Tag: hip hop
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Fall in Love, Again
It’s important to me that my first piece of 2020 is about love. With drafts in my notepad on my phone, I began to write notes about my love for hip-hop in December. A couple weeks ago, I explained to my homeboy how I fell in love with hip-hop three times and would title the…
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Queen & Slim: The Rides
I saw Queen & Slim (Q&S) and liked it but had some major issues with it. However what intrigued me the most about the movie wasn’t their ride to freedom, but the rides, themselves. There were six distinct automobiles that Queen (Jodie Turner-Smith) and Slim (Daniel Kaluuya) were in that made me use a different…
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My Therapy Sessions with “Perfect 10”
I was reluctant to listen to “Perfect 10” on DJ Mustard’s Perfect 10 because “Higher” featuring John Legend on DJ Khaled’s Father of Asahd pulls at the heart strings like the moon on the tides. Until recently, I decided to press play…then left it on repeat…It reminds me of the therapy sessions with my real…
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“Spark the Brain”
This was originally slated as a tribute on Tupac’s birthday (June 16th), but since the assassination of Nipsey Hussle, I decided to publish it now. But before you start reading please watch this video: Tupac’s foreshadowing was short-sighted. I don’t think when the rapper said that he would “spark the brain that would change the…
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Our Love Songs
Yeah, the older you get, man, more you appreciate know The real babes They don’t get offended when you say shit Ayo, we good? Let me know when that drop Recently, rapper Wale dropped his video for “Black Bonnie” featuring Jacquees. When he first teased us with the shot I was excited. Then I read…
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Rough Drafts & Hard Times
I took a crazy break. It was not by choice, things just happened and it was hard to get back into my groove. In between my last piece and now, I have rough drafts all over the place. As I was going through them I realized nothing was positive, except for one. I just had…
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Can’t Knock the Hustle
The main reason this site exists stems from BET’s “Food for Thought” interview with Jay-Z in 2009. In the interview, Jay-Z talked about creating your own lane. The way things were going, I had to switch up and start clearing a path for this lane, but with what and how? During the interview he also…
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qotw: flower bloom
“Makin’ sure my punctuation curve, every letter here’s true Livin’ my life in the margin and that metaphor was proof I’m talkin’ poetic justice, poetic justice If I told you that a flower bloomed in a dark room Would you trust it? I mean, you need to [read] this…” Kendrick Lamar, “Poetic Justice” In what…
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Write on Time: Part 2
Kept inside, the pain is poison, but when artists, especially Black artists, let it out, its genius. But genius is not a typical state with normal expectations; it’s acceptable for a genius to act (or actually be) crazy. In fact we often want that in our Black artists. We expect them to be crazy, love…
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Write on Time: Part 1
Jay Z has what a lot of rappers don’t have: consistency, longevity, growth and a lush body of work that fans and haters alike analyze to politic about. I’m no different. So about this new album, 4:44…this new masterpiece has people talking because they didn’t see it coming. Hov has always understood the power…