New York, NY (Top40 Charts/ Wellis Fool Official Website) Wellis Fool's sophomore EP Pocket Full of Change dissects the idea of change from five different angles, each a separate track. Self-produced, self-written, and rapped entirely by Wellis Fool, Pocket Full of Change is an artistic manifesto reflecting Wellis' mantra of "altruism and autonomy". Inspired as a response to President Obama's so-called platform of "change" Wellis intimately involves the listener in a personal journey towards understanding what "true" change is.
From the album's onset, "Correct Change", Wellis' poignant social criticism aimed towards corporate workers, police, the military, and everyday citizens calls for personal action and responsibility in order to manifest change. Wellis chants on the hook "I'm writing for a change and trying to elevate my state/ no letters to the Congress, cause the Congress just debates/ I'm speaking to the citizens directly with this song/ this is our time to shine, stand up and stand strong".
"Inner Change" continues Pocket Full of Change with a personal perspective on responsibility in life. Wellis reflects nonchalantly, "It's all my fault, my choices, my life,/ my wrongs, my falls, my vices, my life/ my path, my craft, my chance to be free/ I sing my song with a chance to change me". The simple horn sample, and jingling rhythm mirror the "journey" the listener takes through Wellis' mind.
The album picks up pace with "Interchange" a hypnotic opus that engages the listener on an interactive level. "We have to do something/ quit making up excuses/ I have to do something." The album's nexus-point, central track, and apex merges the listener directly to the artist, eloquently establishing "one" single consciousness as Pocket Full of Change begins to instill a feeling of personal accomplishment.
"Antichange" is a wistful,, existential, piano/violin composition that questions the album's thesis. Never one to overtly demand a one-sided truth, Wellis asks the listener to think about change and its real impact on human life, concluding with "No gain in the game, only fame in the game/ so I'm taking my thoughts and I'm walking away." Ultimately, the question becomes "to which game is Wellis referring"?
Pocket Full of Change ends with "Net Change", the resolution of the album's constant introspection and questioning. Wellis croons "Whether you wanna change, or whether you don't/ the change flows through us like a breeze through smoke/ if you need some hope, here believe this quote/ the world gonna change even if we don't" establishing that the ultimate truth is change itself, an unending pattern weaving the web we call reality.
Wellis Fool's heavily Taoist-inspired poetry plays like a Tibetan Koan, engaging the listener from inception to destruction and back to inception through its five tracks, mirroring the exact change discussed in each song, demonstrating Wellis' complex, and imaginative pondering and understanding of life. Pocket Full of Change reminds the listener not to let the name confuse you, this is no ordinary "Fool".
