All I hear is hustle, hustle hard and don’t sleep and grind harder. You’d think I was surrounded by robots. I refuse to believe that these mantras of sleepless nights are anything more than boasts. Even the hardest working people start to yawn and get heavy eyes, right? I think so. I mean, who can just endlessly and endlessly keep on working without ever putting head to pillow? More importantly, would their work even be as great if they didn’t get their eight to ten hours? I did some research in my record collection, and came across a few musical highlights that praise the cousin to death in some glorious ways. I made a playlist, took a nap, and came up with my top five favorites songs dedicated to slumber.
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For one to title their album Planet of The Ape$ might make someone think that you are in for an apocalyptic, cinematic type of journey through sound with GREATeclectic as the director. That’s not entirely untrue. You’re definitely going on a ride, but it’s smoother and more familiar than one might have anticipated. DJ and artist, GREATeclectic serves as more of a Jack Hanna character guiding the listener through a concrete jungle.
To talk about the film Color Outside the Lines, you must first talk about black people in art. It has always been quite difficult to emerge as just an artist. You were always a Negro artist. You were always an Afro-American artist. You were always an African-American artist. You were always a Black artist. You were always a colored artist. You were never, simply, an artist. We can speak about Jean-Michel Basquiat, but it would be irresponsible to speak about him without mentioning that half of his insanity and demise was built on the fact that he couldn’t escape the bricks walls that is being confined and defined by your color (and all the stigma that is attached to it) versus by your creations.
In a land far, far away there is metropolis. It’s a metropolis filled with urbanites and artists striving so hard for Hollywood fame. It’s a barrel of people filled with high hopes and the criteria to be able to afford hope is getting higher and higher. This town I speak of is my home. This town I speak of is more commonly referred to as Atlanta.
Microwaves, computer applications, internet hook-ups, ten minute meals; it seems our generation is hardwired to want everything instantly. The now is even too late. We want everything yesterday with the fastest wireless connection possible. To call it a condition is fair, but to call it our sickness is more accurate, especially when our wants don’t align to the rules with how life works. Artists for all of our awareness, and conscious thinking and creating, have fell victim to this too.
I’m sitting here about to get my next tattoo at a popular tattoo shop in downtown Atlanta. This next tattoo is the one with the most meaning. It’s maktub. Maktub is Arabic for ‘it was written’. A strong, spiritual sentiment that eludes many to think of faith and destiny, all heavy religious concepts automatically once the denotation is learned. I picked up the phrase from one of my favorite books, The Alchemist. But I’m getting it tattooed on me. So, a religious thought is becoming a fashionable trivial decoration on my body. This trend is not rare in our society. I’m participating in seemingly the bastardization of a sacred world. Making things that are of God be also in vogue, no matter what the eventual results may be. Even when those results are most commonly breaking the sacred and holy.
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Little Robots: How Our Generation of Young Business People Are Trying to Kill Themselves Before 2012
Growing up I was scared of few things. One of those few things was The Sixth Sense. The imagery isn’t what really fucked me up; it was that epiphany at the end. It was the reevaluation of what was reality that I had to do when I was having a tough enough time mastering long division. The funny thing about one’s reality is that no matter how stark and scary or warm and lovely it is, the one who has accepted that reality is comfortable with it. Changing it sends us into shock and panic. Something else that stirred up fear in my heart was Marilyn Manson.
Once upon a time, two star-crossed lovers meet and make beautiful music together. They share these 60’s-tinged melodies with their friends and before they know it, fame and popularity is birthed. They’re on NPR, Nylon Magazine and even Vogue talking about their trippy music that was just a haphazard, little project to get away from the boredom from film school. Now they live as 21st Century’s John Lennon and Yoko Ono, without those pesky other insects, side-by-side with label-mates like Lily Allen, Ke$ha and Beyoncé.
Love Letter to New York & Bad Boyfriends
Your average abusive boyfriends are always a bad thing, so I’ve been told. Famous abusive boyfriends have an even worse type of demented ego. Most people won’t have an experience with a romantic interest that’s hand prints are on your neck, heart, and picture hanging on Hard Rock Cafe, but I did. He had a greasy accent that stenches of urine and admiration, cut up denim, and interchanged lust for violence. I was in a full-time love affair with a fucking psycho.
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