She asked Who I was: An Investment Banker by trade. I invest in small businesses and more poignantly peoples dreams. I love what I do, I don`t eat pork and beef is only around because I can`t give up Fillet Mignon I am a beer connoisseur, I can pair wine with meals (no expert). I don`t fix cars, though I know how. I can fly a plane (Air Force 8 years). My Mom is my best friend and I am extremely tight with my family. I have a pass to get into the most hallowed halls of academia and a Ghetto pass (non-revocable). I can expound on the intricate word play of Jay Z and Eminem or wax poetic about the stylings of Miles Davis and Charlie Bird (I think Thelonious Monk was the understated genius). I love playing basketball and did so in college, I avoid contact in the grocery store. Health is a big deal in my life, but Pizza is the world`s most perfect food! I can`t name one television show, but could watch a smart, irreverent and funny movie Every night of the week. I want to hold, be held, cuddle, wrestle, snuggle, kiss, laugh, drink, eat, taste, be exposed, converse, read to someone, massage, debate, invigorate, fall asleep next to a Goddess! I want happy hour Martinis(dirty), last call beers, wake up next to panties, use a bra as a pillow, shower with the lights off, sip wine by candlelight, give someone my last five spot, spend more than I should at a thrift shop. I wanna talk your ear off, listen to you until you fall asleep, discuss the difference between the debt and deficit. Discover, learn, grow and think. Veg out, wear jeans, Buy a Valentino suit and people watch over brunch. I wanna discuss what it means to be a Black Man In America without insulting anyone else in the room, I wanna hear what it really means to be a woman without all the usual man hating dialog, but real honesty! I wanna play spades with my woman as my partner and cheat for fun, because all we have to do is look at each other. I wanna chew bubble gum and swing my arms and pretend the rest of the world does not exist-at least for one night! I want someone to love my lips.

What Happens to a Dream Deferred...

-Hold fast to dreams
For if dreams die
Life is a broken-winged bird
That cannot fly.

Hold fast to dreams
For when dreams go
Life is a barren field
Frozen with snow.

I first read this Langston Hughes poem in the third grade. At the time, I was not able to clearly decipher between the dreams I had at night involuntarily versus the Dreams I had all day of what my life would be like the next 20 minutes, 20 days, 20 months or 20 years from that moment. What I did know, subconsciously probably, was that because I was not hungry or tired or concerned that my clothes were not fashionable enough I had the time and peace of spirit that allowed me too dream.

Dreams are funny things; some people dream because their reality is way too difficult to deal with. Some folks dream because dreaming is what they do. Now some people dream and others hope and wish! So what's the difference between dreaming and hoping. Hoping has no plan attached, no course of action. Dreams on the other hand are replete with detailed thoughts of how and why; when and where and more importantly with sacrifices imbedded. Hopes are mere wishes sent into the ether without plan nor course; without action nor detail and more times than not a last minute, ditched effort to bring about what one values at that moment. Dreams unfold and take place over time, dreams ask questions and define answers. Dreams link the present to the future in a detailed manner than often defines success for a person.

Our past is full of dreamers, dreamers have helped define our world! Our dreams define us!

Hip Hop painted the White House Black

- If I was the president, then I would state facts/You leave it up to me, I paint the white house black- MC Breed ain’t no future in your frontin

In 1991, Eric Breed better known as MC Breed, an up and coming Emcee from Flint, Michigan declared that there was no future in your frontin. He also stated that he would paint the White House Black. At that moment no one ever conceived that the White House could be or would be occupied by a man that looked decidedly more like Eric Breed than House Minority Leader Eric Cantor. If Eric Breed was with us today, he would no doubt share a playlist that sounds strikingly like the man that now sits in the Oval Office.

Barack Hussein Obama was sworn into office January 20, 2008. At the time, Tupac and Biggie had been dead more than a decade. Jay’z was the undisputed King of cash in Hip Hop and Lil Wayne was selling more albums than anyone. Yet, the question remains; how did we get here? How did this world where America could elect an African American and select “street griots” the kings of popular culture come to exist? The answers exist somewhere between “The Message” by Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five and Public Enemy’s” Black Steel in the Hour of Chaos”.

Hip Hop since its inception has always been about an Emcee grabbing a mic from the DJ booth and telling his or her story. The more people feel your story, the better the reception of the Emcee. So Melle Mell told the story of life on the street, cocaine as an instrument of death and what graffiti art means to the urban youth. Chuck D., growled haunting tales of the angst and struggle of the Black male in an inner city environment. So what does all this have to do with Presidential politics? Well, enough Emcees tell their story and enough radio stations tell those stories and suddenly NWA’s “Straight Outta Compton” is no longer shocking. Hell, on some level it becomes downright relatable to even the most discerning critic. The nation quickly began to understand that the way the urban youth were being raised in this country was not like the after school specials we saw on T.V.

So what of those special urban (code word for Black) youths that excelled and beat the odds. Those that struggled early on in life, but somehow defied the odds to educate themselves at the highest levels, that achieved some form of success in their respective career fields. These Black men were shining examples that if you just do the right things, well, than for you the American dream could be achieved! This made America feel good, feel all indignant about the fact that this is America and if you just pull yourself up by your straps…you get the picture. After all a lanky big eared kid from Philly helped turned his gift of a big mouth into a successful, long running television sitcom. Will Smith parlayed a few catchy, pop tunes into a Hollywood A-List career. Not far behind was Oshea Jackson, you remember Oshea, he of the NWA fame. He came out a brash, loud, articulate and boisterous jerhi curl wearing, grandmother frightening thug! Now kids flock to his family friendly movies by the 100’s of thousands and parents just love them some Ice Cube.

Since 1968, we have had a number of African American’s run for Presidential office. From Shirley Chisholm to Al Sharpton, there runs were largely symbolic. A good showing meant some campaign cash in the pockets and politically they could claim any number of moral victories. “We showed little Black kids you can do anything you want”, is what they would cry as they shuffled off with some political favors in the pocket and a brand new national audience. In 2006, a junior Senator from Illinois seemed to be heading down that same desperate path to superstardom via a Presidential Run.

-Why is Bush acting like he trying to get Osama/Why don't we impeach him and elect Obama “Why” –Jadakiss featuring Nas, Styles P, and Anthony Hamilton with verse by Common

By 2007 the nation and world had come to know the brash young man from Hawaii that gave the keynote speech at the Democratic National Conventional. The Chicago community organizer and Constitutional Law Professor that climbed his way to the Illinois Senate and then the US Senate. With Oprah Winfrey as his wing woman and Common mentioning him in rap lyrics, this guy with the funny name and big ears was out polling the political first family-Bill and Hilary Clinton. With an eye on the White House, the brash and often precocious Obama had an iPod that included both Lil Wayne and Jay’Z. He openly admitted both marijuana and cocaine use. No other national political figure had admitted to both drug use and a deep abiding affection for Hip Hop. Had Will Smith made this possible? Was this the work of Oshea Jackson? Maybe. But definitely no less than it was the work of KRS-1 and Public Enemy. You see while Will and Cube were preparing White America for the resurrection of the Black man from dubious circumstances that rises to the height of their careers; KRS-1 and Chuck D were educating the youth on being prepared to support such a leader. We needed both, this country had to have both simultaneously for the unthinkable to happen. If a Black man was ever to be President of these United States both factions had to have their say. Will Smith had to be able to date your daughter and Chuck D. had to give the brothers a plan to work it out!

Michelle Obama grew up on the far south side of Chicago, she lived Hip Hop. Barak Obama grew up in Hawaii, he observed Hip Hop! Yet no one in America embodies what Hip Hop is all about more than Barak Obama. Despite the obstruction, despite the lies and falsehoods and misunderstandings Hip Hop like Obama continues to morph and redefine itself in order to survive. Which in turns is the ultimate success, right? Hip Hop only lives because the streets live, because the struggle and pain and poetry lives. Hip Hop like Obama, has circumnavigated the globe in both reputation and physically because they recognize the opportunity covered in the problems. You see, America would have not handed Obama a country that was fiscally sound and thriving; he would not have inherited a country that was stable and not riddled with some the worst problems America has ever seen. Obama had to inherit Hip Hop! Hip Hop is trying to buy Cristal when you have J. Roget money; Hip Hop is driving a Benz with little too no gas; Hip Hop is telling the world that things are looking up from the most desperate of positions-then making it happen!

So Maybe, just maybe Hip Hop helped paint the White House Black.

The Day Hip Hop Changed Forever

In December of 1995 a good friend of mine told me about this mix tape he received from some guy, that knew some guy that knew who knows some intern at Columbia. Columbia had an imprint called Ruffhouse records. RuffHouse was home to Hip Hop icon Schooly D, also on the label was critically acclaimed underground group the Fugees. So I am listening to this mix tape that was known to be 6 degrees of separation removed from both Kevin Bacon and Chris Schwartz Label Head of Ruffhouse. On this mix tape was the rough cut of a song called Fugee-La. That album went on to sell 18 Million albums worldwide.

The following February, President Bill Clinton signed the Telecommunications Act of 1996. It was the first bill signed in cyberspace and the first bill signed at the Library of Congress. On this Day Hip Hop changed forever. The bill that President Clinton signed obliterated the last line of defense against the legal monopolization of the telecommunications industry. In a nut shell, there would be no more separation of geographical lines or the prohibition of cable companies owning television stations or companies owning both AM frequency and FM frequency radio stations. Clear Channel, Viacom and Disney were free to rein capitalistic terror on the industries they were once a part of, but would now control completely.

Clear Channel is a subsidiary of CC Media Holdings; the company was taken public in 2008 by Mitt Romney’s Bain Capital, Inc. Why is this important and how does this affect Hip Hop? Well, on Clear Channels way to going public and the really big bucks, Clear Channel did two things; First they ruled the outdoor media advertising world and secondly they became the largest owner of full-power AM, FM, and shortwave radio stations and twelve radio channels on XM Satellite Radio, also they are the largest pure-play radio station owner and operator in the country. What that means is that on Feb. 8, 1996 Hip Hop fans all over the world lost choice.

Along with Viacom (owners of MTV and BET) and Disney (Owners of ESPN), Clear Channel hijacked popular culture and along with it Hip Hop. Hip Hop culture was virtually lost and in its place Rap music was lauded as a consumable item fit for commercial sale. McDonalds was now free to inject a brown face happily dancing to the beat of his own drum. Subway could now use imagery once thought too far out of the mainstream and Snoop Dogg was no longer a murder investigation suspect, but everyone’s favorite smoked out O.G. Hip Hop was changing and with it big money was at stake! Clear Channel could record it and market it, Viacom would film and broadcast it, and Disney through ESPN could sell it as part of its sports culture. The perfect marriage! No more pesky East Coast vs. West Coast battles; no more unsavory album and magazine cover art; gone were the days of anti-establishment, revolutionary individuals and groups. Hip Hop through its new purveyors and owners would achieve hominy.

The new millennium would see more of the same. No longer would Hip Hop suffer through geographical boundaries and dialectal entanglements. There would be a new Hip Hop, one in which a kid in Oakland could have as his favorite artist, a Southern rapper who was from a hood the kid never heard of before; downloading the rapper’s album on iTunes. Record sales would be replaced, in importance, with ring tone downloads and ring back buys; concerts have become the only place that artists are available and of course there is a company to handle that for every artist as well-Live Nation. So, the kid from Oakland got the same product as the Kid from Cleveland, Georgia or NYC. Choice was lost on the radio, in physical cd purchases, and now at the venue level were groups of like artist are bundled for consumption and local artist are relegated to opening acts or even worse, pre-opening acts.To many this seemed like the best thing for Hip Hop, if not Rap music; one stop shop and everyone deserved their place in the industry. Everyone would let everyone else “do them” and that meant artists no longer needed to fight for Hip Hop’s hierarchy; it would be pre-determined by Clear Channel and set in motion by Viacom, then blended into night sports highlights by Disney via ESPN.

The only problem with this new world order is that Hip Hop was never meant to be a spectator sport; never meant to be a passionless vehicle rode to the riches. Hip Hop as founded in the parks of NYC, in the Bronx, Queens, and Brooklyn and put on display in the clubs of Manhattan, was a contact sport. Hip Hop was started as a contact sport combining dance, djing and emceeing along with Graffiti art performed by combatants who battled with grit for the glory of becoming legendary in their hood. Wherever that hood might be; it was the local connection and feel that made Hip Hop spread to Japan and Australia; that had Chinese kids break dancing in Tiananmen Square as the tanks rolled past. This feel is what made the King of Popular Culture himself (Michael Jackson) integrate the battle stomps, moves and war cries of Hip Hop into his own performance fabric. Homogenizing Hip Hop was not like white washing Jazz or even Blues; it was akin to bleaching Gospel. You could not change Hip Hop’s DNA without destroying its cultural relevance.

What Clear Channel and the like did was not change Hip Hop; they effectively killed it! Without dancing, djing and graffiti, we no longer have what is intrinsically known as Hip Hop. What we are left with is a hybrid form of Rap music where the entrance fee is only a hot YouTube post or the number of followers you have on Twitter. What do we make of this? Well if fans of Hip Hop would like to see it not go the way of both the Dodo Bird and Disco music, we fight! We fight to keep our arts just that and not consumable items ready to be ditched at the sign of something shiny and new. What we do is not accept mediocrity as staple pillars of the culture. Hip Hop can and should be amebic, it should change and mutate and give us thrills as new hybrids merge into the larger fabric. We should not fight to keep Hip Hop old and stale, but vibrant in its new expressions of itself. Most important for the “hood” we should fight to keep the genre as viable financial instrument for us by us and not simply a tool we hand to someone else to shape our future.

Beautiful Oblivion

You can't take your eyes off the accident ahead, can't turn away. Fixated on the wreckage, fascinated by the carnage. You see the beauty in the destruction, dismantling of form and function, obliterated into chaos.

I beg you not to go, but you must descend into the foxhole. There you go, no matter the consquences you have to know, have to know what is in that dark tunnel.

Pushing me away; you swear that I don't understand. That I only exist to judge your flaws, your imperfections and shortcomings. You think I need to make you aware of your beautiful tragedies, your wondrous destructions, so that I may feel whole, better than.

When the truth is...I simply can't take my eyes off of you. Fixated on the accident up ahead!

Strength of Character

In thinking about who I am as a person, a man. I am often reminded of who I have bee influenced by. Even as a very young man, I can remember having the belief that I could take and emulate the good qualities from just about everyone that I met and leave the less desirable qualities.

I remember being bullied as a kid; my prevailing thoughts were never about the bullying itself, but more about how I could be as strong and confident as the person doing the actual bullying. I actually admired the bully for his strength and confidence. Now where and how they derived this confidence and to some extent physical strength meant little too me. All I knew is that for me too never be bullied again, I had to gain that force of will and strength. Of course the physical strength was not easy to come by and more dependant on genetics than I would have liked; however the confidence I could gain almost immediately and I did.

I taught myself, through the sheer force of will, that intimidation was a call to further gain the confidence needed to be competitive in any environment, regardless of the circumstances. I learned that wit and charm could disarm; humor and humility could bring about collaboration and sincerity can and oft times will endear. These tools helped me to turn difficult situations into pleasant chats and uncomfortable, unpleasant confrontations turn into networking opportunities.

I do understand that there are those individuals who seemed to be bereft of any moral fiber what-so-ever. Those that seem to have not one redeeming quality. I think I have learned more from those individuals than any other. I learned what not to do, who I did not want too be, characteristics that are the antithesis of who I wanted to be.

My character, the strength that I derive from it makes me feel that I am the biggest person in the room. I could walk into the locker room of any NBA team and feel as if I am the tallest person in the room. Find myself in an NFL players lounge and feel like the strongest man inside those walls. Everyday, I grow bigger and stronger!

The Path

I see this guy here, every time I visit this place. He's disheveled and beaten; his eyes glazed over. He looks as if it's all over and he now, just now, has figured this all out. I help him to his knees, then to his feet. He stands exactly my height and though his frame is the same as mine, he's thinner and leaner, yet somehow more frail than I.

We never speak, never a word is uttered. Yet, I get it, Feel like I have been here before. The weight of the world has come down on this poor fellow, but, it's not the trappings of life that always seem to escape him that seems to be the issue. This poor guy suffers from a broken heart. In reality it is my own past broken hearts that bring me to this place, somehow the hopelessness of this wretched place and the quiet humility of this young man gives me the strength to not give up. I leave this hollow, dirty path and thank God for the fight within me to persevere.

As the guy raises to his feet, straightens his back, I seem to recognize the particular brown of his eye. Within those eyes a story unto itself is told. This being has seen much, he's been loved so deeply that the depths of his despair now seem endless. As he stare back blankly into my eyes, the eyes of a man that has felt this type of agony and lived to tell of its defeat.

Standing now upright, and with my hands on both the young mans shoulders, the resemblance is uncanny. He looks at me as if to ask it will really one day could be ok. If you really do ever get over the lost of love from the one person you've ever truly loved. The look in my eye warms as I transmit through my body language and gestures that even if you don't get over unrequited love, life will certainly go on and offer as many victories as defeats. I want so bad to tell him that, one day he'll love himself enough that what "they did" won't matter nearly as much as how he responds.

As is typical, before I can utter a word to my friend, a man much older than us both, approaches. The older gentlemen never speaks, he simply lays his old weathered hands on my shoulder and smiles knowingly at me. The older gent is just slightly shorter than myself, even standing straight up he seems to have a slight bend in his slow trot. His eyes are that same peculiar brown as the young fellows and his frame is exactly the same as mine. There is something comforting about the fact that the young man, myself and the old gentlemen all find such solace in this place. As if there is yet hope for us all.

The old timer looks at me as if I know what comes next, somehow I believe I do. He nods in a motion that says let's go. As I give the young fellow a last pat on the shoulder and turn, the old guy winks at the young man as I am turned from them both. I begin to walk in my steady, confidant elongated stride. The young man stares at me, still silent but I can tell he no longer wants to kneel in shame. The old man walks in his slow, steady knowing manner. Though I am walking faster, I have no idea where I am going next. The old timer is slower, but seems all too sure as to how to get where he is going. I want to ask for directions, maybe too tag along with the old guy...I know that is not an option. Besides, I wouldn't want to cheat myself out of the lesson that is finding my own path.