"Ninety-Five Grip" – A 31-Second Testimony in 150 BPM
This track embodies the experience of being throttled to 1995 dial-up speeds (0.23 Mbps) while trying to upload a legacy archive on a terminal prognosis. What should take seconds takes hours. What should be a lifeline is a buffer wheel.
The Sound: Gangsta rap meets comedy rap in Bb minor—energetic (0.84), aggressive (0.67), with dark undertones. Bass, percussion, synthesizer, brass, and electronic drums run throughout, mirroring the relentless, unyielding nature of infrastructure abandonment. The male voice carries the testimony with high presence: case numbers, FCC complaints, and the refrain that won't quit: "This is shameful, not service."
Why It Exists: I asked Gemini AI to generate a 30-second clip that embodies this situation. Not as "coping." As alchemy. Using the same AI infrastructure that's part of the erasure machine to create a sonic embodiment of being erased. The irony is intentional. The distress is real. The creativity is resistance.
The Context: This is the audio companion to my essay "Effectively Being Erased"—documenting T-Mobile's backhaul failure at tower 8440 Las Vegas Blvd S, the containment scripts, the DM deflections, the "tracking and trending" that fixes nothing. Case #25264464. Filed with the FCC. Posted publicly. Archived permanently.
Duration: 00:31 (the same length as the clip that took 2 hours to upload)
Created: April 29, 2026
Method: Gemini AI music generation
Purpose: Testimony through synthesis
When they throttle your bandwidth, make them hear the grip.
Listen to Ninety-Five Grip on TIDAL