As I prepare the final touches on my debut album: "Daydreaming", I wanted to write about how I got started making music in the first place. In this post, I'll share the events that led me to where I am now with the music, and where I want to go. So relax, grab a cup of tea, maybe a biscuit, and allow me take you on this journey.
My First Inspirations In Music
The first person to show me music that captured my full attention was my older brother, Wilson Raley. He showed me all kinds of things - but we're here to talk about music!
The artists that stood out the most from what my brother showed me were Eminem and Weird AL. Their songs felt different to anything I had heard and I loved the craziness, creativity, and energy injected into their music. As an adolescent, I was attracted to the profanity despite being told by my father I shouldn't be listening to such nonsense. I often times didn't understand the punch lines or references being made, but the reaction from other people suggested it was provocative - which I enjoyed.
As I got older, I expanded my horizons in hip hop and started listening to more rappers. I was infatuated with lyricism. I started noticing that the better rappers would rhyme more than one syllable together in their lyrics, adding to the difficulty of their craft. I started to pick up on the techniques that made their words flow so well together and at some point, decided to try it myself.
The "Free-style Rap" Phase (2013-Present)
In high school, My friends and I enjoyed "free-styling" and we would put on a beat or have somebody beat-box while each of us took turns trying to deliver a proficient rap. The goal was usually to say something so vulgar it shocked everyone into laughter. Make no mistake about it, I am still 100% in the freestyle rap phase.
By my senior year, I had made a few songs that were littered with drug-induced lyrics and shallow punchlines. I guess it was a defense mechanism to take the seriousness out by only talking about drugs, sex, and how cool we were. At that age, it was hard for us to make a song about anything else. Unless of course - we were dissing one another over some high school drama.
My First and Only Rap Battle (2016)
As the story goes, I was invited to a vacation home in La Jolla to celebrate a girls birthday. I packed my bags and left to stay a few nights at the house. On the last night, a larger group of kids from the highschool came and joined the party. There couldn't have been more than 30 people there by the time I went to bed. When I woke up, I noticed the belts I brought with me were gone. I had with me one red Versace belt with a gold Medusa head buckle, and one brown Luis Vuitton belt with a gold LV buckle; both fake. That didn't stop me from being extremely angry for the disappearance.
Word got out that one of the girls had their lap top stolen from the house too, along with some other things. The gathering was small enough that we all had a pretty good idea of who it was. A few days later I had seen a friend of the suspect (who went by "Chowder") wearing the same belt I had stolen from me. I immediately confronted him and told him to give me my belt back. He claimed it was his, and that I wasn't the only one with a Luis Vuitton belt. Before the argument escalated, a teacher had called security and sent us both to the office.
Later that night, I was in the car with some friends and aired out the frustration in a song we made called "Fireball Freestyle". It was a pretty bad attempt to sound cool but our intention was to call them out for stealing and insult them any way we could. As it turns out, it got their attention. They fired back with a song called "Why U Mad" where they dissed me and the friends I made the song with. To their credit, they worked with a producer with recording equipment who knew what he was doing - so it sounded much better than what we had made; but the lyrics and flows were not as impressive. After I heard the song playing as I walked through the quad during passing period, I knew we had to come back with something.
I gathered the troops and again, recorded a diss-track using only my phone - This time, instead of playing a beat through the car speakers - we had my friend Riley Dring beat box. Riley had this talent of humming a melody while simultaneously making percussion noises with his mouth. He and I had made spent countless hours getting high and free-styling nonsense together - but this time, we had a job to do. I had my lyrics ready, and so did my friend Sean Purbaugh, who was willing to step into the fire with me once again.
With our low budget production, we managed to send shots that echoed through our school. Our response was titled, "Sorry for the Weight" which addressed the 4 days that went by between their release and ours, and the jokes we made in the song directed at the overweight rapper "Chowder". We were ultimately declared victorious in our first and only rap battle. They never responded with anything which is a clear sign of defeat, and the spectators (at least the people I knew) acknowledged our diss was far superior.
I later had talks later with the dude who stole my belts (Young YG) and we laughed together at some of the punchlines I got him and his boys with. The diss-track is now gone forever but you can still google "sorry for the weight Mo$art" and find lyrics that some kid posted to a lyric database website (hence the magnitude of this battle).
Despite the positive feedback I received, I wasn't ready to make the jump from messing around to actually taking music seriously. This is usually the phase that most people never make it past. As rappers: We mess around - we make our boys laugh; but taking it seriously and trying to turn songwriting into a career is a daunting and seemingly impossible route. It wasn't until I took a creative writing class that I started to realize the power of my words.
Senior Year Poetry Slam (2016)
We had been tasked with delivering poems in the schools main theater in front of a sizable crowed of students and faculty. I had written a poem called "The New Industry" about the corrupt history of Cannabis in America and it's inevitable legalization (this was 2016 and it was on the ballot to be legalized again). That year, I was also caught with weed by the school police officer (which wasn't mine) and was not allowed to go to prom. I was pretty upset about this because other students were allowed to go after being suspended for fights and other deplorable behavior that I believed was objectively worse. The poem featured a plethora of multiple syllable rhymes and made my point of injustice quite effectively. I was proud of my work and when the theater was full, I was prepared to deliver my poem.
Before the show began I saw my soccer coach was in attendance, whom I respected a lot. I didn't like the idea of sharing a poem that borderline glorified the use of an illegal drug, but I was already committed. I went up to him and braced him for what he was about to hear. After the show, he along with nearly everyone in attendance commemorated me for on a well written piece of work.
I had gotten past the biggest obstacle: write something meaningful and authentic and gather the courage to share it in front of people you admire and respect; especially such a taboo subject like cannabis - potentially posing the risk of jeopardizing my reputation at the school. This was a certainly a turning point that allowed me to visualize a future in creative writing.
The "Sound Cloud Rapper" Phase (2016-2020)
As I got ready for college, I got some recording equipment and came up with the rap name "Mo$art" and began playing around with garage band. The idea behind the name "Mo$art" when broken down was Mo-$-art . "Mo" as in "more" - "$" as in money - and art - as in the music. I though to myself, my goal is to make more money by being proficient at rapping; my art. So Mo$art was a fitting name for the time.
I recorded a song called "Remember the Name" which displayed some lyrical skill and fast paced delivery. This song was not made up of a typical structure you often hear in songs (intro, verse, chorus, bridge, verse, chorus, etc.) but instead was one big rap verse. This is something Ive heard a lot of rappers do in whats called a "cypher". You come with your best lyrics and try to destroy the beat with hard hitting lines and leave the listener with little time to process what is happening. "Remember the Name" was a stand out in my sound cloud rapper phase. Everyone that heard it - liked it; which further validated the idea of a rap career; but again, this song was about mostly about sex, drugs, and how cool I was.
During this phase we recorded other less impressive songs; again, mostly about sex, drugs, and how cool we were. I later recorded another fan-favorite in college called "Bombay Sippin" that I actually wrote in high school - Another song about - you guessed it - sex, drugs, and how cool I was. Despite my inability to write about anything else; I was starting to get the process of recording and songwriting.
These songs are a reflection of the state of mind and ego I had throughout this phase. I was about 19 years old, and thought I was the coolest kid to ever walk the earth. I'm not sure what allowed me to feel like that - Perhaps it was because I was a decent athlete and could score some goals on the soccer field; but I had never had a job. I never earned anything that I used as a symbol of status.
I remember being in college and my soccer coach at the time played one of my songs for my soccer team. I was embarrassed and humiliated. It's not that people thought it was bad, but I hated having references to doing drugs while my coach and teammates listened. I was trying to make a name for myself on the soccer field, not with party music.
I never knew how he found out about the songs. It was rumored that one of the faculty had told him; which added to the stress these songs were causing me. I started to feel like they could jeopardize professional opportunities; so I ended up deleting all the songs up to that point; including the diss-track "Sorry for the Weight" (which is why it's gone forever). I did decide to keep "Remember the N@me" and "Bombay Sippin" because they had actually gotten a decent amount of views.
The Turning Point (2020)
I continued to struggle to write about anything else until a song called "Fear God"; A song to this day stands as one of the most introspective and honest songs I have written. In this song I acknowledge the ego I had developed was no longer serving me; and the time had come for change. I opened up about my fears in life and voiced my intentions for who I wanted to become - All that while maintaining my love for multiple syllable rhymes.
I started to sense a shift in the music that I enjoyed listening to. I preferred the stoic/introspective lyricists versus the care free/recreational drug using artists that I used to like. It was around this time I realized my greatest motivation for recording music: leaving it behind for others. I had this thought of my grand kids wondering what their grandfather was like when I was their age. This perspective shifted my intention when I wrote and recorded songs. I wanted to become someone worthy of admiration, and was determined to write accordingly.
Meeting "C2" and Learning to Mix and Master songs (2021)
At this point, I was sure that music was something I wanted to peruse. I wasn't sure the extent of what that meant, but I wasn't satisfied with the quality of the music I was making. I noticed that when I listened to my songs, they were quieter then songs that was professional made. There was a noticeable disparity between the quality my songs and professionals and I wanted to close the gap. Somehow, I got to talking about this with my childhood friend Quentin Norris, and he introduced me to a producer known as C2.
I reached out to C2 and sent him a few songs. He invited me over to his studio that turned out to be down the street from where I grew up. I started meeting with him regularly and he taught me the basics of mixing and mastering music. He told me what equipment I needed to buy and helped me download the best plug ins for my situation. Pretty soon, I was able to solve the problems that bothered me so much when listening to my own music and I was on my way to closing the gap.
A lot of people like me who write lyrics often will outsource the recording, mixing, and mastering to people who do it professionally. This is a good option for getting your songs to sound good - but it's expensive and inconvenient.
I am someone who operates on inspired action - like right now for example: I am inspired to create a website to display my work and write blog posts explaining the history and journey it took to get there - so that's what I'm doing. If I'm inspired to make music (which is not always the case) I don't want to have to call someone, book a session, and make my way over to the studio - I want to do it now! So I sacrificed some up front costs and put myself in a position that the recording, mixing, and mastering is all done by me. The only thing I don't do is produce the music, but even that is starting to change. On my album "Daydreaming", I produced "Keep it Rollin'" and "Bobby's Song" and plan on further developing my skills on the producing front.
Preparing the Debut Album (2023-Present)
I wanted to hit the major streaming platforms with a bang. Since meeting C2, I spent two years recording a bunch songs and prepared various album Ideas. I was almost settled on the album "Firing" which was set to be released on my 25th birthday. I was rushing to finish the 16 song album (which is a bad sign) and had a conversation with someone I was teaching chess with at the time about the project.
He advised me that I should release singles to get my name out there a bit more. I disagreed at first, but at that point, I had no songs on the major streaming platforms. I thought a while about what he said, and eventually decided he was right. I hated being rushed and the constant mixing and rerecording of 16 different songs was making my head spin. Despite having everything nearly ready, I prolonged the release until I ended up stumbling upon an album Idea I liked much better.
I released "Bombay Sippin" as my first song on major streaming platforms. I did this deliberately despite being a completely different person from when the song was first recorded and released on sound cloud. I felt like in order to properly tell my story, I had take the listener back to when I was a 19 year old partying, worthless, pathetic punk. That's who I was - and it wouldn't do the world any good if I hid that from them.
The next single I released roughly a week later was "Sincere". This song brings the listener back to present day where I currently stand as an artist: valuing a sincere and authentic message over the surface level dialogue BS we bombard each other with. I then released three more singles "Going", "Baby Steps", and "Don't Go" and am prepared to release my Debut Album next.
I have no set date for the album's release at the time of writing this. I have enjoyed a relaxed and organic approach towards the completion of this album. I have the taken time to have theoretical discussions of the meaning and philosophy of each song and the core theme throughout the album. Each song has a purpose in the context of presenting an idea and taking the listener on a journey. Each song also has value as a stand alone song, as I know many people don't have time to listen to the album in full. We are in the final stretch as each song is fully written and recorded and only a few of them need minor touches.
The Hardest Part of Being an Artist: Marketing
The thought of trying to make people care drains me. The internet is filled with people saying "look at me" and it's completely over saturated. Luckily I shifted my focus to archiving and the "leaving behind" approach - because if my measure of success was views, likes, and overnight fame - this project would be a failure.
It has occurred to me however, that people are not going to find this album by chance; The algorithm will do me no favors. It is up to me to find a way to get this out to people.
It takes something really special for me to reach out to people I don't normally speak to and ask them for their time - but I think this album is very special indeed. So that is precisely my plan: shamelessly send personalized messages to everyone I have ever known; asking them to listen to the album and share it with people that might enjoy it. On top of that, reach out to everyone I don't know: Blogs, Celebrities, Charities, Brothels; anyone who might listen and share it. I don't plan on spending any money - because I don't have much to spend - and I don't think it would work that well anyways.
No matter how many views or likes this album gets, it's already a success in my book. My only fear is that I die before I release it to the world and my friends can't figure out how to access the files on my computer. This thought is essentially what motivates me with everything I do. I have so much going on in my head - to be able to share some of it through something as beautiful as music is more than I could ask for.
My Current Mindset with Music
I've been on both sides of the spectrum regarding my intentions for making music. When I started, I was in it for the laughs - dirty punch lines and groovy flows for the boys. We had fun listening to the songs and even more fun making them. Then I shifted into the more serious approach; trying to share my deepest thoughts about life. I currently stand somewhere between these lines. I see the value in both sides, but ultimately acknowledge that the power of music is how it makes us feel and how it brings people together. What I failed to realize in high school and early college was: There is a way to help people have a good time without glorifying drugs, sex, and talking about how cool we are.
I learned from the serious approach that It's exhausting trying to figure life out all the time; and I felt myself doing that in my music. Those songs didn't resonate as much with the listener because I was trying too hard."Fear God" is a good example of a song that takes the soul searching to a place that few are willing to go. The people that take the journey with me enjoy the ride, but many people stop and think "what is this guy talking about" and get lost along the way. I find myself in both of these perspective depending on what mood I'm in when I listen to it.
It shouldn't require an intense amount of focus in order to enjoy and understand a song. The songs that bring people together the most are simple and easy to listen too. They transcend language barriers and together - we all unite in our joy for music. I still like the idea of making songs that demonstrate lyrical skill and maintain a virtuous message - in fact, most of Daydreaming falls into that category; but even if you don't pay close attention, you will still enjoy the sounds and melodies that come your way. It's that balance and dichotomy that I seek in my music: simple yet complex - playful yet serious.
Exploring other genres has helped me tap into new styles of song writing. I wrote some heavy metal songs, rock & roll, reggae, EDM, Funk, and R&B. It's fun blending my style into other genres and mixing it up - not taking it or myself too seriously. In the end, I have no idea what genre I will be most known for. I love all types of music and my passion song writing knows no bounds.
The future of Music and Luke Raley
The first thought that comes to mind is live music. I have performed a few times with my old pal Riley Dring (DJ Dring) and his band "Half Hour Late" who are doing quite well and seem to be growing fast. We've done covers/remixes on some of my favorite jams together live and on Instagram. I want to do live performances more regularly and get involved in booking venues and bringing artists together for epic shows. I have always had a skill for bringing people together, and promoting and hosting shows would be a dream come true.
I have this vision of live music shows infused with freestyle rap/comedy with my friends. I have a significantly talented friend group which includes Sol Griffin, a phenomenal singer and performer; oh, and he's hilariously funny. Eli Gruenburg, who features on "Bobby's Song"; is easily the funniest person I know and incredible at freestyle rapping. Nathan Silva, who is also on "Bobby's Song" has been practicing the drums, is an incredible rapper and song writer, also absolutely hilarious. We all came up with a potential group name called "Eternal Fire" that includes some other friends of ours and I see us tearing up stages across the world with music, comedy, and positive energy. It's not clear yet how we would do it, but it's these visions that keep me looking forward to the next phases of life.
I see myself stepping up my producing game. Along with producing more of my own songs, I want to learn a few instruments so I can be more involved in live performances aside from just vocals. I have been inspired by the live-loop artist like Marc Rebillet, Tash Soltana, and Mike love. Watching them make a song full song right in front of you all by themselves is pretty remarkable. I don't if I will ever reach that level of fluency with the loop machines, but it sure would be an entertaining tool for the crowds.
I'm very interested in creating ways for fans to collect and trade "digital tokens" (for lack of better words) in a marketplace on lukeraley.com. I imagine the tokens represent things like tickets to events, private access to new music, special privileges, etc. I figure, if I am someone with a relatively small fallowing, and someone really likes my music and thinks it's just a matter of time before people start catching on, there should be a way for that person to benefit for their belief in me and loyalty from the beginning. For example: hypothetically, I auction off "free tickets for life tokens"; So you bid and end up winning for $25. Then, years later after coming to a few shows, you move out of the country. The good news is, you can trade it! By this time, I'm featured on Lil wayne's new album and wildly more famous. That same token you spent $25 on, is now worth $400. BAM - that's quite a purchase you made. Get it? Good.
Technology seems to be opening new doors for creators and artists. Virtual reality strikes me as one of those doors. I'd be interested to work with someone to add a virtual experiences to my catalogue of projects to engage with listeners in a completely new way.
These types of ideas excite me and make me consider perusing their development (which I have not ruled out). I don't know what the future holds, but I am sure excited to find out - starting with my debut album "Daydreaming".
APPENDIX

My brother Wilson and I

The Diss-track "Sorry for the Weight" Cover art
Riley Dring (DJ Dring)
Drinking Bombay
"Why U Mad" dissing me and my two friends
Link to view the Poem I read in my high school Poetry Slam
"They New Industry"
"Remember the Name"
"Bombay Sippin"
"Fear God"
Link to my Spotify Profile
Where you can listen to my 5 singles:
Bombay Sippin, Sincere, Going, Baby Steps, Don't Go

Debut Album "Daydreaming" Cover Art
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