hey/ The vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie/ the vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie/ It’s all energy, is what it is/ and all that you get is what you give/ It’s telling me, hey/ The vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie/ the vibe, the vibe, the vibe don’t lie There’s a war going on inside, no one is safe from/ formed in the mind to make it harder to break from/ I faced some, dealing with death and depression/ Day and time we’re communicating with less of a connection/ Mirrored in the music and we reject the reflection/ looking at the present like it was just a regression/ But Mos Def said it/ Wherever culture is headed would pivot on how we’re living because we project the direction/ And that’s home, outside’s the same/ where the forces abroad will outline it plain/ And lock down borders, caught up in sour times of Portis/ deported and shot down by orders Cornered in the deeper divide/ and each side is either leading the blind or they’re feeding the tide But I see it as the scenery for people to rise/ and word to Tribe we’re just keeping the vibe [Chorus] [Tremayne] I ain’t afraid of the way that they talk about me/ I walked out of the fire with fire inside my eyes My desire is to be higher than I and I/ deny what they’re giving me, man you’ve got to be kidding me They’ve got to be feeling the kid/ Worth a bit, niggas ain’t worth shit/ Hit 'em on purpose/ got them all nervous/ Swaggin’ all over the motherfucker of lyricists/ Undercover I rap, but don’t wrap it up when I’m under covers/ She said she likes the way it feels, nigga/ the vibe got her pussy wetter than a dildo/ Coming in like a nigga got a major deal, ho, come again/ Like I give a fuck about your feelings/ I got a feeling this one gon’ piss some niggas off/ If it ain’t your beef, don’t get involved/ I did a lot of shit to make it to the podium/ so drape me up in furs that’s Mongolian/ And let me milly rock like Magnolia/ I thought I told you/ Spit bullets, but ain’t a gun in the holster, nigga/ Vibes [Chorus]
4.
Cowbell 02:59
Both hands clusty/ Dusty on the beat, the speech is what it must be/ Man, I’m just me/ never was a crack dealer, mass killer who traps and raps hella rusty/ No hate though, hope they stay fed/ rappers living a gimmick though kayfabe’s dead/ The melee spread, we enter the ring/ and intended to bring a change in the same pendulum swing/ I take aim then ascended to king, but to tread close, see, the tears and sweat, we bled both/ Learned most from those who broke bread when dead broke, and praise the pain that bred growth/ So we toast to the builders, the ones who showed us what the real was/ Knowing that limitation will bring the innovation and brilliance/ But first had to find peace through the stillness/ Kids killed by cops, the reel filmed it/ seeing how the scales of justice been tilted/ It sends chills through the spine to find the many ways they define a crime/ It’s like 9 shots, call it murder attempted/ where the laws don’t apply and they’re further exempted/ The cause of the riot’s the verdict we’re left with/ And those serving protectors had heard the resentment/ I try to see it with the third of my lenses, though it feels like a blur to the senses/ Went from on the bench to a pensive entrance to intense and clenching pens in trenches/ Had to fight for it/ quite forward, I write more than a hype chorus/ In the zeitgeist of bright lights, I’m like tortoise/ knowing that baby stepping is better than life dormant/ Head wrapped like 3 Stacks, see them issue a trife warning every morning I’m boarding a flight/ Talk back and we’re validating their fears though it’s clear they’ve been miseducated for years/ So we’re the new danger, blamed and drew anger, skewed by the news, our names are viewed stranger/ Raised on Wu chambers and Southernplayalistic/ get in where you fit in, but I’m one to stay a misfit/ Thinking outside the box, so the only time that I’m in it is closed caskets Flow packed with jazz and soul classics/ unique like Ol’ Bastard, no masters/ Rhyme cold as O. Jackson, sign death certificates, bringing the toe tags in Throwback to Hennig catching his own pass/ so we’re only given the limits to blow past it
5.
[Chorus - Vaishnavi] I never knew a love could ever show me somebody like you/ I never knew a love could ever get this good/ Because it takes me and the trouble I bring/ and it frees me from these chains and things/ And it all comes down to you now that I’ve got a love/ I met her on ’09, was so fine/ no line could have won her over as I wondered the whole time How to pursue her, I knew if I had my game tight she would see right through it/ Viewed in the same light as these other dudes who are looping the lame type/ And I just ain’t smooth, who am I playing, right? Two of our names I would doodle in class / Dreaming about the crib we’d move in like the future was MASH/ But the homies joke and say it’s futile to ask/ I’m plucking petals off a rose, hope it’s true to the task/ And I find it funny when perusing the past because back then, nobody knew it would last/ Fast forward to now, she’s the light I orbit around/ put at the centre like a chorus so euphoric in sound/ When the pain calls and the rain falls/ it just waters the seed that we bore in the ground/ Keeping her heart on her sleeve that she wore with her crown/ Ain’t nothing more than what I already found/ damn, I got a love/ [Chorus] Pop said no love is thought to be perfect/ often it hurts but know the cost will be worth it/ Hard to resurface whenever you fall/ ain’t promised forever-ever homie, never at all/ Keeping sticking two together/ And though we might bicker and fight, sick of the sight, had to get it right with you/ It’s like I can’t picture this life before I met her/ broke it open and changed it for the better/ The way you trust deeper than faith/ head held higher than hope/ a leader with the key to your fate/ And you speak stronger than truth/ laughter as honest as youth/ And dream big, arms long as your roots/ My Bonita put me on to the proof, said herself you need to fill your own vessel or love is never felt/ So in better health or sickness, in hunger or bliss, I guess the gift is the one that I stick with/ It just fit so I know that I’m home/ and never put you on a pedestal, your throne is your own/ I got a love [Chorus]
6.
Second guessing the first step/ first breath of my second wind on my third set/ No assured bets, my courage incurred sweat/ with self-doubt on the route, I heard it and swerved left/ So I face the chase and I paint between spaces of embraced mistakes/ Because a dream’s worth diving in feet first, colliding with the bottom and designing your rebirth/ And we search for that first love/ one to share with and bare the best and the worst of/ Nursed up from the first heartbreak/ thoughts race on the late night/ Fade from a daily to a maybe to a grave site/ I paid twice for choosing to point blame/ Defense mechanism we use to avoid pain/ but now I soak in it/ Knowing the feeling we’re heartbroken is the only moment that’s serving to open it [Chorus – Strictly Steele & Vaishnavi] I’m searching, and I’m finding/ that you’ll never know, you just have to grow/ I’m searching, and I’m finding/ that you’ll never know, you just have to grow/ One time for the first generation/ raised within the west by the words of the ancients/ I came from both, framed them close/ and combined the first language with slang we spoke/ My folks arrived in ’79 with thoughts to set ahead of me a better design/ First world telling me I’m to shed and refine the identity to settle me although I know I’d never be mine/ So I’m feeling caught in-between the heart and the margin Regarded and scene as too much or not enough/ so to trust your struggle with love is a must/ Break the cuffs and you brush by who doesn’t adjust/ not bad for some immigrants/ Labeled illegitimate but still made a seat at the table to fit us in/ Son of the working class, with no concern of whether first or last and made a way on the uncertain path/ [Chorus] Still searching through peeled curtains/ we feel first and try to build with a will urgent/ But find that we shine if the mind is combining with heart/ Where pride will depart, no hiding the thought that we may never know/ So we try to hold on the control but it shows when we let it go We have to grow, adapt whether fast of slow/ and master goals when I own the path I roll [Chorus]
7.
When I falter, I fall to the altar and call for a calm or departure/ Try to hold steady as the arms of an archer/ Until I break down, found face down, drowned in the thoughts that'll conquer/ Feel a shock to the system as if I had lost to the offense of Blanka/ Feel lit just pierce through the heart like I fought with the bosses of Contra/ Saw what the darkness will offer but chose light even when I had no sight/ Contemplated the weight of taking my own life/ And though I made it another day and I hold tight, know I'm unafraid of the fate awaiting a cold night/ I related to brothers knowing they sold white/ and related to others getting their soul right/ Though I see them both in the middle as a mirror to my face, They're afraid to embrace like Rogue might/ The duality of man/ seeing all the greys that reality demands/ Feeling all the pain and it had to be the plan, like I was given these chains so that gradually I'd stand/ And I stand taller than I ever did/ never meddling medicine with the sedatives/ It's imperative/ dealing with the devil on the level that you settle with, you dead him or you let him in/ In my head again, I plotted my escape/ Was running at a Stoudemire pace when I'm trying to get up out a dire place/ Though I hit the bottom, know I've got a higher faith/ eyes closed when i meditate, gotta lie awake/ Because sleep is the cousin of death/ so i play beats when I'm under duress/ Dig deeply up under the flesh and find peace when i colour my text/ And light it up, never dulling the rest [Big Rube] Internalized/ the tipping prose forged in the flame of the tracks I murderize/ The shine of a king’s mind can bling queens to be fertilized/ While lackluster rap jesters infest the sound with clown noises/ It must sting when I spit, killing cats I’m like cobra/ Spitting ice venom/ found in mics, so precise when I strike, ice hit him/ When he’s up, he freeze up, he ain’t seize up, it’s ice in him/ I love winning/ before I be a slave I’ll be broke, don’t like bending/ We need struggle, for augmentation of the strength, it’s resistance that denses the muscles/ It’s the hustle/ slinging dope on a track that’ll get your mind high, keep your body out of trouble/ Addictive as the money, as the drugs, as the sex, but the text ain’t predictive/ First place only wins one race, if you want to be a legend, then you’ve got to be consistent/ You can come from the streets, still jump on the beat/ Reach one, teach one ignorance is a sickness
8.
Speak Now 03:31
Gain the world and lose your soul/ Trying to see what the future holds but looking back to check if the suture’s closed/ Knew the road that I walk is often a lonely one/ Younger feeling in awkward in solitude, though it so becomes a lifeline/ And more essential as I grow with age/ finding peace in the silence deeper below the days/ Me and Magic would rhyme and keep up the flow to raise hell when we blow the stage/ You know the praise is all coming from heart/ Summon the spark, fan the fire, plan empires, call you my brother above the art/ Live parallels as well we’re both raising nieces/ And both found queens, somebody mama could meet with/ Don’t hide when I’m at my weakest, I showed her that side/ For the hardships, no man would have shoulders that wide/ Told her that’s why, it’s known but now I’ve gotta say it that it’s because of yall I found my way in [Chorus] For the times when I should have said the words they deserve to hear/ And for the times that the feeling was more than what we’re feeling to share/ But this is for the time that we’re given/ find that it’s never too long before the given is gone/ So I’ve got to speak now, and I speak now/ Say the words, give them life, they deserve to hear it so live it right Bit my tongue a thousand times/ Didn’t know how to find the words to let you know that you were out of line, doubt I’m blind/ Saw my sister leave with the kids and the bags packed/ But you’re collapsed up in the crib, too drunken to glance back/ I loved you like an older brother, so she’d never blow your cover Never spoke of your other side, hoped we won’t discover/ So it’s tougher because she suffered alone/ kept appearances of parents, but this wasn’t a home/ Played the mother and the father figure/ Hard to picture how we never heard a sound as you drowned in the darkest liquor/ She said she needs a partner with her/ Felt safe in the storm and made it the norm, crazy how head and heart can differ/ And I know you’re hurting because nobody’s walking with you/ But you talk as if only you can be thought the victor/ and there’s no winners/ So either rebuild, or let her go, but know it needs to be real/ [Chorus] Cried when my grandma passed, the ash scattered/ we last chatted about her childhood and laughed/ Bad as it seemed to see her weaken on a hospital bed, Those are moments that I cherish, giving solace instead/ Because I really got to know her just talking, combing her hair/ She knew that death was calling, no stalling, go with a prayer/ But never dreamed she’d leave in summer/ Saw my grandfather weeping, he would then fall asleep in the deepest slumber/ 8 months later, but shed no tears/ dead those fears, a story that I read so clear/ It’s just the universe at work/ didn’t understand it, feeling disenchanted/ But had to shift to a different vantage/ because life is made of give and take, interplay of high and low/ Work and rest, birth and death, learn then it’s your time to go/ So for every meal and minute that they gave us, we’re better for having their hands to raise us
9.
I reminisce on the last words you spoke in the final meeting between us/ How the energy had changed and the day had came when you’d leave us/ Freed of the pain and all that you asked in return is weather storms and never mourn/ Your passage is earned/ still it happened sudden Never saw my father cry until he had to summon everything inside of him to let you go/ Stolen moments I hold on that path that wasn’t/ didn’t get to meet my wife/ So I write this to let you know we’re still grieving your presence, but receiving the lessons/ Seeing your essence breathe in my niece is a blessing/ Because as the sunshine follows the moon, as one dies then a young mind is brought into bloom/ It’s all in tune/ So as the cycle repeats and the light and you greet, I shed tears of joy as the voyage of life is complete/ And see the only way to repay you is carry on living because every farewell is a new beginning [B Magic] Too many goodbyes, too many farewells/ we lost a couple angels so we don’t fear hell/ I woke up to the news that you had left us/ blessed us with every meeting/ Now you upset us like why’d you have to leave without a warning? Spilling out a 40, the only way we know to mourn him/ Shit, it was yesterday that we were shooting hoops/ On the block balling, he would come through and round the troops/ God needed G to run the point guard/ we try to heal but I know a couple boys scarred/ I’m just trying to hear his voice, God/ they say the good die young, you had no choice, God/ And we’re going to watch out for your brother/ He be doing good, he’s trying to watch out for your mother/ And the only way to repay you is carry on living because every farewell is a new beginning [Scotty IV] I seen a picture of Sam and I thought it was me/ I wondered if life was everything he thought it would be/ Blessed him with a wife, beautiful like his 2 daughters/ He left the world with a son then he had to move farther/ A true honour, I guess this is me/ a legacy of strength and honour that I’m set to repeat/ He made his mark on the land, I’ll be glad to make the same/ I only live to tell my pops he never passed away in vain/ I know that he would’ve said don’t forget what you seek/ Telling me that my aim should be set for the peak/ Telling me get respect and reflect what’s unique/ Telling me instead of tears let the sweat wet my cheeks/ Life is like the cycle of the rifle, I’ve become the gunpowder that’s the light to his ash/ My first year of life was his last, so I say my farewell and start anew, following his path [Chorus] For the past and the present we left/ still holding on the last of the memories kept/ You’ll be on your way/ only leaving with everything that you came with/ For all you gave and the days spent/ This is for the past and the present we left/ still holding on the last of the memories kept/ You’ll be on your way/ only leaving with everything that you came with/ For all you gave and the days spent/ Farewell

about

LO FI GLORY, the collaborative album from Brampton-based artists Noyz and Dusty Loops is a celebration of resilience through hardship. The title borrows from the phrase ‘lo fidelity’ or ‘lo-fi’ which in music circles refers to a poorer quality of sound in the recording or production. The imperfections are present and the flaws are on display. On this album, lo-fi isn’t about a sound but a mentality. The lo-fi shared on this album – from mental illness and addictions to death and divorce – are the challenges in life that we go through. The glory is the beauty we find in it and what we make of it all.

Brampton emcee Noyz has established himself as a torchbearer for the city, becoming the face of the region’s bubbling DIY hip-hop scene and appearing in recent features with VICE Canada, Complex, Team Backpack, and Major League Soccer. Dusty Loops’ production for this album was honed under the tutelage of legendary engineer and producer Young Guru at the ‘Mixing With The Masters’ sessions in France. The two artists have been working together for close to a decade and have performed all across North America, including major festivals like SXSW, Canadian Music Week, and MNFSTO.

LO FI GLORY marks the first full-length collaborative project for Noyz and Dusty Loops. They are joined on the album by heavy-hitters in the Toronto hip-hop scene such as Tremayne and Scotty IV from the Stay Out Late collective, B Magic, Strictly Steele, Vaishnavi, and Big Rube from Atlanta’s iconic Dungeon Family.

credits

released March 1, 2019

Written & performed by Noyz (www.noyzhiphop.com)
Production by Dusty Loops (www.dustyloops.ca)
Mixed & Mastered by Espa (www.mixedbyespa.com)

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Noyz Brampton, Ontario

Noyz is an MC, author & producer. He has performed at festivals including SXSW & TIFF, and has been featured on platforms such as Vice, NBA India & Complex. Noyz plays an active role in his community by facilitating hip hop + mental health workshops.

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