Saadiq!

Raphael Saadiq's new album is ridiculous and I simply cannot understand why no one is talking about it. Dude is doing what I've secretly wanted to do for years, going back musically to an era that spawned the present-day scene in many ways anyway. Every track is raw, and what easily could've been the corniest album of the year became a work of art. Tony Toni Tone was fly, but golly gee Saadiq, you killed it with this one.

Back to School Daze

Sorry for the brief hiatus, folks. Just got back to school and things have been rather hectic. As of the first week I was only enrolled in two classes, even more broke than before, and just about as lonely as I ever thought possible :( Not really sure why, seems like this sense of solitude comes over me every once in a while for no particular reason. After all, everything is going well! Poetry stuff is great, I'm performing at an concert with Common on Sunday and flying out to the Sundance Film Festival 3 days later. I should be ecstatic; but I'm not though. Incredibly grateful, but exhausted inside. Feels like I've been running this tremendous race alone this whole time and just noticed. Maybe its just the looming responsibility of the real world. Or, it could be that I don't have a single concrete plan for the summer even though my GPA's the highest its ever been. I can't work in an office, that existence almost killed me last summer. I'm worried that I can't really do anything but teach and perform.Beautiful existence, but not the lavish, expensive one I'd always imagined my unique mind, academic privilege, and creative abilities would propel me toward. Money and my dreams just can't seem to really get along it's looking like. Maybe I've got it all wrong; only time will tell. In the mean time, to counteract the rather depressing tirade i just went on I've embedded video of my main man, Mickey Factz kicking a ridiculous freestyle on POW radio. Truly ill lyricist. BX stand up!

Love and Art

I really miss artists like John Coltrane. Though he was "before my time" as they say, and I never got to see him perform or even live during the height of his fame, i feel this intangible connection to this man and his music. I'm talking the performance, texture, tempo, everything. Simply enthralled. I've heard few cats with the ability to convey emotion through an instrument the way he could. His saxophone was almost like a second mouth; a medium through which he spoke an entirely different language coherent only to those who'd come to face to face with what he was feeling at the moment he played those notes. His music was a metaphor for our existence, complicated, beautiful, and ever-shifting. This past weekend brought this song in particular to mind. Shout out to swing set lady :)

It's like the past two days have been a flurry of epiphany and renaissance, feel as if a new me has emerged from the depths of my living room couch. Really. I found myself there some time during this break and I've been blogging and writing a poem a day ever since. Being broke for the past 3 weeks has been a blessing in disguise. Forced me to stay in the house, to get to know myself and my heart's desire rather than going outside to forget all the problems at home. Self-reflexivity is a new passion of mine.Guess ideology just got played out. Shout out to everyone whose made these past two weeks some of the most formative days of my young life. Learned a lot about myself; about my capabilities as a writer and potential as a son and father. May post up some poetry soon; I'm thinking about it. Be on the look out.

My favorite new poet

jason mcbeth round 1 iwps 08


The above video is a clip from the Individual World Poetry Slam that took place earlier this year. Yours truly took 5th (after a time penalty) and the young man in the embedded video, Jason McBeth, took 2nd. Easily one of the illest poets I've ever seen, beautiful writer and undeniably honest performer. Shout out to Seth Walker for posting this, I've been looking for clips of this guy all over the place and been unable to really find anything. Sharing the stage with Jason forced to me get my pen game up once I got back home; what he does with rhyme and imagery is simply unparalleled in my experience as a spoken word artist. Don't just take my word for it, listen close. The line about a string section being formed from ex-puppet governments? Ridiculous. Keep killin it, Jason. We're all out here listening.

Conor Oberst is the man

Just started listening to Bright Eyes today. Easily one of my top 5 favorite bands ever. Conor Oberst is a rock poet of the highest caliber, and tracks like "Landlocked Blues" and the above "First Day of My Life" are only a couple examples of this man's genius. It's political, melodious, angst-ridden, eccentric and radically fun all at once; a phonic onslaught of imagery and raw sound that paints vivid pictures while simultaneously ripping them apart with guttural screams and razor sharp chord progressions. It was like the first time I ate a granny smith apple in fall. It's that crisp, that refreshingly dope.I'm mad no one put me on; this music has clearly been around for years and I haven't been up on it lol. This band has put out amazing music and conceptually brilliant videos, more power to em. Long live Bright Eyes!

Writers Block is ill

Not trying to bite off my man Scheme at Attorney Street, but after going to this ill event I had to put up the video. Props to New Pop for putting it together. I loved all the performances and can truly say that I went back home and wrote a couple new joints after hearing from Aja, Falu, Kesed, Rip and Soulful. Urban Word was in there in full effect, acting wild as usual. There's also footage of your truly getting it in which I kinda wish wasn't so detailed/well-shot but it is what it is. Enjoy!