H.I.S.D. – The Weakend Revisited

From Damien –

The Weakend was undoubtedly HISD’s entry point into the public consciousness, a labor of love that spanned two years in the making.

I remember getting a call from King Midas on a Saturday morning (who does that), asking my opinion for an album title. Before they’d played a single note or written a lyric, they were brainstorming high-level ideas for a concept album. They tentatively agreed on The Weakend Theory as a working title. I had to hit Midas with the “nah, fam”. (Actually, I never use that term. Ever.) But I disagreed with it for 2 reasons: 1) It was too close to the name of my favorite hip hop album by my favorite group ever. 2) Too many people would immediately draw a correlation and begin comparing the two. And finding reasons to not like yours. I thought their efforts would be put to better use by creating a project that stood on its own, and couldn’t be seen as a derivative of an already established classic. My suggestion? “Shorten it to The Weakend.”

After that, they spent a few weeks discussing song ideas and themes. There’s still a dri-erase board in The Gold Room with the track listing on it, written before they recorded anything. In the same basic order, no less. I’m still kinda impressed by that.

We also had meetings to specifically discuss the narrative, I process that I hadn’t been used to in quite some time. DJ Cozmos had fully come into the fold as a co-producer, and began lending his distinctive signature to the group’s evolving sound.

When it came time to present the works in a visual format, they started with Lando:

They shot an ambitious video for “Rockin”:

Followed by some pretty neat promo videos for the album:


And then some short vids to highlight the MCs:



And a commercial!

And a COMIC BOOK!

Once the dust settled, The Weakend had garnered praise from the likes of Questlove and Ali Shaheed Muhammad, and firmly cemented them as a force to be reckoned with.

H.I.S.D. The Weakend Album Cover w/ Tracklisting www.theweakend.com)

1. Come Out and Play
2. Autobahn
3. Piano Sunrise featuring Michele Thibeaux
4. The Hue (Seen Green)
5. Crazy Legz featuring Spacebunny Jefferson
6. Lando
7. Cranberry
8. Point of Know Return featuring D. Rose
9. Rockin’ aka Space UP!
10. Space City Express
11. The Question Interlude
12. SheetRock
13. The Weakend featuring Chris “Daddy” Dave