Take a trip to The Emergency Room with Wesam Alyateem

Rachel Gaylord-Miles
May 29, 2009
Filed under Entertainment

On a typical afternoon one would find many high school students participating in sports, working, or attending club meetings. Add on homework and time spent with family or friends, and a high schooler’s afternoon is packed.

That may explain why it is unusual to find high schoolers producing an album in their free time after school. But for junior Wesam Alyateem, this past fall was often filled with afternoon sessions dedicated to laying out tracks for the first album, The Emergency Room, with his group, The Clinic.

The album was created in collaboration with two East Meck alumni, Wesam’s brother George and Greg Raynor, who are part of The Clinic and helped to create tracks that illustrated their comedic side.

“Our aim was just to make funny songs,” Alyateem says. “The first half of the CD was something to make people laugh. The second half is still messing around, but the quality is better.”

Junior Montrell Morgan, who helped to make one track, thought that playful manner of Alyateem would prevent him from releasing the album within the school year.

“They had enough songs, but I did not think they would do it,” Morgan says. Morgan acknowledges the dedication that went into the album in the recent months and over school breaks, allowing the album to come out as quickly as it did.

For Alyateem and his team, the album has been two years in the making, but Alyateem’s interest in music started back in elementary school. Beginning in the fourth grade, Alyateem and a friend would go home after school and record instrumental arrangements that they made up. Today, Alyateem looks back on that time and laughs.

“Till this day I have those songs and every time I hear them they get funnier because [they were] so bad,” says Alyateem.

Because his music is primarily just for fun, Alyateem has not done much in terms of publicity. He and his brother sent messages out over Facebook and the news got around to people through word of mouth.

As far as the future goes, Alyateem does not plan to continue his rap career unless an opportunity arises.

“It [was] just for fun, but if someone wants to give me a record deal, I’m not going to say no to it.”