used tire shop inventory
occupies second bay space,
wait time thirty minutes max
Wednesday, August 15
SONG OF THE DAY: Murder She Wrote
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Back when Richmond was not gentrified so badly, and
VCU cut off at Broad and Belvidere almost entirely except for that one office
where you went to pick up your refund check if you were broke ass first
generation college student from shitty southside VA, and you could walk down
Broad, or ride your bike if you had one that wasn’t stolen yet, or you were the
thief, which meant you had a bike, and go to bright ass Willie’s downtown, to
check out whatever new singles were out. Warm days meant the boom of Jeeps,
this was prime Jeep boom baptistry days, and thus that was the beauty of
dancehall during this era, because it was reggae but cross-pollinated with that
boom bap, and a Jeep would roll by just absolutely rattling windows, and the
air would be humid but it was still chill out and lots of foot traffic and
though the murder rate was crazy high back then, you knew where that was likely
to happen and where not, and the rare outbursts beyond murderous norms tended
to happen long after Willie’s was closed, usually when Ivory’s was letting out,
or at the neighborhood smack and/or crack den, but you learned to be aware of
do’s and don’ts and operate accordingly.
Whenever some of these classic riddims hit, my
adrenaline and memory serotonins start flowing, and it’s impossible not to want
to just turn that shit up until the side view mirrors fall off your old ass
Civic with the clutch about to go out and you’re not sure how you’re gonna
afford to fix it when that happens so you’re gonna be another one of those
dudes with a brokedown Honda Civic out front of the rental you living in, with
the missing sideview mirrors because you turned the bass up too high. But fuck
it man, you only got one life. Can’t be sitting around worrying about when your
clutch gonna go out. Gotta keep moving.
B3TT3R T0 BVRN 0VT TH4N F4D3...
better to burn out than fade
away mentality makes
mavericks of simple men
Tuesday, August 14
L1K3LY 1T W1LL B3 0K4Y...
"likely it will be okay"
daily mantra, repeating
in the hopes I believe it
SONG OF THE DAY: Whip You With a Strap
Hard to feel good about odes to child abuse, but
also this is Dennis Coles aka Ghostface Killah aka America’s Street Laureate. I’ve
been a part-time practicing MC for 30 years now, and my all-time favorite MCs
have shifted and morphed over the years. Back in the day almost got into a
fistfight with my friend Sterling over who was better, Big Daddy Kane or Rakim.
Sadly, I will admit I was wrong (I back Kane), but it took time to realize
that. In college, on the strength of “Eye Examination” alone, I thought Del was
the most brilliant dude ever. Of course, loved Biggie for his ability to take
MC turn it into Mic Control and really exercise that control part. There’s been
so many. But honestly, for lifetime body of work, I might put Ghostface at the
top of that list now, as crazy as that sounds. Just an amazing poet who can mix
the cryptic with the scriptural so easily, add real life flavor even more
easily, and make a track about talking shit to women at the bus stop that’s the
fuckin’ best ever, and then follow that up with some post-Apocalyptic
Illuminati survival shit. Plus, he’s not just a wordsmith, but if you ever saw
him perform you know, he’s as masterful of ceremonies as anybody on stage.
This song of course has the added depth of coming
off a J Dilla beat, which adds one of the greatest ever production minds.
Producer/MC combos and how they work together is often a lost art in making
music today, people just jumping on instrumentals from anywhere, not developing
a relationship with the people they’re making music with. You can tell a lot of
times too. I’m old school in that I love to have someone who is doing the music
while I do the words and we’re building an idea together, rather than separate
from each other entirely, back and forth weaving different layers after both
parts’ input to give shit more depth. That’s not me acting like I’m better than
anybody else – I’m a pretty shitty MC, tbh, but I have my moments when
operating in a steady creative zone with the same folks. Give me concept
projects with a single production force and single MC force working together
any day. And fuck it, while y’all doing that, give me a motherfuckin’ DJ on the
track too.
Monday, August 13
SONG OF THE DAY: The Wicketshit Will Never Die
Noted horrorcore rap original Esham he of the
darkest lost zones of Detroit shall suggest to us that wicketshit will never
die, and there is strength to be taken from surviving the horrible darkness
that is late capitalism and cultural collapse of western civilization due to
the avarice and greed of those who have always been positioned at the top of
the pyramid scam, at some point (I hope) one has to embrace the faith that this
is not an end nor an ultimatum nor the final call of apocalyptic purgatory, and
that perhaps a bettershit shall be born from the ashes of this failed
experiment in exploitation, unsustainable personal profit over collective good,
and general dehumanization of each other. But while still immersed in this slow
boil of decline (which appears to be boiling more and more each passing week,
but then again we all know how watched pots boil and we are certainly watching
for bubbles more readily than ever), there is no doubt great solace in dark
wicketshit arts, which take the feelings of total insecurity, lack of safety,
deep paranoia from rabid police state militarization, distrust of random
passersby as “is this man friend or foe? will he give me daps or stabs?”, and
so on and so forth, and these horrible feelings of failure can be exorcised by
embracing the wicketshit in our arts, so that we don’t have to do so in real
life. It helps the machetes remain unbloodied for another day.
M4NM4D3 W4LLS T00 T4LL T0 CL1MB...
manmade walls too tall to climb
don't reach so far underground;
true resistance requires depth
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