After listening to, curating, and mixing some form of dance or house music for more than 20 years, I promised myself I would try to produce something.
Here is something.
‘Adam Amin - Oi Oi! (Original Mix)’
My gut says it will probably still be here. Or it will return after leaving. And all the fanfare will feel unnecessary. I stepped back awhile ago and it was the right thing for me. But I don’t come to that conclusion without seeing why this had value in the first place.
I remixed a 13-year-old, platinum-selling hip-hop record which sampled a 58-year-old soul and jazz track which covered a song originally recorded 92 years ago into a bouncy, funky house track which you can listen to/download:
"Otis (Adam Amin Remix)"
The two worst days of my life involved members of my family being taken from me. One was temporary, in 2001. The other was permanent, in 2018. Both events have had lasting effects, on me and others, at different degrees for different reasons.
Over time and with the benefit of regularly going to therapy, I came to realize how those two tentpole moments essentially created the framework to how I view, perceive, and judge the value of every event in my life. Those two moments have colored my view on just about all things
Because when the 2018 thing happened, and I talked about it here, the lonely feeling faded fast. My sadness never went away. But the feelings of isolation did. And I processed things way faster than I did in ‘01. And obviously, age 14 vs. 31 is a significant difference. But…
But it really messed me up. And I wonder if I had a community like this one, that allowed me to vent and see other people match my vulnerability, and make it feel less alone…would I have felt better and maybe not taken out those frustrations on myself the way I did for so long?
…because there was a whole congregation of people who reached out or sympathized or comforted or joked or assured or assuaged me, it made processing trauma easier.
So when the 2001 thing happened, I felt so very, very alone. Because I felt no one could possibly understand how I was feeling. Which is obviously not true! But that’s just how I felt at age 14 and I wasn’t going to seek out and burden a community of people to try and feel better