Somebody Get Her!

She goes in. So dope.Not to mention ?uestlove on the drums. Melanie Fiona happens to be Guyanese, which, is just plain sexy. The idea that she may just kill me if I cheat ---> turn on. Make sure you check her out. Up-and-coming artist FTW. But...while we're on the subject, let me address somethings:

(1) Fellas, have any of you dropped the word "BITCH" in front of a group of women lately? It's serious.

(2) I find myself in a lot of conversations defending the use of the words BITCH, HOE, SLUT, etc. in Hip-hop not because I agree...but because I'm just stubborn. I don't condone it.

(3) Ladies, just because I don't condone it, doesn't mean I DON'T believe it shouldn't be used AT ALL. The use of it in rap only reflects the fucked up roles of feminity and masculinity in the black culture. A deeper issue that isn't created by rap, only reflected by it...in some cases. Sorry Gucci, I can't defend you.

Besides..."Me and my dog couldn't relate...til a bitch I dated" ©Lupe.

Deeper and Deeper

D.O.I's Neologisms:
Just a quick word while I'm in the midst of my final high school exams ever.

Unbelievable.

I don't believe it. It's the age old principle. You can have all of the materialistic crap in plain view of everyone. I don't even have to lay out the details, it's universally known. But, then, when problems lay themselves down, they don't give a rat's ass who you are or how much you think you have: they will drag you down. When there is no one beside you to hold you (figuratively or literally), you will seep beneath the pressure. It's unbelievable because we don't believe it until it shows up, laughing heartily in our faces.

I was there. That was when I was going bananas. Now, my job is to pass on my experience to others. But, see, this is the main reason why I'm in complete disbelief. I'm a nobody. Nobody really knows me. I'm just there to help always. Therefore, I'm always amazed when people submit to me to allow me to help. I don't even have to be that deep of a friend, I just am around when there's a solution needed. But, it's amazing that they are going through the SAME damn problems I am! Of course, I never intrude where I'm not wanted. But, when someone's heart is tearing exponentially faster and faster, who am I to stand back and let them suffer? Is that the duty of a true friend?

Now, some have expressed the fact that some people do this for their own self-gratification. They help others so they feel better about their own life. That theory is poppycock if you're referring to me. I don't even have to defend my position. Because all that matters is that someone is going to go to sleep a bit more peacefully tonight because I was able to help. Even though I've been there always, my benefits reap when they are needed the most. That's why I believe in deep friendship. It means that my life has a direct impact on someone else's. And that's usually my goal. For someone to know that there is one person who will always be there.

Until next time, I'm off to see if anyone has picked up my trail yet.

Open Your Heart

D.O.I's Neologisms:

It has been what Queen Latifah has coined a "Long Ass Week."

From reading excerpts of three of the greatest speeches ever to bring sound to this earth on MLK Day, to performing a failed recording piece (and succeeding), to potentially losing the closest thing I have to a best friend here, almost failing a good number of my tests, removing facebook from my routine (forever probably), writing a really good essay, yet being ashamed because of it, and being shafted because people want entertainment, but I want sanity, it HAS been a long ass week. Oh, but it is not over. I'm just waiting for people to realize what is truly important this time around. These exams next week will be the last grades my colleges see. Don't they GET IT? The answer is no. And, that's okay. Some might turn to doing stupid shit to ease their pain or their mind after two consecutive weeks of pure, adult-rated hell (last week I was sick, but on prefect duty three times instead of the usual one. I'm NOT complaining), like go completely insane on Saturday Night, then fail the entire week. But I'm not stupid. I may have been beyond drained, but I am still rational.

What is one to say after a week like this? I don't know. So, drown in my submerged world.

I took a step on the field they fought on.
It didn’t take a while for our people to catch on.
It meant more than just a forgetful song.
To accomplish a right with a regrettable wrong.

His blood was long gone, but his screams are heard.
The holes in his body, the pain cannot be inferred.
He didn’t apply to get in, and wasn’t deferred.
Just tossed out of his nest as a newborn bird.

Thrown in without the salvation.
Cut him off from all communications.
To the means of his nation he had no relation.
They forced him into this dreadful sensation.

As back home, his kid is still dreamin’.
If my dad is out there, if you’ve seen him.
Tell him I’ve always dreamed to be him.
And no opposing force can defeat him.

Learning what happens when all falls apart.
When the game wins you over and you’re teleported back to the start.
Wounded beyond measure, as you return to the field.
Drudging along, keep your memories; let them be your shield.

After I ace all of my exams, I'll be back. And much better. And I am not the one to say "I told you so," because that's a revenge-lay. No one deserves that. They deserve to work as hard as I am, even though most of it is behind the scenes. Perhaps one day they'll get that, and feel like their ass is always on the line. Until then, I'm going to save what's left of my friendship. Stay cool.

Oh, getting back on topic, don't forget to open your heart. It's not that hard.

The Reading List

Nothing like white wine and Baldwin.

Now Usually I Don't Do This, But Umm...

I didn't want to post eye candy or anything but...Cot damn. I guess we can view Zoe in terms of her attire, a display of post-modern feminity and sexuality in the Digital age, or the ever contradictory cultural identities black women are assigned by black men and society at large. Or we can just "drop a fork in it and appreciate the greatness."© Drizzy

2nd Set of Images

Born to Use Mics

Damn...this is the shit I've been waiting for. Don't think I've ever been exposed to an academic conversation about hip-hop. To be honest, I've been on my ignant boom-bap for the past semester. Yet I've been waiting on this drop for months. Born to Use Mics, an engagement and commentary on THE greatest album of all time, and I encourage argument to that.

I'm biased, I admit. Illmatic is that album I grew up on, a casette that my brother played continuously on his stereo until his shit ate the tape. It Ain't Hard to Tell proved to be the mood music for gloomy days where the clouds greyed like the concrete that niggas dropped their blunt ashes on. Life's a Bitch seemed to be the existential crisis that every glock-toting brotha seemed to struggle with. I grew up with this soundtrack I did not understand until I bought it for myself.

Michael Eric Dyson and Sohail Daulatzai pay homage to the first album I bought, my favvvv-orite shit. They break down the desolation it exposes of the trife of a young black man checking his dreams in the post-Civil Rights Movement. The crack epidemic. The Bush, Reagan, and Clinton years. I'm only few chaps in, but it is a must read if you love hip-hop and want to see it live and breathe on.

"It was hip-hop, not Roosevelt's New Deal or Johnson's War on Poverty, that was 'the last great social program of the 20th century.'" C'mon son.

To Buy: http://www.amazon.com/Born-Use-Mics-Reading-Illmatic/dp/0465002110#noop

Update: Professor Daulatzai gave a lecture at my school...and I missed it. FML

Transportation of the "Hood"

Because no one else (except the chosen few) will come to employ their hobby over here for the simple fact that they think they're going to get shot (their words, not mine). Here are the trains we take daily. It's funny how we all have the same camera, but check out our different foci.

Take 'Em to the Bridge

You know the drill. Click to Enlarge.

Photo Proj- Shykid aka Synonym(ph) aka Saint aka DogTagZ aka Maverick

Borderline

D.O.I.'s Neologisms:

There’s an undying illness over my head, which was probably the interpretation given to me when I tried to find forgiveness. I was trying to find a witness so that when I’d be gone, they’d begin this journey right, so our brothers and sisters won’t ever have to fight as hard to win this. But I’ve taken too many steps in reverse. I’ve taken too many steps with a curse, making situations better, but other ones worse. I lost not one, not two, but indefinite, and I credit it with my mark of approval, I authorize this removal of my cold, hard, non-tasty noodle so someone can enter the abyss, find exactly the mistake I missed, then take my place with a cold, hard fist that will say that I won’t stand for this. My presence alone will permeate the grains of sand that delicately is hindering my steps, preventing from protecting, naturally selecting the biggest loser to win first, the most diabolical seducer to deliver another verse, to entrap their minds in this same curse.

There’s a mystery I’ve been trying to solve. Going back to 1996 and learning to evolve, to get new abilities, to try and dissolve their oppressive reign and re-establish my divinity. And it’s killing me. I just want to be okay, but my flight and heart are stuck on an endless ground delay while ingesting the place I call home gives me moral decay. And all of these services are pre-paid for. So, I must endure them. Every time someone asks me to help them, I have no choice but to pursue them. To send my heart on a while goose chase, ducking guardrails and finding a better place, losing my breath before the end of the final race, and finding a way to express myself in good taste. I didn’t want to say no, didn’t want them to go to some idiot, charging 65 dollars just to take your issue to his affiliates, lay it on the table, formulate a solution looking from the opposite perspective, because the only good detective remaining is you. And me. But humility forces me to crawl back into my shell, give the aura off that, everything is well, and forever live in this amniotic hell. This situation requires speaking on. Though I’ve tried keeping on point, or reaping what they sow from disjointed hands, my failure is apparent. When a parent has to decide on keeping their child in their home before they’re ready just for a life choice they have to do to keep their mind steady, the palms of God perhaps get a bit sweaty before that child has to relegate their heavy contribution to the world to a support group. And it’s funny, because so many go through this distortion, that it’s become even more common than inner-city abortion.

I’ve blown my distress out of proportion so someone else could adore, could care, could spend so many hours in stale air circulating the area around me, typing up solution after suggestion, wise words after three-hour lessons. This enemy doesn’t realize of the force that he’s messing with. So he keeps me guessing. He keeps me from undressing with the one unrelenting, who will change my life path through dissenting, preventing me from picking up the phone for fear that his call will invade my home. So I must traverse while keeping this illness over my head, alone.

I'm Done

There are hundreds of people running. You can't see it but you hear it: bony limbs knocking into one another and fleshy feet slapping mud and concrete. The last things they grabbed before their world was shook like gravity gave in, are slung over their backs and stuffed underneath their arms. And they drop them. "Water! Water!" they shout in a Haitian Creole, still moving. There may be a flood. There may be relief. No one actually knows. Fleshy white faces report the news. I sit at home, drinking ginger ale and typing on my laptop.

This is fucked up. Really. I mean, my mother tells me in a tone reminiscent of an African elder to never forget how lucky I am. But watching this earthquake and what it did to a country, a country that has already been through to much...its a twisting feeling in your guts and weights on the lids of your eyes, as if they will overflow with tears at any moment.

You force yourself to watch, even though you really can't, not only because of the horror of it all, but the realization that your life just goes on as if nothing has changed. You stare at a screen, watching caved in rooftops, homes that seem to have vomited out their insides, and feet and fists under slabs of concrete. You watch people who look like you with broken limbs hanging at odd angles, swollen and bleeding faces. Bodies covered in dust and sand lined up on sidewalks either to hurt to move...or dieing. People...a country...dieing. And you can hardly do a thing as you watch from your computer chair.

This is fucked. Seriously. I feel like I can't cry loud enough - can't pray loud enough - to do anything. Suppose there is a higher form of being out there. Have we as people done so much wrong that this type of shit happens? Suppose there isn't a higher form of being. Is life just this random that history's road is covered in pitholes of desolation like an arm covered in measles? I don't know. And when I think about it it just becomes to emotional for me. 

Please...find a way to help out however you can. Write about, talk about it. Think of it as a person, not a politican.

Here's one way to help: yele.org

The Rooftop

Click to Enlarge

On: Moving From The Back Seat

D.O.I's Neologisms:

One thing you will get to know about us as we continue sharing the deepest parts of ourselves with you is that despite having the same backgrounds, each of us have just a few subtle, but influential differences that make each of our styles different. For example, I enjoy all of the artists that have been mentioned so far, but as I'm sitting at my computer, I'd rather listen to some orchestrated and perfectly sequenced Pokemon remixes on Youtube, then switch over to some classic Jill Scott or Erykah Badu (whichever appears first on shuffle) and mull over my train simulator. Of course, I throw the healing process of writing in-between these things.

However, as I submitted my final college application today, the thought continued to run through my mind of what will happen to my creativity. While I'm out building your next subway system, or making sure that next (4) train arrives on time without problems, where will be my unfiltered sense to form my thoughts into lyrics that the general human being can understand? Creativity often is shoved aside because it is widely believed that it isn't always profitable. That's one of the reasons I think we have many like-minded (and garbage) songs out today. Where will be my anger to rip those headphones spewing generic lyric after degenerate lyric after misogynistic lyric out and fire shots of real and heavy-introspective thinking at the hearts of those who choose to let their courage sag as low as their pants? My hope is that it will never vanish. Although trying to get to the next level of education has forced it to disappear for a while. Unfortunate. But, I don't ever want creativity to take the back seat. It should always have one hand on the steering wheel (or I'll go back to being bananas again, and we don't want that). The artists mentioned, among others (that I promise are not expected for a black youth), are proof that somewhere, the sense to say something meaningful will return. There will be someone to listen, hopefully. By that thought, everyone should just go ahead and let their skills glisten.

In some instances, it's okay to put the homework away if your hand is aching to slide the utensil across the page in the form of. Prowess is asking you to let it be shown. Don't prohibit it. It's a healing process. It'll show itself next time too.

This is How You Get Got

Mos is so dope, not even for producing one of '09s meanest albums. When one can see the future of one's own artform, they are, officially, dope...and I apologize for my lack of word choice. Near the end of the vid he says that the future of hip-hop lies in it's sonic characteristics, meaning, the music, which is really what makes hip-hop unique. Notice the different musical shapes that occur within the genre, elements of techno, lush instrumentation, soul samples. All of these elements become hip hop when they are put ontop of those drums. Boom-bap.

Boom-bap.

If you listen to the sound scapes of hip-hop's most vital songs, the music is really unlike anything one has ever heard, even when there are sampled elements. And if you consider this progression from hip-hop's inception to now, it's really mind-blowing -- and exciting. Hip-hop as a music can soon become a genre that can be appreciated for it's sonic distinctions, which, in essence, is what music should be appreciated for. That doesn't mean lyrics won't be as important (seeing as they aren't that great nowadays; which maybe why production is coming to the forefront), we just may be seeing hip-hop move into 'avant-garde', so to speak, in the near future.

I may or may not be onto to something, but shit, note the 40 and over black chick in the vid next to Mos. He's so into the music and this chick does not budge, not even to scratch herself.

We Are Lasers

"So when I want them to hear me out
I just sit them next to some pictures of Rosa splitting with her titties out
And what’s written on her titties is what it's really about
Then her vagina is some poor kids from China
Nipples nuclear missiles
Ass is a daughter without a dad
Back is like Afghanistan, Iraq
Health care hair
Drive by thighs
Education lips
HIV eyes
Environment feet
Justice get her so wet, brains get you brains
You can fuck her if you protest
But before you bust in her face, finish listenin’ to the tape...
Enemy of the State..."  - National Anthem Lupe Fiasco

Props to Afflicted Yard.

And I Know Your Home

Ok, this song has been my shit the past couple of days cause this is really how I be feelin'. Of course I want to make it big to spread my voice and move from the shit I grew up in. But all the girls I've been with who've ever did dirt or some shit...I want to stunt on them. I mean balls-out, Yves Saint Laurent errything stunt.

Vanity is poison. Fame Kills.

I'm Going Bananas

D.O.I.'s Neologisms:

I always intend to be inspirational, level-headed, and ethical so I don't get in trouble. I've always intended for my stuff to be for the public eye. Well, when the mind decides to throw those goals completely out of the window, this happens. If writing feels best when you're completely out of your goddamn mind, then I can't wait for the next time:

Try…and I keep tryin’ and keep tryin’, but whomever forced me into believing that this process was easy was lyin’, defyin’ the reality that my brain always tries to live in. For, I see, and want you to see that when the hood comes off, the masquerade down, the façade eliminated, then we can see the dreams that we have actually precipitated. My eyes dilate at the thought of getting back our souls that were bought for infamous videos and street corners that were advertised as desire, but now entrap those too foolish to see the ring of fire. My ire leaves me set in stone, not able to call my own home HOME simply because I believe it is an empire. So, I escape into the arms of someone who will take me in, who is not necessarily the color of my skin, only because I actually had the preconceived notion that this situation may have actually been better. Only to return to the tattered ruins of the block where I rode bikes, never had to fight, let my wonderful dad and ever-hard-working mom carry my plight for me. So I invented a story, it was my own morning glory with truth as its seal, but no one will ever get past the shield.

Because I’m sitting here, feeling like never before, but not like the arms of that person that other people have the audacity to consider a whore for simply taking the time, willfully, to explore, and eventually find out that that is not the place she should be leaving her lore. What’s in store for me now that I have no shoulder to lean on? Dreams gone, mean song, no funny business, no damsel or mistress, no person that I keep running and running and running to time and time again, just to escape the inevitable truth of eventually, the real you will appear like, “POOF!” in both senses of the term, and finally a school will get proof that someone can live a different lifestyle. Oh, but since my words are only of a small child, rampaging and defaming like he’s wild, no one will ever understand this metaphysical. My force that was centrifugal is gone with no replacement. And I can’t face it, so

I’m going bananas, letting my soul be devoured by inspiration-hungry piranhas.

And until the feeling returns, I have to let everything I do be burned and sit here, abyss-driven, waiting for that person that I have finally admitted to myself that I yearn…for…

Until next time, stay cool.

You're Welcome...You're all Welcome!

Well isn't this awkward.

I assume this is where I lay down a certain 'mission statement' of sorts, or, like, say an 'aim' or something. I could, perhaps, drop some dope shit, some knowledge for that ass to let you know who we are. I could even list the name of the cognac I'm currently drinking.

But I'd rather let this shit flesh itself out.

'Cause that's the reason we're all here, isn't it?

"I'm over they heads, like a bullemic on a seesaw." - Nas' Queens Get the Money