Author: Jesse Dangerously

Demoitis, June 30 2025: verses for Height & Prowess, 1/5

Posted on by Jesse Dangerously in updates

i got a bunch of demo verses recorded last night!

I’ve had this collaborative EP cooking for like a year now: beats by Baltimore’s Height Keech, and I’ll be sharing vocal duties with DC’s Prowess The Testament.

Height sent us beats a hundred months ago and we both wrote a bunch right away and then we both procrastinated on recording for literally ever and ever. These demos from last night are only my parts; some sloppy, some unfinished, all just for reference. Just so Prowess can record her parts and we can Postal Service it back and forth.

Height Keech

The production is all samples, that’s how Height works. Rock and roll, very heavy, very crunchy. If you haven’t heard him before, check out his recent album with Nosaj (one of the rappers from one of my all time favourite 90s groups, New Kingdom – different person from Nosaj Thing) as Wave Generators.

Prowess the Testament

You’ve probably heard Prowess before if you check out many people i often collaborate with, but especially the one song we have together on Coolzey‘s producer record from a couple years ago: “Hexadecimal Chess Geeks“. She has a Sailor Moon themed concept album that came out as part of Fake Four INC’s Freecember last year, so you can tell from all those converging lines on the same horizon that we’re like the same person in some ways… not to mention visually identical to the eye. 😘

Impatience is a Virtue

You can see why I’ve been procrastinating maybe? I’m so excited about the project I’m scared to not perform adequately. i want to stand up next to these two and look JUST AS SEXY. that’s why i had to let the demos be rough, just to assure myself they can be made sexier when the
time arrives.

So yeah it’s five demos of roughly one verse each. I’m going to share one of them right here in this public post for anyone who cares to check it out, and the rest over the next week or so just with Patreon subscribers until the final result is ready.

Hilarious Situation – multiple Rap Legend musical chairs sit-in-lap debacle

One of the songs I’m keeping behind the scenes is already a hilarious situation – we snoozed for so long and the beat was so dope, it was remanded to a different ABSOLUTELY LEGENDARY underground rapper that I’m honestly honoured to be inside a tight six degrees with… I’m not going to leak a beat that’s on that record outside of the circle, but it’s SO good haha.

You should get inside the circle (if you want, no worries if not) and hear the version that will never become a finished product without dramatic overhaul! I’m sharing that one last in this series, some time in the first week of July.

Hope you like secrets and seeing how the rap sausage is made!! Yuck!

Yours,

rap legend Jesse Dangerously

cover art for the DRUMBS single by Jesse Dangerously and Danny Miles, the drummer for July Talk

July Talk drummer loves birds and Jesse D

Posted on by Jesse Dangerously in audio

Who is Danny Boy?

I’ve known July Talk drummer Danny Miles for almost twenty years. Nowadays he plays with one of the most popular bands in Canada, and he takes a lot of very nice photographs of birds. But I used to sleep on his dirty floor in London, Ontario, before all of that.

He was something of a mythical figure when Backburner first started touring as far as southern Ontario. A powerful drummer who loved golden era hip-hop, he lived in the basement of the Toolshed. Danny could become dangerously boisterous once the party started. There’s not a lot of people who would line up for a second round after they’ve tasted Danny’s Mystery Shot.

They called him Danny Boy. He always looked like a rock star – lanky, limber, quick with a goofy grin or a furrowed brow. Like if you needed to add a drummer to an Archie comic, and you didn’t spend much time avoiding cliches. Timbuktu dandled and manhandled Danny’s drums into some of the great Canadian hip-hop beats, extensively and expansively. He was the living ultimate breaks & beats for a budding producer.

Despite the massive fortune to be made playing drums into CoolEdit Pro sessions for a completely secret rap crew, Danny stuck to his principles and sought a different career path. Let history be his judge.

And he makes beats?

You can’t take the rap out of the boy! In 2018, he reunited with Timbuktu, along with Peter Project and DJ iRate, to form Tongue Helmet – a psychedelic, soul assassinating quartet straight out of the mid-90s college charts. He co-produced the beats with Peter and Tim, as well as playing the drums, and now he’s got a hunger for it.

I think I’m the first person to release a song produced by Danny. Fittingly, given our shared passion for percussion, I have sharply focused my lyrics on praising the drums. Danny played the kit live, jammed on other percussion instruments with Adam Hindle, and solicited some saxophone chops from Gordon Hyland.

The single is called “DRUMBS,” and it’s the twenty-sixth installment of my Rap Hundreds series, collected as part of season 3.

Game the System

Posted on by Jesse Dangerously in updates

I have 1700 followers on the live show tracking website bandsintown. It’s kind of surprising! And it’s really close to how many I need to take advantage of their shortcut to becoming a Twitch affiliate, which I think I would like to be.

I don’t expect to play a live show any time soon. I mean, if I don’t have to cancel my May 16th gig in Toronto, that’d be a miracle, but let’s be real… it’s probably not going to happen.

I do have the gear to make a pretty sweet, if somewhat ramshackle, livestream performance happen from the basement. And it feels like Twitch might be one of the most convenient places to share that?

So I would be very grateful if you would click the “Track to get concert and tour updates” link in the widget below. And probably also follow me on Twitch. But the main thing right now is that if I can get just 300 more people tracking me on bandsintown, get to go straight to affiliate. And that is apparently good.

Seems like I’m always very grateful these days. I’m downright weary of it. OK love you.