YESNESS

To my loyal fans and avid readers! (this means you college visions staff), I’m back. I haven’t written anything in awhile. A long while, but for once I have a reason for my actions. I had been saving rants in order to put them into a zine for New Urban Arts’ annual zine swap. That was the plan until the deadline suddenly crept up on me( deadlines have a funny way of doing this to me over and over again). which means no zine, so it’s back to blogging.

Anyway, this Saturday is the great ” Rock the Bells” concert that I’ve been looking forward to since this time last year. This is easily the greatest rap show of the entire year. This years’ acts include the mighty Mos Def, MF Doom, Rakim (no, your eyes do not deceive you), Redman ,Methodman, Ghostface, Raekwon ,Immortal technique, the Pharcyde, Nas, De la Soul and the reunion of a Tribe Called Quest. I could be happy with not going to another show in my life. It’s all there. Native tongues,Wu, and 90’s golden age hip-hop in full effect. Did I mention that RAKIM will be there?

Needless to say I’m excited. Most of these folks I’ve already experienced live,but for the most part this is like checking off a wish-list. Some people.(like my bro) have had to wait years for an opportunity to see any of these acts. I get them all in one day. Spoiled, yes, and I don’t care.

Also to Simon, I will be writing more often. Although I realize that my blog and your viewing  of it is just another way of you using me as an excuse and to blame me for low productivity in the office. Not cool Simon, not cool.

 So, as of April 5 2008, I am officially by the laws of science, twenty years old. So I noticed a couple of things while being twenty. For example, no one cuts you any slack anymore. As soon as the “teen” is no longer a suffix to the word that is the number of your age, people don’t give a shit about you anymore. It’s like “you’re old” and need to be “responsible” for your  ”actions”. Whatevs. Honestly, being a legitimate adult sucks. There really isn’t much to look forward to anymore. I think I wasted my teenage years on absolutely nothing. I wasted a good chunk of my life that I’ll never get back. On what might you ask? well read Junot Diaz’s “Oscar Wao” and that’ll give you an idea. On the plus side, not getting carded is awesome.

I was hanging around the house one afternoon when I got a call from my brother. He wanted me to help clean his apartment with him, which was only fair considering the fact that I occupy the place almost as much as he does. I’m not gonna lie, cleaning sucks. . . a lot. I avoided all major heavy duty grimey areas (like the sink), and went straight for his shoe closet. The interesting thing about my brother’s shoe closet is it serves as my museum for NIKE history. Seriously. . . The dude has sneakers older than my entire existence on this planet. I found shoes still fresh, brand new, never worn, in the box yet still six years old. After dusting around and throwing out empty boxes, I discovered two boxes stacked on top of each other that weighed too much to be sneakers. I flipped the top of the first  box and there it was, my brother’s old tape collection.I was astonished by what I saw. All of these tapes were original and first printings, some were so beat they wouldn’t even play. This box, stuffed full of classics included Midnight Marauders, The low end theory, Paid in full, Follow the leader, Fear of a black planet, Yo!bum rush the show, it takes a nation of millions, criminal minded, long live the kane, Organized Konfusion’s debut,  and everything Wu-Tang-related ever recorded.  There were more Tony Touch tapes than I could count. Tony Toca did it all, reggae, r&b, and of course Hip-Hop. I mean REAL Hip-Hop. He left all the weak shit for Clue and Flex to put out, but not my boy Tony, he kept it real with every tape. My favorite of these tapes has to be Tony Touch and Doo-Wop as The Diaz brothers live in japan. This tape is crazy. An example= Mixing KRS ONE’s Jack of spades into Ghostface’s Cherchez LaGhost (off of supreme clientele, go cop that). He then mixes that into his own song, greatest Dj, which is off of the piece maker, an album which I could go on about, but i’ll save that for another time. So, now in this day and age in which everyone and their mother has an mp3 player or upgrading their ipods, I’m rocking my old-ass-hell Sony walkman. Chances are, what I’m listening to is far better than what’s in your ears.

Currently under construction. By the way, Simon Moore is a hater,but he does have a point. Actually no, Simon is not a hater.