Untitled
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“Long Range Love On The Grind” - Zac Galen
Recorded w/ that BOOMBAP Janos “The Arcitype” at the infamous Bridge Sound & Stage (formerly Fort Apache Studios)
Special Thanks to AR Classic Records -
re: “ART THOUGHTZ: To Catch A Millennial
Hennessy Youngman. I just discovered that I am a ‘millennial’ by typing that word for the first time and my iPhone correcting its spelling. Back to tumblr… But first, I also discovered I was a millennial by reading the name ‘Hennessy Youngman’ and only just NOW thinking twice about it. WOO WOOP!
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dear brother malcolm
Part of me working my way out of the darkness, and into the light, is continuing to remember where I come from. For instance…
MALCOLM X
Born May 19th, 1925, named Malcolm Little, and later known as El-Hajj Malik El-Shabazz.Brother Malcolm was a bit confused, once upon a time. He was considerably impressionable, and good hearted. He liked to laugh a lot, he had a sweet tooth, and he eventually fell deeply in love with Sister Betty Shabazz. When he first met Elijah Muhammad, a guy who turned out to be not all that honorable, he thought he was in the presence of not just someone godly, but more or less God himself. A vision of Elijah Muhammad once appeared to him in jail, of course, at a moment of desperate prayer… But when he later realized that the Nation of Islam was in some way morally bankrupt as an institution, when he saw what it was like for Muslims of all colors to peacefully pray together, and when he saw Black Muslims believing delusions, falling further into the depths of depravity and despair… it brought him to tears. He struggled with the guilt of having been the spokesman for such self-deception and corrupt militancy.
And so he reformed, for a second time, and died for it. Not many people are capable of such daring and revolutionary self-transformation. He was made of the best stuff. The Ancient Greeks would have loved him, and thus I love him too.Peace to the merciful, the most high, God/Allah/Yahweh. Thank you, for this moment of spirited presence.And rest in power, dear brother Malcolm.
-zG
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calicoe vs. loaded lux
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u1-z2hxXxKg
“HE GON’ GET THIS WORK!” - Loaded Lux, 2012
Sometimes, everybody just needs to cook. Spoken word artists need to speak their peace. Jazz musicians need to shed, jam, hang out, and get em, i.e. chase down the spirit. Preachers need to speak praise in the presence of the Lord/Allah/Yahweh. Filmmakers and photographers need to shoot. Ballplayers need to hoop. Dancers need to prance or break. Chefs need to, well, cook…
Loaded Lux needs to give you this work. He needs to. It’s his calling. He needs to walk into the room with a casket, pallbearers, weeping widows and his word. He needs to collect actions in a way that all the pieces matter. He needs to speak truth to power, assassinate your character, and maybe, after it’s all said and done, he might even teach you today’s math, and meet you at the God hour the next day to build.
Because, as a wise man once told me, too, “in this life, you either build, or destroy.”
He learned certain lessons along this path of life. He might have even hung out at the park one too many times, or even congregated at twilight in Union Square to cypher, and thus build.
And he, of course, battles. This is his most basic distinction, i.e. category. He is known, worldwide now, as a battle rapper. Such a label often carries the pejorative connotation that he can’t make hit records, like that matters.
His calling is his calling, and he came to give you this work.
He waits, patiently, and Calicoe or any some such Pokeman rapper, comes to snatch his crown off. That’s fine. He’s willing and able to receive the verbal tongue lashing every now and again.
But when you’re done? “Landslide”? Yeah, well, he’s just gonna finish his first verse. FIRST VERSE!!! I’m some ways, we are all just trying to finish the first verse.
“YOUNGIN, you got to know how this works… job corps.”
“HE BOUT TO GET THIS WORK… HOLD ON!!!”
“YOU DON’T KNOW WHO TERRAIN YOU ON… *shrug* I had to get the feel!”
“EXHIBIT A”. Corny, methinks, but maybe Lux finds it corny too. Like an inside joke.
“But we ain’t judgin, tho…” we just out here speaking truth to power.
“equal up to this real shit”
“HERE LIES MY BELOVED”
[Round 3: Loaded Lux]
Let’s get to choppin his fable
You’re a fake new Tupac and we’re fatal
But you’re a gay who’s really a softy Starbucks coffee’s mocha sends bagels
I begged you, come get your thing popped at your cable
Man shit, but since we couldn’t get your pops at the table
If you’re able, please tell em that hand that rules the world
That’s the on that’s finna rock your cradle, niggaIf you notice, I mentioned Verb in the other round
I’m guessin now, subconsciously, possibly, you probably cuz he favored this problem I had to step around
You remember that Holla beef? Where he checked a child
I’m bettin Cal and Hitman are stickman and you wear the weddin gown
All I’m sayin is y’all married, yo
The scenario, same def and style but why are your expressions foul?
I get this feelin like, you feelin like what I said was down… low,
Like “yo, like, that was wild”
But that’s funny, ‘cause I’m a little skepti-Cal
Had my peoples investigate you pal
Instagram for you Calicoe fans that have yet to browse
July 17th, 8:40 PM, you posted up
Aw nigga, you know what’s up, we kept the fileYou’ve got some explainin to do, can we address the crowd?
Exhibit A
So that’s how Detroit gangstas do? Skinny dippin gone wild?
Well we ain’t judgin though, you ain’t on trialMy beloved T-Rex says “Grown man bars is something you got to deal with”
So all of that collaborated, fabricated; it ain’t gon equal up to this real shit
Check it out, I want y’all to picture this as I paint the slide
Tombstone grain inscribed, here lies my beloved, grave is wide
I mean, I had that much love for you, I know that ‘cause you got that much hate for I
Don’t want you to hang your eye
Not for a second lil nigga, catch it, brace your vibe
Be froze, for death is cold
I wanna search your soul and hold on to whatever holes exposin the pain you hide
Bring me mine, nigga, now I don’t wanna break this bond
I just wanna break the cycle, thank your moms I like you
For the nights she didn’t write you, she stayed in line so your days could shine
I might do one better with a letter to tell her how I appreciate in kind
How strong a queen she is and any man would be lucky for her to be made his bride
You see, I take in mind your situation and though I never met your father, I see a lot of his ways in your stride
I mean, you got that “talk it like I walk it” kind of attitude and you know it’s real good he gave you pride
Every son should be proud of his father, and I look at my little one, and I want the same for mine
That’s why when I look up at you, I see what he can go through when a father don’t take the time
You know what I think is fucked up? I think it’s real fucked up when those people gave him all that time
You wanna know what’s even more fucked up?
It’s for all them years that he got away from you, has only been a way for you to be more together with him in a cage in five
That’s why I’m angry guy, ‘cause he didn’t take the steps
Now you chase his rep but them runnin shoes ain’t your size
They say don’t whine over spilled milk but what’s a man supposed to do when his baby’s cryin?
Oh he say shit like, “You know, it costs to be the boss”
What, he too good for a payin job?
What was wrong with bein a cable guy, a real estate agent
Why was that nigga to cool to go to flight school and learn how to fly planes through the friendly skies
But nah, he told you he had to do what he had to do to put food on y’all plate to dine
You mean you tell me all that slangin and bangin was to give y’all greater lives?
When God gave him drive?
And that Big Meech backup singin ass nigga left your mom out here alone for the latest ride?
That don’t plague your mind? Them mistakes ain’t gods?
And you wonder why them Shotgun Suge shells still ache your spine?
Look what Ray Ray got Little Jimmy out here in New York doin
Tell your OG, Bobby Johnson, he tried to steal the wrong radio this time, nigga
Hey, if you see South Central, when you see this again, that’s gonna be one of your favorite lines
Somethin to think about next time you on stage wavin signs
Tryin to be like the only daddy you got, and I understand you wanna keep his name alive
But youngin’, I’m tryin to save you from your demise
You said it yourself, “my pops was a real nigga,” youngin that ain’t no lie
He was in the business that the system perpetuates on the side
To keep us in the condition where we ain’t made to survive
But you think he a god, well, lemme ask you this
Would you kill the world to save yourself, nigga? Yeah I do think that was wise
Somethin to think about the next time y’all thuggin, drinkin and drugginHard liquor, y’all full of killers, remember
I tried to give him the large picture
Your pops wasn’t no gangster, he was just another lost nigga
You think it’s gangster to let a mother love that dope more than her daughter?
Shoot her father from his son and turn around and put that boy on the corner?
Or leave your son out here alone to fend for himself, knowin he need order?
Is your money being long worth your lifespan bein shorter? Huh?
But I’m just tryna give you the large picture
Your pops wasn’t no gangster, he was just another lost nigga
Gangsta’s brothers like Marcus Garvey
Who when he performed lectures raised consciousness up from doin wrong
To puttin us in uniforms makin us soldiers in God’s army, or them Garveyites
Nat Turner, when the man had us on the back burner
Facts further steady he lead one of the greatest revolutions of freedom slaves you ever heard of
But then he got murdered
You know what? Harriet Tubman was more of a man than your father would ever be, niggaI mean your daddy, that father title get deployed
You know a wise man told me that a wise man understands in this life
You either gon build or destroy
And since it takes a father to raise a man child, well it’s no wonder you talk all that young shit
You a little boy that don’t get the large picture
Your pops wasn’t no gangster, he was just another lost niggaLook at me, king, look at me
He was so lost – you lost, nigga
Look how they got you, Fox 2, CNN
You’re supposed to be one of the leadin faces in battle rap, look how you represent
They told me, I said stop lyin, y’all hype em
You in the crib with pissed alligators and shit
Not to mention everybody else, but you damn near got yourself indicted
Then you showed the chickens, I thought about you and your man in that picture
“These Detroit niggas still cockfighting”-30-
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undergraduate honors thesis
and the nexus for the praxis, “On Truth and Lies, in an extra-moral sense” by Friedrich Nietzsche: http://imrl.usu.edu/6890/OnTruthandLies.pdf
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research as a kid
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“LeBron James the brand, and the re-appropriation of ‘Keep On Pushing’ by the Impressions”
the ad: http://www.youtube.com/user/samsungmobileusa?v=Ie0mAnjz1Oc
the song: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTpZ_4_KhDU
LeBron. Please. “Keep On Pushing”? No. Stop pushing.
Stop pushing Samsung tablets made by child slaves of a yellow hue.
Stop pushing a redemption story, an heroic rise following a self-inflicted fall from grace.
Stop pushing the “teamness” (copyright George Karl) of your anti-team, a brotherhood of backstabbers.
Stop pushing damn fruity loops into the mouths of your children.
Stop pushing yourself as a mortal man. STOP FAKE CRAMPING!!! You are so good at basketball.
This latest ad campaign is an affront, a literal sacrilege, to people of color and people of struggle.
Co-opting “Keep On Pushing” by the Impressions is the equivalent, or naer-do-well, of Karl Rove’s “Crossroads for America”.
LeBron embodies the “greed is good” ethos just as much as Mitt Romney.
And how very Republican of LeBron to twist the semiotics of a 1964 Black Power Anthem for self-aggrandizement and personal gain.
The demonstrators in Alabama didn’t get hosed down in the street and attacked by dogs for you to just make more money.
The Black Panthers weren’t murdered in their sleep, with their wives and children watching, for you to just make more money.
1964, and 2012, and everything in between, didn’t happen for you to just make more money.
Here is the central message behind both this ad, and the Nike commercial that aired immediately after Game 5 of the 2012 Finals:
“I did it. I was right. Everyone loves me now.”
“I did it”, meaning, I collected the golden ring and elevated my legacy.
“I was right”, meaning, all my transgressions were necessary for me to get here.
And, “Everyone loves me now”, meaning, my achievement is an end that justifies the means.
LeBron is the new Machiavelli, emblematic of an age that increasingly devalues process, and a generation that naively retorts, “Only God Can Judge Me” when presented with any reasoned criticism. LeBron is Gordon Gekko in Karl Malone’s body. He sees winning, not as some righteous personal summit, but as the next step to grow his global brand. He has always clamored to become the first billionaire athlete in history. On the surface, such wealth would appear to be a sign of Black progress. In truth, LeBron is a 21st Century slave. He has enslaved himself to the almighty dollar, while providing the highest bottom-line to the white-rule corporations that threaten our very existence on the planet earth.
LeBron has never done anything directly criminal. We’ve really just criticized him for “sports crimes”, like vanity, egotism, and commercialism.
But you can’t wash yourself in the adoring praise of hired spokes people.
And you can’t have the Impressions sing a song who’s message you don’t live.
“Keep on pushing?”. No, LeBron. Stop pushing. Start being.
Start being an actual role model to the youth of America.
Start educating yourself on where you come from.
Start pointing to a better tomorrow by being a better man today.
I haven’t given up hope in you, but my faith continues to be tested.-zG
