This is a new feature titled "Artist's Commentary" we will bring monthly, artists give the story behind albums' creation process.
Four years later we look at "Young & Restless". You can read or listen to each track by track breakdown....read about near- fight fights, the beat selection and what almost caused SMC to pull every single copy of the album.
Here is the intro, way too much to paste so read or listen to the entire thing here:
Balance Young & Restless Artist's Commentary
Intro:
We about to talk about my debut album, only solo album, Balance Young & Restless, dropped in 2006. How it came about, 3 years prior I was just hitting up mix CDs, rhyming with different clicks of people, we started the New Bay. I dropped my first mixtape in 2004 called Balance The Mixtape. I dropped another mixtape after that in 2005 called Bay Area Mixtape King. It was time for me to drop a record. 2006 was dope because it was the year of the hyphy movement. It was a lot of eyes looking at the bay area, it was a beautiful situation. Young & Restless took me probably about 2 years to make. I had went through 2 or 3 different tracklistings for the album. I didn't have distribution for it first when I started making the album. A friend of mine who used to work for Showcase Magazine, Will Bronson became an A&R at a company called SMC that people are familiar with now for putting out Messy Marv, The Jacka. Me, San Quinn, Keak Da Sneak, and The Team were really kind of the first artists on SMC, and B-Legit actually. It's funny because my first 12" I ever did with SMC was for a song called Right Here and the other side had B-Legit's record with Clyde Carson [Block 4 Life] on it. We were both on SMC, that was a big highlight, my first real piece of vinyl as a solo artist.
Just to get into it, I recorded a majority of the album at a studio that's no longer set up in Richmond, off of McDonald Ave. Name of the studio was Poorman Studios. I had learned about that studio because one of Brotha Lynch Hung's artists First Degree the DE used to record at Poorman Studios. First Degree the DE was actually the first artist to ever put me on an album. When I first went to go do that album which was Fahrenheit Underbelly Vol. 1, I had recorded that verse at Poorman Studios. Ever since then I been working there. He does all my mixes, even now. He mixed Good As Money, he mixed Golden State Warriorz, he mixed Grind single, everything I do pretty much he mixes it.
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