I'm learning

Hip hop is just not my thing
you know what I mean
I just don't like the mainstream
and I def don't like the themes
Ever since I was little I just wanted to sing
to clear my throat and throw my head back
and make the heavens feel like they're under attack
make up in beauty what I lack
I wanted to breathe life into the walking dead
make them pick themselves up and carry their heads
a little higher now but it's hip hop too
I guess I'm learning that Hip Hop is cool
it's about a higher mindset and talent to boot
it's about rhyming and getting a clue
figuring music in but it's about you
not just some silly game where guy talk about hoes
degrade everybody and wear stupid clothes
I finally understood there's more than rap
there's a whole sub-culture to add to that
fine arts, performance, music and dance
it's all done a job of keeping me in a trance
I do a lot of things now I wouldn't have known
even though it's all around me when I go home

fuckin grrrrrrrr

Do you ever get that feeling that you need to type and talk about absolutely freakin nothing? But you suddenly get the urge to type.... so I do. Good thing I have this blog here that just hangs out and waits for me to write in it. Thank you Kashi.

So yeah.... I'm at home and doing the looking for work thing... may i just say how FREAKING HARD IT IS FOR SOMEONE IN COLLEGE TO FIND A FLIPPING JOB???

Anyway... back to my originally scheduled programming....

I want to eat like a fat ass and I'm not allowed to. All you skinny as shit people who drink skim milk... fuck you all.

I think my anger round is over....

Gaah!

I need to get back o this posting train.... I forget so freakin often.

Anyway, Khalil and I have been workin on our Duet piece and I think it's coming pretty good so far.  There are a lot of things to adjust and address, fix, rhyme, choreograph... but it's getting there.  I think we both like what we're doing, but I'm having a little trouble getting the passion into it right now.  It's coming and it'll be awesome, never fear.  But I worry that too much slant rhyme might take away from the whole effect and what we're trying to say, especially since I get wordy sometimes.  I just always have to walk back through and strip down what I got and fix the rhyme scheme (and since I remember earlier versions it sometimes messes me up on memorization) but come the show it will be good.

It will be good.

It will be good.

It will be good.

Just gotta keep tellin myself that...

Group Projects

Hey all,
I know I haven't been writing very much and I won't say why here cuz Kashi will just call it out anyway.

But I just wanted to get it out there that I am so proud of my class. I know we weren't all performers before this class, but we have all come a long way. I am particularly proud of Ben and Dom.
Ben- You always seem a little sideways to me, which I usually like, but there is a time and a place, and I'm just glad that you stepped it up in your piece yesterday. It was fly and deep, nice job.
Dom, I told you before that you would get it, and I'm so glad that we were able to support you and show you that performance is not that scary. It's tough, but I think you got the bug now, and I hope you get to do more with it.

I probably should have said that yesterday, but oh well. Everyone was great, and major ups for our show later this month.

BTW, I saw a good marketing campaign walking from my friend's house this morning-- we can advertise on cars!! Just put a little flyer in the window or something (that DOESN'T look anything like a ticket) and let them know what's going on. I'm def in favor of A Hip Hop Study Break as a show title, but I know other people thought it sounded kinda lame.

That bes it for now, folks. See you in an hour with coffee, Kashi.

Midterm project

Midterm

Kristen Burgos, AKA Glenda Gryffindor, is a neo-rapper. She has very recently come into the rap game, when she started rhyming for a poetry class in 2007. Her piece, The Harry Potter Rap, has taken two genres and blended them into one interesting rap. The contents of her lyrics are both straight forward and thought provoking, and suggest that there are innumerable subjects to be discussed on a hip hop album. Since hip hop today tends to be a fusion of several different types of media, Glenda's rhymes construct the obvious Funky Detournement, from Ted Swedenburg's article about sampling, which discusses sampling from more popular music and ideas. She uses Harry Potter, which to many would be considered a "sell-out" novel, and constructs important parallels between it and Hip Hop. Glenda has the potential to be a true up and coming artist, if she continues to be as passionate about her live performances and lyrics. She could afford to put more thought into her video work if she truly wants to be able to make a name for herself in the hip hop game. Her performance on camera is unsure, and she needs to not articulate so much with her hands, she is clearly nervous but with more practice she has the potential for a promising career.

To Make ammends for being sick

In a fit of inspiration this morning I started writing, two sets of what seem to me to be equally hip hop arts, but one does not have the rhyming so much as telling the story of ones who should never be forgotten. Especially since I couldn't go to class yesterday, I wanted to be in the mindset of thinking about my projects and what I wanted to perform for the Hip Hop Collective Open Mic. I needed to think of something that was deeplyThe first is a bit of a hip hop critique, since one of the things we've been discussing in class is what makes hip hop authentic. I think I have rather high standards of that, and I try not to be so judgmental. I have oodles of respect for people who get up and recite their poetry right off the bat (major props to Chelsea, Bryce and anyone else who performed Tuesday) and I'm PRAYING that I manage to get out work that I would be proud to call hip hop. I think I may have found a start with this:
moving to me, and I figured the classes for which I signed up and couldn't wait to begin might do.

Apparently

It’s much better for my man to call me

A bitch than for me to love a boy of the backstreet

Persuasion or for me to prefer watching MTV

To kicking back to Harry Potter under a tree

Read about how Lupin never tricked Hermione

And how Sirius got burned off of his family tree

And how Dumbledore got obsessed with objects three

A cloak a ring and the wand of destiny

And how the cloak and the wand made their way to Harry

So he could fight Voldemort with Dumbledore’s Army

And Apparently

It’s better for me to want to hear

How Fity killed a ho n don’t live in fear

But I prefer Neville demanding respect

Hermione shooting Draco down with her intellect

Or her and Ron being allowed to be Prefects

N them telling Harry not to feel like a reject

Dumbledore did it because he thought he could detect

That Harry couldn’t deal with things in the proper prospect

He said that he wanted Harry to connect

To a world in which he was a technical defect

On the very first day of school I saw that a porcelain doll was in my class. She had thick, dirty blonde hair and amethyst eyes. Her name was Rebekah Weisman, and that day she became my best friend. That afternoon she was supposed to walk home by herself, but as fate would have it I was able to offer her a ride home with my mother and me. Mother pointed out that as she lived so close by, it would be no trouble to pick her up in the mornings as well. She was shy and whispered a humble thanks, and my mother told me how beautiful she was. Though I was only seven at the time, I could not have agreed with her more.

That night at supper when Father asked me about my first day of school, Rebekah was all I could speak about. She sat next to me in class, and had the loveliest penmanship of anyone in the class, as though she’d been born to write. She had promised to help me with mine, and she promised to tell me stories that her family liked to tell, and that she would make up stories to tell me since I liked them so much.

I asked her to marry me at a swing club in ____. She looked radiant that night, just as much like a porcelain doll as on the day I met her. She looked fragile, but not weak; like porcelain, she would cut the one who treated her with improper care. It is why I handled her so delicately that night- I wanted to preserve the greatest memory I could ever have of her- that midnight blue dress with

I dared not stick my neck out for anyone as I had done for my wife. I’d lost nearly all my friends, my patrons, and quite a bit of my credibility because I loved her so deeply. I loved no one so much, including myself, and I would have sold my soul to Hitler himself if it meant that she could remain with me.

When she came back she wasn’t the same. They had done something to her, something she was too horrified to speak of, but it was that day that I lost my wife. She wouldn’t take her life for several years, but the girl I had met all those years ago, my best friend, the woman I asked to marry me, the mother of our two children, was gone. I have her release papers here, and it is on these pages that I learned what they did.

The patient has blonde hair and orange eyes, we must hypothesize that she experimented with hair color and eye color to achieve sufficient swindling of the task force. She must have gotten fake papers to fool the husband, for we know him to be faithful to the cause. [Detailed accounts of prodding eyes, shaving her head several times a day, beatings, and most meager food rations] We have found no trace of other falsification besides the papers. She has sworn to not promote any unhealthy behavior; we therefore see no reason not to return her to her original habitation.

They may as well have ended her suffering, for I was never strong enough to do it myself.

The Aftermath: Old Skool Projects

So the Presentations went well, and props to everyone all around. I think mine went okay, I freaked a little but tiz chill. Here we have Abe reppin' Beastie Boys, and I think he did them justice.

Here we have Ben... reppin' someone... (post a comment and I'll edit my blog, sorry guys!!) N Ben was awesome, really held it down. No one in the background.... he's just that important, haha.

I know it don't look like much, but I was Queen Latifah, AKA Dana Elaine Owens (We share a middle name!!) and there was a big old bun looking thing in the back of my wrap (aka, t-shirt). Unfortunately, as much as I tried to go all out, the Queen tends to dress like a Queen should: conservatively and with style. So I did that, used small gold chains to adorn my blazer, and called it a day.

I also decided to concentrate on learning more about the song I was singing than about her entire life, which I took a quick look at on wikipedia, but obviously not hard enough. All in all, I think I did a decent job of it, minus the interview. A job well done to all. More pics and some videos to come.

Old Skool Projekt

I am psyched as hell for this!!!

Pics to come, Promise!!

A little more interactive but not by much

It's the little things I love... like sidewalk chalk and beautiful poetry for the person (people) we can love.
My biggest frustration in this course will without doubt be my terrible affinity for rhyming. It is my poetic flaw, my Achilles heel if you will. I try a little something here and there but it's one of the reason's I have so much respect for anyone who can freestyle well. Despite it's offensive content it's also a huge reason why I loved Eminem's lyrics... He's freakin TALENTED with words.

On the other hand, a big reason I don't like hip hop is the repetitive nature of the background music. Which is why I think the best songs are the ones where someone can freestyle over classical music. There have been a couple songs like that (namely from Save the Last Dance but I'm still looking for others) and I hope I can actually find more. Any help would be awesomesauce.

*cough* *wheeze* *cough*

I'm truly beginning to hate this cold....

Anyway I came up with a couplet last night while playing Snakes on a Sudoku (for the love of God just don't ask...), and here it is for your critique:

How can you leave your man to suffer pain and strife
when that same decent man has given you his life
for you and that baby you decided you would keep
and now you're not even within reach?

I know it's not great right now and I'm not sure how or where I'll add to it, or if I'll make anything of it at all, but I'm beginning to feel the creativity flowing again.... YAY!!!

The Latest...

Yay Blogging! I'm doing it!! Tiz cool, methinks. Now, My real name is Kristen, I like Harry Potter and I have every intention of marrying Shia LaBeoff when I grow up.

I am from Bronx, New York and I have been going away to school for nine years now. I have an extremely eclectic taste in music. My favorite “super” hero is Batman and I hate getting up too early. I love going to the movies, and I like doing it alone just as much as going with a couple friends. I am fiercely loyal and I have had the same best friend for 15 years. I have left the country once and it wasn’t by plane; I went to Bermuda on a cruise, and I might go again this year. My favorite musical is Aida and I have never seen The Lion King on Broadway. My favorite Disney movie is Aladdin.

Enough of the random stuff, I am an English major- I love to write. In high school I wrote a one act play and I loved the experience. At the time I was highly involved (a.k.a. president) in the Gay Straight Alliance and I know two people who have made the transition from woman to man. So my play is about a woman who begins with a relationship with a much younger man only to find that he falls for her son, who is much nearer to his age group. It was supposed to be for a Gay Straight Alliance event as well as for a class, but it ended up just being for my class. I have written other pieces; my senior project was a 42 page portfolio of stories and essays I wrote throughout the semester. Among those was a Greenwich Village Fairy Tale, in which two friends fall in love, and in the end face breaking the news to their parents together. It was decidedly more cheerful than Brokeback Mountain.

I am also a Theatre major. I have been in five musicals: The Wizard of Oz, The Music Man, The Boyfriend, Anything Goes and Seussical. I cannot pick an absolute favorite, but it’s a tight race between the Boyfriend and Seussical. Seussical was an absolutely huge production in which I was a who, a hunch, a fish, and an animal in the jungle of Nool. On the other hand I had a good role for The Boyfriend: I was Madame Dubbonet, the headmistress of a finishing school in France, and I was in love with one of my student’s father. I got to speak with a French accent and the French teacher asked me after the play if I spoke French, or if I had any specific coaching, which I hadn’t.