My Summer Rewind: An Ode to Self-Care 24-“Shake Dat Je’llo”

Life is too serious to be serious…this credo is indoctrinated into my moral code. If you spend enough time around a person, they will do something stupid. As my grandmother once said, “A life with no mistakes means you can’t learn from anything. And if you didn’t make mistakes, life wouldn’t be fun.” Those wise […]

My Summer Rewind: An Ode to Self-Care 21-“Number 1”

I dreamed I got married a couple of weeks ago. Flanked by groomsmen, I stood in the narthex on the penthouse floor of a swanky hotel which overlooked an unfamiliar city skyline—I think it was a combination of Atlanta and New York. My friends traded lighthearted barbs to take the load off my anxiety; they […]

The Tale of Two Tapes Turning Twenty-Five

Pretty good alliteration, ain’t it? Hip hop historians, scholars, and followers of the culture often cite 1988 as the genre’s greatest year in music. There was a seismic shift in which almost any and everything that came before it, was history. Run DMC may have been and still seen some success with Tougher than Leather; […]

My Life in 100 Songs: Queens Day by RUN-DMC f/ Nas and Prodigy

My favorite RUN-DMC song isn’t “Walk This Way,” “Run’s House,” “My Adidas,” or any of the classics that are often associated with the Kings of Rock. It’s an album cut off of their last album and I don’t know many who even know a song with RUN-DMC, Nas, and Prodigy of Mobb Deep exists…but I […]

Count Your Blessings

< No one feels reassured by the phrase "It could be worse." It doesn't help people put their problems into perspective and feel better. If anything, it reminds people that they are going through adverse circumstances and they dwell on them a little more by comparing it to what others are going through. When […]

Daughters

I love Nas’ song “Daughters.” I’m 26 years old and I am definitely a part of the hip hop generation. There are other songs like John Mayer’s song but I don’t relate to it the way I do to Nas’. It’s not the genre as much as it is the content. It’s about being a […]