As I prepare for Night of the Lavalamp, I find/found myself MUMMIFIED by “Boy Who Cried Wolf”. The beat was from the same beat CD “Shinin’” was on. Ted Wheeler, a neighborhood hustler and “ally” to HchO, came through with a beat CD with tracks from other underground producers from “all over the country” who just want a placement. Swiss (Jmeans) took a beat that I really wanted, but he let me sing the hook. I find no irony in the song being titled “Pimp Shit”.
Anyway, “Shinin’” was written first, and H’s intervention bought me more time to creatively blossom. Both #Shinin and #BoyWho were only a minute long, so I looped them on ProTools and wrote (at least) #BoyWho on the back of the BX5 bus. I wanted #BoyWho to be my “Yellow Brick Road” (Eminem), where I lyrically speak on the hardships that fuel my musical ember. I found myself speaking on an incident in FDA where, after assaulting an 8th grader for slapping me in the form of the Dave Chappelle/Rick James skit, I got jumped and suffered a broken nose by two Latin brothers.
I’m not mad at them. They were serving justice. I’m not mad at the kid. He did what you’re “supposed to do” when faced with adversity in your home village: go to an ELDER, not the police. I’m not mad I had 2 black eyes for most of the school year. All the aforementioned did was add to the depression I was getting over in FDA and still manage(d) to feel everyday.
I elaborate on this story on “8am pt. 3: A Kingly Flashback”. Instead of making it a stupid race war/turf war, I took the time I had off from school (to heal) to internalize the actions, learn from them, and make myself better through them. I’m not a saint, and with the whole story out there, I can live with it. It is safe to say that I play and played the victim role a lot. It’s hard to hear myself think that, but I am a bit passive aggressive. Mainly because the bottom line exists to serve me, and all I want to do is make people happy.
It’s a cycle.
