Zaid Tabani

Reflecting the diversity in fighting games at EVO, Believe’s tracklist is a hodgepodge of different types of music, often switching genre between metal, jazz, rap, and, as Tabani put it, “Paramore-esque vocals” depending on the video game they’re attached to.

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Believe also attempts to further inject authenticity into the album by interlacing it with spoken-word “confessionals” from prominent members of the fighting game community, like James Chen, LI Joe, Sherryjenix, and Seth Killian. Each person spoke about topics like the impact the FGC has had on them and EVO’s incredible growth from a tiny community event to the biggest fighting game tournament in the world.

“If you ever listen to a rap album, a skit is like a cheat code into getting you into the aesthetic,” Tabani said. “It’s like when you listen to a Kendrick album and you’re not from Compton or you’re not from Cali but you feel like you are. It’s that essence distilled. That’s the power that music or an album could bring you.”

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The addition of “FGC confessionals” also doubled as a means to smooth over the transitions between the album’s various genres, where the musicians can go from belting out anime lyrics about Melty Blood to hollerin’ about fatalities in Mortal Kombat 11 in gruesomely catchy detail.

One issue that the artists faced while making the album was the limited timeframe they had in getting tracks finished. After getting the go-ahead, Tabani said the musicians “had to basically sprint” to get tracks finished within the narrow timeframe of late May to the end of July. Another sticking point for the group was deciding what EVO actually sounds like. This led to many emergency recording sessions in between artists’ busy schedules on other projects, not to mention juggling time with their families.

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“We had a budget for certain things like hiring players here and there, mastering, mixing—but we had to do different sort of value props to get this project made,” Tabani said. “A lot of people did it out of love for the community.”

As if the time crunch for finishing the album wasn’t enough, contributors also ran into that issue of getting the album out on streaming services, barely squeaking into full release at the tail end of the EVO weekend. Luckily, the digital music distribution service Soundrop stepped in to ensure that the FGC community needn’t wait weeks to buy and listen to the event’s official soundtrack.

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“We told [Soundrop] the situation and instantly, without any promise of promo or any of that, they just helped us,” Tabani said in a tweet. “They not only worked with us to try to make sure the process happened smoothly, they made sure our album got to stores in time for the end of Sunday finals.”

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Read More: Evo Suspends CEO Following Sexual Misconduct Allegations

Back in 2020, EVO was canceled due to covid. Shortly after, EVO Online was canceled following sexual misconduct allegations from EVO’s suspended co-founder and CEO, Joey “Mr. Wizard” Cuellar.

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“We’ve been through three years like a pandemic, EVO shutting down, and people losing their reputation because they are pieces of shit,” Tabani said. “These games mean something and I am really happy that we got to do this.”

While reflecting on what EVO means to him, Mega Ran referred to a comment made by fellow musician Mason Lieberman which equated the fighting tourney to a digital version of the Olympics.

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Believe was made with love for the community by extremely top-notch artists who have done their best to make sure that nothing was [left to] happenstance,” Mega Ran said. “It’s all very intentional and deliberate and the heart came first.”

Although Casey Williams, the singer of Melty Blood anthem “Race Into the Light,” isn’t much of a gamer herself, she said she follows the community like a hawk and it’s a huge part of who she is.

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“I’ve been very happily surprised and humbled like I always am reading people’s tweets, um, over the past few days,” Williams said. “There was a tweet I read where someone said that while they were competing they heard the intro come on and knew exactly who it was and it got them even more amped up to perform well and it made me tear up. I thought it was so cool.”

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Tabani said the FGC and EVO brought him a way to survive in a world rife with inequality for people of his skin color. Tabani also appreciates the dichotomy of competition and comradery that EVO brings out of players who wouldn’t have been able to become friends if it weren’t for arcade fighting games.

“There is an art and a culture to this community, and music is one of the best ways to bring that out. Basketball has hip hop, streetwear, street-level games, strategy, and cultural discussion,” he said. “Fighting games have all of that but it isn’t represented or elevated the same way, and it can and should be. That’s how you start making the community healthier, that’s how you make people feel seen.”