"FORGET EVERYTHING YOU KNOW"
Music producer SENSE (Daniel Tiuri Wils, 1985) was born as the son of a Shaman and initiated into mystical traditions like Sufism from an early age. Through psychedelic-induced experiences as a child, he connected with his own personal deities and psychological archetypes – like the wolf – which would later become the foundation for the imagery and symbolism found in Shahmen recordings. His grandmother’s esoteric collection of books introduced him to the teachings of George Gurdjieff, Irina Tweedie, and Inayat Khan, who speak to us in the instrumental interludes and give context to the lyrics of emcee BLESS.
Rapper BLESS (Brandon Lee Stratton, 1985) traveled from Los Angeles to Amsterdam to record an album with SENSE. The two Strangers became close friends and recorded countless freestyles and demos together, during sporadic but intense recording sessions in SENSE’s houseboat recording studio. Here BLESS wrote and recorded the words for Shahmen’s “Enter The Circle” and “All In The Circle” using imagery from Native American folktales and cult films like The Crow (with actor Brandon Lee). His gangster rap-like delivery, deep voice, and incredible flow complement SENSE’s mystical sounds and banging drum tracks perfectly.
Their single “Mark” has millions of plays on streaming services like Youtube and Spotify, which earned Shahmen a solid place in hip-hop history, and gave birth to fanatic cult-following around the world.
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RELEASE INFO | WOW001
ARTIST: Shahmen
TITLE: Enter The Circle
FORMAT: EP, Digital.
LABEL: World Of Wils
CATALOG: WOW003
RELEASE: 30 April 2010
GENRE: hip-hop, instrumental
ENTER THE CIRCLE | LYRICS
[VERSE 1]
I was born by the beach
Water around my bones
First heartbeat became the 808 tone
Speech came later, gets greater as I grow
Peace to the haters and a prayer for my foes
Love to my family and my family keeps grow’n’
Death to the vanity cause damn it, we gold
Turn into rust and then into dust
Carved in ebony with an elephant tusk
All the world’s a stage, see the rows of names
Everyone’s a child playing out the game
I know I’m just the same
Desire is the flame
High on fire and I’m tired of my ways
Open up the blinds, hanging in my eyes
Windows are closed, open up to life
See a tree grow, tree grows in size
See a body rot, I’m reminded of my time
Stories I ain’t told still hidden in my mind
Watch it unfold like treasure that I find
See a tree grow, tree grows in size
See a body rot, I’m reminded of my time
[VERSE 2]
Now I live in these beats
No matter where I roam
Wander down the streets ’till I make it back home
Sand from the beach still stuck between my toes
My hands and my feet building buildings of stone
Face to the sky with a breeze through my hair
Friends that are gone, I’ll find you right here
I don’t look to dirt when I know you’re in the air
Not another fool who thinks life should be fair
God’s a referee with a whistle in his mouth
He blows every time there’s a foul or time-out
Stuck in the trap well it’s time we climbed out
Bustin’ off my gat towards the diamonds in my mouth
Found hip-hop in the temple of my room
Every day I build while the symbol turn to runes
Standing on the brick that used to be a tomb
Pouring out a drop from the bottle of my booze
[CHORUS]
Used to be dirt, grew into a plant
Once was an animal, now I’m just a man
Dreams still intangible, heart up in my hands
This will be the light for the darkness in my head
Used to be dirt, grew into a plant
Once was an animal, now I’m just a man
Dreams still intangible, heart up in my hands
This will be the life for the darkness in my head
[Verse 1: BLESS]
This is for the prophets
See through your eyes in a glance
That could ride through their life just to write and dance
Dirty world but my soul’s clean, feeling great
Even though we know all our foes will meet the same fate
That’s all physical, this ain’t got a name
Its the same story, but watch the authors change
Right now dog, that’s all it ever be
This moment never ends, this hell is heavenly
This spinning never stops, I heard about death
And why you tripping dog, that shit is all a myth
Even when we leave, we just coming back
This body’s just a shell so its bound to crack
The spirit inside, you couldn’t hold back
And let me see you try, but you got no chance
And let me see you try, but you got no chance
And let me see you try
[Verse 2: Unorthadox]
Where do we go?
What if all my plans will flop, I don’t know
That is why we have to stop and just flow
Be on it until the casket drops
Grab ahold of my soul and crack the master lock
Where does it go?
But if I really open the door, I don’t know
But that is what I’m hoping to show
So give some spare change, for the dead broke
Pull it out my pocket, stop, motion, let go
[Verse 3: BLESS]
So there I was again staring at the sky
Sky stare back like why you so high
Man you so soar, dog you so low
Hanging on the hedge in the middle of my flow
Flow’s where I live at, that’s where I dwell
Damn its my prison its my very own cell
Wake up every day like my personal hell
Couldn’t get better yeah I’m swimming through the well
[Verse 4: Unorthadox]
This one’s for the one power we pioneer off the tip of this iceberg
Is hazardous to be on but if you get it that might work
For kingdom come skip the next shell and inherit the earth
At times I sing songs like a Phoenix biting the dirt
Rather bite the head off a serpent but it’s bless over curse
So im writing these verses trying to fit it into the right words although it’s beyond (the silence surfaces)
That I still heard (flying in nervousness)
Cause I still heard there’s a light that’s inside of men
That can turn a leviathan of sorrow into a brighter tomorrow
So if your eyes is hollow
I cannot follow
But I will swallow to provide a bottle of fire water and now we got to arigato
Now that i finally found this motto
A breath of life is bound to blow let the baraka flow
I should go out the grove
Or better yet inside out
At the end of the road grass is where begins my route
Low on cash, crow-wolf pack, bet I’ll swing on doubt
With truth up in the eyes like a barrel in thine mouth
If a wolf was a crow he’d probably been flying south
If a crow was a wolf he was taught how to bring hide out and die out
[Verse 1: Bless]
Somewhere the sun sets out on my silhouette
Drum-sets pound to the sound in my filament
Deep to the ground every town I be killing it
Pound over ounce I was built for the real in this
Bring ’em back to life with a knife made of healer spit
Fly through my mind it is time that you feeling this
I ain’t gotta lie this is life on the realest shit
Wake up everyday and get blazed ’till the ceiling lifts
Now I’m on my grind and the factory is dealing shit
‘Bout to stash cash in the bag on some illegal shit
But I ain’t got a dime I can hide from the evilness
Every rack I stack take me back to where the demons live
[Verse 2: Bless]
So smoke a sack with the geniuses
Open up and ask where the past be leading us
Try and do the math, and you add what the meaning is
All I do is laugh while the past be leaving us
Sharp on my math as an abacus
Try and slide the wrong way wind up being smashed to dust
We goin’ raise like we Lazarus
Blaze through the game and watch the fame chase after us
Four finger ring reads “KING” can you imagine us
Sitting at the castle where the cats can’t hassle us
Vision the pattern that are living, us
Break ’em down to tatters build ’em back and watch ’em give it up
You know we goin’ get it, punk
Live 22 years just to find the kid in us
All them other years I was clear, I was growing up
Killing off my fears as I steered through the going rough
Veered through the years as my peers started blowing up
Knew I’d be there and gone passed from the soul in us
Treasure turns to trash from the gold in us
But all will turn to ash if I pass what I’m holding from
[Chorus]
This is for the one, raising out the drum
This is for it all, everything is God
This is for my life, shining through the night
This is for the dice, on everything I write
Skin the color of bark
Clothes smelling like trees
Dig in my earth, find my roots and weeds
My truth bleeds right back in the arm
No scar, but I left my mark
My friend got clean and O.D.’ed, life is just that dark
But life is just that bright
That when the sunset shines
I seen the graff he writes
I’m back tonight, with a sack to light
In honor of the past I write
I’m wide open, with no glass of wine
Stuck in a barrel, I’ll get better with time
While you measure how the pleasure declines
I’m stackin’ cheddar while the bread just rise
With my eyes and my ears glued here on my grind, cutty
Creepin’ on a come up
No sleepin’ till the sun’s up
Tellin’ secrets to the drum thumps
Pledge allegiance to the blood pump
Until I leak my last liter, here’s my one love
And all these angels got their guns up
But no fear when my teeth and my tongue touch
I am here, and I speak for the young bloods
Who’ve seen the flood, and they drug all the anchors up
And set sail through the world, in the name of trust
Hard work, and the crux that it made in us
I’m ’bout to bust, all my veins full of gold dust
That 1985 California gold rush, in the spine plus the flesh that it holds up
I’m out for mines and my wolves got it sewn up
One crow, one eagle on my shoulders
And my eyes hold the light that approaches
Do you cry out in your weakness, or carry it like Jesus?
Or just wonder where the peace is?
The heart’s beautiful; the brain’s where the beast lives
All these names on a train, and I’m trying to put my piece in
I paid for days, till my pain is raised
This spirit in my lyrics’ phrase
And when it plays let the fire blaze
And remember to the higher plane I came
Dark dark days, come and go fill my heart
Light fades, come and go fill that Ark
I pain, just to go and spill this truth
Now when truth was reality and lost in the challenge
You see, what was out the window
And you was pretending, and I had an info
And we was just listening, all with my kin-folk
Hear me here-ly, here where the cliff’s low
Van Gogh’s crows, over wheat-fields of gold
Forget everything you know
Read a secret, hid it right under-nose
Go ahead and seek everything you want
Everything you want, you already got
This is just a secret I’m mixing in the pot
Everything you want, you already got
This be the secret mixed in the pot
Everything you want, want
You already got, got
Everything you want, want
You already got, got
Everything you want, want
You already got, got
Everything you want, want
You already got, got
The more digging this grave
The more I’m digging my life
The more I’m digging this pain
The more I’m digging the mic
The more I’m looking for life
The more I’m looking for light
The more I’m mixing between
The more I carve with this mic
Yeah
B.L.S… and S.N.S
B.L.S… and S.N.S
We be blessed, yes, yes
[BLESS]
He was born in ’81
We was born in ’85
Waiting for the world to turn and finally put this fate in line
[Unorthadox]
Make it mine, straightened spine
Pave the way for the blind to escape the lies
Danger lies ahead but faceless inside
And I came to rise
[BLESS]
You can see the pain applied over all this pain of mine
Dripping off the canvas, of a Los Angeleno tribe
[Unorthadox]
And I ain’t afraid to die but I’m tired of this killing
And I’m feelin’ like I only just came to life so that’s why I’m spilling
Stop staring at me with angry eyes, I got a surprise for you children
Beneath your harness a baby cries and it’s love for a feeling, it’s love
[BLESS]
And I never seen the ceiling
So I’ma keep billing
Spilling out the venom
Filling out the rhythms
Sitting at the house on the couch with a vision
‘Bout to break a million
[Unorthadox]
Used to be a coward with a sour taste for vengeance
But now I use my power to plow proudly and for graceful living
[BLESS]
Face the prison all your memories are hid up in
[Unorthadox]
And paint some vivid imagery where your feelings went
[BLESS]
See the other side of what this rhyme really meant
[Unorthadox]
I could have died but survived with a thicker skin
[BLESS]
Look in my eyes, find a dime that I couldn’t grip
[Unorthadox]
Opened your mind up to beyond where the lyrics end
[BLESS]
Staring in the mirror at my fear, I know where it is
Now I got it checked as I step through the peril-less
[Unorthadox]
Respecting the elements
Many times got here, god dropped dropped his life lines
I found out I had to balance it
Countless possibilities instead of what it never is
To balance out the damage of this savage inheritance
[BLESS]
Somehow the young and the worried
Crossed mountains and valleys
And found where the fountain was buried
The mouth from my clout from the early
Nothing but an ounce bag of doubt that I’m burning
Mapping out routes in the counts of the journeys
Stashed in the house writing thousands of flows
That are murdering
Wolves start howling, crows start circling
[Unorthadox]
Depart from the nervousness
Burnt to lisp, as my clockwork ticks
Einstein didn’t come up with a bomb but a fix
At times I might find violence hard to resist
But I mustn’t forget poisoning, I was probably sick
Learnt to live with cross road decisions or an abyss
It doesn’t only depend on attention, how it gon’ click
Took the first brick, start building my house on a cliff
So I can stare at the depth yet make a watch tower of it
Shahmen
The illest seven letter word since OutKast
Came up out the bottom and you know I ain’t leaving fast
Don’t shed a tear, right here, no fear
You should pull up at a chair we should probably swig beers
It’s Shahmen
The illest seven letter word since OutKast
Be the last and the first to pass
No fear right here
I’ll be staring out the window when the day looks clearer