loud as hail. i cannot even listen to the music on the radio nowadays. many people say this, i know. but i'm getting so frustrated with it that i must speak my piece. music sucks. specifically rap sucks. i don't use the terms rap and hip hop interchangeably. rap is an element of hip hop, even though it is common to say "hip hop" when you mean rap. but for clarity, the state of rap music sucks. mainstream stuff anyway. before at least, mainstream rap was decent, it was money hos and cars but it was danceable money hos and cars. (i can't even define when "before" was) now whenever i feel adventurous and flip to a fm-station, all i hear are retreads or crap that sounds like boomp boomp boomp. i don't know who the rappers are, what the songs are, nothing. and i don't even care because it all sounds so bad. once in awhile a gem shines through but it's not often. looking for good stuff on mainstream "urban" radio is comparable to looking for paris hilton's chastity. it might take you awhile. not that i haven't been trying other plans of attack. i've been watching BET and direct effect to see if i'm just missing out on something. but clearly, i'm not. the videos are terribly boring nowadays now. at least puffy and biggie spent money on their videos and tried to make it interesting. now it's just breast boomp breast boomp booty booty breast. nasty.



question: what is the proper way to spell the plural of ho? hoes? or hos? both look wrong to me. is there an apostrophe somewhere? apparently i don't write out the word enough since i'm only questioning the spelling now. i must not be down anymore. where's my rap dictionary when i need one.



i'm wondering if i'm being passed by. am i at the (st)age where current music starts to lose its appeal and i can only talk about "the good old days?" i hope this isn't true. there is so much music out there to be discovered but maybe my jazzy hip hop niche, my epoch, is over. every musical era must pass, it is the way of the world i suppose. people do send me some cool stuff to listen to and i really like it but it's not the same. i'm four years deep into the two thousands wondering "where are the nineties?" it's so sad. but i feel like i just need to get my money together so i can purchase some good stuff, the stuff that you can't find on kazaa or at a sam goody's. because i have a whole list of albums/artists that i need to get to, but not enough cash flow to invest. i have to think of music not as a luxury but as a necessity -- which i do already but as more of an everyday monetary budgetting type necessity. after all, if music is food for the soul, why bother using caloric food to upkeep the body? especially since the body is only temporal and expiring daily.



last night the unofficial mayor of san diego returned. babbs and the longhairz collective performed at ucsd with the freedom writers. i won't even say anything about the show because undoubtedly it was good. people need to support this stuff. i say this knowing full well that i didn't drop any cash into the basket during the blanket song. hypocrite right? i mean, if you want to support, support them in any way possible, with claps and cheers and cash. artists need to eat too. but i'm not a clapping, cheering or cashing guy. but i do take and soak in the energy and the essence of the show, and for that, i should give something back. and maybe i do in a performer-crowd reaction way, but i'm thinking something more physical in nature. support your peeps, give bling when they sing, bark with your dawgs. a big dawg, hop on one leg, make a noise like an orangatuan...



i have to ask this question and leave it open ended. can you be hip hop if you are not hip hop? if you are not a part of any of the four elements, if you are not a participator in the traditions of hip hop, are you hip hop? or just an outsider and a perceiver? this really applies to anything. you are not a poet until you write, you are not a basketball player until you play. if you don't participate in hip hop, are you justified in calling yourself.....hip hop?



one other thing that stuck out to me yesterday. when two people, or a group of people, share in a common passing away of a friend or a loved one, a bond is formed that cannot be understood by outsiders. it's a bond that cannot be ignored, broken or sometimes, spoken of. it's a bond that cannot be intruded upon, even by others who have encountered their own personifications of death. that bond can only be shared and celebrated to outsiders but in that transition to sharing, only a very small measure of the pain and joy and struggle and love reflect outwards. and that is what i saw and took with me from last night.