Blogs

Rants and Raves From Yours Truly…

Viewing Posts Tagged "Common" View All

MY FAILING LESBIAN RELATIONSHIP

June 12, 2007 | Tags: Hip Hop, Common, relationships

So recently I found myself once again defending my love/hate relationship with rap music to a friend who doesn’t listen to it. I made her read the lyrics to Common’s “ I Used to Love H.E.R.” to help her comprehend the music’s evolution, and consequently, the complexity of most people’s feelings towards it. She began to understand…but not fully…so, naturally, I decided to blog. (Side note: if rap music, according to Common, is a H.E.R…does that make me a lesbian??...Only on select weekend nights at the club I guess…what is this, college again??...kidding...)
Loving rap music is like being in an up-n-down-emotional-rollercoaster-verbally-abusive relationship. You know, the type of topic on Dr. Phil episodes, and everyone in the audience is yelling “then just leave H.E.R!” …but they are looking from the outside…they don’t know H.E.R like I do…they simply can’t relate. She didn’t always treat me like this, but the older we got, the more she turned her back on me. She was the outcast girl in school who suddenly found popularity and became an asshole. She went from being humble and self-aware to being outwardly abusive; contradicting everything she once claimed she was against. So, I considered leaving H.E.R. After all, It wasn’t like I didn’t have other options; I had been fuckin wit this chick Jazz for a minute now…plus some others on the side too. But my problem was that I could never make a clean break. You ever try to break up with a girlfriend but you’re still close with her mom, brothers etc? You know they aren’t the problem, so why take it out on them? But then…they eventually start to talk about her…about how good you were for each other…and you start to believe it all over again. Point blank, we were too involved with each other’s family to ever truly leave. She continued to chill with my three older brothers and countless members of my crew, and I couldn’t leave her fam alone either. How could I possibly expect to leave rap when I still loved Hip Hop?
So the cycle continued. But I got smarter and started to recognize how she was playin me. She would basically give me just enough to keep me wanting more. She would act up just till the point at which she saw I was getting serious about leaving…then she’d start telling me all those sweet things she used to tell me… and like a fool I fall in love all over again thinking she would finally start to change. And what once was a healthy relationship in which we listened to each other and talked about things that actually mattered, turned into being a fling. An occasional booty-call on the weekends. We tell concerned mutual friends that it’s “nothing serious” and we are “just having fun”, not realizing how badly we’re demeaning our relationship. And the cycle continues. I still chill with her (at the club mostly). Usually, I decide to end the night early because I can’t stand to listen to H.E.R talk and talk without ever really saying anything. She bores me. I’d much rather look through old (photo) albums of how she once was. Damn she looked good back then…raspy voice, complex background, and H.E.R. body (of work) was straight BANGIN….I want H.E.R back…because despite all the bullshit I still firmly believe, in true abusive-relationship fashion, that we can make this right.

The views and opinions expressed in this blog are those of the writer and not necessarily those of HipHopDX.com or Cheri Media Group.

RAISING THE MUSICAL REVOLUTION

When I was about 4 months pregnant with my son I became infatuated with his future.What will he look like? Will he have his father’s big-ass head ? Will he be Mr. Corporate America or an artist? The shy type or a ladies man? Who knows…but I knew that regardless, he would be okay in life.

That is, as long as his taste in music was tight.

I’m a firm believer that you can tell much about a person by his/her taste in music. And as I watched my 9-year-old cousin David dance in front of the t.v while fumbling and mumbling his way through the words to E-40’s “You and Dat Monkey”, I realized that despite his fantastic upbringing and private schooling…he was in grave danger.

I immediately sat in front of my computer to create an eclectic play list of my favorite music: Al green, Esthero, Wu-Tang Clan, Prince, Dorothy Ashby, Loungin’ Vol 1 by House Shoes, a slew of J Dilla, Slopfunkdust and Nicolay beats, Thievery Corporation, Les McCann, Amy Winehouse, Gil Scott Heron, BlackStar, The Soft Machine, Little Brother, Marvin Gaye, Madvillain, Doris Day, The Roots, Roy Ayers, A Tribe Called Quest, Archie Bell and the Drells, Common, Oiling Boiling, The Chi-Lites, EPMD, Didiers Sound Spectrum, George Benson, De La Soul, David Axelrod, Sly and the Family Stone, The Lyman Woodard Orchestra, George Clinton, Sade, Donald Bryd, the list went on for endless hours. I then proceeded to lay on my back for at least an hour every day with my speakers ontop of my growing belly so that my unborn son and I could bond over my musical autobiography. He kicked and squirmed to the bass resonating through my body and I wondered when I was done if any child could rival my son’s impeccable taste in music.

Enter Nia: a 4-year-old YouTube Phenomenon who sings everything from “Backstabbers” by The O’Jays to cuts off of Earth Wind and Fire’s 1975 album “Gratitude”. Don’t believe me? See for yourself:

HA! *smile*

Now, in all fairness it has to be said that in addition to finagling Nia’s singing into t.v appearances, an on-stage performace with Earth Wind and Fire, and a commercial for Mary J. Blige's latest album; I REALLY hope Nia’s mother is also encouraging her to memorize her school work just like she’s memorized Teddy Pendergrass’ “Only You”. However, kudos to Mamma Nia for giving her child a fantastic foundation for a proper musical collection on her iPod. I predict that Nia will grow to understand (that is, if she doesn’t already) that good music is good music and it knows no genre. And hopefully one day, Nia and my now 10-week-old son Alexander, backed with an army of young good-music lovers will lead us out of this current age of creative darkness and into a golden age of true lyricists, bangin beats, properly used samples, singers that aren't just products of studio tweaking, and a respect for the music of the past that has shaped our Hip Hop culture in positive ways.

But I’m hoping I won’t have to wait that long.