For the Artists

Do not base your success on how well you breach the ignorance of the masses.  That is not success and even if you accomplish this goal to satisfaction, it will not fill you. 

You will never find success unless you know what success is.

~hallah

Until Your Dream Ends

Is today special?  Yesterday was a dream and tomorrow is a wish.  Your life exists as a point on the tip of a needle.  Today is forever until your dream ends.

:n

Till shade is gone,

till water is gone,

into the Shadow with teeth bared,

screaming defiance with the last breath,

to spit in Sightblinder's eye on the Last Day.

-Aiel saying

Sum Shit of Life

There are points in it.

These that apply pressure

to numb the heart and stimulate the mind

constantly redefining your freedom

but there are never answers here

no answers...

no solutions on this soluble surface

of solitude and floating minds

tethered down together where emotions combine.

Would it be cowardice or courage to want out?

I find myself looking for an escape from my mindstate, my physical

then awake to a situation that seems much more critical.

-HallaH

Why Hip Hop is Losing

As a Hip Hop artist I feel that I am entrenched within the culture and movement of the musical genre called Hip Hop.  There are many reasons noted that our music is dying.  Many blame the trash commercial artists who are doing what they do to make hip pop albums and get paid but I would like to turn the blame elsewhere.  

The artist is never responsible for creating a movement just like the prophet is not responsible for the religion.  In both cases both prophet and artist simply reveal something to the world.  It is the followers...those that love what has been brought who stand behind this and mount a flag and say "THIS IS OURS".  

With this being truth, how can you blame an artist or blame people who are NOT a part of the culture for destroying it?  No, you can't.  You must blame those who subscribe to it...they are the ones who falter in hard times or change belief or tastes after a while.

So what is going on in Hip Hop?  Hip Hop bred a generation and what has happened to it?  There are several types of Hip hop listeners: 

-The late 30's early 40's Nostalgia listener: These listeners talk about how dope things were "back in the day"  but what they are really lamenting is their childhood.  These people do not live a similar lifestyle and in fact most often, outside of old school hip hop they listen to little or no new Hip Hop.  These people dismiss it without even listening or supporting.

-The "In style" listener:  These people tend to be anywhere from 26 on up.  They used to listen to hip hop but their style and taste has simply changed.  Hip Hop is not cool to listen to anymore so they listen to other genre's of music.  They like to self identify with hip hop and claim a love however, upon closer inspection, they too keep it restricted to the nostalgic music of their younger years.

-New listeners:  26 and younger who are growing up with the current artists but have much love and respect for the old as well.  These people are in the minority of their age groups and so while they fully support Hip Hop, they are not enough to keep it afloat.

-Fan listeners:  This is an interesting group of people.  In my experience, this group is made up of mostly suburban white kids who are not hip hop lovers.  They are lovers of some other style of music, however they have 2 or 3 current artists that they are into.  They, like everyone else, have respect for the old stuff they grew up on or were told was "classic material". This group is important to cash in on if you are an artist because they support whomever they like to the fullest.  

-Creator/Listeners:  This crowd is self explanatory.  This group consists of people who love the music so much they cannot resist but participate, even if only a temporary hobby.  With the advent of technology and the ease of sharing music, they come off as actual lifestyle artists but they are more so "weekend warriors".  Their love for the culture is deep however their role also serves to dilute the game and confuse the general listener.  The general listener is bombarded with this type via myspace etc and makes the determination that Hip Hop artists are all wak now.  This is not the case...serious artists are on a different echelon and should be understood as such.  There was a time when I was just toying around with the notion of writing and rapping.  I had enough respect to keep it at hobby level.  I did not do shows nor produce public material until I had made the conscious decision that this was to be my life.  Given that piece of history I feel very justified (even if mistakingly) to say to these types "fall back with that hobby rap."

With a crowd like this it is not a wonder to me that the artform I love so much is diminishing and struggling to breath.  I, like my peers in this game refuse to die...because we love it.  For many of us it is how we communicate and express ourselves so, like speech, we cannot leave it alone.

Nazca Lines...

Looking for hidden messages in the sands of Peru
I stood between pivotal points on a line and looked up
When my focus reached the sky's zenith, I felt propelled through the stratosphere
to a place where there was no fear...
I saw myself in a thought within a dream
past present and future existing as one within the same bubble
I heard a voice speak to me from everywhere and nowhere
It said nothing
nothing that I could translate
but something that I could feel

This all happened in another reality
one some would call a dream
when I awoke I could feel something coming
something unseen
so I placed the experience in a box in my mind and put it away
none of this is real

I wrote to Digital and told him my thoughts about his beats and that we should do a project
he agreed because he and I were on the same wavelength speakin the same degrees
I began to recieve transmissions from Digital in the form of beats

Nazca Lines came to mind
so I began working...

It will be a meteor crashing into the surface of the planet...

here is a slight hint of what is coming...

Splatter Dagger Remix - D-Digital

 

...and for the uninitiated, the original.

Splatter Dagger - Maf Maddix

-Until next time...

Ok I can account for my time lost.

I've gone through a lot in the period during my hiatus...before and after...

I said I would account for my time lapse so hear it is.

Before my lapse as I had mentioned...I lost my job and ended up having to move to Greenville as a result.  Shit has been mad tough here but through this experience I have been able to focus on things and see life more clear.  I went through a lot of personal hardships that only helped me to see the urgency in hunting my own personal victory again...renewing my spirit.

So in my hiatus I created a new website

(pic courtesy of Dread Mighty Sine at the Professional Amateur)

I have my album for sale up there...also some other artist website things so go to it...visit...support good hip hop. Do it for your kids lol.

I also obviously pressed up my album and got that out on the market.

  

(album design by Marcus Kiser)

I also jumped into gear on the social networking thing...trying to delve into that pond to make connections and such so get at me on:

I also got back on the horse and started performing again...it felt good to be on stage rocking the crowd again...Ive learned a lot over the years and I see where some things I have picked up can be put to use.  I come back stronger!

(photo by Meesh)

But most importantly, I remembered what was important to me...what was holding me back...what was no good for me..every so often you need to renew your mind...body and relinquish the old bonds you have carried from point A to B.  I got rid of rusty fuel tanks and strapped on new boosters...

-To my  future...and to yours.

Time Is Of The/No Essence

Special Edition Post:
[photo from]
www.capetownskies.com
















"The fabricated mind relies on time to survive itself.
Transitory phases of many points passing unrealized
through a line of existence until a moment of clarity.
Yes, this is a ray.
It shines projected in one direction
from the source of inspiration towards your soiled self
promoting growth and death simultaneously.
We sit watching this event speaking the false words of time
when the light has always been, just not where we were then
but where we are now.
Where we were waiting for yesterday.
We find comfort in time claiming patience and meticulousness
when what we really seek is one more moment in bed before we rise.
Wake up!
Your life has arisen before you
...and it will set before you know it."

I thought these words...willed them into your mind but I could not will them into your heart. It seems that when the astronaut lets go he realizes that he is as likely to fly as to fall. I thought these things and tried to will them into my life.

and then I received an email from my friend Hanna, who was responding to an email I had sent earlier containing a song I like and some lyrics. That song was "Tensioning" by Sparta. She replied with thanks for the song and a poem she had written back in January. I read it and thought...

"Always waiting for my life to start

Tomorrow never comes to an impatient me

Contemplating on my next mark

not knowing that time is here

Debilitated by my own restrictions

that I condemn so much on every other occasion

Creating a world imprisoning on an

otherwise less imprisoned self

The answers to the questions I seek to not exist

and I am wasting it away on

my opportunity to live."

I thought... "my sentiments exactly."


Peace

Free Coals!

"We touched down in turmoil.
King, take off your crown on the ground
where the enemy is all around but unfound.
...this is the jewel for survival.
Humility is a tool where pedestals can be the death of you."


...just a short rhyme I wrote randomly. I like description in my rhymes.
In this one I was thinking about the themes and visuals from My homie Marcus Kiser's Invisible Soldier book. I was imagining a king and his royal guards landing in enemy territory. I was imagining what the chief bodygaurd would say to the king as they landed and proceeded to exit the aircraft. Then I figured I might relate it to real life in the form of a lesson. This is my rhyme style...a lump of coal in today's rap game. We will let it stay under pressure for a while longer and see what happens.

Shadows.6

"Shadow face
Blowing smoke and talking wind
Lost my grip
Fell too far to start again
A sudden snake
Found my shape and tells the world
Remember this
Remember everything is just black
Or burning sun

And I hope it’s a sweet ride
Sleep tight for me
Sleep tight for me I’m gone




"Tighter & Tighter"




Warm and sweet
Swinging from a windows ledge
Tight and deep
One last sin before I’m dead
A sucking holy wind
Will take me from this bed tonight
And bloody wits
Another hits me and I have to say goodbye


Sleep tight for me
Sleep tight for me I’m gone

And I hope it’s a sweet ride
Here for me tonight
‘Cause I feel I’m going
Feel I’m slowing down" -Soundgarden









Next time...

Fukda Future

The Problem with foretelling and foresight is:

-the human mind works from experience piecing 1st and 2nd hand experiences together to create understanding of the present.

-without experience, how can you expect to understand the future?


So knowing the future is kind of like reading the ending to a book you haven't read. While you may know who dies and who gets the girl but you don't know who "who" is, nor do you understand the purpose of the events you just read. You essentially would have to figure out the meaning of the future that you envisioned every time. Therefore it is still possible to get it wrong.

In conclusion...you may see the future but you DON'T KNOW SHIT.

I bet that superpower is more trouble than it's worth.

think about that...

(it's 3am and i'm unemployed...this is what i'm thinking about? Superheroes and their problems)

Shadows.5

"Yes I want back the picture
that hangs on your wall
For where once the sun rose
now night falls
Some may say
oh what a blue sky in sight
Well now out of the distance
I see lightning strike
I will never hide them, hide them all
I could never fear them, fear them all
Oh but there shall come a new light
shining in this here dark life
For the Most High
dwells with man tonight"

Picture On The Wall

(click image for full size)

"I want to run,
want to hide,
want to drift away...
Beyond these bombs,
beyond these walls,
Beyond these hypocrites
Oh, but I will never right them,
right them all...
I could never
fear them,
fear them all...
Oh but there shall come a new light
shinning in this here dark life
For the Most High dwells with I tonight"

-Groundation

Until next time,

Be at ease

Shadows.4

"Nothing exists without your dreams." -Cassio
(click image to see full size)

"Baby baby baby, look to the sky. Seeking to find the third eye. Secrets of numbers, secrets of sounds. Secrets of wisdom will be found. Baby baby baby, look to the sky." -Roy Ayers

Third Eye

It is good to only surround yourself with people who inspire you....

Let the others pass...

Peace

Even the illest of thinkers...are only mad decent at best.

*1st thought

It seems that even the illest of thinkers may come against things they struggle to understand.

There is a quote by Jesus (the prophet not the tree hustler) that is one of those things that is perfect on paper and more difficult in practice:

"The world is only a bridge; cross it, build not thy house upon it."

I definitely feel him on this but then there is the pressure...

it comes from around us in this world and it is this pressure that makes it feel necessary to "build your house on the bridge". Group thought is a powerful phenomenon and social trends and paradigms are harder to break than some of us think. most of us adventurous types only break the surface on breaking free. Only the true outcast takes it the full way. It takes a certain level of dedication that makes others question your sanity.

*2nd thought
So what does it mean to want to be successful and what does it mean to want to be great?

Which one do you want for yourself?

Consider this: Success is what one can have on this world and in this time. Greatness is something one has in the next world and throughout time.

To me success is noteriety, wealth and other easily measurable identifiers. Greatness is something immeasurable from close distance...it always takes us more time to realize greatness. Greatness is something measured in lightyears and not minutes. Great is a star exploding and us being able to see it 12 billion years later. Success is achieving a goal or finishing some task that others deem worthy of the attribute "success". Great is an action that is usually recognized much later by those who realize how they have been affected by it. Greatness is a lump of coal that after much pressure, time, and being forgotten can reveal a diamond. I am not saying that these two things don't coincide but one is done for the purpose of reaching "the goal" and the other is done to "achieve the doing" (i think that makes sense) I know which I prefer and I know which feels more necessary to survival.

Which one should you want for yourself?

*interesting point: I wrote this hours before watching this flick Revolutionary Road. When I watched it I saw that it dealt exactly with what I'd just written about. (funny how that happens)*

-Tektite Illah

Shadows.3

~from the Shadow project~
(click image for full size)

"Think of me very scientifically
Share your thoughts with me
Send them over land and see

They seep through walls
Echo down abandoned halls
Let me see your joy and fear

How can it be we never see
What we have until it's gone
Why is it so we never know
What we have until it's gone

The more I try, all the faster you'll slip by
So vaporize
Slide to me like liquid ice
I can see into your eyes" -Emiliana Torrini

Telepathy

until next time...

Peace

"It sounds fly in theory but it's hard to apply"

I had this conversation recently with a cat I met not too long ago at the beginning of a funny little experience that ended in me being unemployed (the bad). Out of this situation I learned things and met new friends (the good).


So Jamaal and eye were speakin on how to keep your focus on your goals when the winds are blowing against you (not literally). When things get too rough, sometimes, you can bear down into just "makin it" so hard that you can forget to sleep...you may forget to dream and then you forget to act. Your life force gets drained that way. So I ask myself "how is it that I let momentum slip from me? How did eye lose sight of my action?" I was once a lucid dreamer...but somehow, while still maintaining the dream, I have forgotten my ability to act within it. Have you felt or Do you feel like this?


Dude said something very real that I wanted to share.

He said:
"I am trying to keep the faith and keep the movement moving. I was talking with my girl last night and we were talking about why people don't follow their dreams or begin to follow them and stop. We came to the conclusion that it's because they stop pursuing when things become difficult. But if you can keep the movement moving, things will eventually fall into place." -Jamaal Cowan


some good advice for that dome...


Hallah

Shadows.2

~more from my Shadow project~
(click image to see full size)


I thought of music when I shot these...

"The Sky is a sea of darkness
when there is no sun.
The sky is a sea of darkness
when there is no sun to light the way.
There is no day,
there is no day.
There's only darkness.
The sky is a sea of darkness." -Sun Ra

When There Is No Sun...


More to come...

Peace