A year or so ago manCHILD from Mars Ill asked Zack if he would take some pictures for a new project he was starting up called, "Who's Rhyme is it Anyway?" a combination of freestyle rapping and the improv show "Who's Line is it Anyway?
Here's a section from the About Us section:
"Freestyle. Improvisation. Unscripted. Unlimited. Whose Rhyme is it Anyway is all of the above. It’s what happens when a few top-flight rap artists have a little too much time on their hands and the desire to do something new.
Joining forces to create Whose Rhyme is it Anyway are five highly respected voices in Hip-Hop: Playdough, Manchild and Heath McNease with recent additions RedCloud and Cookbook. Each of these artists is an expert freestyle rhyme technician, skilled entertainer, and has a real heart for people.
From their shared expertise, the three wanted to create a new format to reach more people. Whose Rhyme is it Anyway does just that. Basing its format on the hit show, “Whose Line is it Anyway,” Whose Rhyme… is an evening of sketches, songs, comedy, and multi-level crowd interaction that a simple music concert could never achieve.
Freestyle rhyming has always been a major part of hip-hop. In the late ‘70’s, kids on the corner spontaneously put words together to pass the time, settle their differences, or just have a good time. Since those early days, freestyling has come to the forefront of pop culture, showcased in commercials for iconic brands like The Gap and McDonalds. With the release of Eminem’s blockbuster movie “8 Mile”, mainstream America got an inside look for themselves."
Zack was and is a huge manCHILD fan and said that he would absolutely do this shoot for them even though they had nary a budget to speak of. After the shoot he gave some copies of my albums to the guys. He is known to do this. ;-) He never told me that he had given copies to these guys though!
6 months or so later I received a Facebook message from Heath McNease, one of the members of "Who's Rhyme..." I'm ashamed to say that I didn't know who he was. He said he was a musician and that Zack had given him a copy of Songs To Sail By. He said he liked my music and that he really liked the song, Jericho. Would I be okay with him working it into his next album?
I looked him up, liked what I heard (Heath is amazingly talented. Truly. And I don't say things like that about anyone. It's hip-hop meets brilliant songwriting meets I don't even know what. It's great.) and readily agreed. I told him he could absolutely use the song and that I was looking forward to hearing what he came up with.
Flash forward to a couple of months ago. Out of the blue Heath writes to me, and says that the song is done. The subject line of the email read,
"Here's your song...our song? Haha..."
He gave me a download link.
I listened.
I got goosebumps.
I was hearing my song transformed into something entirely new and it blew me away. It was so cool to hear the art that I made taken and remolded into art that Heath made.
So. All that to say, Heath's entire album, Thrift Store Jesus, is now out and available. It's a name your own price album, so you could download it for free if you wanted to, but you would be way cooler if you gave a little something for it.
Here's a link to the album on Bandcamp:
Heath McNease :: Thrift Store Jesus
Here's a link to the song Elysian Fields:
Heath McNease :: Elysian Fields
Have at it my friends. Please support this man and his talent. He deserves it so so so much.
"A painter paints pictures on canvas. But musicians paint their pictures on silence." L. Stokowski