Written and performed by Izzy Man
Sampled “The Look of Love” By Dusty Springfield – All Rights Reserved
Composed, produced, and mixed by Izzy Man
All lyrics, arrangements, and recordings are original works by the artist.
2011

www.izzyman.com
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www.dynastystyle.com

Artist Notes:
The photo was taken and edited by Izzy Man. I took this photo of a young friend who played the cello at one of his classical music recitals. Dressed in traditional Filipino wedding garb, I found this image to be very bold; a young man in wedding garb playing the cello, an instrument already 2 sizes too big for him. It was the spirit of the musician that spoke to me; learning how to tame this musical behemoth no matter the size. I chose this cover to represent LOL a.k.a. Look of Love because the of way the eyes are hidden. This is a commentary on the thought that love does not necessarily have a certain look, but a certain feel, a certain sound, a certain atmosphere.

Song Notes:
Out of all the songs on Symphony, LOL is probably the oldest one, as I began the production of this song around early 2009. This track was my first cohesive foray into the art of sampling and beat changes. Looking towards the styles of RZA and Kanye West, I wanted to learn from them but instill my own flavor into the song. The first vocal cut was recorded soon after, which had me autotuning my little Filipino heart out, as well as writing some rushed rapping lyrics. I wanted to write an unconventional love song; something only a little nerdy Asian slam poet and emcee could, without being overtly cheesy and nerdy. It wasn’t my strongest song writing wise, but I can safely say that it was one of my most melodic and harmonically dynamic tracks. In the summer of 2010, Arthur Evo gave me word about the Blacksmith Community Mixtape competition, where Talib Kweli put the word out that he would listen to the newest and hottest producers and choose 25 of them to be on his mixtape, alongside Mick Boogie, Jean Grae, and others. God blessed me with the opportunity to be chosen, specifically LOL was put on the mixtape. I got to meet Mr. Kweli at Le Poisson Rouge in NYC at the end of August in 2010. This was pretty much the validation I needed to see if pursuing music was the right thing. No matter what, people can always say they like your music, but sometimes they (especially your friends) don’t want to make waves and don’t want to break your heart. I’m also blessed to have really honest people in my team; but at the same time to hear one of the top hip-hop artists still in the game to say to me “This is your s***? This s*** is DOPE.” Made me realize that perhaps God is telling me not give up, at least not just yet. If Talib can listen to over 1000 tracks and choose mine to be one of the lucky 25, then that’s pretty much all the push I need. I ended up rewriting the verses though (they cut my rapping out on the mixtape, thankfully!) and just revamped the hook a little bit with natural harmonies, trying to stay away from the evil beast of autotune as much as I possibly could.