Love songs articulate every spectrum of said vibration – be it love at first sight, a secret pining you have had for someone over the course of years, or the horrid horrid yet necessary break-up/heart break song. That all being said, I can’t keep my hand from the flame when it comes to this topic. True, I can kill it on the mic with political messages, I can flex a dope freestyle as good as the next supa emcee, but when it comes to love – each and every time out I approach it as if I’ve never tried entering that space before. The result is a culmination of my personal moment at hand and a whole lot of music expressed through the beautiful voices surrounding me.

Here is a rundown of what I feel are the top 10 love songs I’ve written and why – and it’s just how I’m feeling on this particular day while going through all of the material at hand. I could have easily made it a top 20, but that would take up too much of the day – you can scroll through my site and find the others. I figure today would be the most fitting days to do something like this – enjoy.

Note: Most of these songs are free downloads – so go ‘n get you sum if you like ‘em…

10. I *heart* Olivia Munn
Yes, it’s a gimmick song. Yes, she’s now in on it. Yes, it worked. However, when was the last time you heard a true emcee flex over a hard beat in dedication to a geek queen in this manner? Love songs come in all shapes and sizes, sometimes they are aimed at the tall half asian women…

09. Burn it Down
Everything you think of when it’s over…and the voice of reason in your head asking you to stop for a second and not burn it all down. It simply ain’t worth it.

08. Cupid Got a Gun x Lykke Li
Cupid. That fucker. He points, he shoots, and sometimes that shit just takes you for a ride. Sometimes you gotta get your heart and ego back to the right place. Sometimes you gotta lift some Lykke Li and throw on some dubstep and freestyle your fucking face off until…you feel free.

07. The Breakup Hurts (prelude)
Suicidal thoughts. Rain and ambulances outside your window. The tub’s full of water – wtf should you do? Throw on some Nina. Throw on this mix. We get it. We understand. Don’t do it. We’ve been there before. Here’s living proof.

06. Come Closer
Sometimes you know. Sometimes you don’t. That’s the point, right? There IS a moment, however, when all you wanna do is tell that someone: Come closer. It’s okay. I won’t bite…unless you want me to…

05. What Comes Now
A meditated freestyle from an EP of songs I did over Ratatat beats. It was just in the moment. It was heart felt. It was true. All I focused upon was the word love and went for it. I place it smack in the middle of the list because it’s neutral – not about breakups not about finding love, it’s just about the energy of love and what it means to yours truly.

04. Shot Him Down
Written with my amazing songstress partner, Sierra Carrère as Tape Deck Prophets, I had a little something to say about what happens when a love goes wrong and gets physical.

03. Why Can’t Love
Written for the multi-talented and amazing Shefali K with whom I share the group name Bonita Applebum, this song is an expression of one of the deepest sentiments I feel.

02. Beautiful
There are just so many beautiful women in Brooklyn alone. This was inspired one night while out performing with my Cumba Mela and Gnawledge family. It all happened at a “backyard patio in the middle of Brooklyn” one fateful summer evening.

01. Rani Rani
Translated simply as: My princess, my queen. An innocent ode to the person with whom you know you will have an instant connection…should you ever decide to approach them.

Honorable Mention: Why Can’t Love (Shanti’s Lament)
I thought the original track was sooooo where I wanted to go with it, this remix just happened. I hope you enjoy it as much as I did while making it.

A few years ago, I discovered a great mic called the Blue Snowball. It was love at first sight. The more I travel, the more I put recording engineers onto the incredible quality this little thing delivers, and I swear I have not used a single studio mic, or recorded in a proper studio for that matter, in the last four years (no joke!).

Being an artist on the road takes it’s toll on the mind and body. Sometimes, it’s just too much to ask to have me rush from airport or car after a long road trip to the gig then to a sterile studio environment. I can’t be bothered. Therefore, I record in the moment of inspiration. I pose this question: If life as we are living it fails to inspire, why make art in the first place?

In this particular clip, my good friend and producer extraordinaire, Atropolis, and I were en route to a gig at The Good Life in Boston travelling from New York. One thing I had forgotten to do prior to leaving the city was deliver verses for a song Thornato and I had to finish. Witness and marvel at how I knocked out my work while in gridlock on a rainy journey up to Beantown.

“NIRMAN is a not-for-profit NGO in Varanasi (also known as Banaras, Benares, and Kashi), India. We work for children and their families, for education, civic consciousness, the arts, and international exchange.

NIRMAN has many projects in various stages of development, as part of one or more of the above initiatives. We welcome collaborations of all kinds, with individuals and organisations around the world.”

To find out more, visit Nirman’s website by clicking here.

A few months ago, I made my first (and maybe last) trek to Las Vegas…basically to work alongside my good friend, Mark Rosal. We had been dying to work together on a video for one of my songs for a while.

Aside from being a stellar Creative Director in New York, Mark’s been a great collaborator over the years. He came up with the typeface for Func Spec, and was the inspiration behind the song Bindi.

The concept for Look At Me worked really well with what Mark shot – which was simply an evening of me doing what I do best. I’m very blessed and privileged to have the opportunity to make music for everyone to hear. When you take a look, from the outside, it can seem a bit lonely.

The night we shot the video was a rare one, I hadn’t had any alcohol in over six months and for some reason I was caught in the spirit and energy of Vegas…in my own way.

Enjoy the video and check out Mark’s site for photography, creative projects and work he’s been involved in. My personal favorite is when he takes hip hop album cover shots of his kids…

Purchase Look At Me on iTunes here http://bit.ly/k2W13l

It is said that Banaras is one of the oldest cities in India, and is the one of the oldest continuously inhabited cities by humans. It is referred to as the City of Lights and often cited as the “holiest” city in all of India, being situated on the banks of the river Ganges. My mother grew up in Banaras. My childhood summers were spent running through the mazes of alleyways from temple to temple en route to the ghats along the ganga.

False Prophets is a meditation about how corporate culture is slowly overtaking old world traditions. Our constant need for connectivity and information has driven us to be more dependent upon those organizations which deliver content to us on a 24-hour a day cycle. Most of us in the western world have forgotten what it was like before broadcasting every detail of our personal lives outward to a global audience. Although technological empowerment is a positive sign of progress, sometimes we take the pitfalls of constant expression a bit too seriously. We, including those working for the advertising and media industries, are all guinea pigs in a process where we are learning how to deal with more information exchange than ever.

The world, as I have come to embrace it, does contain a juxtaposition of places where you can walk the streets of an Indian market untouched by digital culture. A place where cows roam freely and can be found in the crevices of back alley ways. We walked through Thateri Bazaar to Panchganga Ghat on the river and shot the video while en route. No stylists. No makeup crew. No lighting. Just life in the moment.

Download False Prophets free, as a part of Brooklyn circa 2012 here.