"Honestly, it's a very chaotic little commentary on a very chaotic time. Some of the sound bites come from campaign ads from 50 years ago; [it's] always a bit of a tightrope between serious and ridiculous," mix master maestro graciously Alan "illchemist" Friedman told me within a brief, yet self-explanatory Facebook DM'ed statement sent Thursday night. Now, take it with a grain of salt, but in my eyes, throughout the course of "A Story of Power," Friedman is essentially commenting on the current state of the nation and better yet, the world: social injustices, our comedy show of a 2016 Presidential "race," this ungodly wet, hot American summer, and general state of unrest—"it's a very, very mad world, mad world," as a wise man once said. "A Story of Power" has supposedly been sitting dormant on the back burner... or more so, the back of illchemist's hard drive for a few months and as he put it himself, "went through many different variations until [he] felt comfortable getting it out of [his] system." It's the first track, aside from Esquire Classic-uploaded "Tribute to The Greatest," illchemist has uploaded to his Soundcloud page in a remotely upload-less 9 months!


Although it barely runs for an even 3-minutes, Alan Friedman somehow managed to sample and skillfully interpolate a staggering 22 genre-blending tracks, as well as countless vocal tidbits, including, but not limited to James Brown (above), The Temptations, Steve Miller Band, Nirvana, Public Enemy, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, T.Rex, Gil Scott-Heron, and awesomely-named human being Chill Rob G. Alan Friedman has worked extensively with Esquire Classic curator and fellow Hip-Hop and movie dialogue-blending remixer Alex Belth, prior to which he's been an in-demand programmer/musician/editor/producer since around 1988; if even a couple of sentences-worth of the above paragraph sound remotely interesting, I strongly suggest you ch-check out my recent "Tribute to The Greatest"-centric 10-question interview with Alex Belth & illchemist. "A Story of Power," TooMuchInformation Vol. 1-4, Another Fine Mess, "Poppin' Bizkits," Borough to Borough, "Frankenstein Got Soul," and a wide array of unique mash-ups are currently available for streaming on illchmist's own sporadically updated Soundcloud page.