From a Young G'z perspective...

....rap is dead, at least to me...


Wanna know when it died? No, not when Nas proclaimed it (He was way "too big for his britches" with that call). But he was on to something. And to think, when that *@+% dropped I was one of the main people calling him an attention *!%!$. Now look at me.. I'm in full agreement but I despise the attention that comes with having an opinion on NT. Go figure..

 Hip-hop is dead. What we've been seeing and hearing since circa 2004ish is just rap's reanimated corpse. It's a lot like the T-virus... There's no passion, no emotion, no REAL flavor to the mainstream any more. There's just impulse and hunger.

The impulse to make money is what fuels Zombie Rap.  And so cats hop on stage and look as ridiculous as possible in hopes that this week's BRAND NEW nonsensical gyrations will spark enough youtube hits to sell a million ringtones.

There's a thought: Youtube and ringtones.

Rap died when it became centered around technology that didn't even exist when rap was first thought of. Makes sense. Rap reached so hard for the sky that once it took off, it lost its roots. And who benefits from "sky high rap" music? Execs, suits and ties, every one but the Black Youth...

Excuse my lack of Dougie... but as I recall, Eric B. and Dougie actually made music while dancing. Eh.. now I sound old. But the truth is simple. The rappers that made me want to rap when I was 12 and tapping pens on my desk in English class are no longer at the top of the "cool list" to rap consumers. Ain't that about a %%#@%. So now you got 20 year olds rapping like 14 year olds... to 12 year olds. Must be nice..

I'm not a fan of rap music. I just make it. It's becoming a job now... and consumers blame the artists? Nah.. rap died when consumers stopped demanding quality. We're hustlers, us self-employed types. We didn't make the game..we just play it..

I'm tired of playing THIS game... and yet, I won't stop. At the end of the day, as long as ONE person still feels the way I feel, I'm not alone in this world. I miss rap music so much. I miss reading through this forum and caring, I mean REALLY caring about the music. But it's just a business today... maybe that's all it ever really was... but I used to dream. I used to feel something in rap music; something tangible and living. Rap used to have a soul and a pulse. Now you can't even get a real hard copy of the music on disk. AND the quality is all smashed together thanks to the advent of MP3s. Worse than the quality itself - knowing that I'm rating to a group of people that could *NOT* give a *@+% less about what I'm talking about.....



*Plays Aquemini in earbuds*


*jumps off  building*

Just a vacation.. or justification?

We are born and we die
We are human
But why do we search for a deeper purpose?
Is it fear...of death?
Why must we trivialize our lifespans?
Are we insecure?
Do we fear our true worth?
Why are we not enough, of ourselves, for ourselves?
Sometimes I wonder if religion is to blame..
I HATE religion.
There's a guy on the other side of the world that believes what he's "supposed" to,
Solely because it's what his father's father believed
He was raised to never question it
His faith justifies his actions against me and my people.
My faith justifies my retaliation.
I hate the implications of the word "justify".
If shit was JUST as is,
You wouldn't have to just-ify it
I want all of us to be wrong,
JUST because..
I want God to be Elmo from Sesame Street
Then only kids would go to heaven
None of us deserve it
We fight over shit we couldn't prove if we tried...
CUZ WE'VE TRIED ALREADY!
Was Jesus Black?
Would it make a difference either way?
God isn't a proper name, it's a job description
God didn't write the bible in English
There are no curse words, only cursed meanings
Let gays marry
Let God give a damn..
What if He doesn't?
Does that scare you?
What if God is completely different than you'd imagine?
Would you still worship?
If King Kai descended from the Heavens,
Would you truly accept being wrong?
I would
I don't worship a specific religion
I appreciate the general idea of a higher power
Sometimes I personify it
I'll say, "He gave me the strength to over come"
or, "She nurtured me back to good health"
Sometimes God is bigger than personification
God is in the inner workings of the world
God is Physics
God is as much a watchmaker as He is the watch itself
It's mechanics... gears.. face..
YOU... are god.
I... am god
He, It, She.... the Trinity... is God
Some would say that's very "Five percenter" of me
Nah, that's the whole load
Just live, and let live
NO,
The Just live, and let live.
Now justify that.

2 days ago I made two pick ups... one was a brand new leather coat.

The other was a dead man in my brand-new leather coat.


So the day before yesterday, I'm sitting around with my rude boy Tim, just smoking weed and playing FIFA 2011 (cuz apparently real Jamaicans prefer futbol to NBA2K11, let him tell it). He gets a call. The caller, a funeral home director, needs "hands". We have 4....and backs! Yippee! Next thing I know we're lifting a 6'2'', 300lb., 2-days-dead guy out of his apartment bed, onto a stretcher, and covering him with the a black tarp-thingy. Took at least 20 minutes. Tetris is easier when the blocks are smaller and aren't making the "Damn, I'm super dead." face at you.


Surreal.


Ask me what I saw! psssh... NOTHING AT ALL!


I mean, you see it all, but if you're smart you just daydream it all away. It all passes in front of your eyes, but you don't watch it, you know?  You focus on as small of a field of vision as you can. All I saw were arms, legs, and hips...not the WHOLE person, just his parts. FYI: Dead weight is serious business. Lifting all 216 human bones can be relatively heavy way before you account for how much belly is weighing that pelvis to the bed.This is what you'd most likely think about in between wondering if he died of some infectious disease that's now all over your new coat.. At least I did. So what I noticed, aside from how huge this man was, was that his skin had started to decomp under his arm and would slide right off if you did the little rap DJ *errit* errit* thing one good time. Yo, his dead toe touched the inside of my leathers too

The good news, homie kept his bowels AND his meat didn't fall out his loose fitting boxer briefs when we moved him


So anyway, into the back of the funeral home we go...

You know what's back there? HELLY dead people. And in some cases, fragments of dead people stitched to "place holders".  ( <-- that was what the funeral home director attempted to show me to gross me out. I guess he's never been to r*tt*n.com. I was breezy.. ). I may have even seen Emmit Till. Not sure.

So that was the trial run.. I'm "on call 24/7 now. It's supposed to be like a probationary thing. I do a few body moves ad I get to move on up and into the business I guess....So excuse me if my next single sounds like some Brother Lynch Hung #++!.. 


So that's it. Had to share it.  Very cool story indeed, but I'm not your bro. Peace

Gorilla Island Vol. 4.... ON DECK!

Aight so it's been a while, but I promised you guys more music for 2K11.. so without further adue, here ya go. Enjoy!

Donwload HERE!

Rapsketball: I Love This Game!

So my nigga Don asked why I don't battle....

Players on the court compete to win championships, not to outscore one another. Just look at Lebron... he's been outscoring Kobe for 4 or 5 years now. It's not that hard to talk shit about someone. I could "outscore" most people verbally. But... I'd rather approach music as if making a good album is a championship ring. I don't care who I outscore individually, as long as I WIN. KD got the scoring title last year and was the youngest ever to do it. You want to be like him. I used to as well. But Kobe won the chip because Kobe is chasing his own legacy right now. He's not playing to prove he's better than Lebron or Jordan. He's playing to make his career the best it can be.

As long as you compete against others and not yourself, you'll never be the best at anything. Jordan had the same mentality as Kobe. Jordan wanted to WIN, not just score. While they may tend to go together more often than not, fact are facts and the best winners don't always score (Rondo?) and the best scorers don't always win (T-MAC!).

The thing is this.. I know music. I know there's certain things that can be done on a track not because I heard some one else do it, or got the idea in my head to improve on something else I heard, but because I study music theory.

So when I hear certain rhyme schemes, I don't think "That's a Jay-Z flow". I think, "That's just like a rudiment on a snare drum... and Jay-Z learned how to apply it". So when I hear that same scheme/rudiment on a... I dunno... Eminem song, I'm not gonna think "That's a Jay-z flow Em just used". I'm more likely to think "Em and Jay discovered the same rudiment and applied it". And since I can understand and read up on all the known rudiments, I can learn them and apply them as well. I'm a musician, not just a rapper..

So to me, battling is just the top of an iceberg.. I'd rather spend time exploring music in depth...or in the depths...

Being a proud battle rapper is like being happy to have JUST a jump shot. I play this game at a level most aren't even aware exists..