Monday, July 26, 2010

Friends

The effort or kindness of another human being is an immeasurable commodity that's too volatile to pin hopes on. Some will say life is not really like this, but their being unreal with themselves. Every single friendship is essentially a set of exchanges, a social contract of some sort.

The quality of each friendship we have is determined by the evenness of these exchanges along with their frequency. Great friends have learned how to strike the perfect equilibrium, in bad friendships the scale is uneven. I dare you to exam every one of your friendships and see if this is not relevant. Man is not altruistic, when it comes down to it self preservation is the choice of the masses. There are those who transcend this, but they are few and far between.

Today I lost a friend because the scale of our friendship got broken beyond repair, the unevenness of the scale become unbearable. I'm not the type to hold grudges I wish the man well in all his present and future endeavors, but we just can not remain friends. There are some people you just can't be friends with.

Monday, July 5, 2010

Toronto The Good

Ontario College of Art & Design

For the past three months or so I have been obsessed with Toronto for some reason. I have spent a considerable amount of time learning and researching about this beautiful city to the north, before this year is over, I have made a personal promise to spend a weekend (shooting for August or September) in the city that produced Aubrey Graham. Graham is not the inspiration for my sudden interest in this beautiful city to the north, the stunning architecture is the focus of my fascination. Toronto earns it's nickname of the city that works, because it's architecture simply works.
The Royal Ontario Museum looks like something out of the Jetson's.

Nothing looks out of place in Toronto, from Frank Ghery's Deconstructiveism renovation of The Art Gallery of Ontario to the classic Chateau-style design of The Fairmont Royal York. In case you're not familiar with Mr. Ghery's work, he tried to collaborate with Jay-Z on the superfutureistic Nets Stadium, but apparently Mr. Carter and company could not afford his original design. It's tough balling on a budget, I feel you Jay we're reading from the same book, page, paragraph, and sentence. I had to include something "black", I am the Happy Black man after all.



Art Gallery of Ontario..check out the stair case and attached building...sick

Along with the great architecture also comes the cultural and social scene of a city that can easily be compared to that of New York City. New York has it quirky neighborhoods like Tribeca, The Meatpacking District, and SOHO, Toronto also has comparable areas such as The Distillery District, The Garden District, and Harbourfront. When I venture north I plan to take in all these wonderful sights and hopefully enjoy the hospitality that Canadian women are apparently known for.


Royal Distillery District..Old warehouse district turned hipster paradise.


Thursday, July 1, 2010

The New Normal of Hip Hop

A change has occurred in hip hop, a paradigm shift has removed popularity from the hands of gun totting lyrics to the poignant and heartfelt lyrics of the newest breed of MC's that are flooding the iPods of young people all over America. The work of artists such as Drake, Kid Cudi, J. Cole, K'naan, Wiz Khalifa, and my Nigerian brother Wale has spurred a new era of hip hop, that embraces the highs and lows faced by youth in affluent neighborhoods to the hood.This new generation is so deep that I had to leave out a few names for the sake of time.


These artists are talking about age old issues facing youth everywhere (self identification, the opposite sex, drugs, and friendship). They're fan bases are not built on traditional platforms (Radio) they are able to engage fans in ways they're predecessors could have never imagined. It is very hard to hear a Wiz Khalifa track on radio outside of Pittsburgh, yet he dominated twitter for days with the release of his mixtape Kush and Orange Juice.

With the advent of social resources such as Twitter and Facebook, these new artists bring you along as they move up. I recently had a conversation with a female friend of mine, she took pride in the fact that she was one of the early fans of K'naan on Facebook. To her this was a point of pride that increased her affinity to the artist in some sort of way.

This sense of affinity is at the heart of the movement of this new school of artists. Not only does it seem like they are accessible they're lyrics increases this sense of closeness with the listener. All the gentlemen in the above mentioned group could easily be someone you hang out, they're not all your classic leading men, they're just guys who rap about real shit that real people deal with.

Drake had a song on a mixtape called say whats real. Here's a short excerpt "Boy in my city I'm da 2-3 Drug dealers live vicariously through me". Seriously 5 years ago there is no way a rapper would include the word vicariously in a song, and still be able to sell 400,000 copies in the first week. It is a very different climate right now. Maybe it's the depression and the subdued economic activity, but people don't want to only hear about popping champagne, they want you to commiserate with how they avoid the bill collector (J.Cole- Dollar and a Dream) or how they can't get the girl they want so badly (Wale- Diary).

These rappers not only cover conscious issues, they also make good old fashioned ass shaking music (Wale- Pretty Girls, Kid Cudi- Make Her Say, Drake- Best I Ever Had). They've been able to marry the youths need for rebellion along with their need to be entertained, understood and of course party.