Day 4: Genkidama

If you've been following me for a while, you may know that I definitely dig Dragon Ball.

Whether its from posting dumb stuff like this when I hit crazy Spotify streaming milestones:

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...or naming a song after Goku's teleportation technique:

...or naming a song after the demon sealing technique made by Piccolo (but more epicly used by Master Roshi against him):

...or somehow getting away with sampling some whistling from one of the Dragon Ball Z movies:

I'm a nerd ya'll. Deal with it. :)

Which brings us to today's song which both has a Dragon Ball inspired name and samples little bits and pieces from some of the TV show.

First off: Genkidama is the original Japanese word for what you may know as a technique that Goku uses called the "Spirit Bomb".

It's a neat looking move where he gathers energy from living creatures into a big ball and tosses it at the enemy.

Here's a 1-hour supercut of every single time this was used if you want to be a freak:

...I won't blame you if you didn't sit down and watch that whole video haha.

And now onto the samples actually used in the track:

About The Original Sample(s)

So first off, I want to highlight the sample in Genkidama that is really the main reason I can't properly release this tune.

Although it's may or may not be a massive part of the song, I did sample Fallin' by Alicia Keys which would definitely get me killed (or worse) if a major label caught me doing that:

Back to the Dragon Ball side of things, I found a little snippet of Android 18 where it sounds like she is saying "spirit" which is a nice lil nod towards the english version of the technique.

I also grabbed a line of Android 18 speaking to Krillin as well:

I feel like I could probably get away with sampling just some words from Dragon Ball but I do like how it all comes together. :)

What Influenced This Track

When I originally made Genkidama, I was definitely listen to a lot more of a sub-genre called "Tech House" and I think that shows at least a little bit in the song.

In particular, the "bouncy-ness" of this track may have made an impression on young Matt:

Another track that has a similar vibe that I dig and found influence from is this bad boy right here:

The common thread here seems to be remixes and female vocals, which is probably where I got the inspiration to grab the Alicia Keys sample from!

What's Next?

So that wraps up the 4-day Lovely Experience, but the fun does not end quite yet, my friend.

Stay tuned for an email from me tomorrow for one last special thing that I have in store for you!

See you tomorrow. :)

- Matt