An ode to Hip Hop... well not really an "ode" just a cool comment :-)

As the the second edition to the "Hip Hop generation" (being that the true starters of the hip hop movement are probably about 5-6 years older than me) we like to credit people who have a good flow and good content and even some people that don't. But, I think we truly forget people who engineered the way rappers rap today. The style is SO different. Most of us remember Kid N Play right, the go-go rhythm and simple one two rap style... "Say Heyyyy, now say Hoooooooo! Now say Hey-Ho...." and so on. There was a time when a flow like Jay Z's or Nas' or Rakim or Keith Murry (also a SICK MC) wasn't even on the map; because it hadn't been invented yet. Crazy rapid fire styles like Bone Thugs' or even creative stop and start types like Kanye or Wayne weren't even in consideration. So, with that said, I'd like to pay homage to this Harlem native and a favorite rapper of mine from the days of way back. I mean like sitting in the house with a cassette tape in the Hi-Fi trying to catch his songs on the radio cause my mother wouldn't let me buy the tape... the FIRST RAP BATTLE EVER! More importantly though, a clip of time where hip hop went from being a entertaining musical style to a validated competitive arena where oratory stamina and mental power were necessity for credibility. Here's to you Kool-Moe Dee.

Sincerely,

~H. Herald~

Note To The Reader. . .

So for the rest of the month I'm going to attempt to post something EVERYDAY. I'm not sure how I'm going to respond to pushing out these creative juices. Normally I just write about whatever makes me excited enough to actually sit down and write about it. However, in my efforts to take my writing more seriously and to sharpen my creative expressions, I'm going to forgo the mood swings of my creativity and throw some D's on that bitch, so to speak... lol. So Look, out all! Here Comes Herald!

P.S. I was asked how someone could subscribe to my blog... Sadly enough I don't know how to do that myself. Any answers would be welcomed ;-)

[interim Posting]

I'm not even going to attempt to justify this or tie it into something deep or philosophically relevant... I just think this is HILARIOUS! All the bored cubical workers out there, I hope this is a welcomed change in pace from your usual water cooler banter and Dilbert humor... 

Giggidy Giggidy and good day...

~Hard E. Harr~

Find it, and Mind it...

It’s a new little joint called “mind your own business”/
When somebody’s in ya face you ask em “Why you all in it”/
Now I’ma tell you how to use “mind ya own business”/
It’s a complicated thing so please quite down and listen/
There’s no simple explanation, punch line and finish/
So I’ll just use some examples and see if you can feel it/


     Ok, so I was having a great conversation the other day with a cool friend and the topic of race came up, as it often does when speaking to me.

Side Note: I talk about race not so much because it’s what I care about the most but more because as a Black Man the world never fails to let me forget that I’m black so I will not let the world forget that I’m HERE!


    Yeah, so we’re talking about race and I say, during the conversation, “You know, white people should just mind their own business” than I think, we ALL should just mind our own business. It’s clear that we live in a world of people and naturally we are all going to mingle and talk and exchange cultural ideas. The problem I have is when others start to impose their cultural ideas on to me and MY group. When whites came over to Africa, America, and pretty much everywhere else, they didn’t stop and say “Oh, this is different. It’s nice to meet you all. Lets see how you guys do things and learn from each other!” They came and said, “Oh, you guys got a nice little set up here, it’s all good. But this is how I do things. Now that I’m here you need to get down or lay down!” To that I just say MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. But that doesn’t just go for white people. I mean that for all imperialistic/imposing groups! If you’re rich and I’m not and you want to live where I live (Harlem), I say to you MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS. Harlem was just fine before you (by you I mean the gentrifying population. If you don’t know what that means it’s because it’s YOU) got here. You might not understand or agree with the way we do things or how we live but fuck that and FUCK YOU. We like it, it’s ours, ease back! Who’s to say that a Wal-Mart or a Virgin Mega Store is better than the Bodega and Mom & Pop’s Record shop. Don’t even get me started on Starbucks! Even religious groups, I’m shouting you out! CHRISTIANS, mind your OWN BUSINESS!!! All I have to say about them is “Crusades” if you don’t get it you should stop reading right now and reevaluate yourself. Jehovah’s Witnesses, PLEASE mind your own business. If I get one more knock at the door at ass crack in the morning I’ma pull my hair out.
    You know I really do believe that if we all mind our own business and just deal with our own life would be better. To drive the issue home a tad more, I’ll share this. I like to think about it like a family. Everyone has somebody in their family that is not the most upright person in the world (i.e. Crack heads, in jail, stealing all the time, drunks, ect…) but you still love them or maybe you don’t. But you deal with them in your own way. If one day somebody told you that “Uncle Johnny” had to go to jail for smoking a cigarette you’d be furious, because all this time the way YOU dealt with him was just putting him outside at the family picnic. That’s just an uncomfortable feeling for an outsider to come in and dictate a way of life to you! Even the animals know how to mind their own business. You don’t see deer telling birds how to fly, Ants telling sharks how to swim, horses telling cows how to give milk or dog telling squirrels how to clime trees. RIGHT NOW you can turn on National Geographic and see an Lion chase down, bite and kill an antelope and the whole time there’s a gang of monkeys in that tree waaaaaay over there watching. Now, if you could hear those monkeys and understand that conversation do you really think it would be like “OMG, Earl, we should send a delegation over there to try and rectify Lion/Antelope relations and see if we can come to some sort of peaceable agreement for all the lions to de-claw ASAP. If they don’t comply, we’ll send in the Elephants to maintain the peace.” That’s some bullllllllll shit! That conversation would be a LOT more like “That’s a damn shame what that Lion did to that Antelope” and that would be it. They would stay in that tree and “MIND THEIR OWN BUSINESS.”
    In closing I’ll say this. People, you know when something is your business so please just mind your own… For those of you that don’t know when shit isn’t your business here is one way that I think will help you in years to come. If you see, hear, or think something might be happening and you don’t have a clear, almost instinctual reaction to it but somebody else around you does… then it “isn’t your business” it’s theirs and you should let them handle it. If it doesn’t have anything to do with you, let it ride…

Thank you for letting me vent, I look forward to your hate mail… ☺

P.S. No animals were injured in the writing of this blog…


~H. Herald ~

A More Personal Note...

   This time around all, I’m writing about me. I know I know, your thinking “It’s YOUR blog, aren’t they all about you?!” Well, yes and no. Usually I write about issues that I think about, that effect the larger community. Broad themes and things. But today I’m writing about me or should I say something that bothers me about myself or perhaps others. That is where you all come in. The following issue is something that I have thought about a length, it’s ruined great relationships and put strains on potential relationships. At first I felt completely justified and later I felt as though it was an irrational thought and ever since I have been teetering back and forth between those two opinions. Well, I know by now we are all asking the question, what is this issue? Well, let me tell you.

 

It’s not something I can explain with one phrase. I’m going to have to “break it down” so-to-speak.

 

I hate when people I know and like are friends with people I don’t like. Hum.. I guess I could put it in one phrase… :-/

 

   Now, that seems simple enough either get over it or just don’t be friends with those people either. Ha! How naive we are. First we must look at the rationality of this point. I know that it is well within my rights as a person on the planet to like or not like anyone that I choose, as an extension of that I can choose to disassociate with the people who like the people that I don’t like. But how practical is this? Having recently left the undergraduate environment I understand the almost inability to not have anything to do with any particular person. What I mean by that is, the community is so small that it is inevitable to know somebody that knows any other person. I would even go as far as to say that this is triplely so in the minority community at ANY institution in America. The Black and Brown community is hyper sensitive to its members. You might not know everyone by name but you surely know who’s who. For example, when the freshmen come in you can look at a face and say to yourself “Hey, look, a new Black person…” So with all that said. I get it, you can’t just cut yourself off from “undesirables,” fine. But the issue I’m having is that I can’t help but be disgusted or turn up my nose at people who deal with them as well. Now, I know that I’m not the end-all be-all of social ranking. However, I DO think of myself as a good judge of character. So I feel as though if I don’t think this person is worth associating with why would anyone worth anything think otherwise. Does that sounds bad? Cocky? Arrogant? Victorian? These are things I would like feed back on. But moving on…

   To make it a little more personal. I’ll do just that… There is this young lady, lets just call her Wood Chuck or W.C. (Dub. C) for short and there is this nigger (I use the term because as all black people know There are Black Folks and then there are Niggers. This guy is a Nigger. White people, if you don’t know the difference ask your Black friends… But don’t ask your Nigger friends cause they will get offended) the Nigger we’ll just call, Ike. So, a little exposition on the story, Ike is this nosey nigger who at one time I was cool with. I knew him independently of anyone else I knew, which is to say we didn’t meet though anyone. As a matter of fact I once found his student ID card on a campus shuttle and instead of being niggerish and using up all his money at the vending machine I chose (in a attempt to promote non-niggerish behavior) to turn it in and facebook him that I found his ID and he could go pick it up. Now, here we are several months later. Remember, I know him independently of anyone else I know… and we don’t even know each other that well but I mean I went out my way to find this dude and give him his card.  That’s beside the point though, so a few months maybe a year go by and it’s always cool when I see him.  At the time my then girlfriend and I were separated. During that time I went on a date or two with one of Ikes friends, although I had no clue that she was his friend. Long story short Ike goes out of his way to mislead his friend into thinking that I was cheating on my girlfriend at the time to date her when in actuality we were not together and (this is a side note) he was actually dating my girlfriend at the time BEFORE we had separated and from what I believe they had been seeing each other for a while. Now, to make a long story short I will spare the details of the entire situation but I said all that just to show that this dude is a Nigger! Lol.

   So, now, W.C., she and I have known each other for SOOOOOOOME time. We met very randomly and just continued to stay in Semi-Touch over that last year extremely recently we have been talking and chilling form time to time. She’s cool as a fucking fan. No complaints as far as her character or anything like that. But then! And here’s the kicker… I’m scrolling through her facebook and BAM! Guess who’s on her buddy list… That shiftless ass, motherfucking nigger, Ike… Now, I will be the first to proclaim that facebook is by NO means the final word on one’s social network of friends. However, that did get me to thinking… So I hit the “Pictures” button and low and behold W.C. and Ike… Hugged up like freaking best buddies. His sweaty ass face pressed against hers at some tight, hot ass party, sharing drinks, talking and given the context of the situation doing whatever else… It just makes W.C. so much less appealing in so many ways (lets get out the gutter by the way. I’m not talking about sexually, just in terms of wanting to get to know her or letting her know me). I want to straight say “If you’re friends with them I’m not friends with you” but come on America how 5^th grade is that shit! But at the same time I can’t help but think about how much I HATE this Ike character. Even more so now because he’s affecting relationships I have with people that don’t even have anything to do with him. Rock and a fucking HARD PLACE people!

   With all of that though, isn’t it Human nature to be territorial of ones circle of friends and people you value for one reason or another. I mean if you have any kind of caring feeling for someone and you think that something is bad for them isn’t it only natural for you to not want them dealing with it. If I know something is dirty and I just saw you put on a white T, assuming I care, I’m not gonna let you walk into the dirtiest room in the house! That’s what Ike is… Straight dirt.

   So, back to the original question, given that W.C.’s is a wonderful person with not strikes against her name from my p.o.v. accept that she is friends with Ike. Am I justified in thinking less of W.C. because of that association? Please Post, Please Comment, or shit just send a brotha an email! I wanna know what to do America!!!

 

Lastly, a few proverbs that come to mind…

“You’re judged by the company you keep.” and “Birds of a feather flock together.”

 

~H. Herald~

 

 

Mic Check 1,2-1,2...

Ok all, I'm just trying something out... If I can get this to work it's gonna take this blog thing to a whole Otha-Notha level for a brotha... let's see.

Aight, so apparently this works... I've GONE multi-media. Great, so this is a re-production of Blue Magic by Jay-Z. Now, I don't know who you are reading this but you must say that this is ten times better than the original. It's by this dude "MidasTouchLive." I found him on YouTube. Basically this dude just takes songs that are already out and makes them HOTTER. He has over 20 tracks (with videos) and all of them have been better than the original. He's basically the next generation of rap. He just takes something that is already out and totally makes it his bitch. And at this point that seems to be a major part of hip hop. Taking the "ordinary" and making it special in some way. Until his style becomes the Stat-Quo, this dude is FIYA!

More to come... stay tuned world...

~H. Herald~

There's "Us" and "Them" but what happened to "Our"

    So, we are back like we left something. I’m in the airport and for anyone that knows me at ALL knows that this is not a new phenomena. I spend so much time in the airport I don’t feel right unless I go through full safety protocol before I do anything. Long story short, being in the airport as we all know is mostly a whole lot of queue’ing (that’s a little British slang for waiting ;-) ). During that time I decided that I going to stop being mindless and get OFF the iPod crack pipe. I know this is a tangent but please just indulge me for the next paragraph or so.

    So why is it that we all feel the NEED to constantly check the iPod. I mean we all see these people on the subways of our cites, in the airports, at the bus stops, eating alone in public eateries, or just walking down the street on their way to meet a friend. They are constantly checking their iPod. I cannot omit that I too am a constant checker. It’s like we KNOW that nothing is changing and the iPod is fine because we are LISTENING TO IT. We’d know if the song changed or the battery died or anything was seriously wrong because the song would change, skip, or go off. I think people just need something to do with themselves when they aren’t doing anything. No one is content with just being on their way. . . The down time just MUST be filled with the arbitrary checking of something even if it is not an iPod it’s a blackberry, or a trio, or their watch, or something. The horrible part is that it’s not a bad idea to be productive during your travel time. You know, catch up on some things and just make your life a little easier by getting ahead when you would otherwise be doing nothing too important anyway. But that’s not what people do. Notice how all the above I mention had nothing to do with anything productive. People check these arbitrary devices as if they are actually doing something that is contributing to their lives and futures, beyond the next stop on the A-Train to Far Rockaway, lol! They have these intensely concerned faces that allude to the idea that what they are looking at on their 1x1.5inch LCD is of the most urgent or important nature. Like if you couldn’t see what they were looking at and somebody asked you to describe what you thought they were looking at just by their expressions you’d naturally say they are reading the stock section of the times, proofing some presentation, or editing some work (all of which you should feel free to REALLY do). The next time you are in transit please look around and notice how many times the man next to you checks his iPod to make sure that he is, in fact, listening to the song that the iPod says he is listening to; because God forbid he is listening to Jimmy Hendrix when he THOUGHT he was listening to Edwin Star! Perhaps you should look up at your own reflection as you check that blackberry for your last AIM notification and notice how introspective and concerned you look at the fact that it took your bff Jill a half hour to respond to the fact that Bob didn’t call you back last night after he said “I’ll call right back.”

Ok so that was my tangent. . .

    So, yesterday I was in the library (you know, the building with all the books in it) and I was looking at something online and this person proceeds to point something out on my screen by actually TOUCHING the screen. Now I don’t really mind too many things, however, I take my computer seriously. Touching the screen or the computer at all is just NOT ok. It’s like asking me to actually take out my earbuds when you’re talking to me. I mean I MIGHT turn down the volume but that’s as far as it goes! So anyway, they saw my expression and immediately withdrew their hand. After a few more moments of looking on the internet and seeing me use some of the pretty cool features on my brand SPANKING new Mac they decided to do something that I recent realized makes white people VERY uncomfortable, they asked “how much did that cost?” I told them and they were taken back that somebody would spend that much on something that can’t give you an orgasm. That lead me to think, “Did the first man to own something think it would become so popular?”

    I mean lets think about this. In the history of people I’m sure that “ownership” was never an innate urge. It’s almost certainly learned. However, I sit here with this computer and all my other things and I feel an almost instinctual urge to claim MY things, MY space, to declare ownership of all these things that I didn’t make, had no hand in making, didn’t shed a drop of sweat in producing, but yet it’s mine because I gave some guy a few pieces of paper and in return he gave me this item? Even still the money that I have I had no hand in printing, creating, or making so how again is it mine? Oh, I know what you’re going to say, “You earned it. You worked for it so it’s yours.” Well to that I say this. If I build a ship and sell it, that ship is the only thing I really have the ability to even argue ownership on. I built it, made it with my own hands. Now, once I sell it it’s no longer mine. But the question is; when I sell it and receive money that was NOT made by the person giving it to me (meaning it’s not theirs in the first place to give since we have established ownership to not merely mean possession) what do I really “have” now? But all of that is a digression. Back to the point that ownership is a crazy idea. . . I mean just look at the history of most of the “brown world” we are all communal. But the FIRST man to own something; how did he explain that to others? Even now, most of your are like “WTF, I mean duh, I own this, that means its mine.” Damn, it just occurred to me that I think I might not want to do this in a Blog. Because where I’m going, very quickly, is to the question of when did the “I” become more important than that “We,” “Us,” and “Our?” That is something that I just cannot transcribe into a digital discourse. However, that is something I think we should take seriously and try to rectify. Yes rectify, as to imply that the action of putting the “I” over the “Us” was an error. I mean the “Us” is different to everyone but regardless of who your “Us” is, they allow you to think outside of yourself and that’s where we are able to truly learn and grow and that should be our true goal in any instance... I’ll leave it there.