g.rola - The Weight Off My Shoulders

I finished this album over a year ago. It’s been on my hard drive untouched and unreleased for 16 months. Some of the songs on here are over 2 years old, if not 3 (I’m losing track at this point).

I finished the album on November 2021, but it sounded, off, unfinished. The final product was so different from what I envisioned it to be, it gave me whiplash. I asked people for their thoughts and feedback, but I mostly heard positive things, not much in the way of improvement. I needed to know what was wrong.

I would try to work on the mix, rearrange some of the tracks, even try to replace some of the songs, but nothing stuck. None of it felt right. Nothing about this felt right. So I did what I’ve done countless times before, put it aside and tell myself “I’ll get to it later.” Except later never came.

“What if it no one likes it? Would they hate it? Would they even care?” This would echo in my mind every time I’d think to start working on it again. Rappers would ask me when their verse was coming out, “soon, real soon” I’d tell them, but deep inside I knew I was lying. Part of me felt felt like they knew too.

I’d continue to work on other music over the course of 2022, but even that didn’t feel right sometimes. Every song I made felt like I was procrastinating the album. Like I was in high school again, cleaning my room instead of writing the essay due at midnight.

February 2023. I’m cleaning out my Dropbox when I see the album files again. I hadn’t listened to it in god knows how long. I had actively avoided it; I didn’t want to be reminded of my failure. For whatever reason though, I decided to hit play on that mp3 file. I decided to listen to the music I had long ignored and grew resentment for.

I was amazed. I loved it. Every song, every note, every drum hit: perfect. It’s exactly what it needed to be.
The Weight Off My Shoulders refers to my anxiety around my art, the part of me that tells me the things I do “aren’t good enough.” As I get older I realize how just often my anxiety is wrong, and it’s freeing to let go of it piece by piece. This album is one of those pieces.

This version here is the raw untouched album back from November 2021. I hope you grow to love it as much as I do.

⁃ g.rola

Produced, mixed, and mastered by g.rola

Cover art by Ulises Valadez Contreras

Track 7 co-produced by Achille

Vocals by Jay Cinema, Pro Zay, JUNE!, Kip C, Animist, and metroworldpeace