Author: admin

The last two years have been a tirade of me wishing I had spent more time with the people that I’d claimed I held so dear to my heart. People that have had an impact on my life in profound ways.

Seasons change. Our living conditions and arrangements change. Time cuts rope that connects us and keeps us physically close. Phone calls and Text messages don’t have nearly as much an effect on the intimacy we share in the presence of each other. But somehow humans seem to have an innate ability to be ok with this. Human Nature is an interesting thing.

I should have come to see you when I told you I would. Having somewhat of an idea that the last time we saw each other would’ve been under different circumstances. I should have come to tell you how appreciative I am of everything you did to help me when I was, in retrospect at my lowest point. The camaraderie we shared. The words of encouragement you bestowed when Fortune seemed to have me bruised and bloodied-words when even at your weakest-you were still able to find to help a brother out.

I should have come to tell you how I took your words of advice and tread water to stay afloat. I stayed down until I came up.

I wish there were more I could do to help you when you needed it most. Not just take your word for it when you said you were ok.

Twenty-Five Hundred years ago, Seneca the Younger wrote in his timeless “Consolation to Helvia”:

“But the greatness of every grief that exceeds limits will inevitably snatch from one the power to choose one’s words, as not infrequently it stifles the voice itself.

Seneca: Consolation to Helvia

I’ve had a hard time finding the words to write down and even in prayer find it difficult to utter your name without a long pause before continuing to ask for the blessing of your soul. GOD kept you here long enough to touch the hearts of the people that needed it the most. I’ve watched you help people when you needed it more than they did, but as Seneca writes in the same timeless consolation;

“Let me assure you, GOD does not pamper a Good Man like a favorite. He puts him to the test, hardens him, and makes him ready for his service”.

Seneca: Consolation to Helvia

You’ve served diligently and performed your duties well, Jerry. We’ll all miss you. We’ll always Love you. Take your rest, my Dear brother.

“I met this girl when I was ten years old, and what I love most was she had so much soul”…~Common

These were the opening lines to arguably one of the greatest songs to ever attempt to describe the relationship of Hip Hop to its listeners.

1992 found me in a state of disbelief when I heard Snoop and Dre say that they were at the door. Ready to make an entrance. The melodic beat, raunchy lyrics, and the presence of two of the most prolific artist to ever step into a studio were amazing to me at the tender age of 11. 

Back when CD Players were just beginning to come on the scene, Cassette Tapes were the prime media. Streams and downloads were in the distant future. All we had was the radio and hopes that we’d be stationed in the front of it to press the record button once the DJ played what we were waiting to hear. 

Rabbit holes are an understatement for where that faithful day in 1992 lead me. I thought about my journey and decided to make a few notes about what I saw along the way. 

From DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince with that melodic ode to the Summertime. To Kriss Kross making us jump and wear our clothes backward. To Kid and Play with their wild house parties and a smooth-talking, gold chain wearing Kid from Long Island New York named LL Cool J that introduced me to an Around the way girl from The Bronx named Mary. No breast lifts or butt injections. Just a natural girl that wanted to speak her truth from the bottom of her heart. She introduced me to a witty Businessman named Puff who introduced me to a fat black kid from Brooklyn that told me his dreams in such a poetic way that it felt like I shared them. The Sky was the limit. I’m still staying far from timid BIG.

9 members of a group called the Wu-Tang Clan merged old Karate flicks into Hip Hop sounds that rivaled the action of those very movies they sampled them from. Raekwon and Ghostface were like Mike and Scottie in the studio. Cash still rules and they still ain’t nuthin to F&*k with. 

A skinny chipped tooth Kid named Nasir not only stamped the word “Illmatic” into Urban dictionaries, but into the hearts, minds, and souls of every Hip Hop fan that had the opportunity to turn on the Television set and vibe to the smoothed-out melodic track “It ain’t hard to tell”. With production from the likes of Q Tip, Pete Rock, and Large Professor, the album has become somewhat of a Holy Grail that I still keep stacked in a bookshelf like the Bhagavad Gita.  

Tupac Shakur delivered albums and songs that rival Sun Tsu’s Art of War, while at the same time encouraging females everywhere to keep there heads up. (Thanks for the roller coaster rides, Pac.)

A Tribe Called Quest, Leaders of the New School, De La Soul, and The Roots-all walked into the arena around the same time Outkast was down South slamming Cadillac doors. 8 Ball, MJG, and Three Six Mafia had Memphis ringing with sounds of their own, while UGK repped hard for Houston with their own take on the culture. 

For an Island Boy from the Bahamas with no loyalty to Coasts, the only thing that mattered was that it was Hip Hop. The beat was inviting, the lyrics were engaging, and the flows were distinguishable. It’s a feeling that for the last decade has been hard to duplicate. 

The Music I fell in love with has undoubtedly changed dramatically in the last few years. But as with all things, change is inevitable. I’d be hard-pressed to find another album so well put together as the offering from another Brooklyn Kid that answers to the name Jay-Z. 

Not sure if I’ll ever hear another group like Onyx. Get schooled about the game as Mobb Deep did- there still ain’t no such things as halfway crooks (We can use this mantra more than ever now). Witness the honesty and fearlessness of NWA and Public Enemy? Feel the warmth and soulfulness of producers like J-Dilla and DJ Premier? Maybe not so much but I still have faith in the new Kids. I still believe in a genre of music that wasn’t even supposed to make it as far as it did.

It’s hard to not be romantic about Hip Hop. About music as a whole. 

As the Ancient Philosopher, Plato so eloquently put it; “Music gives a soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination and life to everything”.

I could go on & on but I’d probably have to write a book. There’s no way I could put all the names and experiences that have shaped my life through this music in a blog post. The bottom line is that I fell in love with Hip Hop a long time ago. The love has been unchanging, especially with the perennial material left to us by some of the names mentioned above. 

I’m sure you get the picture. 

“Pull out a chair for her, turn on the air for her and just cool out. Cool out and listen to her”…~Common

We always find ourselves in situations that require important questions to be answered immediately. Our worlds are already moving at an alarming rate with important and non-important information and finding the right filter to distinguish between the two can be a daunting task.

Our Bosses rush up to us to answer questions that could potentially cost us our jobs. Our significant other asks us something that we aren’t prepared to answer just yet. We commit to obligations haphazardly that we have very limited abilities to honor.

John F. Kennedy was fond of using the aphorism; “Use time as a tool, not as a couch”. An aphorism that allowed him to find stillness and ultimately make the right decisions during the Cuban Missile Crisis- one of the Darkest Chapters in the history of the modern world. If he had rushed into making the wrong decisions there is a strong possibility that I would not be here now writing this and you would not be where you are reading it. No one would. We’d all be dead.

What Kennedy was able to do was “Still the muddied Water” so he could see all of the variables involved in making such a crucial decision. Failing to do so would have quite possibly tied a knot that only a sword of devastating violence and irreversible damage could cut, leaving both sides with ashes in their mouths as Kruschev- Kennedy’s opponent- would later admit.

Allowing the world to rush us seemingly always ends regretfully. Not taking into consideration all of the possible outcomes and failing to see through a plethora of unhelpful information was and has been a problem that has plagued both CEO’s and Janitors alike.

In his new Book Stillness is the Key, Author Ryan holiday insightfully breaks down the Importance of Stillness and resisting the frenzy of the world. There’s a reason why almost every school or religion has advocated for it for centuries. He defines stillness as: ‘To be steady as the world spins around you, to act without frenzy. To hear only what needs to be heard. To possess quietude-exterior and interior-on command’.

You can check out his book https://www.amazon.com/Stillness-Key-Ryan-Holiday/dp/0525538585/ref=sr_1_2?crid=IVFMUAZIAGG8&keywords=stillness+is+the+key&qid=1579198727&sprefix=stillness%2Caps%2C232&sr=8-2 here on Amazon.

No matter what it is that we’re faced with we should always take into consideration the power of slowing things down. Not acting hastily. Seeing the big picture.

The best decisions are made through the application of mindfulness. Stillness.

DO NOT LET THE WORLD RUSH YOU. Everything depends on it.

Dave Chapelle’s new Stand up Comedy on Netflix intrinsically called; “Sticks and Stones” unsurprisingly ruffled a lot of its Viewer’s feathers.

Anyone that’s not been living under a rock for the last 15 years and has seen anything Dave Chapelle has ever created is well aware of the fact that he says whatever he has on his mind without remorse.

But the opening of the show had a profound impact from the start and set the stage for what would in a Fans’ opinion be “Classic Chapelle”.

The show opened with Dave singing the 1987 Hit Single by Prince; “1999”:

“Say say two thousand zero zero parties over, oops, out of time

So tonight I’m gonna party like it’s nineteen ninety-nine”

The words relay a sense of nihilism to the listener but also a sense of resignation as to what was going on in the world at that particular time- or what was left of the remaining time we had in the world- as contemporarily, 1999 heralded the dawn of a new Millenium and ultimately the end of the world. The song was created for the purpose to be overt defiance of this depressing idea. That we would all die someday and we might as well let everything loose. But as Zelda Fitzgerald, Author, and Wife of F. Scott Fitzgerald once noted:

“It is the loose ends with which men hang themselves”

Halfway through the first verse, Dave reminds the viewers that Anthony Bourdain killed himself. Someone that most people would envy because of the way he lived his life. Bourdain was paid handsomely to travel all around the world and eat delicious meals with very important people but was found hanging in his luxury suite from an apparent suicide.

Chapelle then goes into the story of a childhood friend that garnered scholarships to go to the finest schools in the Country. He does so and meets a young lady while pursuing his studies, falls in love and decides to marry her. During a Christmas break, he tells Dave that he’s going to jump the broom. Chapelle adamantly tries to convince the young man not to and to focus on his schooling but he does not listen. Things don’t go as planned (as if anything does) and the young man not only loses his wife but also his scholarships and is ultimately forced to leave school and return home to work at a local Foot Locker; something that by societies standards is considered rock bottom. To go from attending an Ivy Leauge College to working at a job that probably doesn’t even require a GED, should be the basis for extreme depression. His battle against depression might not have been absent but as Dave expounds; never once does his friend considers killing himself. He comically even suggested to his friend that he does so looking at how far he fell from grace, but he willingly accepts his fate and moves on with life.

The moral of this story is a perennial truth that we’ve all seen. Men and Women’s souls and how they handle the difficulties of life should not be judged by titles or materialistic trappings, but by the strength, calmness, and resilience of their souls.

As the 16th Century French Philosopher Michel de Montaigne so eloquently put it in his essay written in 1508; Of the Inequality amongst us”:

“Measure him without his Stilts; let him lay aside his wealth and titles; let him present himself in his undershirt. Is his body healthy, active, and able to perform its function? What sort of soul does he have? Is it beautiful and capable and fortunate enough to have all of its parts intact? Is the soul rich in what is its own or rich in what it has borrowed? Has luck had anything to do with it? Can it face the drawing of swords without flinching? Is it calm, unflustered, and content? This is what we must see. That is how the great differences between us should be judged”.

Outward appearances are more than often deceiving. There is always chaos beneath a calm sea. Our souls are the part of us that we should adorn and the truth of the matter is that no worldly possessions or outside acceptance can touch the soul. It is nurtured through the practice of things that have very little to do with material possessions and accolades. Shouldn’t we then cultivate virtues that build a fortress around our most prized possession? Fortify the part of our human existence that is the least examined but the most affected when the stakes are high. The part of our being that we have the most control over.

Success, status, and wealth are not to be shunned by any means, but as the timeless aphorism goes;

“What good does it profit a man to gain the whole world and lose his soul?” ~Mark 8: 36