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Rising Action Potential is a limited-series hip-hop memoir told in three Acts. Each Episode is a twenty-five-minute story woven together through original songs and spoken narrative. Together, they trace the journey of Andrew the Anomalous One — a father, survivor, and strategist rebuilding his life through truth, discipline, and intention.
This is a record of transformation: pain turned into power, memory turned into method, and collective truth carried forward as a blueprint for resistance.
[INTRODUCTION]
Resilience Against Pressure (Part 1)
They used to say I was wasting my potential.
They didn’t know my mind was a prison.
Every cell flooded with negativity.
They saw the fire I became
but never understood that it could not sustain
under the conditions in which it existed.
I wasn’t wasting potential energy.
I was suffocating in the pollution of my environment.
But those were the Sagas of Emaculit.
And one day I may explain my Burn Theory.
But this?
This is the story of what came next.
An anomaly born from the remnants.
A resurgence ignited by the spark of fatherhood,
flooding me with new energy.
A positive charge that set unstoppable momentum into motion.
This is the story of turning pain into power,
where reflection becomes the generator of evolution.
This is the story of Rising Action Potential.
[REFLECTIONS]
I used to think that nothing was the something I was meant to be.
I used to think that smoke and drink would take the pain away from me.
I used to think that change would come if I just waited patiently.
I used to think a lot of things mistakenly.
I used to think that nothing was the something I was meant to be.
I used to think that smoke and drink would take the pain away from me.
I used to think that change would come if I just waited patiently.
I used to think a lot of things mistakenly.
I used to think that I was cursed with these demons
and prayed they didn't occupy my semen.
I didn't wanna spread this disease of dis-ease to my seed,
But indeed at 19 I looked in his eyes and I saw me.
Life was like a dream sequence.
Nothing seemed real ‘till I held him in my arms.
I swear I can still feel his heart beating against my chest.
I promised to do my best.
I didn't know what I was doing.
I was just a kid myself.
All I had was a felony record and a failing relationship.
I held it together as best as I could.
It’s amazing that all of the stress and grief and pain
I suffered to that day melted away,
and for just one moment I felt awake.
Yet nothing but obstacles filled my optics.
I thought—this is not what I want for him.
I’ve gotta do something to give him the options that I didn’t get.
Meanwhile monsters in my brain were bent on violence.
Depression and anxiety—my mind was never quiet.
Cycling through thoughts of self-loathing and desperation,
while seeking for a way to change my station.
10th grade education.
But the streets taught me something that schools didn’t:
Hustle and manip’ing, so I moved different.
Using what I knew to my advantage.
Without a plan and by myself.
On some fake-it-till-you-make-it.
I reminded myself that I could rap, so I could talk.
I could read a room, I could adapt.
So I could get myself into a job I otherwise wouldn’t have had.
Still the constant stress of poverty and being a teen father
amplified my negative thoughts.
As they got louder I tried to drown ’em out with liquor.
Smoke ’em out, even burn ’em out and beat ’em out.
Nothing was working, I was only hurting myself.
Reinforcing self-doubt, self-fulfilling prophecy.
Kept it to myself, didn’t want my son watching me
implode or explode so I held it together in his presence.
Started writing again, using music as my outlet.
It helped to relieve my stress and quiet my thoughts.
Putting it down on paper may have saved me from myself.
When I was 23, I wrote Diary and If I Only Knew,
plus the first verse of Tired—
that’s what I was going through.
I was 24 when I wrote Change My Ways.
I wrote Mixed Emotions when I was like 28.
For a decade I let my pain bleed onto the page.
Better to leave it there than with my son—
I kept it away.
I was about 30 when I wrote Man in the Mirror and Round and Round.
True stories, true thoughts.
I was having a psychotic breakdown.
But it’s deeper than that cause I was taking psych meds I didn’t need,
running a scheme on them doctors for a temporary disability check.
Plus my ex was a crazy narcissistic gas lighter.
She had me questioning my own reality.
Flash forward: I quit them pills, and a few years later I quit her.
Then all my crazy went away.
But flash back because along the way,
I went back to school and got a job at a community center.
I was going to classes and trainings that taught me how to do better.
I was interacting with people who came from different walks of life.
I felt like an outcast and I felt inferior at times.
But I wasn’t.
I started integrating myself and my brain.
That’s how I got the tools I later needed to walk away.
Then it was just me and my son—I was 36.
And I believed he was facing the same demons I seeded him with.
I tried to be a good dad while hiding
my emotional and psychological disturbances,
but to this day I don’t know what he’s been burdened with.
All I know is it took almost two decades to reprogram my brain
and I hope that he never has to say the same.
I used to think that nothing was the something I was meant to be.
I used to think that smoke and drink would take the pain away from me.
I used to think that change would come if I just waited patiently.
I used to think a lot of things mistakenly.
I used to think that nothing was the something I was meant to be.
I used to think that smoke and drink would take the pain away from me.
I used to think that change would come if I just waited patiently.
I used to think a lot of things mistakenly.
Looking back, I can see how much of my past was spent fighting,
trying to improve our circumstances,
and the toll that took on my mental health.
I used my music to release the stress,
but the thoughts never stopped swirling.
Endless questioning, trapping me in a cycle of uncertainty.
Yeah, the past had a grip on me,
but constant self-doubt was the burden
that spurred Rumination.
[RUMINATION]
People want to know what's going on in my brain.
It's an all-day, everyday chess game against an opponent
that doesn’t even live or exist outside of my head space.
Trapped in the thoughts that I'm contemplating.
I ruminate on the fact that I'm ruminating.
Now how crazy does that sound?
Pop a Lorazepam tab and pass out.
That's how I tap out.
I’m often stuck in rumination.
I got this broken record inside of me cycling, man.
I can’t turn it down, nope I can’t turn it off.
I can’t tune it out, nope I can’t make it stop.
These thoughts so unproductive; destructive in fact.
Trapped inside my mind, I try to relax.
Try to focus on something external—
get myself distracted.
Watch a movie.
30 minutes in and I don’t know what happened.
I rewind and try again for the 5th time.
Still couldn’t tell you the plot.
Pour a double shot of scotch, pop an Ativan.
Try to slow these thoughts that I’m trapped within.
Nothing else seems to help.
Meditation fails without concentration.
I tell my thinking brain to chill, but it fails to change it.
Multiple concurrent thoughts locked in a chorus.
Each of them a few phrases long—
I can’t ignore it.
So I dive in and start to explore ‘em.
Hoping that somewhere in this chaos is something important.
Some form of enlightenment.
Anything to justify the time I spent.
Energy depleted.
Zoom out—
I’m just sitting on the couch with the world tuned out.
Neglecting my duties.
Beauty all around me going unnoticed.
Hyper-focused on decrypting these message fragments.
Ignoring my surroundings for hours—
lost in a labyrinth.
Replaying conversations, anticipating the future, recycling information.
Chaos and confusion is fueling the anxiety inside of me.
I try to be present in the moment focus on what is outside of me.
I just want some calm for once.
Enjoy the ambiance of my surroundings
without drowning in these thoughts for once.
I don’t want to be fixated on shit that I can’t fix.
Or worried about future events I’m trying to predict
what others might do in situations that haven’t happened—
and may never happen for that matter.
I’m so tired.
It’s consuming me.
All I want to do is sleep—
get lost in a dream.
I don’t want to think.
Trapped in the thoughts that I'm contemplating.
I ruminate on the fact that I'm ruminating.
Now how crazy does that sound?
Pop a Lorazepam tab and pass out.
That's how I tap out.
Trapped in the thoughts that I'm contemplating.
I ruminate on the fact that I'm ruminating.
Now how crazy does that sound?
Pop a Lorazepam tab and pass out.
That's how I tap out.
I try to snap out of the cycling.
I’d like to be anywhere other than inside of the thoughts inside of me.
Caught up in trying to quiet my mind.
I try to breathe.
Focus on focusing.
Hopefully I can let go of these intrusive thoughts I’m lost within.
Straining through this information is draining.
Contemplating everything simultaneously feels like my synapses are cracking—
elastic stretching past its maximum,
retracting back,
then snapping all over again.
I wish I had an off switch.
Instead all I've got is this endless string of thoughts.
So I pop this pill.
Usually I don't have to take it, but on occasion
ruminating and racing thoughts cannot be stilled.
And the tools that I use to defuse are insufficient.
I've exhausted everything that’s in my skill set.
Now I'm just exhausted.
And to keep it real with myself,
I know I hate taking these pills but sometimes I need their help.
Trapped in the thoughts that I'm contemplating.
I ruminate on the fact that I'm ruminating.
Now how crazy does that sound?
Pop a Lorazepam tab and pass out.
That's how I tap out.
Trapped in the thoughts that I'm contemplating.
I ruminate on the fact that I'm ruminating.
Now how crazy does that sound?
Pop a Lorazepam tab and pass out.
That's how I tap out.
I spent endless hours confined in my own mind,
second-guessing every decision I made
or was about to make.
Over time, I realized that
flooding my mind with chemicals
prescribed or otherwise
provided moments of calm,
but could never resolve the problem.
Still, I couldn’t escape the way certain sounds
or sudden movements jolted me back
into places I thought I’d left behind—
keeping me trapped inside myself.
I also knew that our survival, and the future,
demanded I move forward.
There was too much at stake.
That’s when I realized I needed to tap in
with the one person I believed could change everything.
Me.
[PLEADING WITH MYSELF]
They ask me why I keep my eyes forward.
It’s because I'm done looking back.
I don't like digging up the past I’d rather leave it in its casket.
I retrieve it when I need it, but when I do I re-live hell.
I’ve already moved past it and reconciled with myself.
What?
You think because I push positivity and motivation
that I ain't never felt the pain and the strain?
Man, that sounds crazy.
Listen to my Sagas, they gon’ tell you what I’ve been through.
Maybe then you can understand why I move the way I do.
If I got a story that I think might be helpful, then I may tell it.
Otherwise I choose not to lay my eyes on Emac’s relics.
I see no benefit to dwelling in it or comparing suffering.
I lived through it.
I don't want to go back to it.
I’ve had enough of it.
So yes, I make a choice every day to maintain my focus.
Yes, I practice mindfulness and strive to live in the moment.
Cause I don't want to feel this level of intensity all the time
and that’s all I'm gonna have if I can’t control my mind.
Once again I woke up, and I’m anything but relaxed.
I felt my heart racing and aint even opened my eyes yet.
Stress placed on me by others instantly cycling through my thoughts.
Once again I can't seem to turn it off.
Reminding me of past trauma, and I don't wanna sit with it.
So instead I’m writing this song in an effort to disconnect from it.
Reminding myself that I have a choice on how to spend my energy.
I don't want to self-destruct by ruminating on what they did to me.
I choose not to be stuck thinking about what's already done.
I'd rather shift my focus forward on what is yet to come.
Defuse from the anger, frustration, hurt and sadness.
Refuse to allow the past to control my thoughts or actions.
It don't matter if it happened yesteryear, or yesterday.
It's over, and I know that in this moment, I'm okay.
I know that in this moment history I cannot change.
So with this final phrase, I will beg:
Please release me from this torture of pain already felt.
Please release me from enclosures. I hate being in this cell.
Please relieve me from the horror. I believe that you can help.
Please allow me to move forward. I'm pleading with myself.
Please release me from this torture of pain already felt.
Please release me from enclosures. I hate being in this cell.
Please relieve me from the horror. I believe that you can help.
Please allow me to move forward. I'm pleading with myself—please!
I'm pleading with myself…I'm pleading with myself.
Please—please—please!
I'm pleading with myself.
Something shifted after that.
It wasn't resolution. It was resilience.
I made the choice to force myself forward
despite everything that was trying to hold me back.
I threw myself into work and school,
reintegrating into the community.
Constantly striving to prove that
I was becoming someone better—
someone my son could admire and be proud of.
But, outside? The environment kept testing me.
After all, this city was just another mirror reflecting my history.
Every street, every corner haunted by past traumas.
How could I move forward in this place
with constant reminders of
everything I was trying to put behind me?
[MINDSET]
Supervise your biases with a scientist mindset.
My whole life I resided in a five-mile radius.
I learned to hate it.
Wished I could escape it.
Memories I’m plagued with lurked on every corner.
Reminders of trauma—
I’ve got no way to avoid them.
Serenaded by the sounds of sirens in my sleep.
Silence is the only sound I seek.
I’m listening for my calling.
I believe that it is there, but my ears only hear the violence in the air.
I can’t even see the stars.
Dimmed out by city lights polluting the sky.
Maybe I wasn’t meant to wish upon them.
Maybe I was meant to just live in this drama
and dissolve into the earth, like many others.
I wonder what’s to come of the children in this environment?
I notice them laughing as they’re walking past—
seemingly unfazed by the smog of negativity that they’re inhaling daily.
I don’t want them to feel consumed, as I do.
What can I do?
MINDSET
Only solution is to prove to them that
there’s opportunities beyond what they can hear and see.
Options yet unlocked.
So I start to walk the walk—
in search of the keys that they need to reach their possibilities.
Rule of probability—
any single event does not determine the next.
Your actions impact what happens.
In fact: boundaries and ceilings we perceive?
They are misleading.
Deceiving us into thinking there’s nothing beyond this box.
But the box is our thoughts—
it is not our environment.
A whole savannah lies on the other side of the lion’s den.
As a kid, this world of information at our fingertips, I didn’t get.
But now there is no excuse for the ignorance.
Tragically, travesty and tragedy impacted me.
Honestly, sometimes it felt like the world was haunting me.
Taunting me until I realized that
it was not the world doing it—
it was my mindset.
Supervise your biases with a scientist mindset.
Supervise your biases with a scientist mindset.
Supervise your biases with a scientist mindset.
Supervise your biases with a scientist mindset.
I learned that since I couldn’t change my environment,
I had to change my perception of it.
I started to see my city not as a reminder of past trauma,
but as a testament to my perseverance.
A life once lived, and barriers broken.
That shift in perspective changed everything.
Coupled with my new found resilience,
I felt something. Something unfamiliar.
It was hope.
And with it, a revelation:
if I made it this far without hope,
then having it now makes me unstoppable.
I realized there are no barriers—
only puzzles waiting to be solved,
each one unlocking the opportunities on the other side.
I was fully charged. Ready to electrify the world
and finally give my son the life and the father that he deserved.
He was a teenager now;
and he was with me through all of it, watching.
I wondered about the legacy I was leaving behind,
and hoped he had internalized my strength;
not the weakness he may have witnessed along the way.
Now, as I hear his voice,
I can sense that he’s discovering the power within himself.
His Rising Action Potential is undeniable.
Yet, I can’t help but wonder if he ever truly saw mine.
[CHANGES – Ft. Alex]
Alex:
I feel so indecisive.
Misunderstanding of wrong or rightness.
I put my heart on my sleeve
and I know they didn’t like this.
I made some changes for the better
and they just dislike it.
How many days I got to wake up with the need to fight this?
I have anxieties that make it hard to go outside,
and it’s in my mind
and I know this—
I can’t justify it.
I use this weed as medication.
I became so silent.
Had to learn the situation.
I became a giant.
And I know so many people that are living like this.
Matter of fact, I’ve got it easy—
I just close my eyelids.
I’m so thankful for how far I’ve come—
I cannot hide it.
Yes, I had to contradict it, but that’s just how life is.
Yes, I know I lost my mind—
I came up living like this.
But the truth is—
I’m more comfortable with living righteous.
I know deep inside: they understand and see how I am—
but how long it got to take to really stop the violence?
Things change; people change.
That’s the way it is.
Sometimes it’s hard to accept—
but we’re no longer kids.
Sometimes it’s hard to accept defeat.
I mark a win.
I’m a fighter, man, there’s no stopping this.
I won’t rest until everybody’s off the end,
because there’s been so many times that I jumped off of it.
I can’t change the world.
I know it’s obvious.
All I need is one person to feel accomplishment.
Andrew:
It’s the summer of ’15. Wake up in the same funk.
Stumbling through this life—
but I aint drunk.
Juggling but never fumbling is how I function,
and I’m running at the same time—
trying not to plummet.
It’s an all-time grind, no bullshitting.
Taking twelve units
at three different colleges
in three different cities,
while working full-time—
plus parenting a teen.
Then I reset my life.
I was exploring our needs.
Built my son a studio while I was on an air mattress.
That’s priorities.
More important that he have an outlet
to express and decompress from the stress around him.
I’ll be alright.
I’m always alright—
Even when I’m not.
Perseverance through interference—
it takes a lot
I feel detached from reality at times.
Looking at myself within the dream.
Hard to define.
Like awareness that you’re living in a video game.
Nothing matters cause everything that’s around you is fake.
You’re watching it from a distance,
controlling your own character,
looking through the fog at all times.
I swear that I went to the optometrist to get my eyes checked.
She said my vision’s fine and I should lower my stress.
I guess I got blurry vision from a mental health condition.
Stress and dissociation—
amazing I never give in.
Raising my kid to be a better man than I had been,
but our bonding time was limited.
Wish that I had given him more than what I did.
I know he needed my time,
but I was trying to provide him with more than what I did.
I was looking down the line, pondering the string of events
that would finally get us over the fence.
I know from overcoming my obstacles that
all things are not possible—
but every moment is passable.
If I get through this one, I’ll get through the next one,
and the next one, and the next one.
Now I’m just sitting on the river in between these two bridges,
staring at a third one in the distance.
I used to jump from it once upon a time.
25 years ago was another life.
I’m holding on to this moment, trying to control it.
At the same time knowing that I don’t control shit.
I feel the cold water on my body.
It feels the same now as it did when I was living in poverty.
I’ve lived so many lives.
Been through things that I can barely imagine.
Yet—
here I am, still standing.
I chose to make the moves that I knew would get me through,
instead of succumbing to the depression and numbness.
Instead of focusing on this mountain that I’m trying to climb,
I pause and look around at the beauty surrounding me.
That’s how I found peace.
I want to live in it now, not wait to rest in it.
That’s how I found me.
That’s how I found peace.
I want to live in it now, not wait to rest in it.
That’s how I found me.
Alex:
I’m in this thing and they’re like,
“Say, what’s your role model and why?”
And I say, “My role model is my dad.”
And they’re like, “Would you like to say why?”
And I’m like, “Yeah. Umm,
this guy did more than what’s necessary
to make generational change.
Like this dude is like a superhero
when it comes to the amount of change
that he’s made in his life.
I see it as—
unnecessary amount of change.
Like, ‘he took that much initiative?’
That’s someone who I fuck with,
and their values that I fuck with, you know?”
[OUTRO]
Stay tuned for scenes from our next episode.
But first, I want to thank my son, Alex.
He’s more than the inspiration behind this chapter’s story—
he also produced the music for the songs Reflections and Rumination.
And that last song you heard, Changes, featured his voice—
Both opening the song and closing the story.
This episode, as well as the person I’ve evolved into, could not have existed without him.
So, thank you, son, for everything.
I also want to thank you for listening—
for giving your time, focus, and energy to walk this journey with us.
In between episodes, join us over at the Anomalous RAP Podcast.
Where we discuss the ideas and philosophies that shaped the art you just heard
and the artists behind it.
Your voice is welcome in those conversations.
So visit AnomalousRapArchive.com to leave a voice message,
and check out the Artifact Vault for bonus materials—
including the music-only soundtrack for this episode.
Links are in the show notes.
Now, here’s a sneak peek at what’s coming next time on Rising Action Potential.