it's been a long time, I shouldn't of left u...

[mellowmanisback]

......without at least giving you an explanation as to why I left. Anyway, what's goin on fellow funk lovers.  I hope everyone is doing good.  This message is basically for those who remember me and wonder what happened to me.  I'm not familiar with most of you but I think a few of the old school dubcc members are still around.  If you don't remember me or never believed in my authenticity I don't see much reason to keep reading.  But to those who care to know, Yes this is mellowman.  I disappeared like a ghost without warning well over a year ago. I apologize to everyone for leaving without at least saying goodbye.  Why did I leave.  Well there are a number of reasons.  One reason was I got way too busy because with me working long hours with Aftermath and doing my own side projects I wasn't spending near enough time with my family. i wanted to make sure i spent my non working time with them.  Another reason for leaving was that all the negativity and lies on those board wore me out.  I got way too involved in trying to defend Dre and my musically family here at Aftermath.  I didn't care if no one believed in me, but when it comes to people attacking and disrespecting good people who I care so much about I have never been good at letting things slide.   i just felt like i couldn't just sit back and not respond when someone was personally attacking Dre.  I always tried to defend Dre as much as I could and at times I spent way too much time on this board doing that.  Dre has always told me that it's stupid to waste time on people who don't have the heart to refrain from personal attacks or harsh judgements when they don't know you or don't know anything about the situation they are talking about.  None of you in here know Dre or are around him.  None of you are in the studio or have any knowledge about what really goes on.  So please at least treat him with respect.  You don't have to like him or his artists or their music.  Just treat people with respect.  Dre is a true genius and a good person with a big heart.  Like many of the people who he has discovered and worked with I owe him so much I can never repay him for what he had done for me and my family.  There are definetly times when I want to smack him for being such a perfectionist or when he throws out something I worked hours on, but it has been one of the biggest honors of my life to work with him. 
The third reason I left was that I felt like I let a lot of you down.  My biggest fault is that I get so excited about projects I get way ahead of myself.  I hyped Rakim's Oh My God so much on this board I was devastated when he left camp and went back to new york.  I felt like I let you guys down.  I will do another topic about what happened with Rakim later.  But I felt like I needed to shut my mouth, get in the studio and just make music.  The truth is that while I feel like I am a big part of the Dre/Aftermath team, I have no control over what gets released, what artists stay or leave or anything else.  At the time of Rakim leaving I was very unhappy with Interscope for many reasons.  I had thought about leaving but I decided that my loyalty to Dre is the most important thing to me.  I wasn't going to leave out of respect for him.  If tommorrow he comes in and tells me he wants to go with some new musicians or a different direction I will shake hands and leave.  But until then I ain't goin anywhere.  I learned my lesson.  I just need to concentrate on what I can control and that is my music and my work with Dre and our artists.  I decided to shut my mouth and let my music speak for me.  I may post once in a while here but dont' expect to hear too much from me.  I said way too much way too early about several projects.  Sorry I let you down.  From now on if you want some info go visit Chris at Aftermathmusic.com. he'll keep you uptodate on things.  Don't expect too much inside info from him because Interscope won't let him talk about too much but Chris will at least give you some new info now and then.  I hope this sheds light on a few things.  Thanks to everyone who supports us and for the haters I don't have anything to say to you.  Thanks to you we have a chip on our shoulders and the fire to be the leaders of this hip hop thang for many years to come.  2005 will hopefully be Aftermath's biggest year yet.  Peace.

[Don Seer]

hey welcome back 

btw I can see you tried to remember it.. the pass for your old account is similar to the email address you registered this one with...

[E. J. Rizo]

hey welcome back 

btw I can see you tried to remember it.. the pass for your old account is similar to the email address you registered this one with...

i was about to ask why he didnt use his old account.....but i guess he couldnt remember his info...welcome back man.....look forward to hearing more info from you

[platinumk777]

good to hear from you again... can't wait for the post about the whole Rakim situation

[Don Seer]

yeah i second that.. we've heard various rumours.. but nothing 'complete'

[Nima - Dubcnn.com]

wow, this is grea!

so happy to have you back homie, if you noticed, since you left, dubcnn.com has grown like crazy and has turned into a huge site and resource for west coast hiphop, and we've had the chance to interview many aftermath artists.

it's great to have you back, gotta say it again, and i hope we get to enjoy your posts for a long time coming!

[mellowmanisback]

It's great to see some familiar names. I appreciate all the support.  I hope that you guys are all having success in your lives.  I haven't really checked out dubcnn but congratulations on your success.  the westcoast underground is definetly in need of some promotion cause the big labels aren't really giving most of the young cats out here a chance.  the game broke out so hopefully that will help some.  Although I'm not much into being region oriented I do hope the west blows up again.  I just don't like seeing people so close minded that they label things east coast or west coast. Good music is good music. It don't matter where you're from or where you're at.  Dre catches a lot of flack for not supporting enough west coast artists. Right or wrong Dre don't care about pushing a certain coast.  He is all about finding talent and making good music no matter if you live in China or Compton.  Dre is real proud of The Game being from Compton.  I know he hopes to see the West back on top and hopefully game will get things kick started.  But Y'all can't look to Dre to bring the West back by himself.  He is a part of the big corporate conglomerment that is Universal and is somewhat limited on what he can personally do.  Its got to come from other people.  The talent is there on the west coast.  Unfortunately the big record labels run a monopoly in the music industry and its going to be incredibly tough to succeed unless you have the big label backing.  I hate that fact but sadly thats the way things are and it will probably only get worse.  I wish we could get rid of the big corporations and let people make music and release music without being railroaded by the big labels but it just isn't going to happen any time soon.  At least there are avenues and opportunities to succeed without the major labels.  You just have to find the and work harder than anyone else to get your music heard, and get luck.  But remember that the most important thing though is to work on your craft and make good music.  Promotion don't mean anything if the music sucks, so take music seriously and respect the art form and go for quality not quantity. Oops I gotta get to work.  Peace everyone.   

[Hatesrats™]

Good to have u back....

missed that Aftermath inside 411
looking foward to your next post already.

bringing that Funk to 05'
can't get enough of that

Hatesrats 2oo0V

[Sikotic™]

Nice to have you back my man.

[Suga Foot]

it's great to have you back, gotta say it again, and i hope we get to enjoy your posts for a long time coming!

yes yes yes

[AlerG]

Oh My God you're back, no pun intended 
can't wait for future posts, peace.

[Hittman2001]

Man, its good to hear from you again, you've been missed   is detox gonna be in 5.1, i recently bought a dvd audio/sacd player 

[AlerG]

oh yea and mellowman could you touch up on what you thought of the encore album, personally i thought it was a huge disappointment because he seemed to not give a shit about making meaningful songs at all, sure he always has his goofy single or two bt this whole album was smothered in that bullshit. also, i wanna know what you think of emcee's like royce da 5'9 and canibus and do you think that with the style that they bring to the table could they ever be signed to an aftermath callibre lable and succeed. and one last thing, any info on detox would be great, and try to keep in touch at least once a month even if you don't bring any news just to let us know you're stilla round, peace.

[Lil Jay]

welcome back homie, good to have you here again

[mellowmanisback]

Well since there ain't anyone else here yet I can add a few comments real quick.  What did I think of Encore?  Well, musically I liked most of the stuff we did and lyrically Em's got some good moments.   It really doesn't matter what I think of the album though.  I just help with the musical side and let the artists be themselves.  I don't like having to make pop singles for an established artist but what can I do.  That's Interscope's requirement.  I did feel like a few of our beats could have been used better with some different subject matter.  The second grade fart jokes, c' Reeves jokes and homosexual references definetly ain't my thing but Em went that direction with a few of them and thats his call.  Honestly I feel like Interscope pressures him into doing some of that stuff and I think Em is definelty a little frustrated.  Dre knew that the album would not be released without the poppy lead single so he and Em went to Florida and took care of that.  I know Em hates writing those songs so I think he did a few more just to prove a point.  Big weenie was purposely written that way to show how childish all these beefs are. I don't think Em really wants to make pop songs but feels like he has to.  Em is a lot different that his public and record persona.  I think Em will totally turn things around and go a new and more serious direction next time around. Dre feels that way too so we'll see.  
As far as Detox in 5.1 I really hope it will happen.  So does Dre.  Right now I think it would be released as a dual disc sometime.  A dvd audio player will work.  i woudn't expect that to drop for a long time though.  I know Dre is excited to use the technology.  The main problem is that the format wars make things really uncertain.  On top of that it takes Dre a month to mix an album for cd release as it is - imagine how long it will take perfectionist Dre to mix a album in six channells (lol).  It would defineltly be a mind blowing experience though.  I will post a few times here and there but don't expect to hear from me too often.  When I do appear i will take a few hours to post some things and maybe respond to some things.  I just don't have time to appear too often.  My fingers are my musical weapons so i can't type too much.  I'm gone for today as I see V is here. Peace y'all.