So, as many of you know, pretty much after I finished recording BCB:FJJTG, my mother died. Like, literally. I finished "Re-Visitation Rights" on the 22nd of March and the 28th, she died.

Over the month leading up to her death, I went through several manic episodes, most of which brought on by drinking (profusely) and letting the inner alcoholic that my father was run rampant across my little corner of the world. This ended up, just like with "The Mental Breakdown" from DOTK, with me in an outpatient facility dealing with my issues.

The next couple of weeks, she and I mended our relationship, we talked, communicated, all that fun stuff. I even stayed with them since I wasn't going back to Beltsville anytime soon and she had just gotten out the hospital herself.

The day before her death, she, my stepdad and I, we were all talking about WWE SmackDown. She apparently liked watching it (never knew) and we were talking about the last night's episode. My stepdad was always the type to be like "ugh, wrestling! So fake." But, we all had a bonding moment over wrestling.

That Saturday morning, March 28th, 2015, around 8AM, my stepdad woke me up to call 911, as my mother wasn't breathing. Around an hour later, the techs at Sinai Hospital considered her DOA--even though, truthfully, she was already gone before they got to my stepdad's place, before he even tried CPR, before any of it. I knew, just by looking at my stepfather trying to resuscitate her, that she'd left us. My last words to her, before I went out, were, "bye mom, love you. I'll see you later."

Missed calls, Missed chance?
Maybe if I stayed in, I thought, I could've saved her. But, then the death certificate came and confirmed that she was gone practically right when it happened. A catastrophic event, is how they described it to me the day of. Acute MI is what the certificate said.

Missed calls, Missed chance?
Maybe if she ate better and didn't live like she was dying. And then I get the call that she had cancer, apparently a pretty aggressive form of colon cancer. On the same fucking day she died. Yeah...suffice to say, the next album I'm working on, Baltimore Commercial Break: The Aftermath, will take a lot out of me, since it deals with, mostly, the aftermath of her death.

But, for her, and the missed chances and missed calls. For my sons. For DAR. For everyone who's ever said "Speed, make us proud." This album and the next? They are for you. They may not be the glossiest, but they're honest and present it just like it T-I-Tis. Just as she was and just as she did.

For those who are wondering why there are 17 seconds of dead air (track stops at 2:09, but runs until 2:26), here's why:
11/11/49 was my mother's birthday. 1+1+1+1+4+9=17.
17 is also my favorite number and the day in August on which I was born.
My mother was also kind of obsessed with numbers, probably because she was always trying to hit the big one on the Mega Millions.
It's part of the reason why, since Songs For..., I've released an album on my birthday and why, for The Aftermath, I'm breaking tradition and releasing it on my mother's birthday. 11.11.15.
She would've been 66.