By Kavit Sumud | January 22nd, 2013
Underestimation is brutal, but its also one of the driving forces behind my life. I have some pretty bizarre dreams for a poor Arab boy from Baku, Azerbaijan: graduate school and global city hopping were not in the lot cast for someone like me. And my journey so far has been full of crushing defeats and some of the most self-satisfying victories I could ask for.
Which is why I love this piece of art called “Say That I Can’t” from a fairly new-on-the-scene producer, Kurtis Strange. It features this Mike Tyson interview quote spliced over some inventive hip-hop instrumentals:
“I always remembered what people did to me. I didn’t want to get them back physically or hurt them, but I also wanted to laugh in their face, look them in the eye and say remember what you said? I’m too small, I’m too young, I’d never do it at that age…”
Kurtis Strange’s production simmers with a haunting, self-confidence that perfectly matches the tone of Tyson’s quote. When I talked with him over SoundCloud, Kurtis Strange told me he was remarkably only 15 years old and he was moving “into a serious phase of his producing.” Taking that into account, this is some Madeon-level quality here.
If you’d like to see where he takes his art into the future, follow him over at his SoundCloud and catch a free download.