This project wouldn’t have happened without the homie Brandon. We grew up across the street from each other; he was little bro out there while the older heads skateboarded around listening to Wu-Tang and Pennywise. A couple years back, we were deep in the pandemic and he reached out to give me a platform and set this project in motion.


See, in real life, I’m not a rapper. I was working toward that in my early 20s, but life happens and you put away goals/hobbies because other things become more important. In my case, that was cocaine and alcohol first, as I self medicated through depression and god knows what else. Then I followed that up with years of getting my head straight enough to help raise a family.


I’ve always written as a creative outlet. You can do so much with rap, it’s been the de facto way I express myself creatively for almost 20 years now.


So when Brandon reached out and said he’d be down to put out a project on Soft Grit Recordings, the indie label he was owning/operating, I felt like it’d be a good opportunity to make the record I always wanted to make and never got around to. I felt like I’d spent thousands of hours crafting rhymes and hadn’t taken the initiative to have anything tangible to show for it.


“For the Love” is my submission to the culture. It’s Roy’s swan song; the EP that never was. It's creating for the sake of creating...just a deep love of the process. It’s an argument for people breaking bars down to the syllable when their favorite MC is shitting on a beat and getting inspired to make something on their own, something tangible to put on the shelf or on the playlist like “Yeah, I made that.”


Or even, “Why can’t I rap when I feel like it even though I’m too lazy to market this shit for a living?”


Hip-Hop has given me some great times. I’ve rhymed with some great people. I appreciate everyone in my life, past and present, that I met either directly through this culture or shared some magic moments with creating music within this culture.


I hope you enjoy this project, but I don’t care if you don’t. This one's for me.


Shoutout Chucky Shovels, M.E.R.C. aka Born Infinite, June Marx, The Legacy, TEKONE, Vinnie London, Leon Hard, and Soft Grit Recordings. It’s been real.


Roy Alva
2007-2022