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What’s good family?
When my eyes opened this morning the front row of my imagination was jam packed with themes, ideas and Hip-Hop music videos. What’s new right?
My personal and professional life has gone through significant upheaval and transition over the past four years. I’d say I’m located in some vague area between pariah and phantom. Nostalgia is a hue I wear well. Whenever I think about perceived contradictions housed within a MC, Pac is the first name on my list. Because of the mountain of information via his music catalog, interview footage and the many college classes dedicated to his work Pac is now viewed through a nostalgic lens. But Pac was yet another young black man cut down in life transition. Pac much like BIG was hardly a finished product. Jay-Z and NaS are in their late thirties and early forties respectively while Pac and BIG are remembered on murals and RIP t-shirts.
From the moment I heard NaS’ flow on Main Source’s “Live at the BBQ” joint I’ve been an unabashed (minus Nastradamus) fan and supporter. The Illmatic release date was April 19, 1994. Now, I can’t call it. But I do know after I ripped that wrapper off the cassette tape (yes, I said cassette tape) it was played in every Sony Walkman or cassette deck I could bogart. The ability to simply stay alive has granted Jay and NaS the opportunity to mature in reality and perception. My life path has provided the same opportunities for lane merges and roadway transitions. From roof top blunt smoker into a church leader and back again. But this time I have slightly more than a pot to piss in and a family in my caravan to the promise land.
We’re in the double video bonus round today so we’ll focus on NaS’ career growth from crowned prince of the projects to the rebel voice of a generation. As you watch the second video “Ya’ll My Niggaz” visualize my words on page to be the kid with the headphones on in full jam mode. Like him my message is destined to ring in the streets.
M
Aug 28, 2010
Aug 12, 2010
How I Got Over ...
What’s good Family?
I’ve been away, I know. I have an awesome explanation but we promised not to stress such things because we love enough not to bore. On the plus side my situation (that’s what we’ll call it) put me on time out from everything except for Twitter and Madden. I’m sure that type of admission won’t elicit any sympathy but perception and reality seldom confirm one another.
Twitter (as I’m sure you know) is an amazing invention, a genius collection of micro bloggers all sharing their vision of reality in 160 characters or less. Right now, it’s also by far the quickest way to network your life genre so not only have I found a group of agents, an agent has found me. Whenever I tweet (which is a lot I'm almost at the 1,000 tweets milestone) the agent receives a micro blog post from me and I’m 99.9% sure she reads them because it's right there on the time line and I’m a witty dude. I have 13 confirmed readers on this here M the Experience blog (with no complaints) thank you all for reading but I have about 118 on Twitter. I’m in my greenhouse way too frequently to still have super math capacity power but those numbers equal a super percentage increase in followers. Which is important because the goals for my literary novel are lofty. My ambition to be a mash up of James Baldwin and Junot Diaz is like a personal trainer who barks encouragement and ridicule. My edit process drives me in search of perfect word harmony.
My life, like yours is layered with themes from environment and experience so my choice to write with a transparent creative license allowed me to dig deep into how I grew up. Hard earned maturity gave a better vantage point on the junk I carried as the black sheep/chosen one and oldest child in a fractured family of Para church ministry professionals. How those themes taste when they blend onto the page for the reader’s deep consumption will determine if I am worthy of the Pulitzer and other awards. Though I do not completely understand the publishing industry I know it’s a business. As an Author the book is my product so financial aspirations are a natural connection for me. Or in plain speak I’m most def trying to get this paper because I have Hip Hop sensibilities (which is the hook my literary novel rest it’s hat on but more on that when we get there). Chapter five is the halfway point of the book and puts me halfway to the next phase (beta readers). But halfway up a mountain is halfway up a mountain the reward is at the finish.
Thank God The Roots new album How I Got Over is in my itunes/ipod! They’ve consistently provided theme music for the ear, mind and soul since Shante (my sister) and I first saw them on Rap City way back in the day. The utter joy provided by Video Music Box, Rap City and Yo! MTV Raps is too large to fit into any blog post (another reason I wrote the book). The Roots can tell you more about themselves through their music than I could in the space I have left. So please sit back and enjoy my departure from posting only Golden Era Hip Hop videos. Though The Roots are most definitely Golden Era artist.
“So breath in breath out and let it heal all your exit wounds …”
The Roots – The Day (How I Got Over)
M
I’ve been away, I know. I have an awesome explanation but we promised not to stress such things because we love enough not to bore. On the plus side my situation (that’s what we’ll call it) put me on time out from everything except for Twitter and Madden. I’m sure that type of admission won’t elicit any sympathy but perception and reality seldom confirm one another.
Twitter (as I’m sure you know) is an amazing invention, a genius collection of micro bloggers all sharing their vision of reality in 160 characters or less. Right now, it’s also by far the quickest way to network your life genre so not only have I found a group of agents, an agent has found me. Whenever I tweet (which is a lot I'm almost at the 1,000 tweets milestone) the agent receives a micro blog post from me and I’m 99.9% sure she reads them because it's right there on the time line and I’m a witty dude. I have 13 confirmed readers on this here M the Experience blog (with no complaints) thank you all for reading but I have about 118 on Twitter. I’m in my greenhouse way too frequently to still have super math capacity power but those numbers equal a super percentage increase in followers. Which is important because the goals for my literary novel are lofty. My ambition to be a mash up of James Baldwin and Junot Diaz is like a personal trainer who barks encouragement and ridicule. My edit process drives me in search of perfect word harmony.
My life, like yours is layered with themes from environment and experience so my choice to write with a transparent creative license allowed me to dig deep into how I grew up. Hard earned maturity gave a better vantage point on the junk I carried as the black sheep/chosen one and oldest child in a fractured family of Para church ministry professionals. How those themes taste when they blend onto the page for the reader’s deep consumption will determine if I am worthy of the Pulitzer and other awards. Though I do not completely understand the publishing industry I know it’s a business. As an Author the book is my product so financial aspirations are a natural connection for me. Or in plain speak I’m most def trying to get this paper because I have Hip Hop sensibilities (which is the hook my literary novel rest it’s hat on but more on that when we get there). Chapter five is the halfway point of the book and puts me halfway to the next phase (beta readers). But halfway up a mountain is halfway up a mountain the reward is at the finish.
Thank God The Roots new album How I Got Over is in my itunes/ipod! They’ve consistently provided theme music for the ear, mind and soul since Shante (my sister) and I first saw them on Rap City way back in the day. The utter joy provided by Video Music Box, Rap City and Yo! MTV Raps is too large to fit into any blog post (another reason I wrote the book). The Roots can tell you more about themselves through their music than I could in the space I have left. So please sit back and enjoy my departure from posting only Golden Era Hip Hop videos. Though The Roots are most definitely Golden Era artist.
“So breath in breath out and let it heal all your exit wounds …”
The Roots – The Day (How I Got Over)
M
Jul 23, 2010
This is it ...
What's good fam?
It’s been a bit of an uphill battle at times but the first four chapters are finally edited. I'm 99.9% sure that it'll require more edits in the future but its solid enough to proceed. The book has begun to look more like the product I’ve seen in my head since its inception.
As you may remember the query letter for this book has bedeviled me for a good three years now. But praise be to the good Jesus my twitter detours have paid dividends. Along with the strippers, celebrities and porn stars I’ve found agents, agent interns, editors, and publishers. My fly-on-the-wall-stealth approach has landed all sorts of cool twitter chat groups. #Queries, #askintern, and #askagent are but a small sample of what's available to peruse.
My ability to contact the other side has pleasantly multiplied and I’ve become a better consumer in the process. I no longer pine for an agent to swoop down from the angelic perch, which all agents live (hyperbole) I now research intently for the proper match for my literary novel and me. I’m reminded how this process has really followed the path I dialogued with God about in our strategy sessions (yep God still takes my calls). I want to develop a solid relationship with my work. I believe that requires people with other vantage points and an eye for detail who give a shit. I believe when wisdom speaks we should pay attention.
#Askintern is a clever chat run by literary agent interns. Agent interns (in my humble opinion) are the drawbridge operators to author-land and the first line of defense against shitty writing for the gatekeepers. I've long maintained that any chance to meet the wizard resides in my ability to wow the person who lets down the bridge. She (the intern whose name I won’t blast off just yet) shared that aspiring authors can send their query letters and she will give feedback at no charge. What!!!! The chance to finally receive unbiased, knowledgeable feedback made my heart skip several beats. And I knew I was good money because I didn't allow my imagination to think this was some pathway to the magical kingdom of authors. I saw it for what it was, a professional critique of my query letter.
Her feedback was rich with the right questions, things I could have thought about on my own but when your close to something it begs for perspective. I've sand bagged my post so I’ll end here but please do come back for more.
On the way out please enjoy the Camp Lo video they're still one of my favorite crews.
So this is it/what/Luchini falling from the sky/let’s get rich/what …
It’s been a bit of an uphill battle at times but the first four chapters are finally edited. I'm 99.9% sure that it'll require more edits in the future but its solid enough to proceed. The book has begun to look more like the product I’ve seen in my head since its inception.
As you may remember the query letter for this book has bedeviled me for a good three years now. But praise be to the good Jesus my twitter detours have paid dividends. Along with the strippers, celebrities and porn stars I’ve found agents, agent interns, editors, and publishers. My fly-on-the-wall-stealth approach has landed all sorts of cool twitter chat groups. #Queries, #askintern, and #askagent are but a small sample of what's available to peruse.
My ability to contact the other side has pleasantly multiplied and I’ve become a better consumer in the process. I no longer pine for an agent to swoop down from the angelic perch, which all agents live (hyperbole) I now research intently for the proper match for my literary novel and me. I’m reminded how this process has really followed the path I dialogued with God about in our strategy sessions (yep God still takes my calls). I want to develop a solid relationship with my work. I believe that requires people with other vantage points and an eye for detail who give a shit. I believe when wisdom speaks we should pay attention.
#Askintern is a clever chat run by literary agent interns. Agent interns (in my humble opinion) are the drawbridge operators to author-land and the first line of defense against shitty writing for the gatekeepers. I've long maintained that any chance to meet the wizard resides in my ability to wow the person who lets down the bridge. She (the intern whose name I won’t blast off just yet) shared that aspiring authors can send their query letters and she will give feedback at no charge. What!!!! The chance to finally receive unbiased, knowledgeable feedback made my heart skip several beats. And I knew I was good money because I didn't allow my imagination to think this was some pathway to the magical kingdom of authors. I saw it for what it was, a professional critique of my query letter.
Her feedback was rich with the right questions, things I could have thought about on my own but when your close to something it begs for perspective. I've sand bagged my post so I’ll end here but please do come back for more.
On the way out please enjoy the Camp Lo video they're still one of my favorite crews.
So this is it/what/Luchini falling from the sky/let’s get rich/what …
Jul 8, 2010
Can't Knock the Hustle ...
What's good family?
I’ve kept my nose to the grindstone, hustled for my dreams and showed extraordinary dedication to the task of editing. But then there is this Twitter addiction I’ve recently developed. When that red light blinks on my blackberry delicately requesting my attention for a brief jaunt into the musings of celebrities, strippers and the latest Lebron James rumors (please dear Lord let Bron-Bron choose the Knicks) I must answer her. Twitter is my side piece she only ask for whatever time I can spare until I actually look at a time stamp and see it’s been forty-five minutes of virtual voyeur practice ... but I can’t stop, I have a problem, I need help ... even though I can quit anytime I want to ... I’m just not ready yet #classicjunkyspeak. See! Even in the blog she finds me! Ok but let me get back to the Knicks.
Saturday May 29, 1993. Game three Knicks and Bulls in the conference finals. The Knicks were up two games to none on the mighty two-time defending champs. 2-0! Held court at home, didn’t let them steal one. It was game time and I sat with my game face on flanked in the day room by Boo, PJ, Tiny and the rest of the New York squad. Our shit-talk to the Chicago dudes was on fire. All those years spent watching mediocre basketball at the Garden with my dad and Shante went to the playoffs while I watched it on TV in rehab. Bob Fennimore, a friend of my father worked for WOR-TV back when the Knicks played on Channel 9. I felt like a season ticket holder we went to so many games at the Garden. We had floor seats behind the basket. Back when they were red. They became lavender when Dave Checketts and Pat Riley took over. I use to go when it was Red Holzmen before it was Hubie Brown before it was Rick Patino and the Bomb Squad. Holzmen was my dad’s dude. Ray Williams, Michael Ray Richardson, Truck Robinson, Sly Williams, Rory Sparrow, Marvin Webster, Bill Cartwright. I was raised on the Classic Roundball logo listening to the Garden sound system blare ‘We are New York and we know basketball, we will win it all, cause we’re the New York Knicks.’
But I was also a tongue wagging-long-shorts-black-ankle-socks-wearing-Air Jordan poster-having kind of dude too. To be a Knick fan and a Jordan lover is pure self-hate. Oh and in case you wondered the last time the Knicks won the championship it was 1973 and I was one. The Yankees and Giants have taken our team/fan relationship to its zenith. The Knicks have continually delivered heartbreak and disillusionment. But in the ‘92-‘93 season Pat Riley had us believing. They were 60-22, the number one seed and on a collision course with the Bulls who had knocked us out the playoffs three of the last four years. And just like Jordan had to go through Bird’s Celtics and Isaiah’s Pistons we knew all roads went through his Bulls. And of course what do the Knicks do in game three? They shit the bed. The Bulls toyed with them. Just embarrassed and frustrated the Knicks. Of course John Starks got ejected when he went after Jordan. Like he was gonna touch the franchise. The Knicks had TWENTY turnovers in the game! The Bulls scored sixty-two in the first half! Outside of Ewing’s twenty-one points nobody stepped up. It was tough to sit through. Most of the bandwagon New York niggaz turned on the Knicks before the end of the third quarter. Starting with that game the Knicks lost by twenty, ten, three, and eight. But game five was the worst! I still see all six-foot-eleven of Charles Smith’s-I can’t-understand-why-he-didn’t-just-dunk-it-ass getting his shot blocked while leaking blood from stab wombs as the refs swallowed their whistles. It still remains in the top five worst sports moments of my life.
These wounds of a life long Knicks fan have healed with time. And tomorrow’s announcement brings the anticipation that one day my dad and I will celebrate with delirium as the Knicks play late into June.
What better video to play?
See you on the other side ...
M
I’ve kept my nose to the grindstone, hustled for my dreams and showed extraordinary dedication to the task of editing. But then there is this Twitter addiction I’ve recently developed. When that red light blinks on my blackberry delicately requesting my attention for a brief jaunt into the musings of celebrities, strippers and the latest Lebron James rumors (please dear Lord let Bron-Bron choose the Knicks) I must answer her. Twitter is my side piece she only ask for whatever time I can spare until I actually look at a time stamp and see it’s been forty-five minutes of virtual voyeur practice ... but I can’t stop, I have a problem, I need help ... even though I can quit anytime I want to ... I’m just not ready yet #classicjunkyspeak. See! Even in the blog she finds me! Ok but let me get back to the Knicks.
Saturday May 29, 1993. Game three Knicks and Bulls in the conference finals. The Knicks were up two games to none on the mighty two-time defending champs. 2-0! Held court at home, didn’t let them steal one. It was game time and I sat with my game face on flanked in the day room by Boo, PJ, Tiny and the rest of the New York squad. Our shit-talk to the Chicago dudes was on fire. All those years spent watching mediocre basketball at the Garden with my dad and Shante went to the playoffs while I watched it on TV in rehab. Bob Fennimore, a friend of my father worked for WOR-TV back when the Knicks played on Channel 9. I felt like a season ticket holder we went to so many games at the Garden. We had floor seats behind the basket. Back when they were red. They became lavender when Dave Checketts and Pat Riley took over. I use to go when it was Red Holzmen before it was Hubie Brown before it was Rick Patino and the Bomb Squad. Holzmen was my dad’s dude. Ray Williams, Michael Ray Richardson, Truck Robinson, Sly Williams, Rory Sparrow, Marvin Webster, Bill Cartwright. I was raised on the Classic Roundball logo listening to the Garden sound system blare ‘We are New York and we know basketball, we will win it all, cause we’re the New York Knicks.’
But I was also a tongue wagging-long-shorts-black-ankle-socks-wearing-Air Jordan poster-having kind of dude too. To be a Knick fan and a Jordan lover is pure self-hate. Oh and in case you wondered the last time the Knicks won the championship it was 1973 and I was one. The Yankees and Giants have taken our team/fan relationship to its zenith. The Knicks have continually delivered heartbreak and disillusionment. But in the ‘92-‘93 season Pat Riley had us believing. They were 60-22, the number one seed and on a collision course with the Bulls who had knocked us out the playoffs three of the last four years. And just like Jordan had to go through Bird’s Celtics and Isaiah’s Pistons we knew all roads went through his Bulls. And of course what do the Knicks do in game three? They shit the bed. The Bulls toyed with them. Just embarrassed and frustrated the Knicks. Of course John Starks got ejected when he went after Jordan. Like he was gonna touch the franchise. The Knicks had TWENTY turnovers in the game! The Bulls scored sixty-two in the first half! Outside of Ewing’s twenty-one points nobody stepped up. It was tough to sit through. Most of the bandwagon New York niggaz turned on the Knicks before the end of the third quarter. Starting with that game the Knicks lost by twenty, ten, three, and eight. But game five was the worst! I still see all six-foot-eleven of Charles Smith’s-I can’t-understand-why-he-didn’t-just-dunk-it-ass getting his shot blocked while leaking blood from stab wombs as the refs swallowed their whistles. It still remains in the top five worst sports moments of my life.
These wounds of a life long Knicks fan have healed with time. And tomorrow’s announcement brings the anticipation that one day my dad and I will celebrate with delirium as the Knicks play late into June.
What better video to play?
See you on the other side ...
M
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