Man. I lost my job. Lost my marriage. Lost money I didn't have to lose. Lost people I thought would have my back no matter what. Like genuinely hit a point where I didn't want to be here anymore. That's the real answer. That's where this started.

I'd been making beats for a while, just hobby stuff. Nothing serious. I wasn't an artist, I was just somebody who made music in his free time. But when everything fell apart I had all this energy — anger, hurt, confusion — and I had no healthy place to put it. Before this I would just self-sabotage. Turn it inward. Make myself smaller. That was my pattern.

This time I picked up the mic instead.

It was petty as hell. It was about someone close to me who I thought would have my back and didn't. Had this catchy little melody, kind of ridiculous honestly. I remember finishing it and just laughing. Not a sad laugh. A real one. Something had shifted.

So I kept going.

I'd get hurt — and I mean really hurt, the kind that used to send me into a spiral — and instead of spiraling I'd channel it. Sit with the anger long enough to shape it into something. Work on the beat, work on the words, refine it, come back to it. And by the time the song was done I'd be dancing around my apartment with my dog laughing about the whole situation.

And honestly? I'd forgive them. Not because I had to. Because I'd already processed it. The song did the work.

It became a whole ritual. They'd try to reconnect and I'd have this conversation — very casual, very low key — "Hey so... I've been trying out this music thing, kind of new for me, but yeah, I wrote a song about you." And then I'd hand them the bouquet of fire. The diss song. Delivered with a smile. Then I'd gleefully skip away into the sunset and leave them holding a QR code that goes straight to the track.

Yeah. Because it was never really about them. It was about the type. The fake friend everybody has. The person who only shows up when things are good. The one who smiles to your face. You know exactly who I'm talking about because you've got your own version of that person sitting in your memory right now.

That's the whole thing. The Chronicles aren't about individuals. They're about archetypes. And that's why people connect — because they're not listening to my story. They're recognizing their own.

Bro. I remember the day I had three listeners on Spotify and two of them were me and my girlfriend. When that third person showed up I was losing my mind. Like "yo, my name is up here on Spotify, somebody is actually listening." I was so hyped.

I didn't see any of this coming. I was a guy in finance making hobby beats. Now we're building something real — music, wellness, clothing — all from that same mud. The lotus grows. That's just what it does.

The pay-to-play stuff was everywhere. Pay for a flyer and you'll perform alongside a big name. Pay for a radio play and your song gets spins. These guys would hit up new artists who just want to be heard and bleed them slowly. It's a whole ecosystem built on hope.

Some guy hits me up saying he works with Chris Brown, there's a concert coming up, I could be on it. All I needed to do was pay for five hundred flyers first. Which already felt weird — why am I paying for flyers to perform? But when you're new and someone drops a name like that, your brain wants it to be real.

So instead of sending money I went straight to the Chris Brown account and asked if this was how he wanted things handled. And the real account came back and told me the guy was supposed to be paying ME for the design and distribution, not the other way around.

The guy impersonating Chris Brown accidentally got me connected with the actual account. Which confirmed the whole thing was a scam.

Different guy, same energy. Claims he can get my music on radio, just needs a fee upfront. Sends me a video as proof — studio clip, song playing, DJs in the room. Except nobody's head is bobbing to the beat. Not even close. The audio doesn't match the room. They just dubbed my song over random footage.

So I dubbed something over it too.

Most people eat that loss or get angry and move on. I looked at both situations and saw leverage. I had receipts. Screenshots. The full paper trail of exactly how these guys operated. And I had an audience — small at the time but growing — that would absolutely want to know.

So I made them an offer.

I sent them a link to Let's Work — because fake promoters always say that. The hook hit different when they heard it knowing it was specifically about them. One of them paid. One of them didn't — and got the full treatment. Screenshots posted publicly. T-shirt printed with his Instagram handle on it. The whole arc documented and turned into content.

Their own customers started pressuring them to make it right with me. I was essentially bribed to stop promoting it. Which — I mean. That's the Chronicles working exactly as intended.

Document everything. Screenshot everything. The best protection against being scammed isn't bitterness — it's receipts and a willingness to use them. These guys count on you staying quiet because the industry is small and you don't want enemies. But silence protects the scammer, not you.

And if you happen to make music? Even better.

There was a girl. She called herself a mermaid pirate — her whole identity, her whole thing. At the time it seemed quirky and kind of cool. In retrospect it was extremely on the nose.

I got expelled. Got sent away. And while I was gone she stayed loyal — or at least that's what it looked like from the outside. She came to visit, stayed in contact, seemed like she was going to be there through it.

Then I came back. And found out she'd worked her way through my entire crew while I was gone. My best friends. Plural. The whole inner circle.

Full EDM production. Dance breaks. Instrumental sections built in for the floor. And running through the whole thing — Ho Ho Ho. Not once. About a hundred times. But technically never saying anything directly. It just sounds like it. The whole song is technically clean.

Technically.

No. It just came out. That's the moment the character named himself. Not in some planned brand strategy session. In a petty EDM diss track about a girl who called herself a mermaid pirate and didn't know what loyalty meant. The Captain showed up and introduced himself.

It became a ritual. When exes would try to come back — and they always tried to come back — I'd have this very casual conversation. "Hey so, I've been doing this music thing, kind of new for me, but I wrote a song about you." Very sweet. Very innocent sounding.

Then I'd hand them the diss track. The bouquet of fire. Delivered with a smile, and then I'd gleefully skip away into the sunset and leave them holding a QR code. Every single one of them got the bouquet eventually.

Because this is where everything started. The character, the concept, the whole idea that pain could become something you dance to. Treasure Hunting wasn't technically perfect. But it was the first time Captain Jack Taylor showed up — and it set the template for everything that came after.

No names. Universal archetypes. A melody you can't shake. Humor that disarms before the knife lands. And underneath all of it, a real person processing a real situation and coming out the other side laughing.

That's the Chronicles. That's always been the Chronicles.

I saw him online. He had a decent following, looked legit on the surface. He hit me up first, said my music was hard. When you're new and somebody with followers reaches out and says that — you listen. You're out here trying to build something and somebody's noticing. So I paid attention.

He was doing these ten dollar promotional videos. Your song over footage of women dancing, posted up, supposed to get you exposure. Looked real enough at the time. I didn't know yet he was probably just pulling random videos off the internet and dubbing your track over it. When you don't know the game, a ten dollar promo video sounds like a bargain. So I bought one.

And that's when the slow roll started.

Classic move. Every step is small enough that it feels reasonable. Ten dollars for the video. Then — give me fifteen and I'll do something extra. Give me twenty, I'll add another element. Each ask is tiny but you're already in, so walking away feels like losing what you already spent. That's the trap.

Then he offered to hop on a feature. Forty dollars. I said word, let's do it. He sent me a verse and — it just wasn't it. Objectively not there. But I'd paid for it so he tells me to just release it, move forward. And then he hit me with a two hundred dollar release fee on top of everything else.

The whole friendly energy disappeared immediately. He flipped. Started cussing me out, got aggressive, came at me sideways. The mask just came off. Which — in a weird way — was clarifying. Now I knew exactly who I was dealing with.

And that's when I decided to make a song about it.

First time I ever stepped to a mic. Ever. Up to that point I was strictly production. Rapping wasn't the plan. Duke changed the plan.

And not only did I write my first rap verse — I built the whole thing on top of his own music. Sampled his songs. Used his own beats as the foundation of the thing I was roasting him with. And the hook just came out:

He kept providing material. But it wasn't just about him anymore. It was about what he represented. The predatory hustle targeting artists who don't know the rules yet. I brought some of the girls on a couple of the tracks — made it a collective thing. You try to take advantage of us, this is what happens. It was a message.

He went by Duke. Mook just sounded funnier. More fitting for the character he'd become. Duke was his name. Mook is what he earned. There's a difference.

Mook has this habit of bringing up his prison time. Fifty-one months. He throws it around like a credential, like it makes him harder or more legitimate. He's proud of it.

So I wrote him 51 bars. One for every month he bragged about. You want to count your time? I'll count it with you. Every single month, documented in verse, delivered back in a song you can't ignore.

Double the bars. Double the receipts. And recently a YouTube reaction channel did a full breakdown and called it the nail in the coffin. Mook's still out there making music. The nail is still in.

I genuinely hope he grows. The songs already said everything I needed to say. But if you're a new artist reading this and somebody's running the slow roll on you — this is what happens when you try that on the wrong person. The Chronicles exist so that story doesn't stay quiet.