Stefan sent me this video today and it was so moving that I immediately had to post it. Just watch this first.
It raises so many points that can be used in so many walks of life. Whether that's work, school, on even on a more personal level. Too often people settle for complacency. You need to drive for what you feel that you deserve, even if that comes with sacrifices. And if you aren't willing to make sacrifices, then you really don't want to achieve those goals.
Also, a bonus video:
“Wise woman told me that if you stay in a situation that you don’t like… you don’t dislike it as much as you think."
Tuesday, August 30, 2011
Monday, August 29, 2011
Handcuffs On Ya Mama
It's sad that someone would enter into a relationship with someone they don't see themselves having a future with just to pass the time. In that scenario, someone isn't being honest with the other and false expectations are presented. Which ain't cool. If you can't be honest with that person about what you mean to each other & where you see this whole thing playing out, what your life like?
I had a situation where I let her know from the jump that we were just friends. Nothing less, nothing more. She ended up catching feelings, which is understandable, but we're still cool to this day because we were both honest with each other I don't feel any sense of leading her on, just for sex. We both were upfront about our physical needs.
I don't know man. I just feel like I'm past the stages of lying just to get the pussy. What you won't do, another one will. Oh, I'll tell the small lie every now and then. Sometimes you gotta embellish with the best of them. But I'm too honest to run game. I like to look people in the eye and be 1000% honest with them. That way I don't feel bad about anything that I say.
I told a friend this past weekend that she's the manliest woman I've ever met in my entire life, and that it's really comforting. She took offense, of course, but when she figured out I wasn't joking and was being dead serious, we joked about it and moved forward.
I'm the person that if you need an honest opinion about a situation that you see unfolding in front of you, you can go to. I've hurt a lot of feelings with being honest but hurt feelings are temporary. Deception, & the feeling of being deceived, lasts a lifetime.
I remember I was talking to this one chick and she told me that we needed to fall back because she was "grieving after a loss". She told me she was grieving in May and hasn't hit me up since. That sure is a lot of grieving. Can't keep a real nigga like me down though. Better to get deceived now than down the road.
If I'm done with a person, I have to let them know. I thrive on getting closure. But that's just me. Not everyone takes the hard way out. Not everyone is mature enough to tell the other person "You could do so much better than me and we're just not ready for this right now".
Sometimes, that's just the way that the cookie crumbles. But that's why they sell cookies in packs. Some will always inevitably fuck up. If you bought one big ass cookie from like Subway and that shit fucked up, you'd probably demand a refund on the spot. Enough said.
I'm the oldest almost 24-year-old you will ever meet in your life.
I had a situation where I let her know from the jump that we were just friends. Nothing less, nothing more. She ended up catching feelings, which is understandable, but we're still cool to this day because we were both honest with each other I don't feel any sense of leading her on, just for sex. We both were upfront about our physical needs.
I don't know man. I just feel like I'm past the stages of lying just to get the pussy. What you won't do, another one will. Oh, I'll tell the small lie every now and then. Sometimes you gotta embellish with the best of them. But I'm too honest to run game. I like to look people in the eye and be 1000% honest with them. That way I don't feel bad about anything that I say.
I told a friend this past weekend that she's the manliest woman I've ever met in my entire life, and that it's really comforting. She took offense, of course, but when she figured out I wasn't joking and was being dead serious, we joked about it and moved forward.
I'm the person that if you need an honest opinion about a situation that you see unfolding in front of you, you can go to. I've hurt a lot of feelings with being honest but hurt feelings are temporary. Deception, & the feeling of being deceived, lasts a lifetime.
I remember I was talking to this one chick and she told me that we needed to fall back because she was "grieving after a loss". She told me she was grieving in May and hasn't hit me up since. That sure is a lot of grieving. Can't keep a real nigga like me down though. Better to get deceived now than down the road.
If I'm done with a person, I have to let them know. I thrive on getting closure. But that's just me. Not everyone takes the hard way out. Not everyone is mature enough to tell the other person "You could do so much better than me and we're just not ready for this right now".
Sometimes, that's just the way that the cookie crumbles. But that's why they sell cookies in packs. Some will always inevitably fuck up. If you bought one big ass cookie from like Subway and that shit fucked up, you'd probably demand a refund on the spot. Enough said.
I'm the oldest almost 24-year-old you will ever meet in your life.
Wednesday, August 24, 2011
Full House
This was my house in like 2003 I wanna say. This was after Hurricane Isabel came through. There were a lot of trees in our subdivision and every year we would just miss hurricane season. We got hurricanes and tropical storms but never anything this bad. This year was different though.
Me and my family evacuated from out of her house after neighbors came to our door telling us about all the swaying trees hovering over our house. We had intended to wait in our laundry room huddled up and weather the storm, like we always did. We rushed over to a neighbor’s house across the street and I stood under their front awning and watched every tree fall on my house. Every. Tree.
That’s my car there too. I had just turned 16 and I had like 2-3 more months before I got my driver’s license. I was so excited to drive and then this happened. My insurance company didn’t cover it either. They gave me some bullshit excuse saying that my parents didn’t have liability insurance or something. This is where my distrust of insurance companies began, but that’s neither here nor there.
The next day, picking up the pieces of our house was crazy. Everyone was walking past our house, taking pictures of the damage and stuff. This isn’t a news story, this was my home. For the next 2-3 weeks we weren’t allowed to stay there. Meaning we bounced from relatives house to house. Living out of our car. Taking showers and washups standing in front of bathroom sinks at rest stops and shit. I had a big life crisis you can say, where I even went as far as to question how God could allow this to happen to me. I was the good kid, the obedient kid, the studious kid. The studious kid who was now temporarily homeless. That was definitely the lowest point of my life, up until this point. I don’t know if there will ever be a point lower than that.
When I say I don’t regret anything that’s happened in my life I truly mean it. This is how I came up with my motto that it’s “Better to live with reject than live with regret”. During that 2 weeks where we bounced around looking for a temporary place to stay I thought about all the stuff I hadn’t done in life. All that I felt I was missing out on. How things could have turned out so differently. And I made a promise to myself that I would never be able to look back at my life and regret anything ever again. A promise that I will never allow myself to break to myself. Ever.
Some people get dealt shitty cards in life. And others just don’t know the rules of the game that they’re playing.
Monday, August 22, 2011
Total Request Live
Top 40 radio will never be what it used to be, and it has nothing to do with money. It’s all about selective conditioning.
Most artists out today on major labels don’t write their own songs. Most record labels employ teams of songwriters to write songs. The record label pays people to come together and write songs to beats they’ve selected, and they choose the one they want. After they’ve picked the one they want to hear created, it’s created. Now that it’s created, the record label decides which songs to place on the album, and which songs to release as singles. Then once they’ve picked singles, they decide how they want to wine and dine the radio station execs to get their songs played all day long
If you’re spending all of that money, why would you invest all of that money into creating something that will empower people? If you’re spending millions of dollars creating inspirational anthems, that could inspire millions of people to create change. This society is capitalistic at its source, so once you’ve gained financial freedom you don’t want to inspire people to be where you are. You want the class divide to remain because you benefit from that. Anything else is detrimental to you. It’s much better to use your millions to subliminally get in the minds of people all over the country to dissuade them from achieving change
If people heard 4 times an hour a song like Big KRIT’s “Hometown Hero” that could pose significant problems to the current class structure. It doesn’t benefit record label execs to have people singing that the rap game is high school and life’s a hallway.
If people realized just how insignificant the material things they cherish really are, that would change spending habits, voting habits, etc. Basically, music that contains messages are invaluable. Therefore, the music industry pays a premium to dissuade those messages getting out. It’s more valuable to major label execs and their other affluent friends to have people singing “Gucci Gucci Louie Louie Fendi Fendi Prada”. These songwriters try to keep jobs, so they keep providing these songs that are dumbing down others. They have families to feed. So, instead of actually putting real topics into their songs, they try to think of different ways to put Moscato in the song
Sure, a radio exec could really like a song, and it could be commercially fine, but will that song garner them the most payola money? It’s one huge cycle that’s put in place to economically benefit everyone who contributes to aspiring people to not aspire to be anything.
“Did you know that record execs have people rate every song on an album and will only play those rated in the middle?” - @MTrible
I want artists like J. Cole and Big KRIT and Kendrick Lamar to prosper but it’s deeper than rap. It’s about mental conditioning. There’s absolutely no way that Def Jam or Roc Nation will be able to justify putting huge advertising dollars behind a inspirational project. Saigon’s album was delayed over 3 years and after listening to it it’s obvious why it was delayed so long, if released at all.
Every song on Saigon’s album has a different inspirational message in it. To saving our kids, to crooked preachers, to believing in yourself. You know how dangerous it is to have people singing “I’m on my way up. I don’t think yall hear me”?
It’s all about playing the game. And I would rather artists not play the game if they have to sacrifice integrity. At the same time, I realize that integrity doesn’t pay the bills. And fans don’t reward integrity.
The average fan will pay money to buy the “Racks on racks on racks” ringtone off iTunes but will wait for a free download link for J. Cole. So what is J. Cole to do? The fans have placed a value on his work that he creates in the realm he’s in now. It has no value. It’s free. So, if he wants to begin to gain some type of economic gains from his music, he must change his music & enter a new realm. So that’s why you get J. Cole re-interpolating Paula Abdul songs. Integrity doesn’t pay bills and is not rewarded in the grand scheme of things. And as long as J. Cole is signed to a 360 major label deal, nothing will change.
In 2011 there’s really no way for an artist to win unless their musical strengths coincide with major label’s mission and vision. It coincides with a major label’s mission and vision for Drake to be singing “All I care about is money and the city that I’m from”.
And that conditioning goes past most people’s heads, daily. Subliminal messages.
It is what it is.
Most artists out today on major labels don’t write their own songs. Most record labels employ teams of songwriters to write songs. The record label pays people to come together and write songs to beats they’ve selected, and they choose the one they want. After they’ve picked the one they want to hear created, it’s created. Now that it’s created, the record label decides which songs to place on the album, and which songs to release as singles. Then once they’ve picked singles, they decide how they want to wine and dine the radio station execs to get their songs played all day long
If you’re spending all of that money, why would you invest all of that money into creating something that will empower people? If you’re spending millions of dollars creating inspirational anthems, that could inspire millions of people to create change. This society is capitalistic at its source, so once you’ve gained financial freedom you don’t want to inspire people to be where you are. You want the class divide to remain because you benefit from that. Anything else is detrimental to you. It’s much better to use your millions to subliminally get in the minds of people all over the country to dissuade them from achieving change
If people heard 4 times an hour a song like Big KRIT’s “Hometown Hero” that could pose significant problems to the current class structure. It doesn’t benefit record label execs to have people singing that the rap game is high school and life’s a hallway.
If people realized just how insignificant the material things they cherish really are, that would change spending habits, voting habits, etc. Basically, music that contains messages are invaluable. Therefore, the music industry pays a premium to dissuade those messages getting out. It’s more valuable to major label execs and their other affluent friends to have people singing “Gucci Gucci Louie Louie Fendi Fendi Prada”. These songwriters try to keep jobs, so they keep providing these songs that are dumbing down others. They have families to feed. So, instead of actually putting real topics into their songs, they try to think of different ways to put Moscato in the song
Sure, a radio exec could really like a song, and it could be commercially fine, but will that song garner them the most payola money? It’s one huge cycle that’s put in place to economically benefit everyone who contributes to aspiring people to not aspire to be anything.
“Did you know that record execs have people rate every song on an album and will only play those rated in the middle?” - @MTrible
I want artists like J. Cole and Big KRIT and Kendrick Lamar to prosper but it’s deeper than rap. It’s about mental conditioning. There’s absolutely no way that Def Jam or Roc Nation will be able to justify putting huge advertising dollars behind a inspirational project. Saigon’s album was delayed over 3 years and after listening to it it’s obvious why it was delayed so long, if released at all.
Every song on Saigon’s album has a different inspirational message in it. To saving our kids, to crooked preachers, to believing in yourself. You know how dangerous it is to have people singing “I’m on my way up. I don’t think yall hear me”?
It’s all about playing the game. And I would rather artists not play the game if they have to sacrifice integrity. At the same time, I realize that integrity doesn’t pay the bills. And fans don’t reward integrity.
The average fan will pay money to buy the “Racks on racks on racks” ringtone off iTunes but will wait for a free download link for J. Cole. So what is J. Cole to do? The fans have placed a value on his work that he creates in the realm he’s in now. It has no value. It’s free. So, if he wants to begin to gain some type of economic gains from his music, he must change his music & enter a new realm. So that’s why you get J. Cole re-interpolating Paula Abdul songs. Integrity doesn’t pay bills and is not rewarded in the grand scheme of things. And as long as J. Cole is signed to a 360 major label deal, nothing will change.
In 2011 there’s really no way for an artist to win unless their musical strengths coincide with major label’s mission and vision. It coincides with a major label’s mission and vision for Drake to be singing “All I care about is money and the city that I’m from”.
And that conditioning goes past most people’s heads, daily. Subliminal messages.
It is what it is.
Monday, August 8, 2011
4.28.1967 Pt. 2
See they don’t wanna listen so loud what I gotta be
Cuz my people are proud of the poverty
That got their sons shooting guns over dollar bills
He getting money snow or sunny but his daughter still read at a first grade level
And she 11 years old with her nose held high to the sky cuz she got her first purse made
Yes
On her birthday, she was singing “Birthday Sex”
Let’s skim right over what’s showing in plain sight
Looking the other way but knowing it ain’t right
Like over 50 shots now Sean Bell gone
Or a flashbang thrown in a little girl’s home
Aiyana Jones
Who? Aiyana Jones
One shot to the dome, she was 7 year’s old
It’s a shame
Imagine being daddy one day to putting your baby girl in a grave
Some things need to change
This ain’t a game
If you play into the mayhem you’ll be slaving ‘til the day you’re laying face up in a casket
With credit card sharks still asking if they can put your name on some plastic
Man it’ s a war going on outside no one is safe from
Heavy is the dark, a spark I’ma create one
Cuz a little light might be enough to make some stray from the ways of the slave
The pain of the hunger is enough to make a sane man put it to your brain for some money and a chain
And I don’t really blame em cuz if you’re in the game screaming “Money ain’t a thing” you resemble a filet
A lot of people saying that I’m preaching to the deaf
Man give that shit a rest
I’m going til the breath won’t come out a nigga’s chest
They in it for the checks
I’m in it cuz I wanna be remembered as a vet
Cuz my people are proud of the poverty
That got their sons shooting guns over dollar bills
He getting money snow or sunny but his daughter still read at a first grade level
And she 11 years old with her nose held high to the sky cuz she got her first purse made
Yes
On her birthday, she was singing “Birthday Sex”
Let’s skim right over what’s showing in plain sight
Looking the other way but knowing it ain’t right
Like over 50 shots now Sean Bell gone
Or a flashbang thrown in a little girl’s home
Aiyana Jones
Who? Aiyana Jones
One shot to the dome, she was 7 year’s old
It’s a shame
Imagine being daddy one day to putting your baby girl in a grave
Some things need to change
This ain’t a game
If you play into the mayhem you’ll be slaving ‘til the day you’re laying face up in a casket
With credit card sharks still asking if they can put your name on some plastic
Man it’ s a war going on outside no one is safe from
Heavy is the dark, a spark I’ma create one
Cuz a little light might be enough to make some stray from the ways of the slave
The pain of the hunger is enough to make a sane man put it to your brain for some money and a chain
And I don’t really blame em cuz if you’re in the game screaming “Money ain’t a thing” you resemble a filet
A lot of people saying that I’m preaching to the deaf
Man give that shit a rest
I’m going til the breath won’t come out a nigga’s chest
They in it for the checks
I’m in it cuz I wanna be remembered as a vet
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