I wasn't sure if I was going to release this song ever. For a minute I honestly wasn't sure if I wanted to do music anymore. I haven't released a project (or anything more than a couple random songs) in about 4 years and no one could figure out why. Well hopefully this song explains some of it but I'll try to break it down a bit more for anyone who wants to know.

After a string of sold out headline shows in the Bay Area, a lot of media attention and a pretty successful mixtape release, a few years ago things were going pretty well for me. There was only one thing that I felt might be slowing down my career progress; the name "A-1".

It had plagued me for years. I loved the name, it was my nickname since high school and everyone in town knew me as that. I felt a power as A-1 that I didn't feel any other time, like a Frisco Rap Superhero or something, but it was also a very counter productive name to have as an artist in the internet age. I would open shows for huge artists like E-40, Snoop Dogg, play for 5000+ people at a time and absolutely crush every performance, and afterwards only come away with maybe 10-20 Instagram followers or Facebook likes because no one could find my name on any search engine. Fans would find me months after seeing me perform and say "Man it took me forever to find you! Your name is impossible to find online you know that?" Even industry professionals would tell me "Yeah it's a cool name but it's too generic looking, you need something more unique so that it's easier for people to find you on the web, otherwise you're working backwards." So I thought and thought of new names but nothing felt right. I finally settled for Adam Vida because I liked the concept of having "life" in my name, but it never felt quite right.

After that I was planning on a fresh start, a new music rollout with new branding. I made a song with my homie Aaron that went super viral on Spotify, was getting hit up left and right by major labels and was promised the world by all of them. After bidding wars and lawyers and contracts I finally settled on one I trusted because I was sure that they were going to take care of me and had my best interests at heart, and would help me finally reach my dream of having a solid touring career. That's what they had promised me, after all. I usually don't get my hopes up for anything but I had my hopes up HIGH for this for some reason. I thought this was the beginning of something huge for me, but thats when everything fell apart.

The days after I signed I knew I had made a terrible mistake. Right away it was obvious these guys didn't care about me at all and only saw me as a product, and the minute there was any shadow of a doubt that I might not sell a billion records right away they completely stopped caring about me and my career. I felt like I had sold my soul to the devil and got absolutely nothing I wanted out of it.

I was crushed. On top of that one of my good friends had just died and I was still grieving him while this was happening. Then we got terrible news about a close family member getting sick. Then I got depressed. My usual outlet in these times would be music, but I couldn't legally release any of my own music for a YEAR because of a clause in the contract I signed. Then another close family member got sick. Then I started drinking and abusing myself a lot. I developed addictions and started destroying myself. Then I got really depressed. I stopped caring about anything. I started isolating and distancing from everyone, and by the time I was legally able to make music again I just didn't want to, I didn't care.

So for about 3-4 years that was pretty much the deal, but this past year some good things happened. Without going into all the details, SEVERAL times seemingly out of nowhere, a stranger approached me out of the blue and would have some version of the conversation in this song with me. "Dude your music got me through the worst breakup of my life." "Man your album helped me finally beat my drug addiction." "When I'm at my lowest points I put on your music and things don't feel so bad anymore" and so on and so forth. It happened to me literally like 10 times in a few months. Someone would find me randomly in the street and expressed to me how something I wrote changed their lives for the better, and how the only thing they want from me is to keep going. That's why I made this song. I wrote it and produced it myself but really it's just a summary of all the real conversations I had with real people about where I was at and why I shouldn't give up on myself.

I was reminded of why I started doing this in the first place, not for a good career or for any recognition, but because making music feels good, and releasing it makes people feel good, and making people feel good is the best feeling in the world. When someone tells me something I said was therapeutic to them it's therapeutic for me, when someone says something I said healed their pain I can feel my pain healing. I love music and I got something to say dammit, so Ima say it because that makes me feel really really really good. And the name every single one of those people addressed me as? It was A-1. And I still love being A-1 regardless of what any social media or music professional says. So for the foreseeable future that's what I'm rockin with.

I'm not totally out of the darkness yet. I still struggle. But In the grand scheme of things my life is so incredibly awesome and I'm truly thankful to still be here. I still have bad days like everyone, but at least I'm here, making music again, and I'm feeling good doing it. I hope you guys like listening to it as much as I like making it. Thank you from my whole heart for what you all do for my life. I appreciate you all.