"Never take constructive criticism from someone who has never constructed anything."
For my sixteenth birthday, my mom got me 2pac’s double album, “All Eyez on Me,” and a pair of Jordan 11 Columbia’s, otherwise referred to as the UNC colorway. For any of my Gen Z brothers and sisters out there, that’s the University of North Carolina, not your uncle or ‘unc’. I also got my license that day, and technically, my mom’s brown Oldsmobile Cutlass Sierra, which, as you may recall, had a bench seat and a thin steering wheel, the kind that you could make a sharp turn using only one finger with your other arm stretched around your lady as you pulled up to the drive-in movie theater. It was an awesome time, maybe the best of times.
Then, out of nowhere, while listening to 2pac’s double album, wearing those same Jordans on my way to my first Varsity Soccer game that fall, driving my buddies, we hit a parked car stopped at the tracks, and totaled it. Everyone in the car was fine, the CD was fine, not a scuff on those Js, but the lady who I hit hit another lady in front of her, and that lady decided to sue me for punitive damages for upwards of nearly 30,000 big ones. She got out of her car, walked around as if she was fine, until the cops showed up, then, conveniently, she had to sit down and hold her neck as if in that moment, she forgot she had injured it. I guess when your bumper gets tapped by the car behind you, going at best 10 mph...that’s common.
“Pffffttttt”
To this day, I would consider myself to be somewhat of a sneakerhead. Call me a novice, but I still have a few pairs of Jordans, although in my forties, I’ve compromised the flashiness for comfort, and now for the past six/seven years (🤷🏼♂️), I’ve been solely (pun intended) stripes over checks. That bit about the sneakers was just my way of conveying I’m up on the culture or in other words, I’m qualified to say that I’m hip hop aficionado (might change my LinkedIn headline, not sure), and while we’re on the topic of controversy, I still believe that 2pac is the greatest of all time. Might have something to do with the era I grew up in, but as I’ve gotten older and more mature, it’s stuck with me not only because of the nostalgia of that double album, but the body of work, and the meaning behind some of his music. Agree or disagree with the lyrics, that’s debatable, but keep in mind I’m not defending them because if I were, I wouldn’t have much of a case, they’re explicit at best and most of the time, crude and highly inappropriate, but to me, they stand for something most of us, I fear, are afraid to accept. That is, they don’t follow the traditional path of listening to what others say or believe, and for me, that notion comes to a head with my all-time favorite song by 2Pac, “Only God Can Judge Me.” It’s filled with metaphors and struggles that don’t relate to me personally, but the overarching theme serves as inspiration for how I approach what I want to say, my beliefs, and how I express myself, and for that, I just so happen to believe 2Pac makes a pretty solid point...I mean, how many can argue with that?
Or unless you’re trying to tell us something we’re not yet aware of, that you are, in fact...God?
His lyrics, his demeanor, his attitude, albeit controversial, to me have always stood for something that represented a defiant time in my life, a time where I was formative, a time where I believed more about myself from what wasn’t said, just as much as I believed what I know they did say. And yet, as I’ve gotten older, as I’ve become a father of two kids who undoubtedly, in that very same era of their life I’m referencing, that era we’ve all been in, where the world wants to place us in a conforming box, I believe that my interest as a leader is best served leading them by example, and never influenced by what “some woman's” opinion of me as a "thug" on Facebook might be based on a hype video I produced.
Say what you want about hip hop music, especially the era of hip hop that relates to me the most during the early to mid-nineties. Thuggish, gangster or whatever you think it might be as you judge it, but make no mistake about it, it’s real, and to some of you who might not want to hear this, it’s honest, and for the most part, unlike a lot of music you might here, it most likely wasn’t written by someone else, or worse, the result from a prompt.
I believe in raw, authentic truth, not the kind of honesty I have to confess to on a t-shirt, or write about in a blog, but the kind of beliefs that are demonstrated in the art that I create, in the way I treat others, in the way I live my life, and in the way I lead my family.
There’s only one thing to me that matters, and that’s being REAL, not fake like some lady holding her neck when the cops come so she can sue me for everything I will ever have, because had she known I only had $30 to my name, maybe she would have thought twice...oh wait, the insurance company paid for that one, I’m guessing she knew that though.
In the meantime, I’ll just keep on living my life according to one simple concept, that in the end I will only be judged by my creator, and no one else.
Speak your mind, be a thought leader...
