It’s a long journey from Atlanta’s competitive hip-hop scene to meditating by a pond in the wooded grounds of the Hotel Bel Air in Los Angeles’ sprawling Stone Canyon, but the Grammy-winning You can find rapper music. Most recently, executive and producer Lil Jon.
The event centered around Friday’s debut of Lil Jon’s second album of meditative music. obvious riches, It’s the product of a spur-of-the-moment recording session two years ago with rapper and author Kabir Sehgal “in about four days,” enough material to make seven albums of meditative drones and mind resetters. he said.
“This was really close to my heart,” Lil Jon said. Manifest abundance. “We felt it was the perfect time to release it.”
Lil Jon’s Soul Chakra Company partnered with magnesium supplement maker Natural Vitality to host the event in a park-like setting at the Hotel Bel Air. A waterfall flows into a small pond, and swans and mallards are preening on the opposite bank.
Two people relax under a vibrating pyramid that brings…something.
During the first segment of the event, sound beds, massage therapists and vibrating pyramids dotted the patio, while the bar poured mocktails packed with Natural Vitality products, the most well-known being “Calm.” It is called. Afterward, people dispersed by the pond and sat on Soul Chakra meditation pads on the grass as Lil Jon encouraged them to relax.
“Sometimes you need to hang up and step away from the matrix,” Lil Jon urged. This was despite the fact that some people in the crowd were doing something close to meditating, continuing to record videos of their meditation sessions with matrix nodes, or smartphones. they were meditating.
A harpist and another musician played various “singing” bowls to create a sound bath. It’s sonically and sensually different from, say, Super Bowl LVIII, where Lil Jon took the stage alongside headliner Usher and performed two songs to tens of thousands of screaming fans. It was very different.
Lil Jon and fans line up in the background for a photo during an event at Hotel Bel Air.
“I’ll be honest,” Lil Jon said. “I never thought he would lead 100 people in a guided meditation using a sound bath. That wasn’t on my bingo card all those years ago.”
Lil Jon (real name Jonathan Smith) has undergone quite a transformation since the ’90s and early ’90s as a pioneer of hip-hop’s crunk subgenre, racking up a string of Grammy nominations and No. 1 singles. and produced works by other notable artists. Like Pitbull and Usher (and won a Grammy).
He’s also tried his hand at acting, writing, and philanthropy, but it was around his 50th birthday and a divorce in the middle of a pandemic that caused Lil Jon to turn inward.
“If you want to be happy, if you want to see your life change, you have to be accepted,” Lil Jon said. “You have to accept everything, both what you have and what you don’t have. Then you won’t feel stressed. Don’t worry and move on.”
That change in pace and feel initially angered even his event partners.
“Natural Vitality was like, ‘Is he going to scream?'” Lil Jon joked. “No, that’s meditation.”
Research suggests that both may be good for you, but this partnership isn’t just about promoting peace of mind and magnesium. Natural Vitality announced at the event that Open Path Counseling Center will receive a $100,000 donation. This is enough to fund 1,500 hours of mental health services from three counselors focused on underserved communities.
Lil Jon isn’t the only rising Atlanta hip-hop star to have recently taken a break from recording and producing big hip-hop hits.
Grammy winner Andre 3000’s latest album, new blue sun, his flute instrumental is featured and, as the album proclaims, “no bars or rhymes”.First song with an interesting title I swear, I really wanted to make a “rap” album, but this time it literally just blew in the wind and ended up with this. It sums up the head-spinning impact his new creative direction has had on fans and critics alike.
