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Sink Or Swim

by Justjoey

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  • Streaming + Download

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality download in MP3, FLAC and more.

    Since Bandcamp has always been awesome to artists I decided to include Stallion Rides A Horseman exclusively to this version. Maybe that was a bad idea - some people are telling me it's one of their favs and it's not available to stream or purchase anywhere else. Bask in the secrecy!

    Oh... My... God... is also exclusively a Bandcamp track. Enjoy.
    Purchasable with gift card

      $8 USD  or more

     

  • Full Digital Discography

    Get all 7 Justjoey releases available on Bandcamp and save 30%.

    Includes unlimited streaming via the free Bandcamp app, plus high-quality downloads of Wisconsin Story, Sink Or Swim, Ok Txt Me, SADLIBS, Life in a Nutshell, Shipwreck, and You Don't Know Anything. , and , .

    Purchasable with gift card

      $25.90 USD or more (30% OFF)

     

  • Full Color Limited Edition Sink Or Swim Tee
    T-Shirt/Apparel

    Sink Or Swim cover design by Joey Souza in full color on a black tee. There will be a limited run with the album release with a small chance they'll return as 5/10 year anniversary.

    Sold Out

  • 3-Color Sink Or Swim Tee
    T-Shirt/Apparel

    The 3-color version of the Sink Or Swim cover art made by Joey Souza.

    Sold Out

1.
Equations 01:40
Conversation lately been a bummer Every dialogue spawn from automated guzzlers Sunken eyes darkened by a steady stream of these increasing numbers which would measure time I spent laying awake under the covers Forty of the same guy fighting for one lover trotting out of living quarters built by droids and cookie cutters Such a lovely way to start a summer I am yawning like Chewbacca Got a sweat going like wookie butter Leer like a deified cat from in back of a line Squinting eyes trying to focus on the mix and match Looking like they got something to ask so smiling I’m nodding while I’m stepping to the task “What’s that?” Finger limp barely extended to an image of a coffee with some milk in it Picture perfect silkiness Dryly I describe word for word how it’s written Laziness is a proprietor of business Lovably dumb is why I’m really not a threat The differences between me and a chimpanzee is found in two percent I’m not concerned about demanding your respect I’m here to help a friend and collect a couple checks And pave a future Learn enough to tutor Keep my brain poetic before it become computer Learn how much I take before I break Learn to love myself and the birds and the bees and snakes I don’t care about appearing most menacing I’m building ecosystems not just a list of enemies I’m Justjoey - nothing more and nothing less of me The people in my toy story always got a friend in me Mirror the energy that other people send to me Jerks get kicked to the curb eventually No person on the earth can escape it: The universe proceeds Simply balancing equations
2.
Stayin In 03:48
Bury em tarrying delusions Varying the truth in Americonfusion Running on fumes and cruising on graves Stake the claim on the same old bruises Who’s this? Lucid, keep it in the noodle Smooth jazz producer brew stew and rhyme oodles Music for the curious fools Keep ideas bright like sun lights jewels Make em sleeves cuz I break the cases Move place to place like home’s in the paces No gifts please, don’t wanna ruin something thoughtful you’re doing for me I’m just fueling my spaceship Propelling with songs I created Funny how my world opened up from the basement The coping mechanisms see payment and flirting with danger changed into a relationship Small comforts circle the drain I’m 25, got a year left of safety in pop’s name Maybe stop smoking in rain but addiction ain’t an infant anymore it reigns Pain stains or so they say I was too insecure when opportunity came Screws loose but I love my flukes Always gonna pick this if you make me choose The truth is missing in myself and surroundings I don’t call it a day until I’m drowning Jumping off the lifeboat floundering inhaling water like it’s oxygen around me Put it down till the whole town found me I’m your skip but I’m her astounding High potential like a bag of pot brownies I’mma do it till the clowns start frowning I'm headed home, I'm stayin in I'm trying to feel I will again I'm headed home, I'm Stay In Inn They're trying to make us all give in But I won't give in
3.
Chewing every cuticle Unsuitable unrooting Fidgeting with any zipper I can pull Unzipped hoodie cover wistfully a skull These knacks keep in tact a lessening sensation I am whole Pick apart the pieces even studying the bowl and every chemical that muddy up the memory from full Sullen conversation while he’s searching for the role and each creature cringing lifting up the burden of a soul Nerves are fighting one another somewhere in the belly Fed by marinated dead, bread and blackberry jelly Eyes off the closet less you wanna see the skelly Tell me anything I need to know to keep a witch from melting Smelting at the god forge accidentally weaponizing attributes that never should’ve settled Low maintenance locks got disheveled When she hold my hand she startle like she might’ve wrapped around the nettle Ain’t so different from the boy who picked the petal or the kid who couldn’t sleep until he finally beat the level Rappin like it’s all I got left Someday I will fade into the planet till I’m only bass and treble Do you see the beach or will you focus on a pebble? What’s a revolution if it isn’t in the rebel? At some point the tree become forest Human go humanity Voice goes chorus Pebble turn beach Tree turn forest Human go humanity Voice go chorus Hoodie strings twisted into corkscrews Borderline bored of possibility to fork through Poor dude, noir minds moored don't soar through anchored to the supposition laid way before you It's the age of I don't know anymore you Don't know anymore me Where do we explore to? From inside we feel the gates shake Rams batter, everything quakes How do nerves stay neutral? I'm a guardian of gardens holy only to an atheist or maybe just a gargoyle breaking Weather may erode me till I'm null Or just enough to be a backboard for insults Indulge! Swimming in a fishbowl ocean Keepin eyes shut don't wanna see the walls close in Hunger pokin till I'm gaping open One awoken dreamer see the price of going ghost Inching up a summit I have never seen directly prompt a failure to identify the moment Speaking out the kinks Seeking out the peak Steadily a crestfallen recipe component See the many roads leading out of here from no way Witness the meadow not a single blade, ok? At some point the tree become forest Human go humanity Voice go chorus
4.
Can I make this more than portable self importance? It’s important to me Need support in form of endorsements Working hard to release endorphins I get manic and I panic with a shortage Gotta run a couple miles this morning Sore from the war I’m forcing Orbiting the orb is a fortune Still ain’t enough to assort your portion How captivating that we thrive in the morbid Kicking till the organs forfeit Each year I feel less important But it gets easier to feel euphoric Freedom in the form of proportion Every now and then I feel enormous Information era pouring I’m a junkie for informants sorting through articles I’m hoarding Gotta turn moves into resources Opportunity drops no warning Catch it It breaks like porcelain Got my hands on the keys of on organ and know there’s a film I’ll be scoring If you’re dope then you don’t lay dormant Actually more of a doormat Floor it Brood with the forces Reach for the roots Get in tune with the source of it We just wanna feel supported Fall in love not some contortion Even when it cause distortion parts of the void give a source from the corpses Lost my center Lost the boredom You can sum me up a stallion rides a horseman
5.
Thieves 04:57
Any day My basic state of mind may change Like “Some of my priorities may need some rearranging.” Then the next I'm vexed like how could I forget? I don’t feel alive unless I am devoted to this mess I’m addicted I am so obsessed with blending note and word Looking for the perfect combination I’ll be stirring this while you get your encouragement from cycling in a circus hoping it will all be worth it I’m a super nothing going nowhere fast I’m a piece of trash I scowl while everybody fakes a laugh If I’m feeling like a living human worm I will never get the credit I deserve I am terrified of what this means I will clarify I’d rather die within the week than come to see this fizzle out Hissin ‘bout the system Fixed since beginning Being a machine never really seemed like winning Lost touch with becoming someone not something I’m done with not loving myself through your screen Trudge on to futures we don’t subscribe to Bury the human who still lives inside you Only brighter than blight Told they're worth fighting for Worth every life Stuck in a fall that got labeled a flight for the health of an empire: death is a lucrative plight Thieves of the dreams we build Anyone against the kings gets to be roadkill I’m defective I might never learn my lesson I am mildly respected I’m still always second guessing I am laughing from the belly in the stomach of the beast I’m a creep I would rather be asleep Always tired Always feeling I gone miles through the mire Why do people think that art expires? Was it ever worth a thing if it's already lost its fire? Real love don't retire I’m inspired I love life despite ire I might be the kind of monk who has to set himself fire I am gonna stand for something Gonna give a hand to someone I can’t fuckin stand another fan betting it all on nothing Although I can’t say I don’t understand If there were legal euthanasia I’d be in the promised land... which I don’t believe I think that I’ll pass my energy to the worms I feed Fertilizer to the leaves and trees, so... Revamp those old goals Street lamps with gold glows burn bright through turnpikes We learn life through old souls Hold on Just pull through Sold on a whole new World Only brighter than blight Told they're worth fighting for Worth every life Stuck in a fall that got labeled a flight for the health of an empire: death is a lucrative plight Thieves of the dreams we build Anyone against the kings gets to be roadkill
6.
Chariot 04:10
What’s really sacred is forsaken Mistaking a fable for nature We’re clever enough to form deforested warnings on paper She wanna come back later but the future’s looking just about as tangible as prayers The animals are scared As a boy I used to look after the bears with ankles bloody and mangled Untangle em from the snares But I lost one Claws in his own esophagus It was either confinement or a final goodnight And I can only help so much before my own health won’t hold up I need to find a… Slug said it first Trying to find the middle ground But I can’t tell if goblins are mirages or really around Music took my mind and buried it Left me with a chariot between a parrot’s wings Daring to give a fuck... although barely Maybe esoteric Wearing hysteria, like, apparently Am I obvious or fatherly? Failure doesn’t bother me Somehow through rhyming I devised my own divine scheme to ride and meet the demons in the street Treat em fairly so they won’t be impaired and terribly scary I’ve seen too much this year I need to close my eyes and ears for one day Ride my chariot just one way I’ve heard too much this year I need to close my eyes and ears for one day Been trippin about your trip to someday You woulda been there anyway some day
7.
Fishbowls 04:48
Finger to the keypad Not much meat between the shoulders Sheesh fam, why you got a grimace dim as soldiers? Risk prone poacher Aiming digital insulter Fist of wish bones Sulker float in fishbowl culture Type like you're slaying ogres millennial sitting rovers Make it seem miraculous any of us are getting older See who really make the setting colder Don’t forever hold your piece please I see your empty holster Keyboard superhero Shakespearean Facebook post Life of learned philosophies in threads of 20 tweets Assuming fuels the fuming You’ve been grooming for a showing Got a crosshair stare when the barrels are overflowing You’ll have to pass time slinging insult through pixels until we meet at last Fishbowl to fishbowl And we all know you’re gonna fight for you don’t believe in Say something you don’t mean and share an article you’re not reading Shrieking at a steepening lack of meaning Greetings become bouts when every other seem misleading Seedy claims sprout from no names you keep feeding Seasons brought their grieving: eats not worth heaving Weep for these communities on nights of shirked sleeping Still keyboard superheroes Typing many manuals of how to treat em properly hurl insults as standard And even though the disrespect is really only coming from you I really hope your situation improves You’ll have to pass time slinging insult through pixels until we meet at last Fishbowl to fishbowl (We all know you’re gonna fight for what you don’t believe in! Yeah! We all know you’re gonna fight for what you don’t believe!)
8.
Sink Or Swim 02:13
Seyanara! Gotta take a hug that’ll carry couple hundred tomorrows Say hey to the moonbeam for me Wouldn’t be prepared even with a year’s warning Here drunk in chair in a funk unaware Kerplunck like I jumped in the air and I landed 20k league deep in a sea only seen by the sunk and impaired Kinda funny when the parts of you tear which previously didn’t know they were there Too hard to compare myself next to the hare with a heel ensnared Move more like a counterpart anyway Do your life come apart in many ways as well? Like a stag in a well Been trapped in a hell A contraption of self Give back to the faction that fell on their face getting taken away in the swell Knick knacks of em actually dwell like the past of a siren that only could yell Stolen from homeland, nobody to tell Intermix with a vixen who lives in a shell Bewitched with handpicked spells and whatever kinda prick think sickness sells Get well… Whatever gotta tell myself Give a bit of thought to the loss of a laundering wealth Hangin on by a promise of faltering health One life so we’re told Or ... I hope... That my ghost says nope and I’m entirely toast Never wanna live forever but I’ll find a way to love it if I do, I suppose If that's how it goes
9.
These songs are search parties Bloodhounds with cheeks dripping Walk through snow with teeth gritting and finding you (Lost wanderers) The cost of pondering possibly can be such a haunting thing if you shift your perception and begin to treat it honestly It is what it is We negotiate the difference Why can I envision least a hundred other ways it isn’t? Got a mind that align with the sign but a wise one find that our senses try and fail sometimes Hail one time was the product of an angry god’s fail safe crimes I get it now I’m forming better habits from the jump Fool me once and school me such Fool me twice: now what the fuck Get it right by trial one and save your self a couple months, or years depending on how long your fears and failures go untouched Only know the pieces of me needing work by slowly rolling pins on me until the discomfort controls me Tired of giving in Binging on sins unholy I've been making myself cringe and only changing will console me Gotta stop making up situations Fall for the false flag my brain’s making I ain’t faking the funk but I’m breaking the junk Now stumped misplacing the months Only realize the prize it was when the silence hums from rising dust Sizing the sum while I hide in the hide of a rifled buck Stuck on what I’m coveting It’s muddying the study cuz it used to be a puddy now it’s modeling me instead Bottling bother ain’t the answer either but I’m tired And the spiders on the ceiling appear larger by the fire Shadow dancing giving daddy long leg even longer legs Suck it up, be stronger, thinking things only your father say Coddling the fauna only in the diorama Gotta look it in the eye while it’s alive like no imposter I get it now A master never claim they grown enough Never feign they know what’s up Only vein there carry blood Moments of glamour cover lifetimes in prairie mud People see a still and think it’s all glitz like fairies fucked Only know the pieces of me needing work by slowly rolling pins on me until the discomfort controls me Constant reevaluation breaking from the old me Making subtle changes been the only thing consoling What’s happening? Things are happening What’s happening? I’m really glad to have you at this gathering Thanks for listening and not just chattering We are barely balancing Showings like these are tip-toeing on railings between balconies Continue doubting me Do you remember when you dared me, so as loud as I could I howled at the woods? And that owl swooped down and caught a mouse Wow... I do Do you remember when we mustered up the strength to ask our way into that gated jacuzzi and talked anime with strangers? And I found out you sometimes pass out with enough hot air And you just laid there I was way scared Do you remember that time you and I went do or die when scrutinized? We wanted to be euthanized But who am I now? Stupefied ricotta jaw admitting I just wanna look into your human eyes Do you remember the time when my rhymes and your designs met? Now that’s a fine mesh Already made something timeless That’s kinda fresh and partly why it feels like things are happening Things are happening What’s happening? Things are happening I’m not sure what’s happening I’m really glad to have you at this gathering Thanks for listening and not just chattering We are barely balancing Showings like these are tip-toeing on railings between balconies Continue doubting me
10.
Let’s forget everything we know We’ll feel dead, again But thank you for remembering Let’s not remember shit Let everything slip in a lurking eternity’s grip and just be part of it We’re carving our mark so far we’re living in bits and pieces of a hard bark Hard starts for aardvarks in car parks All we want are ants and here we are dancing for a star’s spark I got these star parts inside of me Crystalized irony Trying to chase a side of me revolving at the same rate I’d retrieve a prophecy Obviously I’m the body stopping me I’m just tryna die happily Barter back my panhandled wonder Won’t live passively I suppose if there’s something I’m establishing it’s finding out my value Watching my vanity vanishing I’m porous Pass portraits of a perfect world to storage Reporters scourge earth to unearth perfect contortions and I’m sick of pictures of the best curvature blur It’s all a way to play on our crescendo of nerves I long for the lack of a load Lugging around bones like a mat so the stones won’t roll Long for the lack of a loathsome toll from a doleful soul for the chance to grow I long to go back home Ride with my family Stay close And simply be there when you need to know I’m here for you So you know But for a second let’s forget everything we know And we’ll feel dead again But thank you for remembering everything we know We'll feel dead again

about

Sink Or Swim is meant to make the crushing uncertainty of our future a little bit more bearable. Why does being confused, lonely, isolated, misunderstood, and overlooked have to be such a bummer? It doesn't! Not while I am your host, rapper and producer for thirty-something lovely minutes. There is a lot of confusion bubbling under the surface with what to do and where to go - but the songs are meant to get us through, not to keep us stuck.

I got to play songs from this album in a few different cities and states before the pandemic cancelled my tours (which currently are not being rescheduled). One of my favorites was at Cyne's 10 year reunion show in Portland, OR - where you can see and hear footage of the crowd singing lyrics back to "Stayin In" toward the end of the video: www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr4763Y1p48 (thanks mom).

Even though this album was written and recorded long before the world locked down, its relevance and the mood behind have only gotten stronger with age. I hope it's something that you can continue coming back to long after your first listen.

credits

released May 8, 2020

Written, composed, recorded & produced by Justjoey
Mixed and mastered by Justjoey

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Justjoey San Jose, California

psychedelic bops from a composer/rapper making monuments out of a tiny little life.

also in Lucid Logic w/ ILLOGIC & Modern Language with Museum and formerly known as Lucid Optics.

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