“The surest way to make your dreams come true is to live them”…Roy T Bennett

Just because it sounds like a good idea doesn’t actually mean it is. Often this is the case when it comes to the sketchy history of collaboration in modern Pop music. If you scrutinize the archives, you might hear some objectionable noise rather than a fully realized project. Much of this has to do with the fact that songwriters are a mercurial breed with creative clashes at play….Until an extraordinary message becomes  exceptional art…

When it seems as though every inch of the heavens has been engulfed in flames and frost is fingering its way underneath the door, while mankind is crying for the moon, suddenly according to composer Randy Edelman “Everything is Possible.” Then in a tenacious attempt to vanquish his fractured words in shining positivity, Grandmaster Melle Mel explodes with a sophisticated anarchy saturated with light, power and room to breathe. 

In celebration of the 50th Anniversary of hip hop, the iconic Chicago House Music label TRAX Records is set to release as a gift to the wider world “Everything is Possible” by Randy Edelman featuring Grandmaster Melle Mel. The track is a historic and epic collaboration, filled with a magnitude of dreams and a rhyme that will become the sun in the center of every constellation. This song pays tribute to the outlander, the dark horse, the long-shot, the scapegoat….the people who wander through the real world, and write themselves through the darkness of random alleyways. Those who are told they can’t, those who are told they are finished but who take a breath, Dream a dream and rise like a phoenix from the rooftops of their existence and cry out for more…..

Two-time Grammy winner Melvin Glover better known as Grandmaster Melle Mel, is the first rapper to be inducted to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Grammy Hall of Fame.” He is formally the lead vocalist and songwriter for Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five and first to coin the phrase MC. The Furious Five faction was responsible for the song “The Message” which was added to the United States National Archives of Historic Recordings. The group also invented the term “Hip Hop“ (Keith Cowboy).  Aside from The Furious Five, Mel has also appeared in the movie “Beat Street”, and did memorable rhymes on songs by Chaka Khan, Duran Duran, Cher’s hits “One By One” and a marathon of others. He also collaborated with author Cricket Casey and released a children’s book called ‘The Portal in The Park’ which featured a bonus CD of the rap narrative, and also featured two songs by the then unknown Lady Gaga performing with him. To this very day Grandmaster Melle Mel is and remains the  “Greatest Rapper of All-Time (according to a BBC poll of his peers), and a relevant and powerful force of the rap culture.

Composer Randy Edelman is one of the leading, most prestigious and iconic soundtrack architects on the planet and is responsible for creating the music to over 100 film and television themes and scores. His scores include “Ghostbusters ll”, “My Cousin Vinny”, “Gettysburg”, “While You Were Sleeping”, “The Bruce Lee Story”, “Kindergarten Cop”, “Anaconda”, “Billy Madison”, the theme for the hit series “MacGyver”, the Olympics, and “Last of the Mohicans” which earned him a Golden Globe nomination. Aside from his own pop song career, Randy’s songs have been covered by some of the biggest legends in history, including Barry Manilow (A Weekend in New England), Patti LaBelle (Isn’t it a Shame), Nelly (My Place), The Carpenters, Olivia, Newton-John, Dionne Warwick, Willy Nelson, Blood, Sweat and Tears, and even Bing Crosby…..The multi-award winning composer is also slated to be inducted into the New England Music Hall of Fame this September.

Thus, the quintessential and epochal collaboration began…. some pages take longer to turn than others. It doesn’t matter if the spotless sheets follow the rotted one or if the preceding lines are blurred with tears. What went before is erased or embraced as another chapter begins….Sometimes our lives overlap with others for a brief moment….Randy wrote the music and the lyrics sometime before, but somehow the translation got lost in the industry. The echoes of this song were gone from the other side of history….. but then Randy believed the present was a good time to re- release “Everything Is Possible.” One of the producers came up with the scintillating  idea of adding a rap to the already glistening song.

Almost at the same moment Grandmaster Melle Mel got caught up in a feud which sparked a scandal that would threaten to rock the hip hop world. Trax record President Rachael Cain (long time friend of the illustrious rapper), and also producer brought Randy’s song to Mel and he loved the positivity contained within the lyrics as well as being able to identify with story themed by the song. Regarding the words of the song Mel proclaimed ‘WHEN EVEN ANGELS SEEM TO BLOCK YOUR WAY’….”Who writes words like that”…and he went on to say “Even without the rap the song is a hit.” In response to the track Edelman stated “It’s great, ‘Breathe’, This song and idea is very timely…crazy right?”

Inspiration cannot be achieved without others to guide the way. These two sovereign monarchs see what others only catch a glimpse of and through their silvery sounds and their sensibilities they speak what words are unable to explain.

 “If an artist can occupy the void of artistry while simultaneously parodying its iconography. They can have their metaphorical cake and cannibalism its crumbs too.”….Stewart Stafford 

Stream “Everything is Possible” by Randy Edelman and Grandmaster Melle Mel on spotify here: