The OKC hip-hop artist strips down sex and power fantasies with dichotomous double act on feature-heavy concept LP.
A message from the Make Oklahoma Weirder team: this article was originally written by Jeremy Martin in 2022 and is being released as part of MOW’s “VVeirder VVinter Vault” of 2023/24.
“Hey, we’re making an album about a strip club, and you’re not rapping as yourself.” Love, sex and money get tangled up in Pink Palace.
Inspired by a breakup, the official solo debut album from MC/producer/Sativa Prophet Mars Deli finds intense introspection in a strip club.
“I didn’t want to just make an album that was about my relationship,” Deli said, “But the period in between actually healing and the breakup, I felt was like, really, really special.”
Intro track “Get a Couple of Drinks in You” DJ 3-wAy (aka Sativa Prophets‘ Rodrick Malone doing some inspired voice acting) sets the stage with a siren’s call that doubles as a Greek chorus:
“Welcome to Pink Palace, where every night is ladies night,” he says. “Make sure to get some drinks into your system. It’s going to be a wild night tonight … These ladies are making a living off of what you’re giving.”
The album’s main character, also named Mars Deli, is more than willing to comply. He’ll spend the next several songs shooting shots and throwing cash, reminded only occasionally of the things he came to forget. Other than what initially seems like a tossed off dig at an ex, proper album opener “Dab After Dab” seems to find Deli purely focused, as author Eckhart Tolle would advise, in the now.
“Blunts filled with hash/ Dab after dab/ Hands on some ass/ Eyes on some cash,” goes the infectious chorus to a song that could easily supply the soundtrack for the Pink Palaces of the world, but by verse two, the brash facade is already starting to slip. Between lines oozing with horny male entitlement, Deli raps: “My homie just got pinched / He served it to a plain clothes,” and “Pops was selling dope when cats was rocking Kangols.” He’s desperately dodging intrusive thoughts and already taking some savage hits.
Then, an ominous foreshadowing: “I’m doing all these drugs / I don’t know where the pain goes.” Despite our hero’s best efforts to smoke it out and fuck it away, the pain will make a dramatic entrance and demand its time on stage before Deli’s finally reunited, Avengers-style, with the Sativa Prophets on album closer “Roll Credits.”
Produced by Wrong House Records and Mars Deli, Pink Palace also features Deezy, SoufWessDes, Cortney Lachelle’, That Girl AB, JodyOklahoma, Aaron Joseph Newman, Ellesse, Izzy Da Father, and The Vampire Youth. Sativa Prophet CAJ, who supplies vocals and guitar on several songs, served as executive producer.
We talked to Deli about the album’s concept, and the advantages of bringing strippers into the studio as technical consultants.
Make Oklahoma Weirder: How much information did you give your features about the story that you wanted to tell?
Mars Deli: For the most part, they got the gist of the idea. Like I told them, “Hey, we’re making an album about a strip club and you’re not rapping as yourself.” For a lot of people I played the track that was coming after them and was like, “Alright, we have to fill in the space here.” … When we were grabbing the features it was like “This person would be great for something that’s like starting off the night; this person would be great for something more intense.” … For the most part, nobody really knew what the entire picture was except me and the producers.
Make Oklahoma Weirder: Did you have some songs that you realized told a story or did you start out with the concept and then work from there?
Mars Deli: To start, I had a really bad public breakup. And I’m like, “I need to turn this into something.” I didn’t want to just make an album that was about my relationship. But the period in between actually healing and the breakup, I felt was like, really, really special. So I’m like, “I need to figure out a way to make an album for women, because that is the one thing that I see as the key portion of this.” And I’m like, “Making an album for women doesn’t sound like a Mars Deli thought.” But I thought, “I could make an album for strippers. That’s a genius idea.” And once I started kind of like, writing out some, not even really verses, but words or things I might want to say, I started to see, “Oh, yeah, I can make the story out of this. Oh, there’s a story in here.” And then further on, during the actual recording process with everybody, they’re all starting to see the different conceptualizations materialize and they’re like, “Oh, okay, we see exactly where you’re trying to go.”
Make Oklahoma Weirder: There are a ton of songs about strippers, but I feel like this album does something I haven’t heard much at all, by showing the stripper’s perspective, too.
Mars Deli: We thought that was going to be something that was really important, because without it, it feels like kind of a Weeknd album, which isn’t a bad thing, but it’s more, you’re only getting the perspective of this lonely dude. We realized very quickly that if we’re going to tell a story in a strip club, we need really powerful female voices. Because it’s not the guy that’s the star at the strip club. You can be the most famous guy in the world, but nobody’s looking at you. They’re looking at the girl on stage.
Make Oklahoma Weirder: How do you consider this album will fit in your discography?
Mars Deli: This for me feels like when Ben Gibbard left to go do a Postal Service album. It’s like I’m never revisiting this, like never. I’m not into sequels. I hate sequel movies, and I hate sequel albums even more. So I’m never revisiting this. Like the story started and ends and it’s never happening again. But I do see a lot of pieces that are things I’ve learned doing this that I see returning to in later projects. Maybe not in the sense of like, a concept again because it was really exhausting to keep the story simple. That was the hardest part of all of it was to keep the story something to where it’s like I don’t have to hold your hand through it. The music can just play through and then by the time you get to the end, you’re like, “Oh, I’ve been following the guy. I’ve been following the guy this whole time.”
Make Oklahoma Weirder: You performed the whole album live recently. Did you learn anything from that experience? Was there anything that surprised you?
Mars Deli: Yeah, there were a few things actually. Sativa Prophets’ bread and butter is our performance and I’ve been on stage basically my entire life. I’ve been in theater since junior high. So I’ve been on stage a ton and this was the first time I was genuinely nervous because I was doing a bunch of things I’ve never done. Most of the songs are a lot slower than my normal. They’re slower than a lot of the Sativa Prophets songs, and then once it gets down to like the actual R&B section, I’m singing. I don’t sing at shows. As we’re getting through the album, I was expecting people to dance and everything, which would be cool, but they were like, just encapsulated. They kind of just stood in awe, which was cool, it’s really cool, but in the moment, it’s like, “Are they enjoying this?” But as soon as every song finished it was just like oohs and ahhs and tons of applause. It felt like there were like three, four hundred people in there the way they were applauding. It was like, “Wow, you guys really liked it. I was expecting you guys to really tune out during the R&B parts.” but that’s when it really came in and really was like, “Oh, wow, wow, this is something different.”
Make Oklahoma Weirder: That makes sense. There are several songs on this album you could probably play in a strip club, but some of them would be difficult to dance to.
Mars Deli: Oh a hundred percent. I was talking to a few people who listened to it, and they were like, “Yo, you should perform this in a strip club” and I’m like, “That would be incredibly redundant.” People might dance to this, and, in fact, the whole first six songs you could probably play in a strip club, but [not] once it starts to get into the actual emotional crux of the album. What I really wanted to do was try to do a stage play for it, but I just didn’t have the time. I was not going to try to figure out casting and everything that would make this process longer than it had to be.
Make Oklahoma Weirder: The songs “A Simp’s Cry” and “A Pimp’s Reply” seem particularly connected, and “A Pimp’s Reply” is the longest song on the album. Would you say this is the centerpiece?
Mars Deli: When I was writing out the concept, one of the things that was really important was to keep everything surface level until we got to somewhere where he could be vulnerable. The whole first part of the album it’s just him essentially with his friends trying to fake like he’s not hurt, but then when he gets backstage with this stripper he’s like, “I’m so lonely. I’m so sad. You should just sleep with me and make me feel better.”
Make Oklahoma Weirder: So what’s next?
Mars Deli: I’m slowly piecing together what I want to do with my next solo outing. While I’m doing that, [Sativa Prophets] have actually been planning on all doing solo releases. This past year, we’ve been planning and working up to it. … I can’t really say the order or anything, but there’s three other releases behind and then a possible Sativa Prophets album and in the midst of all that I have a buddy who’s a producer who I’ve been talking to while I working on Pink Palace who loved the idea of the way we were recording. I’m bringing in five, six, seven artists at a time and I’m also bringing in strippers and I’m also bringing in just different producers and we’re all working on three or four songs at one time and that’s where all the cohesion came from. Working like that inspired another producer to have me executive produce a project for him so I’m going to be working on that in the middle of the next Sativa Prophets project and all of the other Sativa Prophets releases coming.
Make Oklahoma Weirder: Wait so there were strippers in the studio when you were recording this?
Mars Deli: They were almost as important as the rappers. When it comes to the strip club, I haven’t been in about five, six years. Producers that I work with, that’s just not their thing. So I was like, “I need music that women can dance to. Specifically women who dance for money. So every studio session, there’s at least one girl who either dances now or used to dance, and I’m like, Hey, what are you looking for on stage? We’re at like the, one, one-thirty mark, how do you want to attack the stage? Are you going crazy? Are you climbing up the pole? What are you looking for?” And they were so receptive and understanding, especially considering the fact that there was female voices on it. It wasn’t just me trying to exploit a sound. So they’re like, “Oh, no, when I’m on the stage, I like this. When I’m at the clubs in Miami, it sounds like this. Clubs in Texas sound like this.” And we’re just taking notes.
Make Oklahoma Weirder: So they were like technical consultants?
Mars Deli: I wanted a story where the character didn’t love anything. I wanted something where it felt like you got to the end and felt bad for the guy. And the very last song is essentially him having sex with the stripper and getting kicked out. So I didn’t know that I would feel as true to life after he had just told this woman just how sad he was, and she told him, “You know what this is.” But a lot of the stories that they were telling me—you have to remember that some of these women, not all of them, but some, are probably just as damaged as the guys coming in. So the fact that this guy came in, he’s like, “I’ve got cocaine. I’ve got weed. What do you want?” She’d probably be like, “I’m not gonna leave with you. We can hook up here, and you can get the fuck out.”
Make Oklahoma Weirder: My favorite part on the album is on “A Pimp’s Reply” when That Girl AB’s character says something like “Give me money. This is about money.”
Mars Deli: That was the very last thing I recorded for the album. That was the very last song. In my head, the way I explain it, is this is where we are in the story. You’re sitting on this guy’s lap. He just told you a bunch of sobby, whiny shit and you need to tell him what’s real. But also at the same time, I’m using two voices to symbolize that one voice is reality and the other is what he’s hearing. I don’t know if that was necessarily conveyed through the music. That’s just in my head canon that’s what’s happening. In reality, this woman is like “This shit is for show. You know what this was.” …. AB is a Beast. When she came into the studio she had no clue what we were working on. She came in with a bunch of tracks that were, like, super conscious … and I’m like, “That’s really cool, but we’re about to hit the strip club. That’s what we’re doing.” And she just stared at me for a few minutes and was like, “Give me five minutes. I got you.” The way I describe the rapping is like, some people leave footprints on a track and it’s like, “Oh, yeah, they were here.” She stomps holes through it and replaces it with her face. And you as the artist are just like, “Yeah, that’s way better. I don’t know what I was thinking.”
Jeremy Martin
Jeremy Martin writes about music and other stuff in OKC. He's also the less funny half of comedy duo The Martin Duprass and the proud father of two delightful baby turtles (pictured).
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