August 30, 2008 | Tags: none

In case you forgot, I just got back from California recently. One thing I’ve come to learn about that state is that even after I know what I’m getting into when I plan a trip there, something still manages to surprise me. The most notable surprise of my trip this time around came way out of left field.

I listened to the radio.

Yeah, I listened to the radio while I was stuck in the rental car in rush hour traffic in Oakland. I’m not sure what possessed me to do this, considering that I am 100% sure that I had CD’s (and decent ones at that) in the car at the time, but I’m glad that I did. I was scanning through channels and stopped upon 89.3, whatever that is. I’ve actually tried to figure out what exactly it is and have come to the conclusion that it’s either a college radio station or an “educational”-type radio station run out of Berkeley. Anyway, I stopped on this station because I heard a voice that sounded rather familiar. And lo and behold, it was Dead Prez being interviewed on the air. The station was even playing their music between interview questions.

My jaw dropped, and I immediately looked at my mother who was traveling with me and said, “Do you hear this?!” She didn’t seem to be as taken aback as I was about the fact that two people who are known for saying, “turn off the radio, turn off that bullshit” were having their songs played on FM radio. On top of this, they were going off on a tangent about their perceptions of neocolonialism during the interview. Potential hypocrisy of using a media tool you complain about to get your message to the public aside, hearing some serious talk about politics and the presidential campaign, social issues, and neocolonialism from the hip hop community on the radio was rather refreshing. Soon enough I was crossing the Bay Bridge into downtown San Francisco and the radio station faded into static quickly enough to make me wonder if I had merely imagined the whole thing.

Just that one instant on the radio got me wondering about the condition of our airwaves. Was this merely something characteristic of that particular Bay Area station? That area of the West Coast is fairly well-known for its leftist thinking. Has the radio scene across the country stepped their game up and deviated from the Top-40 hits? I really don’t listen to the radio enough to know. The skeptical side of me tells me that I am still probably wasting my time by listening to the radio when I have a pretty damn good catalogue of music in mp3 form (playing now: “Push Up Ya Lighter” off of Illadelph Halflife circa 1996 courtesy of The Roots). But the small remnant of an optimist that still lies within my rampantly cynical soul is making me wonder if I may have been missing some good things lately.

I have heard that WPGC has started a “Crank Radio” HD radio station that is strictly local music, and they also have the “Home Jamz” show that airs Sundays at 9pm that spotlights local talent, hosted by DJ Dirty Rico and DJ Heat. And in an unfortunate turn of events that led me to listening to the radio on an early-morning commute to class the other day, I noticed that the lively political discussions that should be far more present on hip hop stations in an area of DC’s political status are still present – even if only in the mornings when most people are asleep. Locally, that’s a good start.

The radio airwaves are a great tool for promotion, communication, discussion, education, and the timely spread of information. Have we been using this technology to the best of its ability? I’m not so sure. Is there concrete hope that we can better utilize this tool in the future? I surely think that there is, and I’m ready to see it happen. Now if only I had some sort of formal training in that sort of thing…

One step at a time.

Bonus: Footage of Dead Prez at the San Bernardino Rock the Bells on August 9th.

And a couple shots from the San Francisco show...

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

DNC and the DMV

August 27, 2008 | Tags: none

I spotted something interesting on the internet today, more specifically over at DCist. A “commercial” (I don’t know what else to call it) was shown at the Democratic National Convention out in Meka Soul’s favorite city ever (read: Denver) that featured lyrics put down to a gogo beat that called for what DC residents may want more than anything else in the world: representation. I’m not sure if anybody that’s not from here cares about DC’s congressional representation or even necessarily knows, but it’s always at the forefront of DC’s political agenda. Taxation without representation? Pshhh. Anyway, it’s interesting to see gogo music being used to further a political agenda at such a large event that’s not even being held in DC. See the “commercial” for yourself:

In other DMV music news, local artist NandoMcFlyy just dropped his latest mixtape entitled “S.N.E.S.”. It’s available for free download, so feel free to check it out by clicking on the image below.

And if you’re in the area this Friday/Saturday, you may want to go downtown and check out the activities going down as a part of the Million DJ March. DX guest blogger Sha Stimuli, Rev. Lennox Yearwood, Jeannie Jones, KRS One, Saigon, Sirius Jones, and Joell Ortiz, among others, are set to make appearances.

And before I get out of here and return to the wonderful world of school and work, let me take a minute to say happy 50th anniversary to Ben's Chili Bowl. I hope there's many more years of success to come.

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

Voices Behind Walls

August 24, 2008 | Tags: none

Note: This writing/hip hop stuff tends to put me in contact with some very fascinating people. The following words are those of Lee Rhyanes – a man who loves hip hop, cares about his community, sets goals, and makes them happen. Anybody reading this that is striving to make some positive change should take notes. Lee was generous enough to share with me the steps it took for him to create an amazing program called Voices Behind Walls which uses hip hop to reach out to incarcerated youth in the Southwest. Gotta love people who have good hearts and the determination needed to make things happen. Check out the links he dropped at the end to find out more about Voices Behind Walls and his various undertakings. And to think, the media (well, mostly just Papa Bear) is really trying to convince us that hip hop is always a bad influence. Pshh…anyway, here’s Lee’s story:

The ideas for my involvement in this program started in 2002 with my mentor Dr. Bejarano at New Mexico State University (Las Cruces, NM), and over the next couple of years it worked its way into creative writing workshops and activities that I taught for a youth violence prevention program. That program was provided by the NMSU Family Life Center which was being directed by Dr. Bond-Maupin and provided educational services for youth that had been attending alternative school or that were caught up in the juvenile justice system. I led these workshops for about 3 years during my undergrad studies and also started getting the youth involved with radio broadcasting at KRUX 91.5 fm, which is a student run college radio station at NMSU. I'd been hosting a Soul and Hip Hop radio program since 2000 and was also a staff there, so any time we could extend participation with the radio station and have youth from the surrounding community visit and create a show of their own, or recite a poem, a freestyle, we announced that opportunity in the workshops and got them involved. Unfortunately, the violence prevention program was no longer operating due to funding, so I started reaching out to other places that needed volunteers to work with youth.

At a writing conference in Austin, I met up with Emmy Perez who at the time was conducting poetry workshops in El Paso, TX at a juvenile corrections boot camp program, and she invited me to come in and co-teach the workshop. Since I had some experience with helping youth get their voices recorded and broadcasted, I brought in a portable recording studio set up and we began recording poetry and Hip Hop lyrics that the youth inside the detention center were creating. We were limited to the amount of time we could spend with them inside the detention center (around 45 minutes to an hour with each; 1 female group and 3 male), so while I was setting up the recording equipment, Emmy would lead the workshop and help them get some writing down on paper. By the end of the workshop we'd record. Emmy also was able to organize events outside of the detention center and so instead of just providing the services inside, she'd also put together events and workshops at local happenings in El Paso or at a library, and youth would get the chance to perform their work.

I think it was about a year or two into the program when Emmy had to move to Southern Texas after getting hired to teach at the University of Texas-Pan American, so it kind of put things on hold, temporarily. At that time I had just started working on my Masters Degree but found time to continue conducting the workshops in El Paso that Emmy had started. So every Saturday morning, I would commute down to El Paso, TX from Las Cruces, NM and conduct the workshops. Once a month, I'd bring the laptop and microphone and we'd record. And to give an idea of how the workshop was organized, the youth had to express themselves without profanity or the explicit promotion of drugs, gang activity or disrespect towards males/females. A lot of them were incarcerated because of drugs, violence or some issue they didn't have much control over, so the point was to provide that little bit of time to enhance their literary skills as readers, writers, thinkers and teachers, and it also provided the time for feedback and input amongst the group on their creative writing skills or their vocal performances, whether it was through poetry, rhyme, singing, etc. At the same time, any resources I had, I was bringing them in. So we'd learn about everything from the Blues to Hip Hop (Billie Holiday, James Brown, Tupac Shakur, Percy Carey aka MF Grimm, etc.), Chess, film, literature (Helena Maria Viramontes, Luis Rodriguez, Piri Thomas, etc,), photography books (Luis Urrea and Jose Galvez; Vatos text, Jamel Shabazz; A Time Before Crack text), news and any kind of local issues that were going on that affected youth. We were incorporating all of that into the workshop and we discussed it and sometimes they allowed it to inspire what it was they would write about. Eventually we'd also learn that the recording component (and hearing their vocal recordings played back) helped to improve the presentation of their vocals by finding better ways to project. So with just a pen, a writing pad, basic recording equipment, soul/jazz/hip hop instrumental CD's and our own voices it became a classroom/program that we always looked forward to. Even if it meant we had to be up at 6 am every Saturday morning to get it started.

Meanwhile, Emmy Perez also continued to conduct workshops in Southern Texas with young adults at a detention boot camp there. As a professor, she also got students from her classes involved with teaching the workshops and the success of the program would eventually bring them local news coverage and they also were able to create a CD project, a chapbook and had organized an event to celebrate their accomplishments.

Back in El Paso, I had decided to get the program online. Joseph, a youth from the Delta workshop came up with the name, Voices Behind Walls. This led to the creation of the website, which became a platform for networking and the self publishing of our audio/literary pieces.

Since I was residing and going to school in Las Cruces, NM I also found out about a detention center out there where youth were serving much longer sentences. So along with the workshops in El Paso, TX, Voices Behind Walls started conducting workshops in Las Cruces, NM. During this time we've had a poet by the name of Michael Gomez publish in The Beat Within, which is a publication of art and writing from the inside based out in California. They're also a national organization that publishes twice a month and hosts workshops inside detention facilities around the country. We also received funding from the Writers in the Schools (WITS) program at New Mexico State University and an endowment award from the NMSU English Department which helped us open up our own bank account for programming costs and donations.

After graduating in 2008 from NMSU and relocating back to El Paso, TX to work full time, the changes put the workshop on hold until everything gets situated for the new year. At the present moment, we plan to build onto the online component and start providing more ideas for curriculums to share the idea with people that might want to lend their time and provide some form of creative arts programming for youth wherever needed (whether in public schools, detention centers, youth recreations, group homes, etc.) And being that El Paso, TX and Las Cruces, NM are university communities, with respect to everyone that is already got something going on, the possibility of finding more students/educators that could volunteer and provide some educational services is there. So one way or another we're still building on providing information and will also be using the time to post writing and audio that's been collected over the past few years with many of the youth that were at one point involved with the workshop inside. With the funds we've accumulated we're also planning to use the online platform as a reference point where students that have been involved with the workshop in the past can follow up and see about putting their writing together in the form of a chapbook publication.

The website is also a research base for information on other educators and programs that are creating alternatives and/or responding to the incarceration rate in this country. From the staff at the Beat Within, Luis Rodriguez, Piri Thomas, Jimmy Santiago Baca, Ms. Dale Davis, Jim Brown, Bruce George and Louis Reyes Rivera, Richard Shelton, Sara Flores and the Artist Inside program in Las Cruces, NM... also just read about Kevin Clayton and the Chess instruction he's providing behind bars... the list goes on… so while bringing light to the incarceration issue we also hope to forward you to other people and established programs that got something going on.

Below I've included some primary links to our site, some of our recordings that have been posted, and information that's been included in the text above. The site is updated frequently. Peace.

http://www.voicesbehindwalls.org/ (Homepage)

http://leehiphopshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=110 (Message Board)

http://leehiphopshow.ipbhost.com/index.php?showforum=120 (Audio recordings (beats included) | Currently being updated)

http://www.leehiphopshow.com/ (Radio program)

http://thebeatwithin.org/news (The Beat Within)

http://www.hiphopalumni.com/ (Lee Rhyanes and Justin De Senso)

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

Rock the Bells = Free Shit

August 22, 2008 | Tags: Rock the Bells

I was beginning to think it may never happen, but I’m back in the DMV. After an unsuccessful attempt at driving to Vegas from Northern California, sleepless nights followed by ridiculous drives throughout SoCal and the shores of the West Coast, engine malfunctions and canceled flights, a sickness, and the endless drone of the computerized voice on the GPS, I’m out East again. And I can’t exactly say I’m happy about it. Going from having a shitload of good times and relaxation (in the most non-relaxing sense of the word) straight to work again? Not what’s good. And let’s not even think about the fact that classes start back up on Monday for me. Oh yeah, it feels good to be back.

Part of the purpose for me taking the trip in the first place was to hit the Rock the Bells stops at San Bernardino and San Francisco. The good news? Neither was a waste of time/energy at the end of the day. The bad news? Both stops definitely had their own little roadblocks to overcome. But you know what? For every roadblock, there was some nice free shit to be had that made up for it.

Not sure if you forgot, but college students love free shit. True story is that a lot of us that fit that college student demographic are rather broke and consider something like Cup of Noodles with hot sauce and lemon juice (props to the old crew I used to chill with for putting me on to that back in the day) to be a delicacy. So I’m sure that you can only imagine how wonderful I felt when people started hooking me up at Rock the Bells. Maybe you felt just as wonderful when you picked up a free mixtape from the DX booth, right? Right?! There’s still time to get one if you haven’t – just go see Meka in Denver.

Now, I’m not one for plugging things for people on the blog and turning this thing into a billboard, but there are a couple people/companies that seriously deserve some recognition right now. First of all, shouts to Acrylick – an L.A.-based clothing company that has some sick t-shirt designs. True story is that I wore one of their shirts and almost everybody that I spoke to asked me something about said shirt. Seriously. The fine folks from Acrylick held down their own merchandise booth in close vicinity to the DX booth at both Rock the Bells stops, and props should go out to people like DJ Wrex who held it down all day. Especially because selling tees in the middle of the desert all day isn’t exactly the most amazing task in the world.

Secondly, shouts to the wonderful staff holding the shows down for SanDisk. After the venue security at the San Francisco show was giving me some serious grief, the friendly SanDisk employees stepped in to do some regulating. After some negotiations and getting the proper wristbands and badges given to me, I was escorted down into some VIP press area or something like that. And yo, these people know how to do it right. Comfy sofas everywhere, free food and drinks, and the best part? Someone was nice enough to hook me up with a free 8 gig memory card for my cell phone, plus a little device so that I can just pop the memory card out and put it into my USB drive of my laptop to get everything off of it. Score! Sometimes being patient with security pays off, for real. And peep out a small portion of the area:

Those sofas were a nice, shady refuge between sets to sit and relax, especially since I was crazy enough to wear heels to that particular show. The press area at SF was hands down the best one that I saw at any point in the tour, and the staff made sure that everyone was well taken care of. Gotta love it.

Now after I get a minute to organize my thoughts (it's harder than it sounds) and all the stuff that I have to unpack, I'll be back with some words that aren't just shameless plugs. Seriously.

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

Intermission...

August 14, 2008 | Tags: none

I never thought I'd write a blog for DX while overlooking a lake in Northern California at night with the stars overhead and the sound of ducks swimming around filling my ears.

Straight up, I'm one lucky girl sometimes.

So anyway, while I'm out enjoying my day today, I get a text message (actually about four of them, that said the exact same thing, go figure) from my boy Modi, and it went a little something like this: "damn slim, ever since you've become a working woman, the blog has been more sporadic than a possibly pregnant woman's period". Yikes!

Seems as if in the blur that has been the past couple weeks of my life, I've had to neglect this little spot of the internet. Shame on me. But in the meantime, while I've been gone, I've had a lot of time to contemplate shit. I've gotten to do and see things in the past few days that I never envisioned myself doing or seeing. I've been blown away by the spelendor of the most simplistic things in the world. I've kicked back and watched the world of hip hop move thousands of people and bring us all together, simply based upon the love of music (and I get to do it again in less than a week).

I also have seen mad people passing out and acting a damn fool, but let's not think about that right now. Consider this a heads up that I may not blog as frequently due to the circumstances of life, but I'm never sleepin. Literally and figuratively (I think I slept two hours in about four days...and paid for it later by getting sick).

On top of all of this, I got to meet my West Coast blogging brothers Meka Soul, Brillyance, and Andres, as well as a huge amount of random ass people. If hip hop can bring us all together though, what's stopping us from coming together in other contexts to help eachother reach our own personal goals? If there's one thing I've learned from this blogging shit since I've started, it's that even the most random person may be able to help you in the most significant way - word to the Guerilla Union homegirl who offered to drive me around the parking lots at the San Bernardino show in a golf cart to find my car after I forgot where I parked.

I'm being insanely introspective right now, probably because I'm medicated and still on East Coast time, plus this lake is a dope meditation spot. I think the only reason I'm writing this is so Modi can shut up about my non-blogging. When I return to VA I'll have more Rock the Bells commentary, but until then I ask you to think seriously about this: what are you doing to further your own life? Are you using the resources that you have at their full potential? What can you do to make someone else's life a little better?

And if you think I'm crazy right about now, how about you try sitting in silence next to a lake under the stars and not contemplating life for even a a few seconds?

Peace to all the great people I've crossed paths with in the last few days. Bay Area heads - don't forget to hit up that DX booth at Rock the Bells this Saturday. You know you can't say no to free shit.

Oh, and peace to Bernie Mac and Isaac Hayes. Kinda weird that they had just been working together on a film...but such is life. See you in a week or so, DX!

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

Dead Prez at Rock the Bells

August 05, 2008 | Tags: dead prez

I thought I was going to be done with the brief recaps of the Maryland Rock the Bells stop, but why not continue, right? I mean shit, I need to start getting myself hyped up and feeling ready to brave at least twelve hours straight in the desert after spending at least half that time cramped up in a plane and lugging bags around an airport.

Actually, I don’t think there really is a good way to prep for that. Working out and pre-emptive hydrating, perhaps, but just my luck – the gym I go to is closed this week for construction or something.

So I suppose I may at least be able to build a little excitement back up by revisiting what I considered one of the highlights of my last trip to one of the tour’s stops: Dead Prez’s performance. I’m not sure if I ever said it on here, but I’m a huge Dead Prez fan. That probably won’t come as a surprise to many of you, considering I stay on that political ranting tip rather frequently around here and all. Dead Prez has consistently come through with that intelligent, intuitive, thought-provoking music that I happen to thrive off of. And even better than the fact that they talk about some shit worth talking about? They actually have pretty decent lyrical skills. Plus they don’t mess with those jubilant-sounding beats that just ooze sunshine, smiles, and booty shaking - I really do enjoy my music raw, rugged, and ruthless.

Anyway, I knew that the Sunday of the Maryland show was going to be a great day when the first recognizable faces I saw in the whole venue (before anybody from DX or anybody from school, even) were those of stic.man and M-1. It was a sign from above! Even better? This was my first time seeing them live. And I must say, I wasn’t disappointed. By them, at least. They had a consistent energy going on stage, they came through with a female DJ (props to the women holding it down on the turntables!), and they played some of my favorite tracks. Unfortunately it felt like the rest of the DMV may not have felt the same way I did about the Dead Prez set, and it seemed like Dead Prez sensed it. Especially when they started playing one of their songs (I think it was “Walk Like a Warrior”) and straight stopped in the middle complaining about how the crowd must not know it and wasn’t feeling it enough and just jumped right in to a different track. Granted, they went on fairly early in the day, but damn. Either way, they got right back into it and that minor bump in the road soon became insignificant.

Maybe Cali will show Dead Prez a little more love and I’ll be able to see an even better performance from them. Only time will tell.

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

Just Plain Nasty

August 03, 2008 | Tags: none

Maybe it’s just America’s general self-centeredness when it comes to news coverage, but I can’t remember hearing many news stories pertaining to Canada that really stuck with me. But I think I finally found one that will! Chances are that you heard about the beheading of a passenger on a Canadian Greyhound bus by now. As if it wasn’t bad enough that someone got their dome sliced off (that’s some sick shit, and if you don’t believe me, go watch one over in Saudi Arabia), now it seems as if the suspect actually sat and ate the victim’s flesh as he carved away at the body.

http://www.cnn.com/2008/CRIME/08/02/canada.bus.stabbing.ap/index.html

That’s some insanity right there, son!

And the craziest part about it is that once the suspect was identified, his former employer came out and started talking about how he was this “model employee” and never would have expected something like this from him.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/02/world/main4316778.shtml

Sidenote: Does anybody else find it interesting that they were watching “The Legend of Zorro” on the bus while this went down?

But seriously, this is unsettling for quite a few reasons. First of all, this was just plain disturbing, and I can’t even imagine what it would have been like to have caught a glimpse of the scene firsthand. Secondly, what would drive a person to randomly slice someone (assuming it was indeed a random act)? And in relation to that, what in the world would drive your mind to have the desire to eat a human being? I get that carnivores eat animals, and humans are carnivores (well, omnivores), and we are also animals (mammals, to be exact) but my human instinct has never told me to go chow down on some human flesh just because I was hungry or something. Even in school when I’d forget to bring something to eat in the morning and I was getting denied hall passes to raid a vending machine, I never ever ever ever thought about slashing the kid in the desk next to me to pieces and having myself some Homo sapiens sapiens sashimi. What in a person’s life could happen to them that would make them go that crazy?

Ugh.

But even more disturbing than all of that is that nobody saw something like this coming from that guy. Or at least they haven’t come forward and publicly said so at this point. It makes you wonder about the people you put yourself around on a daily basis. The person you share an office with, your next door neighbors, the person you sat next to on the Metro this morning on your way to Chinatown, your plumber, your dentist, your friends…there’s no way to really know what’s going on in anybody’s head at any given point in time.

[looks around suspiciously…]

Yeah, I don’t mind one bit that I’m going to stay home for the duration of the evening.

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

Stop Lying to Yourselves

August 02, 2008 | Tags: none

This is a break from my Rock the Bells commentary. I may even step off of it completely until I return from California. Oh, you ain’t know? West coast, your girl is comin’ back! And yes, that means two more Rock the Bells stops are in my future. So you know I’ll have something to say about it again. And if any of you are familiar with the coastal areas of Cali (at least the parts between LA and the Bay), let me know where I should make sure I get to. I’m trying to see some sights during this trip! Anyway, down to business…

A while ago I mentioned that I’m a former cheerleader. I never thought that I’d be able to draw a parallel between that and hip hop, but I guess I was wrong.

I was at the gym yesterday, which is something I do very rarely lately (I’m in sickeningly bad shape), and I decide to do a flashback workout and bust out some of the drills I used to have to do for cheer conditioning sessions or at gymnastics practice. So I’m standing in front of a mirror and I decide to try one of the moves that I was best at back in the day. I’m counting down in my head, feeling just like I used to feel when I was actually good at this stuff, and thinking I can still hit the move just like I used to.

…Needless to say, after watching myself attempt said move in the mirror, all I could do was stand there for a minute or so while thinking to myself, “Damn, I suck”, and “I hope nobody saw that”.

Too bad somebody did. A few people, actually. But anyway, enter the random hip hop thought of the day.

It feels like everybody wants to be a rapper these days. Perhaps I just feel that way because I have an inbox full of e-mails from people who are waiting to be that next big thing in hip hop, but I really do feel this way. And this poses a problem. Just like cheerleading tryouts back in the day, the more people that show up? The longer it takes to figure out who is worthy of a spot on the squad and who isn’t. There are some people out there right now that really deserve a shot at musical fame. They’re talented, passionate about what they do, determined, and have their heads straight. Then there are those who are bullshitting some tracks, nonchalantly throwing them together, asking their friends for feedback who are either too biased or too wimpy to give them some real constructive criticism. Friends of aspiring rappers, take note: stop telling these people they’re good just because they’re your friends. You’re not doing them any favors by blowing up their egos. It is infinitely harder to find that true talent when you have to sift through hundreds upon thousands of people who are damn near embarrassing themselves when they grab a mic.

Don’t get me wrong – I’m determined enough to keep looking for talent out there. And when I hear about good music, I give it a good listen. And I’m willing to dig to find it. But, damn.

What I’m saying is that if I can admit that I now suck at something and assure myself that I will never again attempt that stunt in public until I got it on point again, even if purely for the sake of dodging embarrassment, how hard is it for somebody to admit that they simply do not have the skills necessary to be competitive in this genre? But I guess with everybody and their mom trying to get in the game these days, that’s just too much to ask. I’m not trying to be mean, I’m just telling you guys this for your own good. Just like I’m telling myself I should stay away from cheer floors for a good amount of time. But that doesn’t mean I’ll stop working towards getting back to what I used to be. And that’s the biggest point – don’t stop trying, but don’t waste people’s time, either. Or make a fool out of yourself in the middle of a crowded gym.

And since I feel myself starting to ramble, let’s just end this here. Insomniac tendencies are a bitch. Too bad for you guys, this blog sometimes ends up as my own personal therapy ranting space. Don’t worry, more Rock the Bells commentary to come.

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

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Blogs

The Undisputed Truth

Hope for the Radio?

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DNC and the DMV

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Voices Behind Walls

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Rock the Bells = Free Shit

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Intermission...

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Dead Prez at Rock the Bells

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Just Plain Nasty

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Stop Lying to Yourselves

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