Griz-My_Evolution-CD-FLAC-2004-FORSAKEN

Section
MP3/FLAC
Group
FORSAKEN
Size
308,08 MB
Files
15
Date
2014-05-22

NFO

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     ▀█████▓▌                FORSAKEN Proudly Presents              ▐▓█████▀
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   ▓▄██                                                                   ██▄▓
   ▓█▀▄▄ Artist      : Griz                                              ▄▄▀█▓
  ▐▓▌▐█▌ Album       : My Evolution                                      ▐█▌▓▌
  ▐▀▄██  Label       : Ragin' Grace Music                                 ██▄▀▌
  ▄███▌  Genre       : Crossover                                          ▐███▄
  ▀███▌  Source      : CD                                                 ▐███▀
  ▐▄▀██  Street Date : 2004-00-00                                         ██▀▄▌
  ▐▓▌▐█▌ Quality     : 974 kbps / 44.1kHz / 2 channels                   ▐█▌▐▓▌
   ▓█▄▀▀ Encoder     : FLAC 1.2.1                                        ▀▀▄█▓
   ▓███  Size        : 323.01 MB                                          ███▓
   ▀ ▀█▌ Time        : 42:41 min                                         ▐█▀ ▀
   ▓▄███ Url         : http://www.ragingrace.com                         ███▄▓
  ▐▓████▌                                                               ▐████▓▌
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 ▄██▀                                                                       ▀██▄
 ██▌ 1.  Intro                                                          1:01 ▐██
 ██▌ 2.  Hardcore                                                       3:40 ▐██
 ██▌ 3.  Save Me                                                        3:49 ▐██
 ██▌ 4.  Bang, Bang, Bang                                               3:31 ▐██
 ██▌ 5.  Born To Be Wild                                                3:10 ▐██
 ██▌ 6.  American Freedom                                               3:49 ▐██
 ██▌ 7.  Backbone                                                       3:34 ▐██
 ██▌ 8.  A Childs Voice                                                 0:29 ▐██
 ██▌ 9.  Anger & Stress                                                 3:35 ▐██
 ██▌ 10. I Am The One                                                   4:01 ▐██
 ██▌ 11. Nobody Gives A Fuck                                            3:40 ▐██
 ██▌ 12. I Need Some Time                                               5:02 ▐██
 ██▌ 13. Spiritual Awakening                                            3:20 ▐██
 ██▌                                                                         ▐██
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 ▀██▄                                                                       ▄██▀
 ▄▄▀██                                                                     ██▀▄▄
 ▐▓▌▐█▌                                                                   ▐█▌▐▓▌
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 ▄███▌                                                                     ▐███▄
 ████    "I'm just like a lot of people, a fucked-up kid                    ████
 ████    from a broken home trying to make my way in the                    ████
 ████    world," says Griz, a strong, imposing, 250-pound,                  ████
 ████    street smart young man with a bald head, a body                    ████
 ████    etched with tattoos and a don't-fuck-with-me look                  ████
 ████    in his eyes.  A child of the streets of New York                   ████
 ████    after running away from home at 15, an Italian kid                 ████
 ████    who became a ghetto hero, Griz is as hardcore as                   ████
 ████    hardcore gets--in music and in life.                               ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    But as real and heart-wrenching as his story is,                   ████
 ████    you've heard similar ones before.  What you haven't                ████
 ████    previously heard from a real deal hardcore rock                    ████
 ████    singer-songwriter is this: "What I'm doing now is                  ████
 ████    more than music, it's a movement to give every kid                 ████
 ████    who cries at home because he feels the world                       ████
 ████    doesn't give a fuck about him hope that there is                   ████
 ████    another way to escape the pain.  It's about                        ████
 ████    love--love cures all pain, heals all wounds."                      ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    On his debut solo album, My Evolution (Ragin'                      ████
 ████    Grace), released Spring 2004, Griz turns anger into                ████
 ████    redemption, hate into understanding, and                           ████
 ████    desperation into salvation.  While in the Orlando,                 ████
 ████    FL studio of producer Joe Smith, whose name has                    ████
 ████    been on albums that have sold 100,000,000 copies,                  ████
 ████    Griz completely scrapped the unrepentant album he                  ████
 ████    first was going to record.  "I've walked earth,                    ████
 ████    seen heaven and touched hell," he says.  "Life is a                ████
 ████    constant battle between good and evil.  I've done a                ████
 ████    lot of fuckin' wrong things in my life.  I can                     ████
 ████    honestly now say I wish I had done a few things                    ████
 ████    differently in my past but I was in the mind frame                 ████
 ████    that I had to do what I had to do to survive.  I                   ████
 ████    have built up a lot of fucked-up feelings                          ████
 ████    throughout my life and once I was able to  release                 ████
 ████    all those feelings--I mean, I cry on this                          ████
 ████    album--once I forgave people for what's happened in                ████
 ████    the past, something I'd never done before, I                       ████
 ████    realized that there's more to life than what I was                 ████
 ████    doing.  There is more to life than yesterday.there                 ████
 ████    is tomorrow."                                                      ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    For Griz, whose knuckles bear teeth marks from                     ████
 ████    street fights, what he was doing involved                          ████
 ████    drug-dealing and gunplay and much more to which he                 ████
 ████    won't admit.  My Evolution, which signals a musical                ████
 ████    evolution in hardcore rock some have called                        ████
 ████    Eminem-meets-System Of A Down, marks the                           ████
 ████    culmination of his own extraordinary journey.                      ████
 ████    "Everything that has happened to me yesterday made                 ████
 ████    me who I am today," he says.  "I have finally come                 ████
 ████    to realize that my deepest struggles are actually                  ████
 ████    now my greatest riches."                                           ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    Griz was four years old and living in Harrison, NY                 ████
 ████    when his parents divorced.  He then went with his                  ████
 ████    mother and younger sister to live in nearby                        ████
 ████    Portchester.  His mother was a secretary during the                ████
 ████    day and a waitress in the evening.  "She was young                 ████
 ████    and alone, bipolar and manic depressive.  Now I can                ████
 ████    understand my mom, and I love her very much, but at                ████
 ████    the time I was a child living in a fucked-up place                 ████
 ████    and the only one I had to blame was her.  Growing                  ████
 ████    up we didn't have shit.  We lived in the basement                  ████
 ████    of my grandmother's house with no car, no phone, no                ████
 ████    cable television, no nothing.  In elementary                       ████
 ████    school, Horton School, I was the only white kid in                 ████
 ████    all my classes.  Horton was located down the street                ████
 ████    from the projects that we lived across from.  The                  ████
 ████    fuckin' school was so bad it was condemned.  I used                ████
 ████    to get jumped all the time just because I was                      ████
 ████    white.  That's where I learned to fight."                          ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    There was a point in his life that he remembers                    ████
 ████    eating canned fruit for meals:  "I remember one                    ████
 ████    time we were walking out of the buildings in Mount                 ████
 ████    Vernon where we were living and my mother found                    ████
 ████    some change on the floor and she bought bread for                  ████
 ████    us to eat.  She cried and prayed to God to thank                   ████
 ████    Him that night; I'll never forget that."  Meanwhile                ████
 ████    his father remarried and relocated to well-to-do                   ████
 ████    Greenwich, CT.  When the 14-year-old tried to join                 ████
 ████    him, his new wife didn't want any part of Griz.                    ████
 ████    His father tried but his wife insisted that if he                  ████
 ████    allowed Griz to move in then she would move back to                ████
 ████    Italy and take his newborn daughter with her.  His                 ████
 ████    father was forced to make a decision and once again                ████
 ████    Griz got the shit end of the stick.                                ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    "I was the hard, tough kid who was always in                       ████
 ████    trouble.  I wanted to be part of my father's life                  ████
 ████    so bad I did everything I could to be with him.  I                 ████
 ████    was captain of the football and baseball teams just                ████
 ████    to prove myself to my dad.  I figured if I was the                 ████
 ████    best then he would be proud of me--but he never                    ████
 ████    came to see me play.  I was embarrassed to be so                   ████
 ████    poor.  I was being raised by my mother, and                        ████
 ████    although she tried, we just couldn't get ahead.                    ████
 ████    I'd get up at 5:30 in the morning, in fuckin'                      ████
 ████    middle school, and walk five miles to my father's                  ████
 ████    house and hide in the backyard and when the school                 ████
 ████    bus would pull up I'd get on--so the kids would                    ████
 ████    think I lived there.  I never had any white friends                ████
 ████    until middle school and even then either they                      ████
 ████    didn't like me or their parents didn't approve of                  ████
 ████    me because I was from a bad area and I hung out                    ████
 ████    with the black kids.  I've walked on the grass on                  ████
 ████    both sides of the fence--the country club and the                  ████
 ████    projects; the rich never knew about the poor and                   ████
 ████    the poor never knew about the rich.  Let me tell                   ████
 ████    you from experience, the grass sucks on both                       ████
 ████    sides."                                                            ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    When he was 15, he finally ran away from home.  But                ████
 ████    going to an uncle's house, the door was slammed in                 ████
 ████    his face.  So he lived on the streets, going from                  ████
 ████    place to place, ending up in the hood.  Always able                ████
 ████    to put words together, he started rapping, finding                 ████
 ████    an outlet to his frustration by putting his                        ████
 ████    feelings into his music.  That same year Griz wrote                ████
 ████    his first song, the aptly-titled "Problem Child"                   ████
 ████    which was produced by a childhood friend of his who                ████
 ████    went by the name of Shadow S, and put it out on the                ████
 ████    streets.  They formed a group called Black Thornz                  ████
 ████    that went on to become a local success.  Suddenly                  ████
 ████    the white kid, who never really fit in, became                     ████
 ████    known all through the hood as an unbelievable                      ████
 ████    rapper.  He'd go to shows at the Apollo in Harlem                  ████
 ████    with his black friends and no one would bother him.                ████
 ████    "People have a misconception of the hood.  I have                  ████
 ████    been hanging around the streets my whole life and                  ████
 ████    nobody ever bothered me.  The problem with people                  ████
 ████    is that they fear what they don't understand so                    ████
 ████    they stereotype shit.  Me, I didn't give a fuck                    ████
 ████    about the world or no one in it.  I was going to do                ████
 ████    whatever the fuck I wanted and nobody was going to                 ████
 ████    stop me.  If I wanted to go to Harlem, or any other                ████
 ████    hood for that matter, I was going and if that meant                ████
 ████    getting into a fight or whatever, then so be it.                   ████
 ████    With me, everything is do-or-die.  There's no                      ████
 ████    middle--it's all or nothing."                                      ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    Playing four or five shows a week, from the Bronx                  ████
 ████    and Brooklyn to Westchester and Connecticut, Griz,                 ████
 ████    nicknamed for his Grizzly Bear demeanor, became a                  ████
 ████    big name on the streets.  He also started making                   ████
 ████    money in less than legal ways.  "I was all alone.                  ████
 ████    I learned how to survive on my own.  I had my own                  ████
 ████    place, my own cars.  I was gonna make something out                ████
 ████    of myself.  The world might have fucked me but I                   ████
 ████    was going to fuck it back; one way or another I was                ████
 ████    determined to win."                                                ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    One day he went to where his mother was living and                 ████
 ████    asked if he could stay there for a while.  She said                ████
 ████    yes and he seemed to be happy for a few weeks but                  ████
 ████    that would soon end.  One day he walked in and                     ████
 ████    found her boyfriend at that time shooting heroin.                  ████
 ████    Griz never became involved in drugs after seeing an                ████
 ████    uncle die in front of him from a suicidal overdose.                ████
 ████    So he confronted the boyfriend and they argued but                 ████
 ████    when his mom came home the boyfriend denied the                    ████
 ████    incident and his mother believed the boyfriend.  A                 ████
 ████    few nights later while sleeping, Griz woke up to                   ████
 ████    find the boyfriend standing over him with a                        ████
 ████    baseball bat about to smash in his skull.  "We                     ████
 ████    fought, and it was a bloodbath.  The fight started                 ████
 ████    in the house but soon found its way out on the                     ████
 ████    street and there was blood all over.  I beat this                  ████
 ████    motherfucker like I never beat no man before him.                  ████
 ████    My mom comes home and sees us fighting and jumps on                ████
 ████    me to leave him alone!  My mother's neighbors                      ████
 ████    called my father to tell him what was happening but                ████
 ████    he just told them not to ever call his house again,                ████
 ████    especially while his family was sleeping.  Needless                ████
 ████    to say he never showed up.  When the cops came they                ████
 ████    asked if we wanted to press charges and we both                    ████
 ████    said no but they insisted that we couldn't both                    ████
 ████    stay in the house so one of us had to leave.  My                   ████
 ████    mother thought it would be best if I left, so I                    ████
 ████    did.  I never went home again."                                    ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    After four years in the Black Thornz, Griz went                    ████
 ████    solo for a year or so and then went on to form a                   ████
 ████    new group called Confidential, a crew of Italian                   ████
 ████    and Puerto Rican rappers.  The buzz was so strong                  ████
 ████    that the group landed a spot on TV's "The Queen                    ████
 ████    Latifah Show" in 1999.  The next year, one of their                ████
 ████    tracks, co-written by Griz, was heard on the                       ████
 ████    Virgin-released soundtrack Romeo Must Die.  He then                ████
 ████    joined The Unit, whose 2002 album 100% Hater Proof,                ████
 ████    released on EMI, was executive produced by Latifah.                ████
 ████    Griz co-penned a track from that album which also                  ████
 ████    appeared on the soundtrack to the 2003                             ████
 ████    Latifah-Steve Martin box office smash Bringing Down                ████
 ████    The House.                                                         ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    Griz is still idolized wherever he goes in and out                 ████
 ████    of the hood.  "I'm not looked at as black or white.                ████
 ████    I'm accepted because I'm real.  I don't wear a                     ████
 ████    baseball cap backwards; I don't try to be someone                  ████
 ████    I'm not.  A lot of white kids go to the hood and                   ████
 ████    try to adapt, get gold teeth and wear oversized                    ████
 ████    clothes.  I'm just me all the time, what you see is                ████
 ████    what you get.  And I have to say that when I had                   ████
 ████    nothing and no one, the projects was the only place                ████
 ████    I was accepted.  I have nothing but love for the                   ████
 ████    people there.  Don't get shit twisted--I love being                ████
 ████    Italian, I love who I am.  I don't forget where I'm                ████
 ████    from.  I respect those who respect me, period!  I                  ████
 ████    demand my respect but in the same light I show                     ████
 ████    respect.  I am loved wherever I go...I can go into                 ████
 ████    the hood and roll dice and I can go to the social                  ████
 ████    club and play cards."                                              ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    But musically something was missing for Griz.  He                  ████
 ████    wasn't able to express himself in rap the way he                   ████
 ████    wanted.  "Music is an emotion, it speaks from the                  ████
 ████    heart.  I grew up where beat machines were all you                 ████
 ████    had.  I'd lay down verses to the sounds of a                       ████
 ████    keyboard underneath me.  That's all I knew."                       ████
 ████    That's all he knew until he met Grace and Marc, of                 ████
 ████    his record label, Ragin' Grace.  They saw a lot                    ████
 ████    more in him than just rap--they saw a movement.                    ████
 ████    They posed the question to him: Why don't you do a                 ████
 ████    rock album?  They saw in him what he wanted all                    ████
 ████    along; he just didn't know it yet.  "I rebelled                    ████
 ████    against doing rock 'n' roll," says Griz.  "I had                   ████
 ████    been on the radio, on TV, on albums and mixtapes.                  ████
 ████    I was known.  Why would I drop all that and start                  ████
 ████    over?"  But in the same breath when asked how he                   ████
 ████    felt about rock music, he replied, "Rock was always                ████
 ████    part of me.  I love the feeling of live                            ████
 ████    instruments, that reality, that adrenalin."  He                    ████
 ████    agreed to go out to Orlando, Florida and meet Joe                  ████
 ████    Smith.  They axed the original concept and began                   ████
 ████    from scratch on a hard rock album of pure emotion.                 ████
 ████    Griz laid down the melodies for the songs and                      ████
 ████    Smith, with a band at his command, molded the music                ████
 ████    to capture that emotion.                                           ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    In the process, Griz discovered that it was time to                ████
 ████    forgive.  He was ready to let go of the hate and                   ████
 ████    pain he had been carrying for so long so he poured                 ████
 ████    his heart out on the record.  "The music really                    ████
 ████    became my stairway to heaven.  My outlook on life,                 ████
 ████    my mind, body and spirit, all changed.  I called my                ████
 ████    mother and told her I forgave her for any mistakes                 ████
 ████    she had made and that I appreciate her.  I realized                ████
 ████    all she needed was love.  My dad and I have become                 ████
 ████    closer too.  I was a street kid--I didn't give a                   ████
 ████    fuck about no one and as far as I was concerned                    ████
 ████    nobody gave a fuck about me.  But I have come to                   ████
 ████    realize that the only way to have a happy tomorrow                 ████
 ████    is to live for today and forgive yesterday's                       ████
 ████    mistakes.  That's exactly what I was able to do                    ████
 ████    through this album."                                               ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    On My Evolution, his voice is deep and strong, his                 ████
 ████    delivery powerful and full of energy.  On                          ████
 ████    "Hardcore," he roars, "What are we?" and the                       ████
 ████    screams reply, "We are.hardcore!"  You feel his                    ████
 ████    words pounding into your head and before you know                  ████
 ████    it they sink deep into your heart.                                 ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    On "Nobody Gives A Fuck," he forces you to see how                 ████
 ████    we hear the ones we love but don't listen to what                  ████
 ████    they are saying.  You feel his pain, respect his                   ████
 ████    strength, witness his growth, and acknowledge his                  ████
 ████    power.  You are drawn to him by his confidence.                    ████
 ████    You can measure the depth of his soul as he tells                  ████
 ████    his mother, father, and God that he understands the                ████
 ████    reasons for his struggles and forgives them for his                ████
 ████    pain on "I Need Some Time."  By the last note of My                ████
 ████    Evolution, you no longer fear him, you begin to                    ████
 ████    understand him.                                                    ████
 ████                                                                       ████
 ████    Today, when Griz takes the stage he owns every ear,                ████
 ████    every heart and every mind, and vows to touch every                ████
 ████    soul.  "I should've been dead a few times," Griz                   ████
 ████    says.  "I'm still here for a reason--I want to make                ████
 ████    a difference in people's lives.  Maybe through my                  ████
 ████    music they will be able to find themselves the way                 ████
 ████    I was able to finally find myself."                                ████
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Files

PathSize
00-griz-my_evolution-cd-flac-2004.nfo31,31 KB
00-griz-my_evolution-cd-flac-2004.sfv481 B
01-griz-intro.flac6,44 MB
02-griz-hardcore.flac29,16 MB
03-griz-save_me.flac29,60 MB
04-griz-bang_bang_bang.flac27,10 MB
05-griz-born_to_be_wild.flac23,90 MB
06-griz-american_freedom.flac29,24 MB
07-griz-backbone.flac24,82 MB
08-griz-a_childs_voice.flac2,13 MB
09-griz-anger_and_stress.flac26,69 MB
10-griz-i_am_the_one.flac29,91 MB
11-griz-nobody_gives_a_fuck.flac23,76 MB
12-griz-i_need_some_time.flac33,23 MB
13-griz-spiritual_awakening.flac22,07 MB