Tallismaniac…? Well sometimes, Tallisman is a maniac. Other times some folks sneak in and swipe the coveted alias. Whichever route that bus takes, the final destination is the same: Tallismaniac and Tallisman are one and the same, and each represents one of a myriad artistic alter egos tangled within a washed-up rapper slash freestyle fanatic named Tallis. Tallismaniac and Tallisman rub elbows with Farmer Browne and ‘Fro Jack, T. Luv-Ski, Babble Fish and Robotmilk. There are more, and, as you might imagine, this psyche is somewhat crowded.

When the planets align and the psycho-ward is calm, art is produced. Offerings that awkwardly bear the label hip-hop, but most often attempt to burst the boundaries (shackles) that govern and define that genre.

And sometimes Tallis will stop talking in the third person mid thought. I like the way this messes with the order of things, and makes me feel like a rebel!

I have been fine-tuning my art, my craft for better than 25 years. I have worked with many fine, world-class musicians. Music has taken me across oceans to distant lands, and aforded me the opportunity to perform before wonderful people with strange and beautiful accents. Music has taught me to listen to the world; to the earth; to my surroundings. There is a lesson in every sound — beauty in every note heard, and each posesses the power to re-define the listener – to alter perspectives and perceptions. Music gives me a voice. It makes sense, even amidst chaos and confusion. Music gives selflessly, and even when I am too selfish to give back. It sooths and stimulates, relaxes and motivates. Music fuels revolutions large and small. Music taught me to roar. To soar…

Then she clipped my wings, left me in a tail-spin, kept me guessing, nightly. I could no longer fly and for a Phoenix, like me, that’s depressing. Ferocious, like a beast born in the psyche of S. King – blood thirsty. To say the least it was depressing, unnerving, distressing. Music is a notorious gangstab!tch, mean and malicious. “It’s nothing personal,” she said tone, well rehearsed “it’s just business.” The red flag was the dagger she planted in my back so deep I missed it. I failed to see it so I failed to ask, “wait a second… What is THIS? Music is the solace of my soul it’s my life, so who’s this evil mistress masquerading as my wife?” This callous trickstress full of mallace? She looks so familiar paints with similar pallets. But her voice is cloaked in alien accents. Her stainless cloak sullied, crimson soaked, she stands upon the shards of bones broke beneath her mallets. Pallace walls and moats lined with the skulls of wouldbe suitors like me – knuckleheads who tried to woo her. Likely distracted by the distant memory of pure beauty, missplaced faith in technique and foolhardy notions of duty. Prompted by their burning muse motivated blindly. To them, she don’t take to, kindly. She is not music. She lacks the heart of an artisan devoted to craft. I gotta find my way back to my solace – this b!tch is dedicated to bottom line and so rich in earthly treasure-worldly pleasures. The same crude that courses through the arteries of soulless corporations to continue drainin’ the corpse of lifeless earth courses through her veins and I feel the pain of them who cross her path. Slain and strewn across her wake who don’t awake in the aftermath.