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; […]

The Gospel According to Nipsey Hussle, Pt. 3

Listen here. I’ve been putting off writing this for a little over four years. I was finishing the first draft of my book and an essay based around this song was supposed to be one of its closers. Three years ago, I created two other posts entitled The Gospel According to Nipsey Hussle and “Overtime” […]

A Thousand Words of Gratitude

April 4th marked seven years since I regained custody of my daughter. In spite of not seeing her father for five months, the little thirteen month old baby took a brief look at the man holding her and intuitively felt a sense of connection. Once it clicked, it didn’t matter her grandparents she’d spent the […]

My 600th Post…and One of My Most Important

I stopped posting again…However; I’d like to think it was for good reason. I looked at the site’s administrative page and realized my next post would be my 600th one. I wasn’t quite sure what to write about. I didn’t want to pen some sort of self-congratulatory victory lap-especially when consistently drawing from within burned […]