Good In My Hood
ORIGIN STORY
One afternoon, while I was still a student at Duke University, I stepped out of my dorm on my way to class just as it started to rain. Then it started to pour. I was getting soaked and I did not come prepared with an umbrella. But I was wearing my comfy gray hooded sweatshirt. So I put it on my hood… and BAM! I started to sing the chorus of Good In My Hood. It felt like I was writing the soundtrack to the moment and immediately I started smiling. I wrote the first version of the song that week.
THE COLLEGE VERSION
When I first wrote the song, the verse was melancholic. The lyrics cryptically reflected on painful experiences in high school and college: Being invited to parties where I knew I wasn’t really wanted, or getting high for the first time with college mates I thought were my friends, but weren’t. Over the summer of my junior year, I recorded a version of the song with a high-school friend and super talented drummer, Logan Grimé. Then I made a music video for the song with my new film class buddy, Law Chen, when I returned to campus. Law would later direct many music videos for Delta Rae, including Bottom of the River and Scared. I liked the recording of Good In My Hood, and the music video had something kind of poetic and clever about it, but I never felt confident enough in the song to release at that time. I knew it wasn’t finished.
THE BRAIN TRUST VERSION
In 2008 I started working with Mike Posner and shared Good In My Hood with him the first day we met. He immediately loved the song, but he didn’t think the lyrics would work in our newly formed band, Mike Posner & The Brain Trust, so we re-wrote a version that would. Mike wrote a verse in his classic rap/sung style and he took the verse melody I had written and turned it into a bridge that I really liked! I ended up keeping some of the changes in the final version of the song and that’s why Mike Posner is listed as a co-writer.
THE IPAD FACE DANCE VERSION
Years after graduating college, Law Chen reached out to me asking if I had a version of Good In My Hood that he could use for an experimental commercial he was making for Apple’s iPad. I happened to have been re-recording the song that year so I sent him the new version and he filmed the following minute-long clip in New York — which went semi viral on social media. This recording had Delta Rae’s drummer, Mike McKee, on drums and also featured a horn section in the final chorus. I used samples of both in the final version of the song.
THE ALBUM VERSION
In the final version for my album, I took elements from all the previous incarnations and weaved them together. I rewrote the verse melody and lyrics to feel more lighthearted, which is how I feel when I sing the song, but I honored the original verse melody by moving it to the bridge, as Posner had suggested, and I used his lyrics as well as some of my original verse lyrics to get the to the heart of the song: We’ll all be judged by what we love and we’ll get lost along the way.
Ultimately this song is about feeling at home wherever you are. Like Don’t Worry Be Happy or Hakunah Matata, Good In My Hood is meant to embody a cheerful philosophy of life even in the midst of a downpour.
