Are we there yet?

This all too familiar backseat cadence has plagued family vacations since the invention of the automobile. As kids, we loved dropping the “are we there yet?” on our parents. Unfortunately, it tends to lose its humor value once you become the parent. It’s just simply not that amusing when you’re attempting to navigate an SUV across three lanes of interstate traffic to the island sounds of Spongebob Squarepants. Yes Mom and Dad… now we know what it feels like.

But let’s be honest… kids aren’t stupid. They know damn well we aren’t there yet. The answer is never a “yes, we’re there.” This question is rarely, if ever, answered with a sound “yes” or “no.” Instead, they tend take a different shape: “Does it look like we’re there yet?” “Ask again and we won’t be going anywhere.” And even the borderline inappropriate “Shut up before I throw your PSP out the window and fasten your mouth closed with the seatbelt.”

But the truth of the matter is that no one will ever get a firm “yes.” Everyone in the vehicle knows you’re not there or you’d be there. The car is still moving, the kids are still yelling, and your spouse is still arguing with the GPS. “No damnit! We are not there yet!” So how do you know when you’re there? Well, now that’s a good question.

As we grow older, “are we there yet” begins to take new meaning. “Is this where I’m supposed to be? Is this is good as life is gonna get? Have I reached my peak? Have I progressed and achieved success in relationships and in my career? Am I happy? Where am I going?” Ironically, we spend our childhood joking about why it’s taking so long to get to a destination, never understanding the true complexity of the question when applied to our ambitions.

I guess if you find yourself asking “am I there yet,” you probably aren’t there. As kids, we knew that at some point, we would be there. It may take a couple naps and a few slugfests with your siblings, but eventually you’d have a chance to massage out the numbness in your left cheek. Once real life kicks in, you may spend years grinding it out on your leather ass without ever putting the car in park.

Just like those family trips in the station wagon, life’s journey requires quite a bit of planning. You can’t expect to reach your destination without mapping out a solid course. And perhaps that’s the one thing many of us overlook. Instead of putting together a 1-year, 2-year, or 5-year plan, we simply assume that if we keep driving we’ll eventually get there. Unfortunately, life doesn’t work that way. In order to truly achieve the success we desire, it may be helpful to install a primary navigation system.

If you’re still struggling to keep the car on the road, writing out a plan of action can help. Parking your goals next to the rusty ideas in your head will only make it that much easier to dump them into the incinerator when things aren’t working out as expected. Yes, it would be nice if we could simply enter our 5-year coordinates into a GPS device and let a soothing voice direct us to the pot of gold. But for now, we’ll have to find our own path. So get out that notebook and start planning, because on the road of life, you’re likely to run into construction, roadblocks, and hordes of idiot drivers. But that's nothing you can't handle with a little preparation and a set of new tires. Giddy-up.

Nuke -The Truth-

Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3 review

Jay-Z - The Blueprint 3
RocNation, 2009

Just in case you missed the first two installments, the Michael Jordan of rap has returned yet again to map out another blueprint for the industry. The Blueprint 3 tries to stack up against its predecessors, but falls a bit flat of rewriting history. Don’t get me wrong, Jay-Z is arguably the best to ever do it and there’s definitely a good chunk of solid music here to sink your teeth into. Unfortunately, the overall experience feels more like a Chinese buffet than a square meal—initially satisfying but leaving you hungry for more almost immediately after consumption.

When I first listened to The Blueprint 3, it was hard to ignore the initial assessments, printed reviews, and forum banter. The overall consensus is that The Blueprint 3 is an exceptional album, but perhaps this is actually just an indication of how stagnant the game is in 2009. Although this isn’t Jay’s best work, it still manages to stay afloat in today’s watered down market. Don’t get it twisted; Jay is a beast, combining his airtight cadence with clever wordplay and veteran charisma, but something is missing here. Although Jay tries to shift create an album suitable for old school heads, the underlying themes here don’t feel mature or inspired.

That being said, The Blueprint 3 is still an enjoyable experience, even if it does fail to harness the replay value of efforts like Reasonable Doubt, The Blueprint, The Black Album, and even American Gangster (which is a far more enjoyable experience in terms of content). The Blueprint 3 opens with the ambient Kanye West/No I.D. production “What We Talkin’ About.” Here Kanye swaps his traditional time-shifted vocal samples for atmospheric chords and plodding drums, creating a subtle backdrop for Jay to address critics, the game, politics, and the current economic situation.

The rest of the album flirts with this type of mellow production: beats are stripped of typical head nodding drums and orchestrated samples are often swapped for heavy synthesizers. This vibe carries over into “Thank You,” another Kanye and No I.D. beat collaboration that bounces along over a subdued big band loop and reverb-heavy snare. Although the production is far from lackluster, I can’t help but feel like Jay has recorded this song about six times already. You won’t find much replay value here minus some cagey lyrics like “Heaven knows that I've made my mistakes/ Thank God what a guy as I say my grace /Who woulda thought by making birds migrate/For the winter I be fly all summer might I say.”

In the grand scheme of things, the neck-snapping No I.D. produced single “D.O.A.” seems a bit out of place, especially when The Blueprint 3 isn’t exactly deprived of auto-tuned vocals. However, this is easily one of the better tracks on the album as Jay massacres the current T-Pain trend with scalding ferocity… uh! Here the album begins to gain some momentum with the second single, “Run This Town” featuring Rihanna and Kanye West and the NY anthem “Empire State Of Mind” featuring Alicia Keys.

“Empire State Of Mind” is arguably the best track on the album. Jay paints a vivid portrait of the Big Apple’s conflicting themes with commentary like “Hail Mary to the city you’re a Virgin/And Jesus can’t save you, life starts when the church ends/ Came here for school, graduated to the high life/Ball players, rap stars, addicted to the limelight/MDMA got you feeling like a champion/The city never sleeps better slip you an Ambien.” I also have to tip my hat to Jay for reaching out to the gorgeous and talented Alicia Keys. She sounds absolutely stunning on the song’s hook, channeling Broadway’s infectious blacktop energy with soulful passion.

“Real As It Gets” featuring Young Jeezy tries to keep the momentum going but fails to really make an imprint. This isn’t a terrible cut, but I was expecting something epic from Jay and Jeezy. Instead, we’re greeted with familiar ‘top of the world’ subject matter and production that sounds more like a movie soundtrack than a platform for two giants to scale.

The Swizz Beatz crafted “On To The Next One” is quite possibly one of the most irritating songs I’ve ever heard on an album of this caliber. Swizz often gets criticized for his lazy production, but you can’t completely discredit the guy. He’s definitely made his mark and created some memorable beats for the industry’s best... this is definitely not one of them. I can imagine Guantanamo Bay guards using this track to torture prisoners into revealing the location of terrorist cells on US soil.

Timbaland makes a few appearances on the album with the songs “Off That” featuring Drake, “Venus vs. Mars,” and “Reminder.” Even though Jay has received some criticism for the Timbaland tracks he selected for The Blueprint 3, I think all three are pretty fresh. On “Venus vs. Mars,” Jay flips a back and forth flow over filtered string samples, eerie synths, and hollow kicks. Here Jay uses a relationship with a female companion to construct some of the most jaw dropping lyrical content on the album. Instead of simply rehashing the typical “Me And My Girlfriend” format, Jay does his best yin and yang impression:

Hov’s a Blackberry Bold, Shawty’s a Sidekick
She used to have a man, I used to have a side chick
Shawty got wind, I had to blow the chick off
Got rid of him, they both took the sh!t hard
Shawty play the piano, me I play the white keys
Shawty from the south, oh I think she like me
Shawty like Pac, me Big Poppa
Screaming hit em up, I’m screaming who shot ya.

The rest of The Blueprint 3 is pretty hit and miss. On “A Star Is Born” featuring ‘rated rookie’ J Cole, Jay creates a timeline of his career, paying homage to the artists he battled and befriended along the way. “Already Home” featuring Kid Cudi and the Neptune’s produced “So Ambitious” show signs of life but are easy skips if you’re looking for something more uptempo. “Hate” sees a return to traditional Kanye territory as an auto-tuned vocal loop allows Jay and Kanye to vent their frustration for—yes, you guessed it—haters.

Borrowing a sample from Alphaville’s familiar “Forever Young,” the album closes with “Young Forever,” a nod to living a remarkable and inspirational life. Ironically, this could be the reason The Blueprint 3 doesn’t really fulfill my expectations. Instead of giving us a focused album, Jay tries to balance familiar ‘living large’ themes with the vision of a successful adult. Unfortunately, it fails to capture the true essence of NY hip hop or the maturity and hindsight of a grown man who’s seen the game from every angle. We know the architect is capable of crafting a monumental product, but attempting to build a revolutionary home from this blueprint will ultimately result in an unstable foundation.

As a rap album, 4 out of 5
As a Jay-Z album – 3.5 out of 5

Nuke -The Truth-

The Redskins' Prayer

Sun - 9/13/09
I was at the bar watching the Dolphins when my phone died at about 3:30 ... 45 minutes before the Skins/Giants game jumped off. By the time I got the thing recharged, we were 3 quarters in and I had racked up 38 text messages, the majority from 4 cousins and my brother. Actually, I'm not even sure my brother joined in the text barrage. This may have been the combined work of 4 cousins and a couple friends. I started to shuffle through all my messages, unearthing gems like:

'fuck aikman'
'we are not very good'
'we blow'
'we need a new qb, a new coach, a new o line'
'Campbell reminds me of Forest Gump, but without the heart and brains. Actually, that statement is an insult to Forest. Forest was an All American for the Crimson Tide and would have been a great NFL player if it wasn't for that damn Vietnam War and the injury he sustained to his buttocks.'
'Cornerbacks are losing the game for us. Plus we suck and have campbell and zorn.'
'Unfucking believable'
'This could be a blow out'
'WTF is with this playcalling? Who's coaching this team? Tom Landry?'
'I feel bad you have to watch Campbell stink up the joint all day.'

Jammed in the middle of curse word combos and cries of disgust, I found a prayer my cousin Bill penned before kickoff. So without further adieu, I give you the Redskins prayer:

As the opening game of the season nears, I only have a few simple requests of the Football gods. Please, let the Redskins play football like men this year. Please let the offensive line play much bigger than their puny selves. Please turn Jason Campbell into a superstar with some fire in his belly and balls as big as those famous Redskins quarterbacks of yore. Please keep our superstars healthy. Please tell Zorn that he cannot dink and dunk the ball all day long, especially on 3rd and long. And lastly, oh gods of the almighty pigskin, if you could please let us beat the shit out of the 'insert team of choice' today. Is this is too much to ask, then fuck you, fuck aikman, and fuck all the teams we play, because Redskins fans around the globe are counting on you to deliver us to the promised land. Amen! Hail to the Redskins! Hail Victory! Go Skins!

Nuke -The Truth-

WHY BLACK MEN CHEAT.....PART 2

Sorry for the delay. But I didn't wanna just push out some b.s. on something so serious. (yeah, right, lol)

The second reason I would have to associate with black men cheating is self-esteem. Let's not confuse self-esteem with swagger, confidence or conceit. Those three are personality or surface traits. Things that can be turned off or on when necessary. Self-esteem goes deeper. How you view yourself speaks into what motivates you when nobody's looking. It's a character trait. It's the reason why even the most beautiful women can feel bad about their looks or feel insecure. This is a main area that black men are especially good at masking. We are very good at playing it like we have high self-esteem when deep down we are dealing with all kinds of insecurities. "Do I look good enough", "do I make enough money", "do I dress nice enough", etc. And within the black community there are several catalyst for opening up these insecurities.

Our culture focuses and puts so much emphasis on materialism, cultivating your outward appearance, and sexual prowess. Look at the music which has in the past and currently represents our community. It constantly focuses on how good you should make love to your woman (with r&b) and how many different "hoes" you have and how much of a pimp you are (with rap). This will put a lot of pressure on a man (from personal experience, sheesh ladies, lol). So many black men are going to use their skill in the bedroom as a measure for their self-esteem. Unfortunately, you can't get an accurate measure without testing it on different women. So what you get is a man who's constantly reassuring himself by how many women he can sleep with and how good they tell him he is in bed, even if the main one he is involved with constantly reassures him of this. As far as he's concerned, she's saying that because she loves him and wants to reassure him. His "swagger", his "confidence" is all manufactured to give the appearance of someone with high self-esteem and also because its part of the game. We already know that women are attracted to "confidence" and "swagger". Therefore, those surface traits that we know help us get women are the same ones that we use against women in an effort to make us feel better about ourselves.

I could probably write 10 more pages on this, but I think you understand what I'm talking about. Men are not going to cry or display emotion about our insecurities. We're going to mask them in ways that help us forget. And nothing makes you feel better about yourself than knowing that you can "bag up" any woman you want. You must be the man. Think about it. It occupies so much of our conversation when men get together. It what our music concentrates on. Unfortunately, its what our value system is based on.

This is it!!!! WHY BLACK MEN CHEAT.....PART 1

This is it!!!! WHY BLACK MEN CHEAT.....PART 1

A complicated question deserves a complicated answer. So I had to split this blog into 3 parts and even those 3 parts still won't and couldn't possibly cover everything. Also, this is just an attempt at identifying "why". How to prevent cheating is almost an impossible dream and entirely dependent on the individual. But here's my stab at why black men cheat.

The main reason I would associate with it is Power. Here are some dictionary meanings to the word "power".

1. ability to do or act; capability of doing or accomplishing something.
2. the possession of control or command over others; authority; ascendancy: power over men's minds.
3. a person or thing that possesses or exercises authority or influence.

Among the physical and psychological needs to eat, breathe, security, fulfillment, and growth is a human need for power. It is ones innate desire to feel in control of their environment and to have an immediate effect on their situation. Sometimes this involves controlling or being in a position of authority over others. And whether this need for power is exerted positively or negatively greatly depends on the individual's personal experiences and background. This feeling of power can come from any area and to satisfy it all an individual has to have is the ability to exert that power. To understand how this relates to cheating, we have to look at the Black Man's need for power and how it can be manifest.

In today's world, specifically white America, Black Men are not empowered, or at least, not made to feel like they are empowered. We're made to feel like we're not in control of our job situation, our education, and our government. (This is very intentional, I would invite everyone to read "The Willie Lynch Papers" and see how slavery was intentionally and purposely devised to emasculate the black man). Even within the black family black men are rarely seen as the leaders with "Big Mamas" and "Nanas" being the strong ones and focal points.

So with all these areas basically negating the black man's power, there is one area where he is in full control. His sexuality. His ability to charm and attract women is directly associated with his need for power. His manipulation over women is directly related with his strength, his prowess, his "ability to do or act; accomplish something". Look at our music. Look at our culture. Black men pride themselves on how much they are "good lovers" and how many women they get and the physical quality of those women. This is constantly reasserted and any comments made to detract from that is directly related to his "manhood", his stature, his POWER.

Because society has taken power from him, the black man seeks to exert is elsewhere, in the area that he has the most control over, who he sleeps with and how often. Could this be directly linked to the black man's self-esteem? Stay tuned for Part 2.

Who Moved My Cheese?!!!!

A close friend of mine once recommended a book to me titled “Who Moved My Cheese?” which was a great book about change and how people are very relunctant, almost opposed, to change. I’ve thought about that a lot recently because in my experiences I have come across people who so much want their lives to change. They want better jobs, better relationships, better experiences, all which are a CHANGE from what they are going through now. And its understandable because who wouldn’t want our lives to be better. Who wouldn’t want things to CHANGE for the better. Where herein lies the problem.

Change means something different. And many times it means something different from us. It means to change our attitudes, our outlooks, our perspectives and our actions. But most people want change to magically happen. They want it to just spring up out of the blue where suddenly they have a better job or their job environment is dramatically improved. They want their relationships to be more fulfilling, more fun, more exciting. But what people miss is that for all these changes that they want in all these different areas the one aspect of it that remains the same is them.

Many of us have heard, and even quoted, the phrase

If you want something you've never had before, you must be willing to do something you've never done.

Man, that sounds good. Saying it to someone else makes you sound so profound. But what’s more profound is applying it to yourself. You want your job situation to improve DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. You want your relationship to get better DO SOMETHING DIFFERENT. If you are walking around doing the same thing when you got on your knees and said your heartfelt prayer about how you want the Lord to make things better in your life and then after you said “amen” went right back to doing the same things that you were doing before, don’t be surprised if your prayer goes unanswered. Its true, the Lord helps those that help themselves. Well start helping yourself. Get better training, dress differently, improve your vocabulary, learn a new skill and maybe your job situation will improve. Or tell your significant other you love them more, be more affectionate, be more trusting, open yourself up more and maybe your relationship will get better. Change your attitude, change your perspective on life and maybe your experiences will change.

Please check out the book I recommended and see how change is not about others. Its about yourself.

ONE
Cashmere the PRO aka RJ

Classified - Self Explanatory album review

Classified
Self Explanatory
Sony Music Canada
2009

As Classified’s career has developed from Emcee to Producer Who Raps, his skills have rapidly increased in potency. Classified once said in an interview that he tries to make every album better than his last. And once again, he has succeeded. There is no simple explanation for Self Explanatory. With previous albums, Halifax’s underground king channeled his energy battling the industry, haters, other emcees, and the perception of the Canadian rapper. Although he occasionally drifted from these topics, the majority of his albums were a testament to his frustration as a Canadian artist who obviously deserved more attention.

On Self Explanatory, he finally finds the perfect balance between lyrical master, song writer, and production genius. By straying a bit from those all-too familiar topics, he creates a spine-rattling collage of mainstream club bangers, less than typical slow jams, inspirational messages, underground lyrical fests, obligatory posse cuts, stories, and Canadian tributes. Class has always been a great producer, but 2005’s Boy-Cott-In The Industry saw a shift from simple Triton-inspired keyboard grooves to live guitars and chopped samples. Since that album, Luke Boyd has gone from bedroom beats to studio symphonies. Self Explanatory contains Luke’s best production to date, blending live instruments, cleverly chopped samples, vocal hooks, synthesizers, and singing into melodic grooves and neck-snapping head bangers.

Read the rest of this review for Classified - Self Explanatory

Nuke