Terry Borderline and fellow hip-hop artist CLRWTR perform songs off Terry's
latest album "The Hierophant," live in our studio. Terry Borderline also
shares insights into his creative path and process, and his work as a
teaching artist.
WBCA Podcasts
WBCA Presents: Terry Borderline & CLRWTR
- Peace. (laughs) This is Terry Boyd Align. This is actually WBCA. And my name is Terry Boyd Align. My name is Clearwater. And this song we about to do right here is called "I Am." - Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. (ethereal music) Yeah. I-E-T. Stand up. - Yeah. - Let's go. I-E-T. Solstice, every instance, Christmas 'cause the God's poor, words poor, not five percent, but my earth's strong. Born again like lukewarm, lukewarm. Why does what you walk until you earthworms? Dark forms, how I, planet wishes, granite accents, land it till for them, it's just for prince, never miss. Special water, watch it, vanish, aboriginals, reappear right here like ancient spirituals, so fear, grow fearful, crosses on your visual, pupils when I'm here in school, shining like a pistol do, impressed by what my crystal do, my quarts, filled with liquid jewels. If Hitler was like Bishop, always tripping, would he get the juice? Question life like interviews, find answers in my interview. Twenty, twenty, chicken flu, girls popped in general, shit blows like Navy Federal Reserve, that can animal, the obvious mind available, brains unforgettable, a kitty like it's edible, turn it to a vegetable, optimistic, mystic, double key cups, so I see a full, beautiful, blinded by the light, I never see it down, beautiful, put my eye in life, so I can see a full, beautiful, blinded by the light, I never see it down, blinded by the light, I never see it down, beautiful, put my eye in life, so I can see a full, beautiful, blinded by the light, I never see it down, beautiful, put my eye in life, so I can see a full, optimistic, mystic, double key cups, so I see a full, beautiful, blinded by the light, I never see it down, beautiful, put my eye in life, so I can see a full, beautiful, blinded by the light, I never see it down, ♪ Wherever I am, as long as I am, I am ♪ ♪ Wherever I am, as good as I am, I am ♪ ♪ Wherever I am, forever I am, I am ♪ ♪ I am that I am, I am that I am, I am ♪ ♪ Wherever I am, as long as I am, I am ♪ ♪ Wherever I am, as good as I am, I am ♪ ♪ Wherever I am, forever I am, I am ♪ ♪ I am that I am, I am that I am, I am ♪ ♪ Eyes is up, a hold up, push up, hold up ♪ ♪ Watch the smoke, the atmosphere, right on my shoulder ♪ ♪ Ice is cold, I am cold, the GI joke ♪ ♪ I am cold, brush headin', pyramids for culture ♪ ♪ Scavenged with the vultures, scrambled ♪ ♪ Easy when it's over, see you manana ♪ ♪ It was don't say like a panna, my life's a drama ♪ ♪ I try for fin' up to the opera, I sing it proper ♪ ♪ I get like ochre with the chopper, predict the doppler ♪ ♪ Channel 5, couldn't stop us, I rain enormous ♪ ♪ Don't they exhape, cut and storm us, we're fast for us ♪ ♪ I'm making enormous on the tour bus and it's gorgeous ♪ ♪ Messed it every day, no need for slaves ♪ ♪ Decrease my raids, God love me, I store money like Jesus says ♪ ♪ Don't wait your bet, brother, bet your wage ♪ ♪ Walk my age, streets arrange, I burn a bridge like burnin' sage ♪ ♪ Blow candles when I turn the page ♪ ♪ Wax and wind, press your gauge, beautiful, my life's a stage ♪ ♪ Give all glory and honors to the most high ♪ ♪ I know, I know ♪ ♪ The good God always good and beautiful ♪ ♪ In the eyes of the beholder ♪ ♪ I sing ♪ ♪ WBCA, we hear, let's raise some vibrations in this room right now ♪ ♪ Let's go ♪ This is WBCA Presents on WBCA 102.9 FM. I'm your host, Tommy Shenifield, and we have Terry Borderline here in the studio. Thanks for being here. Peace, peace, thank you. Thank you for welcoming me. And you just performed your song "I Am" and I have to say, "You Are." I am, and you are too, right? I am that I am that we are, right? Yeah, and that was yours. Is that your latest single? Yes, yes. I released it January 11th. Yeah, yeah, January 11th this year. Yeah, that sounds fresh. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, I've been performing it for a bit, but, you know, it's one of those songs that, like, I stumbled into it, you know what I'm saying? I was at the studio and I already wrote the song and had it on my computer, but I wasn't sure if I was going to ever do anything with it. And I was testing out the engineer, I was testing out the studio. It was actually the sound lab. It was my first time at the sound lab. Shout to the sound lab in Brockton and DJ Tone, wonderful engineer. He passed the test. It was because it's a different song. So it's like, I want to see, like, yo, how much can you, like, make this? And he did so well with it. I was like, okay, like, I want to release this, you know? So, yeah, I ended up dropping it. Yeah, it sounds great. So to, you know, to go back in the other direction, this is your most recent song. How did you first get into releasing and performing music? What inspired you to do that? So I've been doing music for probably about, like, close to 15 years, like 14 years about, about as long as I've been with my wife, right? So probably actually a little longer. Yeah. So, like 15, right? And what got me into it is, you know, I've been into music since a child. I actually had a speech impediment when I was a child growing up. I got bullied for it by friends, family, strangers alike. It was something that really, like, hurt me on a psychological level. And so when I was, like, nine years old, I used to hang out with my neighborhood friend, Eric, shout out to Eric Cruz. He's the man. It'd be me, him and my brother, and we were just freestyle. And I was just doing what, you know, my older brother, he's always been the hip-hop. I was just doing what I saw him and his friends do, so I didn't think much of it. But then I noticed, number one, when I was freestyling, I didn't stutter. And two, I was able to speak clearly, but three, every time I did freestyle, people would be like, "Whoa, he said what?" Like, they would this, like, amazement and shock to what I was doing. And I realized, like, "Whoa, I'm not getting made fun of for this. Like, I'm being encouraged, like, you know?" So that's what really drove me to, like, do it. And then after that, I joined this nonprofit program, Teen Empowerment, Shoutout to the Teen Empowerment, they do a lot in Boston and in other cities. And that was the first time I got paid to sing, paid to perform, paid to write. And then I realized, like, "Yo, I can do this for a living." That's great that you started from some thing where people were, you know, bullying you and being unreasonable and then they kind of... Yeah. You know, you don't want that to happen, but it's great that that drove you to, you know, have this 15-year-long career of performing. And I understand that you also were kind of a teaching artist and that you'd teach others and mentor other musicians and performers. What do you do in that space? So, ironically, right, my guest was here with me today, Clearwater. I've been mentoring him since he was 11. Like, you know, he was a producer at 11 years old, right? And I started off as a hip-hop artist at parts and crafts in Summerville. And, you know, we would just teach hip-hop, conventional hip-hop stuff. But his mom liked my teaching style so much. She was like, "Hey, can you do private, like a private mentorship with him?" And so I've been meeting with him once a week for nine years now, right? And now he, like, raps has his own album, produces the sync licensing. You want to speak a little bit about it? I feel like Terry has really helped me create music that's aligned with myself. And it's not just like industry standard or, you know, it's actually creative. But then he also covers the business side of it and makes sure it's all up to par. And then it can go on, like, the radio, for example, or be put in a movie or something like that. So, yeah. Yeah. And then, you know, since then, I started working with the Transformative Culture Project with LaTiere-Lorac. And then we collaborate with Northeastern University, we collaborate with Nellie Pro Tools. There's a few people we've collaborated with where, you know, we'll bring in other youth, teach them music production using, you know, the state of the art studios that Northeastern has or Nellie has. Yeah, we just show them the ropes and just like, you know, Clearwater pointed out, you know, I teach production, but then I'll also, I'll go into the music industry. I'll go into sync licensing. I'll go into mixing, mastering because, you know, when you're an artist, it's a holistic thing. Like, you have to wear many hats unless you are assigned by, like, three different companies, you know? Not everybody has the luxury of that. So, you know, representing yourself as the engineer, representing yourself as the mixture or the promoter or the marketer, the songwriter, the producer, whatever it is you're willing to wear as a hat. I can help teach you how to do that because I've worn and continue to wear many of those hats. Yeah, it sounds like you're doing it all and you're passing it on and that's really great. Yeah. So coming up next, we have two songs that I believe are off your album, Hierophant, is that right? Yes, the Hierophant, which, you know, I released that album last year on Bandcamp, which you can still buy it on Bandcamp, tarrybornonline.bandcamp.com, but then just recently, I think I want to say January 19th, it just drops on all platforms. So definitely go listen to that. That's actually a collab album between me and Clearwater. He did a lot of the production, some of the production we collabed on. I think like one or two of the productions, you know, like one of the productions I did myself. And then like, yeah, we're just rapping all throughout him. Just rapping, rapping, rapping, so it's like if you're into like some spiritual conscious alternative hip hop, you know, that's where it's at. Some quantum physics. Quantum physics. Yeah. So we'll talk to you a little bit more about the making of this project after you perform. But first up, we have the song hip hop heroes. This is Terry Borderline on WBCA Presents with Clearwater. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. And then we'll talk to you a little bit more about the show. So in tarot, it's a divination system where they use cards to prophecy about the future, the present, and the past. And so the hierophant is a card that represents the high priest, right? The hierophant is like a shaman, if you will, right? Like a person who helps guide a spiritual and mystical journey from a noble standpoint, right? And so when you get a hierophant card, it has meaning kind of like pertaining to that. And at that time, me and Clearwater, we're diving deep into, we're always diving deep into spirituality and different concepts about like metaphysics and things like that. And the word hierophant stuck out to me, like, you know, sometimes I just get downloads, things just insight just comes to me, you know? And I heard like the hierophant, like that's the energy or the archetype we embody. And so by naming the album that it identifies with our hierophant archetype as spiritual leaders in our own community. Yeah, that's great that you're pulling from all these different sources to influence the music, the titles, everything. Yeah. So this was a collaborative album between you and Clearwater, kind of like a combination of nine years of, you know, teacher, student building, right, where the, where the student now like is equal to the master. So I'm like, this was that initiation. Yeah. How was that for you, Clearwater? If you want to talk into that, that Mike, what was, what was this process like for you? So honestly, it took so long that I don't even fully remember what order the process went in. But we're, you know, we're just, I make so many beats, I have like hundreds of beats on my computer. So we really just, we're taking the ones that, you know, felt like the highest frequency and that was the most uplifting and most powerful. And you know, we compiled them together and we, we try to, we try to, you know, give the most value that we can in, in the album so that, you know, people actually feel like they're listening to something worthwhile because, you know, there's so much music out there. So it's like, why are you going to listen to us? You know, well, I think they've got good reason. So you two, it was collaboratively produced also. Yes. Yes. And that one you just heard, the both of the tracks that you just heard were mainly produced by Clearwater. Wow. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You're a, you're a good producer and you're a good teacher. Thank you. Thank you. So we're, you know, we're coming up near to the end actually. We have another song lead with love. We'll have to have you on again sometime though, but, but before that, do you have any, any last words for people out there who are getting started on their musical pathway or, what do you have? Music, music, music is a fine art. It's cool to make money off of music. But only when you value it as fine art, art is one of the pillars of civilization. And as long as we have fine art, we'll have a civilized society. So don't go out there and make music, trying to make hits. Don't go out there making music, just trying to make money. Create fine art and you will thrive. You'll get the abundance that you seek. You'll have the impact, a positive impact on society that will last generations and pour as much love and spirit and universal respect in it. And it will come back to you. Clear water. Any last words? Find your community and don't let go. No. That's a big one. Yo, yo. Find your tribe, right, or not even gathering your tribe. Last year we found our tribe. So if you found your tribe within the last year, you found people that you resonate with. This is the year to like Avengers assemble, right? Like this is the year. So yes. Wise words and one last thing, where can people listen to your music? You can listen to my music at, you can just Google me. I'm Googleable. Same thing with clear water, clear water. It's spelled C-L-R-W-T-R. No vowels. Yeah. We, you can find us both on, on Google, you know, you can search us on all the streaming platforms. We'll pop up. You can check out my IG. I'm at PH borderline. But also, if you just search Terry borderline, I will come up and clear water. What's your IG? You want to see IG? It's a C-L-R-W-T-R-8. So clear water. Eight. Oh, and one last thing. I can't believe I almost forgot to say this. I am going to be performing. We're going to be performing. He's going to be there too. February 26th at Rockwood, Boston. It's going to be, it's going to be a really epic show at the Rockwood in Boston. It's going to be at 7 o'clock. We're going to have a full band there. We're going to have a lot of surprise guests. So definitely like if you've listened to my music in the past or you've seen me in the community, you see the people at Rockwood, it's going to be one of those things where everybody that I connect to with on a musical level will be there and we'll be setting a precedent. Mass spirits. Mass spirits as well. Yes. Yes. Mass spirits shall be there. And we're also going to be doing a mass spirits volume two. So look out for that. Well, thank you so much for being here. I know you're a busy man, busy men. And we have one more song. This has been WBCA presents with Terry Borderline and Clearwater. This is WBCA 102.9 FM and we have one last song lead with love. Yeah, yeah, yeah, got to lead with love, yeah, y'all, y'all ready? So we're leading with love, yeah, we're leading with love. Take my love with me, yeah, we leave with love, so we're leading with love, yeah, we're leading with love. Hey, could not kill me, so we're here with love, so we're leading with love, yeah, we're leading with love. Take my love with me, yeah, we leave with love, so we're leading with love, yeah, we're leading with love. Hey, could not kill me, so we're here with love. Surprise. I arrived. I was sent here to open eyes while yellow break ropes to open eyes. I was sent here to open eyes. Surprise. I arrived. I was sent here to open eyes while yellow break ropes to open eyes. I was sent here to open eyes. Surprise. I arrived. I was sent here to open eyes while yellow break ropes to open eyes. I was sent here to open eyes, mind is unfilled, my eyes can speak, blind and darkness may color speak. Ultra violet, rainbow beans, black is made up of everything, turn my garden into God's den, heaven's hotel and truth's garden. I'm more focused in camera lens, I can sneeze with my eyes hoping. Mother Earth is the mother's ship, but our mother's ship, our mother's hips, then we hop right out to our mother's hip, drink all the cool and our mother's hips. So what happened with love? What happened with guns? What happened with stapes? What happened with drugs? What happened with outlet? It's America's song. What happened with them? What happened to us? Love, do we need what love? Turn love to love? Do we need what love? Turn love to love, poison leaves with drugs, they want us dead. So we bleed what love, then we resurrect. Spread our wings with love. So we're leading what love? Yeah, we're leading what love. Hey, could not kill me. So we're here with love. So we're leading what love? Yeah, we're leading what love. Take my love with me. Yeah, we're leading what love. So we're leading what love. Yeah, we're leading what love. Hey, we're leading what love. Hey, could not kill me. So we're here with love. Surprise. I arrived. I was saying here to open eyes while yellow break roads to open eyes. I was saying here to open eyes. Surprise. I arrived. I was saying here to open eyes while yellow break roads to open eyes. I was saying here to open eyes. Surprise. I arrived. I was saying here to open eyes while yellow break roads to open eyes. I was saying here to open eyes. Surprise. I arrived. I was saying here to open eyes while yellow break roads to open eyes. I was saying here to open eyes. Surprise. Humanity. I love your mind, your body, and your soul. I love your conflict, and your hustle, your reasoning, and your struggle. I love you, as you love you, as you love us, as we love love. This love is an endless love. Eternally and infinitely intertwined with you led by love. Love, love, love, love, love. Say it with me on this next one, ready? Lead what? Love. Let's go. Let's go. [laughter] [BLANK_AUDIO]