Return To Planet 9
An essay to accompany the deluxe vinyl reissue of my first album, by Justin Warfield

First off, anything I say may be bullshit. Not to say that the following is untrue, or that I’m lying to or misleading you, but memories are a funny thing. Time, years of hard-living, and a brain full of the present moment make it hard to remember something that happened three months ago, let alone three decades. Jesus, that’s a long time. To remember the how, what, or why of a specific time, studio session, or moment of inspiration and creation is something I’m not the best equipped for. What I can provide however, is a stream-of-consciousness recollection in the most honest way. When I was told that a reissue of my first album was in the works, I asked two things: one, that I be allowed to be a part of the remastering and creative packaging of it, and two, that I could write an essay. Why I’d want to take part in the mastering and packaging is obvious, but as for the essay, my reasoning was I wanted to provide context to an album that isn’t known to many, but for those that do, it means a lot. What could be cooler to the hardcore fan or collector than to know a bit about the making, meaning, or backstory of something which was part of their formative years? As a fan, I live for insight into the art which helped shape me, provided the soundtrack to a time in my life, or simply moved me, so surely, I could do the same for others. What follows will be that of a 48-year-old man looking back at the debut album of his 18-year-old self. If you live long enough, cool shit happens. So, if you take away nothing else, know this - I didn’t know what I was doing, but I did it with absolute certainty.

Looking back on this album, the era, the sessions, and the songs, one word above all others comes to mind: freedom. Before rules, self-imposed limitations, habits (good and bad), patterns, outside voices, pressures, expectations, and even self-doubt, there was an idea....an intention. And coupled with a crude, limited palette of tools by which to create, there was the making...the doing. Nothing in the way. No filter, no second guessing, the weirder, the better. Nothing was off limits, no hesitation, just one solid green light and a heavy, Adidas wearing foot on the gas. You only get one chance to make your first album, your debut by which the world forms an opinion of who you are and perhaps who you’ll be. So now, when I listen back to these rhymes, these beats, these concepts, and when I look over these photos, consider the voice,

the cadence, the tracks, the mood and the moments, I feel as though it’s an accurate and honest representation of who I was, and in some ways, who I still am. As a teenager with a head full of ideas that just couldn’t come out fast enough, this was my statement to the world, an in-joke amongst friends, a calling card for those who cared or dared follow, and my entrée into the world of recorded music and the burgeoning culture of hip-hop. In that way, it was incredibly successful.

As far as widespread attention, acclaim, or outward markers of success, it was either missed or misunderstood by most peers, let alone press, radio, and sadly, those tasked with promoting it. It had abysmal sales, got very little recognition in my home country, and by all metrics at the time was an abject failure. That said, I thought it was brilliant. And if you asked me, I was sure it was going to take the world by storm. It wasn’t until years later while making records in the UK that I would find out the incredible press, praise, and cult following I’d garnered overseas, but by then it was too late. Being young, hungry to experiment, to stretch out and grow, and

possessed with an easily bored and quick-to-change form of either self-sabotage or chameleon genius, I’d already abandoned the trajectory of where this LP had pointed (or did I?) and headed into very different waters (only to return many moons later). So, by the time I realized anyone cared, I’d already moved on. Ahead of my time? Very. Impatient, ambitious and suffering from a hard case of, “can’t tell me shit”? Perhaps even more so. The goal of every project, record, and creative endeavor I’ve ever partaken was simply to follow an internal urging. What is it I want to make at this moment? If not a question, then it was an exercise in exploration. What sound, texture, feeling, emotion, or idea did I feel like putting on wax? The result, the way it was received, or anything outside of that creative undertaking and fulfilment of the urge was never factored in when I wrote a song, made a record, shot a video, took a photo, or played a show. And while this didn’t always make for the easiest path, or creature comforts and cash and prizes like some of my more disciplined peers, it made for honest art. Wherever it took me, I followed, and this was the beginning.

Having had the good fortune of a supportive, well-read, beatnik mom with an incredible record collection, a hip, ex-hippie dad who worked in the Black music industry and counted Luther Vandross, Barry White, and the Jacksons as colleagues, and growing up with friends who were quite literally shaping the culture we now know as hip-hop, I had a great head start. Along the way I found mentors in Kevin Hicks, QD3, and his father, Quincy Jones - all who opened the door to make this album, and my career in music possible.

Between 1989-1991 I was living the life of a Hollywood Hills bohemian brat, somewhere between Less Than Zero, Boys in The Hood, and Almost Famous. I wrote rhymes in school, shot hoops with Ad-Rock and tried not to bug him while asking detailed questions about his sampling techniques, I skated the banks of a nearby elementary school with MCA and held back on asking how he got his vocals so perfectly distorted, I borrowed Dr. Dre’s Roadium Swap Meet mixtapes from my rap crew classmate who dubbed them off our DJ (Speed) from NWA, and marveled at Dre’s taste, programming, and sonic expertise – all before I had a driver’s license. My access, personality, and ability afforded me the opportunity to rap alongside Grandmaster Caz and Prince Whipper Whip who helped pioneer hip-hop before I was walking upright, to hang on the set of Soul Train, to sit onstage beside Perry Farrell as he sang at the 2nd Lollapalooza, to pick the brains of Chaka Khan, George Duke, and Melle Mel at the Montreux Jazz Fest where I rhymed with Clapton’s band backing me. I regularly recorded next to Pac, Too Short, and Cube, and sat with DJ Pooh as he told me about the “Black Cheech & Chong” they were about to make (long before anyone had ever heard of Deebo). My travels took me to Power Play studios where countless BDP hits had been made, and saw me fail, fail, and then succeed while learning to perform at the highest levels and under the brightest lights with DJ Doc behind the board, chiding and guiding me. I danced all night as Afrika Islam of the mighty Zulu Nation spun anthems from legends I’d soon call friends, and would stand proud and gleeful as he later put me on as a member of that exalted organization, handing me the medallion that hangs on the wall behind me as I type this. I rolled joints with Lenny Kravitz and blew his mind when I dissected Prince songs that played on the hotel TV (I pointed out how “Get Off” had liberally borrowed from “Spanish Castle Magic”, by Hendrix). I smoked blunts with DJ Premier.

in darkened New York City clubs as we talked of collaboration, I opened for Wu-Tang in a terrifying North Philly nightclub, and had the first business card printed for Loud Records which read, “A&R” (True story, though I never took my manager, Steve Rifkind up on the offer – file under, “blew it”). I drank 40’s and jumped midtown turnstiles with Brand Nubian and Large Professor, chilled downtown with the Beatnuts, and bought weed uptown where Harlem hardrocks I thought would jump me shouted my name. I got the fear of god put in me by the incomparable Chris Lighty (Rest in peace), hung with Nice N’ Smooth on South Bronx sidewalks few valley boys ever dared step on, bonded with my bay area brothers Del, Souls, and Hiero, and played my small part in the diverse and underrated early-90s Los Angeles hip-hop scene alongside Freestyle Fellowship, Pharcyde, Poet Society, House Of Pain, Ras Kass, Funkytown Pros, Medusa, Volume 10, Ganjah K, and The Alkaholiks. Years after NWA, CMW, Ice-T, Young MC, King Tee, Def Jef, Tone Lōc, and others laid the foundation, we were the new kids making noise, pushing boundaries, and breaking the rules of what hip-hop could be. One minute I was skating backyard ramps and writing graffiti, the next I was being played an unreleased single by Cypress Hill called, “How I Could Just Kill a Man” in my homie’s bedroom office – my baby brain blown away by what I was hearing – and long before they were actual Rap Superstars. We rapped in cyphers, danced, drank, fought, fucked, ran from the cops, and lived wild lives and long nights which we documented on tape so that our stories could be told.

But perhaps most important to young Justin, I met my heroes of the Native Tongues who treated me like one of their own. Paul, Tip, Ali, Jarobi, Pos, Dave, Mase, and of course, Malik (Rest in peace). There’s a hundred more nights, experiences, and stories - these are just a few. I could write a book, but most likely won’t. I share this not to name-drop, but to form the background, context, and origin story of a post-pubescent rapper who not only made the record you’re holding in your hands, but if I may be so bold and flex for a second, who also most likely created backpack rap, trip-hop, and psychedelic hip-hop as a result of the aforementioned life experiences.

For a kid who grew up with aspirations of being the next Spike Lee and living my life behind a camera, it was only when my best friend Kevin (an accomplished rapper by then) read a lyric sheet I’d left sitting on a countertop, had me rhyme it, then invited me to meet his producer, that this seemed like something I could do for real and not just in my room. And after a visit to Big Q’s house in Bel Air for my first recording session, it didn’t take long for me to realize rap was a way I could express myself and paint pictures as visual as any film I’d already put into screenplay form. After countless hours of learning from QD3 in after-school recording sessions and weekend all-nighters, years of honing my craft gave way to sounding less like my hero, Rakim, and more like a Laurel Canyon-living Black Jew who though too young for a legal drink, could rap his ass off and write lyrics that told a story all his own. Suddenly the influences and experiences found a way out of me and there was no distinction between Done by The Forces of Nature and Nothing’s Shocking – both would inform who I was becoming as an artist.

I do however feel that it’s important to make something clear: if there was no 3 Feet High and Rising, this album would not exist. For heads like me, that’s the foundation. Genesis. Day 1. But so too would I be equally influenced by Paul’s Boutique, People’s Instinctive Travels and the

Paths of Rhythm, Straight Out the Jungle, the 3rd unreleased album by The Jungle Brothers (which I was lucky enough to have on cassette), Electric Ladyland, Let Love Rule, and Blonde on Blonde. Had those records never been made, there could never have been a My Field Trip to Planet 9, so to the artists who made those records, thank you. Some I’ve told in person, others I’ve not yet had the chance. But I will.

Years ago, while sitting backstage after a show I’d just played in Atlanta, I was talking to one of the most important people in my life, a man named Jarobi White. Some may know him by first name only, others as a founding member of A Tribe Called Quest, some might have heard him referred to as, “The Mystic Man Himself”, or in recent years, as “Jedi”. But to me, he’s simply, “cuzzo”. The story of our relationship and adventures could fill pages we haven’t room for, but just know that it was he who was literally beside me or on the other side of the glass when I rapped “K Sera Sera”, “Dip Dip Divin’”, “Thoughts in The Buttermilk” and some you’ve not even heard. It was he who introduced me to not only Prince Paul, but to the entire world of New York hip-hop and those who made it what it was and is. But I digress. It was backstage on this night while we were discussing the show I’d just played, when I told him I was thinking of doing a rap album. As someone who’d known me since I was 16 and had seen every phase and incarnation, he was hyped to hear that, if a little surprised. The only hiccup I told him, was that I didn’t know what I wanted to say. And being that hip-hop is a lyrical medium, I knew as someone with the utmost respect for the craft and a historian’s knowledge, if I didn’t have anything to say, I’d better wait until I did. Fast forward a few years to when I was sat on a plane beside Dean Serwin, a close friend who was along for the ride that was this LP. We were returning from Austin, Texas after I’d performed at South by Southwest. As we travelled west, we shot the shit, and as talk turned to the old days, I told him I was considering making a follow-up album. I said that after years of touring as a singer and songwriter in an alternative rock band, I was finally ready to do more than the odd, one-off rap song. I was finally ready to return to my roots and make an entire rap album, only this time, not as an 18-year-old kid, but as a 38-year-old man. However, just as I’d come up against a few years prior, I told him I wasn’t sure if I had anything to say. I went further and said I wasn’t even sure I had anything to say when I’d made Planet 9. I told him that when you break it down, while incredibly clever and well-crafted, ultimately it was just a bunch of pop-culture references, inside jokes, complicated wordplay, and talking about shit I was into. And while great, it’s not like it was deeply personal, or as if I was telling my story. Dean laughed, and said, (again, crudely paraphrasing and working off high-altitude memories and fighting through years of resin), “Dude, you rapped about what you were into. And those disparate things together were distinctly you. You left a trail of breadcrumbs that if followed, told your story as only you could tell it”. (or something like that). A lightbulb went off. I suddenly realized I didn’t have dig into the deepest recesses of my soul or spit my autobiography to get back in the arena of rap, I just had to talk about what I know, and if at 18 it was William Burroughs, 80s TV, and Animal Chin, at 38 it was Chuck Bass, the Los Angeles Lakers, and the 20 years that had passed. It was in that moment that I not only unlocked the answer of what I was going to write about in that follow-up album (The Black Hesh Cult, in case you haven’t checked it), but I was finally clear what my voice as a rap artist and my contribution to the culture of hip-hop was. It wasn’t just a bunch of influences and regurgitated references, it was me.

If you’re reading this, you’re one of a small-but-loyal tribe, and I love you above all others. I’ve sold hundreds of thousands of albums in the years since, have been streamed millions and millions of times, but there is no satisfaction quite like finding a Field Trip fan. So, thank you from the bottom of my heart. Truly.

I hope you enjoy this remastered version. The people who put the project together did so out of love and care, and I’d like to thank them for doing so: To David Ponak (name-checked in Live from The Opium Den, no less!) and Michiel Kusters and the Music on Vinyl team, thank you so much. I’d also like to give a big shout to Andy Fischer and Mike Wilson at WMG for digging deep in the archives to find all the photos from the era. Combing through every photo taken between 1991-1993 was like looking back at old high school yearbooks - hilarious, cringeworthy, emotional, and ultimately, full of nostalgia and pride. I graduated at 17, briefly attended junior college, then dropped out after a semester to make music full-time. If the years that followed were my collegiate experience, then this album was my thesis.

PS - when I made this record, I had never tried acid.

Justin Warfield
(AKA Salmon Diamond Haimowitz, PKA Mr. Kewell l of the Beatniks, DBA Ellis Dee of the Lemmonheads).