Tag: political hip hop

The Loss Of Another Top Favorite Musician- Gift Of Gab

I wanted to post about Gift Of Gab, who died the other day. He was in the underground hip hop group Blackalicious, whose music helped spark my interest in hip hop, which is now my favorite genre of the last 20 years. I’ve always used Blackalicious music to convert my friends who think hip hop sucks into thinking it might be something they could actually appreciate if they knew where to find more real talent like it. You can’t listen to Gift Of Gab and say “Anyone could do that.” He was brilliant, and it was a sad day for me that even led to tears as I thought about how shitty it was that he was so underappreciated and that most of the world had no idea what a brilliant artist we lost. I didn’t see anyone except my friends from the Hip Hop Vinyl Spinners group even say anything about him that day. It’s sad, and he was young. It’s a major loss. I found him to be a Top 5 rapper. Without a doubt, one of the best… so I’m gonna share this photo of my Blackalicious record on my turntable and recommend a few songs to check out. RIP Gift Of Gab!

This first one is especially cool and one of their most well known, partly because Daniel Radcliff rapped it on Jimmy Fallon once, but Daniel Radcliff picked the song to impress.

This one samples the song “Me and My Arrow” from the animated film “The Point“, sung by Harry Nilsson.

and this is just one more I like…

I hope you took the time to watch these. Goodbye to one of my biggest influences.

The music will live forever.

Creativity Is For My Health

The days have been a challenge and I can only hope that means better times are on their way. I haven’t been my best self lately.

I went to the doctor on Thursday to get an EKG and some blood tests. There doesn’t seem to be any huge concerns other than my sugar being a little high, but they want me to come back soon and do a stress test in a couple months.

I stopped on the way home to mail about 40 press kits and drove by Spy Pond where the sun was sparkling on the water. I’m still struggling to get out. I really should have driven around or went for a walk to take pictures, but I’m struggling with agoraphobia and institutionalization after being kept indoors almost two of the last three years.

I took some photos when I was out, and when I got home, I found that the free editing program I’ve been using was no longer working on my phone. Technically the app went down in 2018, but it still worked on my phone until the other day. I asked for suggestions of good free photo editing apps and was told to try Snapseed and PicsArt, so I gave them a go.

These were the photos I took…

Jymi Cliche in a johnny

I thought that one was kind of cool with the grunge effect. It would make a cool book cover for a psych ward book.

That same day, my parents went to the beach and my mom sent me a picture of her wrapped in the towel I gave her for Mother’s Day from my Wicked Cliche Store.

I did some work on the Wicked Cliche Creative Friends page that features art by a very diverse group of artist from around the world who I call friends.

Please check that out.

I got a gift in the mail from my friend who makes soap. She’s listed last on the Creative Friends page under WickedSoftOrganics. This is the Trans flag one.

I listened to my favorite Nas album, God’s Son on vinyl.

and I cooked this delicious meal….

I cheated and got pre-made sour cream and chive mashed potatoes, but I made the chicken which had salt, pepper, and fresh thyme on it, and was cooked in a sauce made from honey, pineapple juice, Dijon mustard, garlic, and cornstarch, plus pineapple chunks and cashews. It was delicious and easy. I’ll do it again for sure.

Here’s an inspiring song from the God’s Son album by Nas…

Happy Juneteenth, if you can really say that. It seems more like it was made a holiday to shut people up while actual actions to fix systematic racism are not being taken.

Peace