In the summer of 2008 I was blessed with a whole bunch of beats by Phreewil and Graves. There was a beat by Phreewil that Ricky Pharoe liked; it had a sample in it that he said kind of reminded him of how a laser might sound. Eventually Ricky Pharoe wrote a song to this beat and called it Laser Gun. He wanted me on the song and after hearing his verse and chorus a few times, I told him that my verse was gonna have a technical/musical equipment/super hero/laser weapon sort of imagery to it. I wrote my verse for the song and spit it for him; his reply was, "Your weird." When I finally ended up spitting the verse for Phreewil, he told me that it reminded him of a toolbox. Anyway, we were never able to finish this silly song because Phreewil ended up giving the beat to The Silent Lambs Project (Now known as Black Stax). Later that summer, Black Lab Productions had the honor of throwing a show for Qwel, Robust, Qwazzar & Silence; while they were all on The New Wine Tour. The day after the big show Robust gave me two beats that he had made on The MPC60. I really liked one of these beats because I thought it had a 1995/Mobb Deep The Infamous/Golden Era sound going on. The next day I spit my verse to it and it fit over the beat perfectly. I didn't want to call it Laser Gun and I remembered Phreewil saying, "Thats your toolbox!" So thats what I called it, The Toolbox. I recorded my verse to it and had Robust give it a listen and he said, "Sounds like fire." So I kept the track as the first installment of experimental/spoken interludes for my album. Shout outs to Phreewil, Ricky Pharoe and Robust. Without the influence of these three talented individuals, The Toolbox would have never been a reality. At the time, it was a verse that really broke the borders of comfort in my art and was very experimental for me.

It was a lot of fun playing with words and trying to utilize true word play; a few quick examples of this tricky word play are as follows: "Carry a light, save a 12 bit sound." A play on Light Saber. "Nano-Technic 12 apostle." A play on Nano Technology, the Technics 1200 turntable and The 12 Apostles. "Break beat-box cutter." A play on the break beat, beat box and box cutter. "...CD turner fellowship." "Freestyle-scissor Jack the Rip a Mason battle track." A play on The Freestyle Fellowship, Jack the Ripper (The Freemason) and rippen a MC a new ass hole on a track. "...slip a Micky-Mouse trap..." A play on slippen someone a micky, Micky Mouse and mouse trap. "...dial tone-deaf Jam." A play on dial tone, tone deaf and the music label Def Jam. "Hunter of the Gem-INI..." A play on me, as The Jewels Hunter, the gem, my sign Gemini and "INI" which is the Most High inside of us all. "Fantastic 4-elements of Hip Hop." A play on The Fantastic4 of Marvel Comics and the four elements of Hip Hop.

The Toolbox - Jewels Hunter