yes sir, wassup kid? holla at yo' boy, its young(put your name here), lil' (put your name here)
does hiphop display a failure to mature? the above are just some of the few colloquialisms that seem to be used to address male compadres in the hiphop culture. the common denominator there? they all refer to each other as someone young, and still coming of age.
it makes you think dont it?
Im 28 this year and find myself still thinking bout things i did when i was much younger as it were yesterday. i grauduated from university in 2001 and i couldnt believe that when i actually open my mouth..... grown people listen. im still surprised by this till this day. I dont see myself as a 28 year old man. which i am. i see my self as the same 16 year old kid with lil responsibilities in the world. the same kid who kicked up gravel on dusty backroads with my best friend, talking bout how i was gonna' bag that hot girl in my stream and how we were gonna grow up and be big. you know, something different. men to contend with.
back then i thought by the time i touched 24 i would be married to the ahliyah lookalike from school. i would have a house and maybe a kid on the way.... i would be running my own firm or either a lawyer or a dentist. memories in HD. anyway... thing is the older i get the more and more i realise how easy it is to hold on to your childhood subconsciously. at the back of your mind your subcoscious is busy telling you.. dude, why you wanna do that? you are'nt your uncle.. he ws 28 when he did that........ then its hits you.
shit!!!!
i am not 16 anymore..... i may not carry myself with the swagger of a 16 year old,.. but part of me is. im way more confident and much much wiser.. but the lil boy in me occasionally rears his head and says.. dude you still got a long way to go. and when i step out of the box and analyze the situation i realise how critical ive been of other men who refer to themsleves as boy this, young that and lil' whoever. men who behave in what the fairer sex may deem immature and childish, like spurlging on tha two seater, or a night out at the strip club...... or the need to stick to contact sports even though they have arthritis like a mother fucker
its easy to get stuck into that trap
trust me i now know
i have to keep the lil boy in check and be the man in control, so that one day when i have to to look back at my memories, that lil' boy will be sated and content.....
Monday 30 July 2007
Thursday 26 July 2007
a love too strong: where does it go wrong
can you love too hard?
its amazing is it not? Love. you meet someone and you instantly connect. you've only known each other for a lil' while and you're already finishing each others' sentences. you know how he/she will respond. you already have a well developed body language code to send signals to each other in the presence of people, you even know what that look means. you know the look, the slight peering over a raised coffee mug in starbucks that says im gonna head to the bathroom, i'll give you 45 secs, and then you follow. yeah that look. the one that says baby I love you and baby i want you in a way that no words can describe. the one that says yes, i will have your babies right now.
could a love too strong, make you see the rest of your life with that one person? make you change your entire out look. from not wanting kids to happily saying, 'with you if it happens, it happens'. make you start thinking bout family cars instead of that hot two seater that bmw just brought out. make you think about houses with playing grounds out in the 'burbs than your mid town bachelor/ bachelorette pad thats close to all the hottest haunts in town. make you pause for a moment and actually thinking bout passing up on that offer to the new club opening where the who's who of showbiz would be to just kicking back with your man/woman at home.
the thing is, if your love starts off like this....and for many it has, how do you sustain it? surely theres a time when the euphoria will fade, when some form of normalcy will set in, right? how do our best relationships turn into our worst relationships?
do we love to a degree of naiveness that we are almost aloof of our partners drawback and flaws. couple this with the former, wont our best relationships soon turn to our worst? wont our saintly patience soon turn in to unpredictable episodes similar in angst to roid rage?
makes you wonder and makes you think........
i personally believe that a lasting relationship can still have all the passion and fieriness it had in the begining, if, the people involved in it are totally honest with their feelings about eachother and respectful and mindful of eachother as individuals and never expect or take eachother for granted.......
or i am just being naive.......
will keep you posted
its amazing is it not? Love. you meet someone and you instantly connect. you've only known each other for a lil' while and you're already finishing each others' sentences. you know how he/she will respond. you already have a well developed body language code to send signals to each other in the presence of people, you even know what that look means. you know the look, the slight peering over a raised coffee mug in starbucks that says im gonna head to the bathroom, i'll give you 45 secs, and then you follow. yeah that look. the one that says baby I love you and baby i want you in a way that no words can describe. the one that says yes, i will have your babies right now.
could a love too strong, make you see the rest of your life with that one person? make you change your entire out look. from not wanting kids to happily saying, 'with you if it happens, it happens'. make you start thinking bout family cars instead of that hot two seater that bmw just brought out. make you think about houses with playing grounds out in the 'burbs than your mid town bachelor/ bachelorette pad thats close to all the hottest haunts in town. make you pause for a moment and actually thinking bout passing up on that offer to the new club opening where the who's who of showbiz would be to just kicking back with your man/woman at home.
the thing is, if your love starts off like this....and for many it has, how do you sustain it? surely theres a time when the euphoria will fade, when some form of normalcy will set in, right? how do our best relationships turn into our worst relationships?
do we love to a degree of naiveness that we are almost aloof of our partners drawback and flaws. couple this with the former, wont our best relationships soon turn to our worst? wont our saintly patience soon turn in to unpredictable episodes similar in angst to roid rage?
makes you wonder and makes you think........
i personally believe that a lasting relationship can still have all the passion and fieriness it had in the begining, if, the people involved in it are totally honest with their feelings about eachother and respectful and mindful of eachother as individuals and never expect or take eachother for granted.......
or i am just being naive.......
will keep you posted
Sunday 22 July 2007
where are all the hard copies
we are living in times where celebrityhood can be just a few strokes on your keyboard, dancing along with fame fortune and notoriety. hell its so easy to go from a nobody to a somebody to a nobody and then make a comeback literally in the same twentyfour hours. the thing is you gotta have it.......
i was on a one of my cyber haunts recently and a well known resident fashionista ( i think) posed the question: whose style influences you most. well ,we got an array of answers, from names some are not familiar with to the overwhelming response of i am my own style.. I do me!!!
wow! I said. really? i asked myself. so you're a true original huh? original like vinyl huh?. lets face it...... there is nothing more original than vinyl records.... you cant record over those, every other format you can!
i didnt post a response on that particular thread though. i really didnt know how to respond. in honesty i would like to think i try to emulate a few peoples' style..... something that is out there already mixed in with my own flair. but when i think about it, my own flair is just how i carry myself off... is it not?
are we so afraid to acknowledge the people we look up to as adults? are we in such identity crises that we feel we the need to justify our identity by shunning another? are we all hard copies? someone has to be a copy of something.
well im not afraid to say it there are men whose style i admire, cultures which i admire that influence my style greatly. im not an original.......... nah, far from it. id like to say im like a museum, or better still your perfect magazine. a collection of various pieces of work articles stories coulours and history that define who i am. from street to high fashion, the bush to the city, hiphop to punk and everything in between.
there is no harm in saying i admire the next person......
its inspiration.
i was on a one of my cyber haunts recently and a well known resident fashionista ( i think) posed the question: whose style influences you most. well ,we got an array of answers, from names some are not familiar with to the overwhelming response of i am my own style.. I do me!!!
wow! I said. really? i asked myself. so you're a true original huh? original like vinyl huh?. lets face it...... there is nothing more original than vinyl records.... you cant record over those, every other format you can!
i didnt post a response on that particular thread though. i really didnt know how to respond. in honesty i would like to think i try to emulate a few peoples' style..... something that is out there already mixed in with my own flair. but when i think about it, my own flair is just how i carry myself off... is it not?
are we so afraid to acknowledge the people we look up to as adults? are we in such identity crises that we feel we the need to justify our identity by shunning another? are we all hard copies? someone has to be a copy of something.
well im not afraid to say it there are men whose style i admire, cultures which i admire that influence my style greatly. im not an original.......... nah, far from it. id like to say im like a museum, or better still your perfect magazine. a collection of various pieces of work articles stories coulours and history that define who i am. from street to high fashion, the bush to the city, hiphop to punk and everything in between.
there is no harm in saying i admire the next person......
its inspiration.
Saturday 21 July 2007
as far back as i could remember
"i always wanted to be a gangster!!"........ Ray Liotta Goodfellas (1991)
those words couldnt have described what i wanted to be when i was younger. a hard nosed hard bodied gangster. i gotta blame my older brother for that. it was he who, when i was 11 gave me a cassette tape of NWA EFILFORZIGGAN and 2Live Crew's Banned in the Usa and nasty as they wanna be.
my fate has been sealed since!
for the next 9 years that defined who i was. true, i knew the consequences that came with the lifestyle of being a real gangster. i'd read most of my dads newsweek magazines, painting the most vivid pictures of the murders and crimes during the peak of the crips and bloods wars of the early 90's.
the funny thing this, i was a middle class african kid with part private school education, who couldnt be any more dejected farther from the realities of picthing narcotics to survive and turf honour killings. nah! that was tv books movies and news stories, that was someonelse's reality.
i did threaten to shoot someone once though! my brother gave out two beat downs that week, one to the dude i'd threatend, and two, to me for being silly and living in a music video. i mean he had to slap me but once! and never again would that thought cross my mind
years later i look at that incident and think was i realy gonna go through with it? nah! I wasnt. im not cut for prison. not cut for murder! not cut to even raise a hand to anyone ... ( dont get it twisted, i will slap a nigga who oversteps the line though). not cut for arguments on internet forums. i still am a gangster though! oh no doubt! but its different now.
the word gangster to me when i was younger meant something different. gangster is more synonymous with guns, violence, ill gotten excessive living, and non flinching demeanours even at the point of death. these days, being a gangster to me, means getting where you are going by any means neccesary, scored that top gig at work? now thats gangster. taking care of your moms and pops..... now thats gangster. being a gentleman at all times... thats gangster. being a playboy and still be faithfull........ lol, thats gangster.
going for gold, well the goal posts have been changed now, but going for diamond and staying true to your core beliefs, without compromising who you are as a person........ THATS GANGSTER!
either way i look at it, had i picked up a gun, or continued on this path that i am now of breaking new ground, taking risks and facing all odds head on and challenging the norm i was gonna be a gangster.
as far back as i could remember, i always wanted to be a gangster! and as i far forward as i can see im always gonna be a gangster.......
i guess ive always been a gangster, i suppose.......
my perception has just changed
accepting change?
now THATS GANGSTER
those words couldnt have described what i wanted to be when i was younger. a hard nosed hard bodied gangster. i gotta blame my older brother for that. it was he who, when i was 11 gave me a cassette tape of NWA EFILFORZIGGAN and 2Live Crew's Banned in the Usa and nasty as they wanna be.
my fate has been sealed since!
for the next 9 years that defined who i was. true, i knew the consequences that came with the lifestyle of being a real gangster. i'd read most of my dads newsweek magazines, painting the most vivid pictures of the murders and crimes during the peak of the crips and bloods wars of the early 90's.
the funny thing this, i was a middle class african kid with part private school education, who couldnt be any more dejected farther from the realities of picthing narcotics to survive and turf honour killings. nah! that was tv books movies and news stories, that was someonelse's reality.
i did threaten to shoot someone once though! my brother gave out two beat downs that week, one to the dude i'd threatend, and two, to me for being silly and living in a music video. i mean he had to slap me but once! and never again would that thought cross my mind
years later i look at that incident and think was i realy gonna go through with it? nah! I wasnt. im not cut for prison. not cut for murder! not cut to even raise a hand to anyone ... ( dont get it twisted, i will slap a nigga who oversteps the line though). not cut for arguments on internet forums. i still am a gangster though! oh no doubt! but its different now.
the word gangster to me when i was younger meant something different. gangster is more synonymous with guns, violence, ill gotten excessive living, and non flinching demeanours even at the point of death. these days, being a gangster to me, means getting where you are going by any means neccesary, scored that top gig at work? now thats gangster. taking care of your moms and pops..... now thats gangster. being a gentleman at all times... thats gangster. being a playboy and still be faithfull........ lol, thats gangster.
going for gold, well the goal posts have been changed now, but going for diamond and staying true to your core beliefs, without compromising who you are as a person........ THATS GANGSTER!
either way i look at it, had i picked up a gun, or continued on this path that i am now of breaking new ground, taking risks and facing all odds head on and challenging the norm i was gonna be a gangster.
as far back as i could remember, i always wanted to be a gangster! and as i far forward as i can see im always gonna be a gangster.......
i guess ive always been a gangster, i suppose.......
my perception has just changed
accepting change?
now THATS GANGSTER
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