We’ve updated our Terms of Use to reflect our new entity name and address. You can review the changes here.
We’ve updated our Terms of Use. You can review the changes here.

Late Bloomer EP

by Donald Jenkins

/
  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.
    Purchasable with gift card

      £7 GBP  or more

     

1.
This is not a bodge job or hodgepodge with masking tape, some off-cuts This is whole-hog, this is nine yards by an old fart that just let off There were wrong turns and wrong urges, energies ended up as embers There were unfocused vocals that lacked potent measures There were half written, dog bitten, scraps on backs of napkins There are voice notes on my old phones broken sat in landfills There were young pups that rose up while rhymes lay in a printer This was well jell, well worn, scornful as they got bigger There were false starts and put offs till I couldn’t look in the mirror There was sod this, I’ve got this, a gob to be a spitter This is full throttle, takes full bottle not to dislodge momentum This is flat-oot with me balls oot before grey hairs start to scare ya. This is outpour, this is off chest, box of confessional tit-bits This is not the time to check the time, twiddle thumbs or regress This is late starter, late bloomer, no restraint if I came sooner This is gen x from the rave sesh, so why you call me boomer? Hey Granddad stand back from the mic stand Hey Granddad stand back, fuck that! Hey Granddad stand back from the mic stand Hey Granddad stand back, fuck that! This is not a half-arsed, hobby horse that I can’t be fucked to saddle-up This is thoroughbred, run-ahead, left in the dust, those catching up This is peel back, reveal that skin retracted with no redactions This isn’t cack-handed, mislanded like I fell back and stood in cat shit These fine lines and waist line say I’ve been aging like fine wine These nose hairs grow wild but I trim lines so they flow right These crows feet have flown trees, seen things in perspective These old bones moan in monotone but can pitch things up an octave There was out of time out of breath open mics with broken vibes There were forgotten words, forgot a verse, red faced and severed verbs There's been kyboshed write-offs abandoned plans that didn’t happen There's been chat shit, I’m doing this, lots of blabbing not much action This is re-edit, repurpose not rehashing those bad habits This re-cording is rewarding, I can ill afford to be crap at it This is rehearsed not reversed not polishing a turd for my inner circle This is relaunch, reopen, show my personal is universal. Hey Granddad stand back from the mic stand Hey Granddad stand back, fuck that! Hey Granddad stand back from the mic stand Hey Granddad stand back, fuck that! This is not a passing whim, done willy nilly not gassing on nor dilly dally This is mash-up not mish-mash, flavors mixed like plates of thali This isn’t loosey goosey, produced poorly, Figarate tunes are rather hearty This is brace brace, up in your face, wait edge of seat for grand finale This isn’t half empty, it’s half full, got plenty more bars I can gargle This is overcome not overrun or run and hide like last debacle There were mic-blags as a young lad, didn’t deserve a turn hadn’t earned that There was blah-blah, claptrap, rapping things that hadn’t happened. There was listen here, right near, Mc’ing in ears for forced approval There were colabs I romanced; played so little to contribution This is new error, way better, best get to it before I get dementia This is skin sag, chin flab best grab that mic before I cash a pension This is tying nooses on old excuses, writing life inspiring blueprints This is flowing juices not blowing fuses, spark my truth set to music This is last saloon for an old crooner, I’m anyones Fry call me Bueller This is my last stages at Last Vegas, I’ll belt one out now like a trooper. Hey Granddad stand back from the mic stand Hey Granddad stand back, fuck that! Hey Granddad stand back from the mic stand Hey Granddad stand back, fuck that!
2.
Don’t strain my faith with your make believe Won’t you break kayfabe from the fake physique? Bulldoze the 4th wall, to see your warts and all Instead of just a fable in the final fall? You Pad out your bullshit with a spit shine, Textbook bullshit full without a spine I want a rhyme not a shrine to rich trinkets I want to hear your life, not lies or dink gimmicks. Rise up the ranks of imagination Delete old tropes you’ve been cutting and pasting Don’t rephrase clichés to erase the real you Reveal an awkward truth like Louis Theroux Experiment with the inkwell. Offset your calligraphy Instead you went all wet with shallow-ended pageantry, Scantly dressed lies won’t wash no more Try and stitch the fabric of the magic that you tore. You couldn’t muster a lackluster lullaby I’m nonplussed by your null and void Ride on the bus you’re not qualified to drive with us, time to pull aside s Four pillars, you made one crumble, crushed under weight of numbing mumbles sadly abandoned actual vernacular flaccid soul sucked fangs of Dracula Went from hollow to Monosyllabic Babble Like an alcoholic ramble Its tragic we’re meant to follow actual talent not let the hop get dismantled don’t let the Rape the kill appraisal make kids feel equates a skill or threats with mates to play the drill cos death’s not great when its real. You’re The rise of the idiot, A bastardised remake Took nothing from something and created a piss take Of what you tasted like, don't taste like you used to Take pride in your past or you’ll puke up your future Your suit was shiny but your lining was so empty I gave up buying cos you meaning up and left me. I wanted bars laced with poison, all killer, filler free – Moistened lips on the trigger of a rhyming spree Your cadence made it when you spoke in broken code Now I’ve lost patience with the way you clear your throat Unfolded bold statements hold up like a hoax no pride in the snide stereotypes you invoke And I’d rather be an old fool with old skool flesh Than masked like tags on an old school desk Or hear your auto-tune squeal and stretch Wanna ingest a real tale like a breath of fresh Cos this glut of substances lacks much substance. Words cut abruptly with track mark abundance By Indulging grunts of an offspring youngster estrange this phase and revive the wonder. You couldn’t muster a lackluster lullaby I’m nonplussed by your null and void Ride on the bus you’re not qualified to drive with us, time to pull aside s Four pillars, you made one crumble, crushed under weight of numbing mumbles sadly abandoned actual vernacular flaccid soul sucked fangs of Dracula Went from hollow to Monosyllabic Babble Like an alcoholic ramble Its tragic we’re meant to follow actual talent not let the hop get dismantled don’t let the Rape the kill appraisal make kids feel equates a skill or threats with mates to play the drill cos death’s not great when its real. You’re The rise of the idiot, A bastardised remake Took nothing from something and created a piss take Of what you tasted like, don't taste like you used to Take pride in your past or you’ll puke up your future
3.
He’s a killer wordsmith but never shares the inner hurt that lurks beneath the surface verses may seem blank at first but paper cuts are dangerous a blade waits to strike inside spaces in his stanzas in horn rim glasses he comes across as anxious alliterates an altered state to mask his pent up anger he’s just a Ken Barlow character, an everyday Clark Kent but Hydes with Jekyll in plain sight to disguise his main intent cos his sonnets with assault you, his limericks inflict some pain the lines he breaks are designed to marginalize his prey He punctuates his victims, ends their lives with full-stops, tortures them with pauses from the commas that he drops a dash in to their drink entrapping with enjambment then cracking with a claw-hammer in back of their skullcap, hack up with Haikus with arsenal of vile tools, contorts at their form by defiling all the style rules Poetic license to kill, the target sight fires the ink from the quill Poetic license to kill His pen supplies a poison to commit to ill will An asexual predator, self-presenting as a nerd edits out his enemies leaves them still with sparse words Speaking at nightly readings, never bleeds his inner soul voice wobbles as an orator, but he’s a killer in control Most don’t know his poetry makes them take final breaths at spoken word events scoping who he should choke next breaks necks stretching syllables in surreptitious septets stressing out his listeners with most malicious of intent. He’ll waterboard your senses with deplorable conviction and Wall to wall smorgasbords of rhymes equipped with diction Forward slashes with assonance - the vowel’s hemoglobin Disembowels your last gasp, only left with semi-colon impales your entrails on a note that he just wrote on inserts it in a journal where he keeps his kill list quota and plans the next attack when pen will meet the reaper repeat the same feet to the sequence of a metre. Poetic license to kill, the target sight fires the ink from the quill Poetic license to kill His pen supplies a poison to commit to ill will The onomatopoeic slayer is getting caught bang to rights They’re saying he gave up his pen and pad and held his hands up high The writer retreats to confinement in an uninspiring cell To go and lose the plot device as he twists insides a shelve As his story takes a turn, now he sees the hurt he’s made By reflecting on his worth in verse releases by refrain Or just Imagining empathy cos its what we want to hear? Conning us with couplets of what a Croc of tears Or maybe he can’t confess to what a mess his stream of thought of a novel disposition of want to cut your story short damaged by perception that’s he’s deafened by his demons no page left to turn when the mark he leaves is burning he goes and does the big reveal by hanging from a ceiling this isn’t poetic justice for the damage to the grieving their narratives are abandoned as they lost the ones they love who felt his every word as he closed their covers shut. Poetic license to kill, the target sight fires the ink from the quill Poetic license to kill His pen supplies a poison to commit to ill will
4.
Top nots and dreadlocks on white kids just fuck off The wooks have invaded Appropriating a culture Some say I'm the Same by doing this record I never forget I'm a guest In this method that came From the street was repeated world over from Kool Herc To Keith, chuck d and 5 Boroughs came under the grounds and over the oceans A thousand translations One language keeps flowing A Million tongues just spitting A lingo, a billion Ingesting the message That lingers fluent in bars poured over The rhythm Not just on the rocks but all mixed and all different And just like the blues and right thru to 2step These movements of music were started by black men and women of colour stylised their own secrets sharing their love In some public meetups from sock-hops to cyphers, dance halls and block parties To raves in a basement With hot sweating bodies We're are in it now but the Roots of the Culture Should not be dismissed or just taken over Like playing at gigs with only white faces I'm looking about seeing only white faces It happened to jazz with only white faces The drum and a bass with only white faces and I can't understand The fans who are racist They claim they are Hiphop, they are complacent Saying all lives matter condemning the riots Twas happening to them, would they not just fight it They're critical of blacks standing up to the system Who’ve been tasered, enslaved and put in to prisons Shot in the face, Killed when in custody Last to get picked for job opportunities Those polis are stopping them searching most often not just in the US, UK its a problem Do lives only matter when scoring a hattrick? Droppin' some bars or making you laugh? Did you not hear the message receive edutainment? They've been fighting the power since put into slave ships This music they grew to used rhyming as protest with living in struggle or did you not notice? Didn't happen to you so don't care for their story? You only listen for bling, the guns and the glory The Belittling of women needs rid from the scene cos when ignorant listen only message they gleam is b words and n words so okay for them To repeat as a term To blurt with their friends Just cos rappers are using it don't give you carte blanche to shoot with a slur don’t effect you first hand can’t reclaim the privilege you already have cos context is lost on a Caucasian man in a world designed in the rise of his benefit lifestyle comprised of other tribes heritage Like sound systems given to Britain from Kingston brought by the Windrush on promise of citizen gave us the deejay, the selector the riddims from dub to nightclubs in many hole pigeons Heating up beats with microphone toasting Gave birth to m.c's and battle rap boasting Helped with the rise of night time economy by Sharing their sound but here is the robbery- From Brixton to Brookyln, the hipster is moving In to the hoods where they got a shoo-in Accruing the last of the best of the venues hiking up prices with artisan menus Rent rises locals unable to live, Evicted from ends where they started the gigs Organically approved this definitely ain't middle class cashing on what others made like Graf fonts on restaurants to make them seem radical gift rapped as urban to make it more palatable as Hip-hop stays pop and highly homogeneous Street beats get eaten by greedy Metropolis like Ed Sheeran featuring with Grime pioneers I'm Sick of the shape of his weird ginger beard Cos whitewashing pays, using black as backdrop for Shifting a product but where is the love gone? So don't let this last stanza be like Grandmaster Caz with styles plagiarized all the way to the bank fuck off imposters don't listen to that and acknowledge the scholars who taught us to rap.
5.
Need to stay of the drug that keep fucking me up The days wasted gazing at faces of book My right to be social - corporately endorsed, addicted to clicks, endorphins be running their course. Dopamine’s my protein while I’m mining for likes I’m voting with emojis as democracy declines. eye sockets fondled by never-ending nonsense eye contact avoided, I’m blinded by content Procrastinating tasks in a basket with all of my eggs meant to be multitasking but I’ve lapsed in the dregs falling out with friends who don’t share my world view assumptions are made, we rant and accuse off to go yodel down my echo chamber, echo chamber Dosing all the feels while my spiel is all in favour Stalling all my thoughts, purporting idle vapours Ignoring all the wars by lining walls with phrases. Is it time to say bye bye to vices? inside this device I try and type lines with? I try and confide when I’m pie eyed on vices might make my next vice to live life in silence. I wuz a coulda, woulda shoulda brother smothered in bud Dumb, shuddering under covers, my mind made stuff up Scutinising my life at night, would it never shut up? Always asking the why but not adding up. As smoke filled my vocals with slow strobes of panic The headlights were bright I was squashed like a rabbit crushed up to road kill, run over by traffic introverted my purpose, was monosyllabic. Gawked in the corner as folk talked right at me up in smoke in-jokes with lads in the back seats hacked up a laugh from the choke of the backy I was hooked on the leaf thanks to Sir Walter Raleigh Do you blaze by the way - I would never have guessed? from hot air you boast, not hot rocks in vest victimless crime except time wasting breath introspection is fine if you’ve got something left. Is it time to say bye bye to vices? inside this device I try and type lines with? I try and confide when I’m pie eyed on vices might make my next vice to live life in silence Round and round and snorting like a Punxsutawney groundhog, nose is learning lines, deliver loud and shouty monologues, but whose line is it anway? As I Improvise with fivers, snorkelling with some straws, I’m a soaring nose diver. Rooting for the toot, yeah I’m spurred into action, sound of my voice - on point to perfection. A puppy with a treat rewarding pathways to the brain, go and do a whoopsie other end from which it came. I riffle up the white inside the septum till it tickles, not got a cold by the way but I’m stifled by the sniffles. Could feed myself for two weeks for a g of this new beak. Who died in the supply of his bleached Coca Leaf? Still awake at six fishing for sniff in the morning, pestering my friend list as withdrawal sets in, texting a dealer who’s switched off their Samsung, I’ve rung then ten times, am I’m doing their head-in? Is it time to say bye bye to vices? inside this device I try and type lines with? I try and confide when I’m pie eyed on vices might make my next vice to live life in silence Bored of the booze and the clap-trap patter, and getting loose to the hoo-ha of a drunken stupor staggering like italics, making big bold statements, a nakka getting hammered - never felt so ancient bladdered drinking faster and sniffing dangerously, spannered off my nut but threads went flimsy. How many nights out I don’t remember? How many lines crossed? I start to shudder. Sick of woes of regret and my moldy breath, a hungover tongue seared like sirloin steak, The days written off like a car crash wreckage Wanted to write more pages but head felt sluggish But now I’m sober and worried I’ll have no crack, no emotional courage from Amsterdam Don’t wanna get slack handling drab interactions Drinking glass flagons, falling back off the wagon.
6.
You said we’re headed for upheaval, we’ve had it cushty up to here As they clusterfuck the future I’m lackluster with my peers As they carpet- bombed the capital while the ice reduced to tears distracted by advancements, all I answered was ‘oh dear’. I used to fancy myself as a masked anti-capitalist poster boy, Tear gas gasping, grandstanding solider boy Latching onto Trotsky, followed flocks of bearded men We argued over ends and means, forgot that we were friends squandered it with squabbles as the horrible lot got stronger We said never again a lot but never got our shit together Now we’re hanging on to fragments of this splintered opinion While the right invites itself inside with no opposition All I ask is after the fall of snowflakes melt, what is left? What is next?- Earth evaporates in a passive mess We’ve slumped out of function, inactive at best, And Glass never shatters when we don’t hold our breath. They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do we stand to do something to curb the confusion? They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do we stand to do something to curb the confusion? Do I begrudge myself for not budging an inch, right at the brink As water rises past my eyes and land begins to sink getting too bogged down sifting my own bullshit to lift a finger for those born into war who live in the distance Dip my toes into protest like a floating tourist skip at the next flight forget to check out my white privilege I wish good riddance to the villains who pillage our livings into winnings who wouldn’t piss on their civilian minions if they were fire victims But I’ve let these putrid losers off the hook to rule roost of souls joined a long queue of excuses in an age of Push overs, scrolled through the side-roads that divert us from the action with platforms to downgrade passions via micromanaged tantrums Have I ended up a moderate like my parents said I would do In a malaise of complacency reminiscing of my youth of a Gurevera T-shirt wearer asking why revolution’s so taboo? and was denounced as just a phase of the haven’ t got a clues. They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do I stand to something to curb the confusion? They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do I stand to do something to curb the confusion? We stuck an Elastoplast on the past but the wounds of the future are wide open with polarized emotions and polluted solutions Prize off the dried muck stuck to the ruffling of your feathers, If fucks are not given here are we not all fucked in this failing endeavour? And Obi one Kenobi was never gonna be your only hope but now Labour’s pulling apart the polls by scoring at own goals As jabbed and anti-vax clash, the fat cats have the last laugh blagging taxed-cash via pals passing back-hander contracts and the search engines take mentions to plunder all our thoughts while Zuckerberg is lurking in a Meta discourse. We ‘re too busy hurting others quirks with hyperboles on a querty, To consider Earth turning worthless in another thirty We succumbed to dumbness and through stupidity is hate Though it may be fashionable to be an arsehole its not time to cull all faith in humanity as we’ve breathed an eon and persevered through a maze Signed, yours sincerely, a citizen, I wanna seal a better fate. They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do we stand to do something to curb the confusion? They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do we stand to do something to curb the confusion? They capslocked the present till they capsized the future a glut of abundant self-indulgent polluters A backdrop of end times, a countdown conundrum Do you stand to do something to curb the confusion? Do you stand to do something, do you stand to do something? do you stand to do something? Just something Anything before it’s too late
7.
Second Wind 04:02

about

Donald Jenkins seven-track debut EP – ‘Late Bloomer’ dives head on into the misconception that older voices have no place in Hip-Hop.

Along the way he calls out the things he loathes in rap culture – sexism, mumbling and other white rappers that don’t recognise that they are guests in a Black originated artform.

Jenkins not shy of getting political as heard on track ‘We are not FutureProof’ which is a letter to himself about why isn’t he doing anything to challenge the word that is crumbling around us?

credits

released September 9, 2022

Beats by:
Figarate: figa:rate.bandcamp.com
Seek the Northerner seek-the-northerner.bandcamp.com
NDG Production
Max Gavins: www.facebook.com/MaxGavinsMusic

Engineered by: Kema Kay www.facebook.com/kemakayofficial

Mastered by: Dan H dan@cableroadstudios.co.uk

EP Artwork by Michael Neil: instagram.com/saxenhamm3r
and Nafisa Hussain

We are Not FutureProof Video by: Scott Tyrrell scotttyrrelldesign.com/about

Much love to my wife Nafisa Hussain who inspired and supported me to make this album.

license

all rights reserved

tags

about

Donald Jenkins Newcastle Upon Tyne, UK

Donald Jenkins is a late bloomer, weather-beaten and questioning what possessed him at the ‘decrepit’ age of 44 to start a career as a rapper?

Was it part mid-life crisis, his life-long love of Hip-Hop or just his ongoing obsession of playing with words?
... more

contact / help

Contact Donald Jenkins

Streaming and
Download help

Report this album or account