#i just know he built like black is king Beyoncé

[nashvillethotchicken]

I know ldpdl thick as FUCK under them grandpa sweaters

[evangelinesbible]

THE ASTROLOGICAL FAME OF …

MICHAEL JACKSON

SAGITTARIUS MC

No matter your 10H sign, the 10H still rules Fame. And the most success you’ll find in career is when you embrace your 10H. Having a Sagittarius 10H makes you a person who wants a career that involves expansion and change. You’ll want to do something in this life that opens up not only your mind but others. That’s why most prefer jobs that involve teaching or philosophy. Sagittarius rules over travel as well so these people make their abundant income best when they get to travel the world. Even though Michael didn’t like to tour much he made millions off of touring alone. He was a world wide phenomenon and he used his music to spread messages to the whole world. For example, “Black and White” or “They don’t really care about us”. Michael was also known for his generosity and huge charitable donations. Donating over 500 million dollars to charities.

SATURN CONJ. MC

Michael has been famous since he was a child. Saturn rules longevity and even after death Michael is still extremely well liked and a famous name known worldwide. This placement also explains the amount of work his father put in him to be famous. This placement also explains all the very public challenges and hardships he faced.

MC RULER 8H JUPITER

Having his MC ruler in the 8H also gives him a long lasting career since the 8H also rules longevity. Michael was also very controversial whilst also being extremely liked at the same time. He was known in the public eye embrace and insist change. He was a pioneer, Being the first black man to have his video Billie Jean play on MTV, having an MTV award named after him,having a statue built in his honor, winning multiple Grammies, and being named the king of pop whilst also inspiring artists we know today like Beyoncé. He was also known for his wealth and investments. Having some of the most expensive music videos ever, a theme park in his backyard, and a very expensive wardrobe.

JUPITER CONJ. NEPTUNE

This is a great aspect for music fame. Neptune rules over glamor and melodies whilst Jupiter rules over abundance and popularity. Having them be aspected gives Michael a lot of luck and popularity in the Music Industry. He also made a fortune off of music as well.

LEO, PISCES AND SAGITTARIUS PLACEMENTS

I have two posts about underrated fame indicators and basically Neptune/ Jupiter influence is very important for fame. Michael not only has a Leo stellium but he also has Neptune (Pisces Rising and Moon) and Jupiter influence (Sagittarius MC, and Jupiter conj. Neptune) with this ultimate combo he was destined to not only be popular but an enigma as well.

SUN CONJ. PLUTO

Aspects to sun are import when looking at fame. Michael has his Sun conj. Pluto which makes so much sense when you look at how much power he had in the music industry. He was extremely magnetic, has sexual charm, and gained a lot of attention for not only being mysterious but very powerful as well.

LEO FAMA

Naturally having Fama in Leo can make someone gain fame at little easer than others. Since Leo can rule over entertainment naturally having Fama in the sign can make someone especially famous in any form of entertainment. Also Michael has it at 8 degrees. Typically if you have Fama in a Scorpio degree your fame might come with a lot of intense obsession and you’ll be extremely controversial. People might hate you because they believe you’re evil, taboo or think you’re a dark and messed up person.

GEMINI STARR

Michael was a Star known for speaking up about anything and everything that was on his mind. He wasn’t just a singer but also a writer. He was known to put his personal beliefs in not only his music but his music videos as well. Michael was also talked about and gossiped about ALOT. Whether truthful or not he was in multiple headlines in magazines and newspapers everywhere. It’s also apparent that his Starr is at 28°, which is the household name degree.

LEO APOLLO CONJ. SUN/ PLUTO

People with Apollo prominent have natural talents and gifts that give them a special type of attention/spotlight and praise Having Apollo in Leo can make someone extremely magnetic, popular, and even worshiped in the field of entertainment. Apollo conj. Sun makes someone extremely popular no matter what they do. Especially when it comes to whatever talent they might hone into. It always seems like the attention gravitates towards them because of how much they shine. Having it conjunct Pluto will make someone naturally shine in powerful and mysterious ways. It’ll also amp up the obsession people will have over you. Pluto also rules transformation and to say Michael had a few would be an understatement. Music wise and physically he transformed. He also transformed the industry. These placements help explain why he was deemed the King of Pop. And he still is.

That was the astrological fame of Michael Jackson 💋

- ⚜️💫⚜️

[dwreader]

A Meal to Remember by @iwtvfanevents

Part 2: I am suddenly Megan Ellison, a wealthy lesbian, my father is a billionaire who has allowed me to start my own production company to make films I want to see. Money is no object. Here are the fics I would adapt and who I would hire (bully into) directing.

1. Reformation by verseau - first of all, I would pay $1 billion to acquire the rights outcompeting Amazon, Netflix and Apple and I would make Betsy adapt the screenplay. I maintain this must be cinematic because Ldpdl’s hole needs to be experienced in 70mm imax AND I would not allow any countries to censor like they did to Florence’s boobs. This would be like an Eternal Sunshine/Blue Valentine/Two for the Road type romantic dramedy that jumps back and forth in time to show the couple’s struggles and progression, and the non-linear storytelling means it automatically becomes an Oscar frontrunner. I would try to hire Barry Jenkins first but he is occupied with The Lion King 2 at Disney so then I would go to Mia Hansen-Love to direct. Beyoncé does the soundtrack. I didn’t even have to ask her she just wanted to.

2. Part of Your World by weathermood - I will imprison Mr. Monsterfucker himself Guillermo Del Toro until he agrees to direct this film like I am Kathy Bates in Misery. He will read it and then be like okay I agree you don’t need to kidnap me I will make this movie. We are going full Avatar 2 level budget to make sure underwater scenes are believable cause I won’t tolerate bad Aquaman CGI. The budget balloons to $400m but that’s okay cause it makes $2.7b worldwide and there’s 2 sequels greenlit immediately cause the world wants to see Louis get pregnant.

3. A Potentiality for Corruption by vampdf - Guillermo is occupied with Part of Your World and its sequels now so I turn to Robert Eggers to help bring to life this gothic horror romance. It’s 3 hours long. Parts of it are in black and white and there’s aspect ratio changes that confuse and unsettle the audience. We debut at Cannes. We get a 47 minute standing ovation but also some walkouts and fainting in the crowd because some vanilla viewers couldn’t handle the ending, which is controversial but has everyone talking.

4. Cord of Communion by themasterletters- this has now become a #1 nyt best selling novel so we have a built in audience and they want it to be a tv show cause of its length and we can’t skip out on any important points. Every streamer wants it but I choose HBO cause of the prestige factor and I’m an Emmy whore. It becomes Sunday night essential viewing replacing Succession it’s like if The Idol was actually good. I hire many talented directors such as Raine Allen Miller (Rye Lane), Francis Lee (God’s Own Country), Gina Prince Bythewood (Beyond the Lights) and I make Rolin Jones be my showrunner. We sweep the Emmys. The episode where Lestat fires Louis becomes the new Red Wedding traumatizing millions.

5. Pieta by baberainbow - When iwtv the amc show ends, I hire Paul Verhoeven to direct a standalone sequel film based on this fic. It’s as insane as you could ever imagine. The Catholic Church is mad at us. It’s condemned by the Vatican and the anti-feminization police. They’re protesting outside our premiere like they did to Benedetta. It doesn’t matter cause it just makes the film an even bigger hit.

6. Hand to God by boltcutters - first I pay Ziska $1 billion to finish writing this. Then I go back in time to 1933 first to make Hollywood not adopt the Hays Code so we can have gay and interracial stuff in movies and then to 1946 so Howard Hawks can direct this Danlou version of The Big Sleep.

PSA: some of my links aren’t working cause I’m on my phone (on vaca) so please forgive me but y’all know where these fics are don’t lie!!!

[bookwrm99]

Preferred Music- OM! Brothers

Not that anyone asked me, but I was in the mood to write and I’ve gotten back into Obey Me! after a super-long hiatus.. so these are my thoughts on what the brothers listen to in terms of music. I’ve only finished S1, so forgive me if these don’t make sense in context of the later seasons T_T

Lucifer:

It’s established in canon that Lucifer loves listening to classical music and has an extensive record collection- the more cursed the better

I headcanon though that he also likes to listen to big band music, like the Glenn Miller Orchestra

I can imagine him putting one of his vintage Glenn Miller records on his grammy and asking his s/o to dance with him one night if he was feeling especially romantic. The song he’d initiate on would be Twilight Interlude, Moonlight Serenade, or Starlit Hour.

I also headcanon that Lucifer listens to crooners, like Nat King Cole or Frank Sinatra

If MC can play an instrument, especially if it’s the piano, Lucifer might lurk in the hallway for a while if he hears them playing music by composers like Beethoven, Mozart, or Chopin. He doesn’t know how or why, but he thinks their works sound best whenever MC plays them

I think Lucifer’s guilty pleasure is 50′s/60′s decade music, but only listens to them when certain conditions are met: he’s in an exceptionally good mood, his privacy is guaranteed for at least an hour, and it’s just him in his bedroom. He feels that artists like The Beach Boys, Elvis, and The Beatles don’t fit with his polished, high-class image, hence the secrecy around listening to them

You’ll know he trusts you when he allows you into his space while one of these artists’ records is on the gramophone

Doesn’t change MC’s ringtone in his phone, because one: he’s an old man and hardly uses the thing for anything besides communication anyway, and two: he wants to be the only brother who wasn’t prompted by Mammon’s ringtone change

Probably changes their ringtone after a few weeks, when his brothers have forgotten all about it

 Mammon:

The Black Crowes. Next-

It’s canon that Mammon likes R&B music

Mammon strikes me as a classic/90′s alternative rock kind of guy too, though. Pink Floyd, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, U2, Deep Purple, The Black Crowes, Pearl Jam- that kind of vibe

If he’s feeling something a little more hard, he’d probably dip into Nirvana, Van Halen, AC/DC, or another band along those lines

“Money” by Pink Floyd is DEFINITELY his ringtone

If he’s trying to really focus to come up with a scheme to make Grimm, or is just in the mood for something really chill, he might pull up a lofi hip hop playlist/station to listen to in the background

If he and MC happen to be chilling in his room, though, he’d probably play whatever they’re into- not because he likes them and wants to learn more about them or anything, noooooo sir, definitely doesn’t want to know their favorite artists so he can maybe take them to a concert one day either

Probably starts listening to MC’s favorite bands and genres too as their relationship develops

I headcanon that as soon as he finds out whatever MC’s favorite song is, he sets it as their ringtone in his phone so he can distinguish them from modeling agencies and his brothers

Leviathan:

It’s canon that Levi LOVES anime music, which like- I 110% subscribe to

I think he’d also really like video game music as well. Especially if it’s a game he loves and their soundtracks are *chef’s kiss*

If the Devildom has an equivalent to K-pop, I could see him being into that too. BTS, EXO, SUPER JUNIOR, Girl’s Generation, and SEVENTEEN all give me Levi vibes

Because he used to play so many different instruments, I also headcanon that sometimes he gets in the mood to listen to some of the music he used to play

He might get started on a classical music kick for a couple hours, then be satisfied for a week or two until the craving comes up again

Like Mammon, he might try listening to MC’s favorite music to get to know them better- but if he’s too averse to it, he’ll just go back to listening to his usual music

As their relationship develops, he might change MC’s ringtone in his phone to the theme of an anime they’ve both watched together and loved, or to the theme of his favorite anime- not to be outdone by Mammon, of course

Satan:

It’s canon that Satan also enjoys classical music, especially symphonies

I headcanon though that Satan might resent this similarity to Lucifer, so listens to classical music in secret- or abstains from it until he cracks and binges for a few hours

I could also see Satan listening to music very loudly in his room to piss Lucifer off if he’s in a particularly vindictive mood, especially if it’s hard rock or metal

Three Days Grace, Shinedown, Breaking Benjamin, Disturbed, The Veer Union, Gojira, Beartooth, Steel Panther- and if he’s really mad at Lu, he’d pull out the stops and listen to some death metal

Lowkey kind of likes some of it, even though he started listening to it exclusively with the intent of making the eldest tear his hair out in frustration

For casual listening, though, I headcanon that he has soft indie playlists and stations that he’s favorited/subscribed to

I could also see him as the type to have a playlist built with all his favorite songs from his favorite Broadway plays (looking at you, Les Misérables and Cats)

When he catches wind that Mammon and Levi changed their ringtones for MC, he didn’t hop on the train to outdo them- he just thought it was a good idea. He changes it to a soft indie song that reminds him of MC in some way, whether the lyrics are explicitly about someone similar to them or the sound of the song gives them MC vibes

Asmodeus:

Asmo listens to healing music in canon

But I also imagine him listening to dance/EDM music, because it gets him pumped up for The Fall and reminds him of the good times he’s had there

I headcanon that Asmo listens to healing music when he’s pampering himself or doing spa sessions with MC, and dance/EDM when he’s getting primped up to go to the club

Asmo is DEFINITELY the type to put soft music on when he’s about to get it on with somebody to set the mood, but it’s not something he listens to on his own- he feels ambivalent about romantic music in general

With MC, though, if their relationship buds into something more than friendship- you can bet your ass that he custom makes the perfect playlist for spicy situations with them, and his opinion on romantic music changes into a more positive one

I also see him listening to Queens like Ariana Grande, Rihanna, Nicki Minaj, Beyoncé- really powerful women vocalists

Asmo might have an easy listening pop playlist/station subscribed on his app of choice, but probably has to be in the mood for it to put it on

Definitely changes MC’s ringtone to something cheeky at first, like “Sexual Healing”, but trades it for a romantic song that reminds him of them later as they get closer

Beelzebub:

The RAD newspaper reports that Beel likes the song in the “Hell’s Burger” commercial

But I headcanon that when the newspaper club asked him that question, he just didn’t know how to respond because he listens to so many different genres, so he blurted out the first thing on his mind (so of course it would be food-related)

Beel doesn’t strike me as the type to like one genre in particular to the exclusion of most others- he seems more like he’d have playlists of all different genres to switch between depending on the situation and his mood

He’d definitely have a workout playlist full of songs to hype him up, like “Eye of the Tiger”, “Welcome to the Jungle”,  “Seven Nation Army”, “Thunder”, etc.

Probably has upwards of thirty playlists/stations he’s subscribed to because of his broad tastes, but the ones I see him frequently playing are pop, indie, alternative, and punk rock

Because he shares a room with Belphie, he’s grown accustomed to listening to chill, soft piano music at night when the both of them are first falling asleep- so much so, he has a hard time falling asleep without it, so he always brings earphones with him when traveling so he can still listen to it

MC’s ringtone in his phone is the “Hell’s Burger” commercial song- the only other contact that shares the ringtone is Belphie. Hearing his favorite song helps him distinguish his favorite people from everyone else calling his phone, even if hearing the song makes him hungry and drool a little bit before he picks up

Belphegor:

Belphie likes chill piano music in canon

Makes sense to me, since he’s sleeping 99.999999% of the time

But I headcanon that he also likes punk rock, like Fall Out Boy, My Chemical Romance, blink-182, Good Charlotte, All Time Low, Panic! At The Disco, Bring Me The Horizon, and more

He only listens to it if he has to stay awake for a long period of time- listening to piano music makes him sleepy, so that’s out of the question, even though he needs music to be able to focus

Belphie is another brother who will stick around if he hears MC playing the piano- he’s less covert about it than the eldest brother, though

He’ll straight up trudge into the music room, sit on the bench with them and lean his head against their shoulder as they play

Hope you weren’t planning on stopping anytime soon, MC

Belphie also seems like the type to have subscriptions to ASMR or soft storytelling podcasts/stations/playlists, for the times he finds he’s having a hard time falling asleep

Like Lucifer, is one of the last to hop on the ringtone train, and honestly didn’t really give a shit about it until he really thought about it. What if MC was in trouble and tried to call him while he was asleep? His normal ringtone wouldn’t wake him up in that scenario, which could end up being really bad

Changes it to something really loud and obnoxious at first, like “What Is Love” (the animal cover)

Eventually changes it to something more romantic as he and MC get closer in their relationship, like “Check Yes, Juliet”

~~

Thanks for reading! Hope you enjoyed reading them as much as I enjoyed writing them. <3

BTW, this is the ringtone I HC’d for Belphie lmfao: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mx5-aOGphII&t=53s

It’s my morning alarm and my family hates it, but I’m an extremely heavy sleeper sooooooo guess I’ll just keep being a menace to society

[luvneedsnosyt]

My Selections for GRAMMYS 2020

Continuing what I started last year here’s my reaction to the GRAMMY Nominations with my selections for who I believe should win, and also who I would have picked for each category.

Let me first lay out the ground rules: - I will be following the time frame for eligibility which is October 1st 2018 to September 30th 2019. - I will be ignoring categories for genres I don’t listen to enough. Metal, Country, Classical, Jazz, will be left off. - I am ignoring that the Performance categories are a mixture of recordings and live performances and just treating them as genre specific “Records of the year” awards. The one’s with “Song” in the title are geared more towards the song writing. - I will first make my selection of the available options. Bold and underlines will be my top selection with underlined not bold as my runner up. - I will then make my own selections for each category and who I think should win out of that. - My selection is not just a list of my favorite albums. My selections will be a balancing act taking in account artistic accomplishments, Impact both culturally and popularity as well as what I personally think is good. - I made a few liberties with some of my selections, mostly from the rules for eligibility being vague in spots. - This list is just all my biased suggestions. I’m sure there will be some major differences in opinions with anybody who reads this. - Feel free to shoot me a message to discuss more with me anything you wish to!

Album of the Year:

Ariana Grande - Thank U, Next Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE SO WE GO? Bon Iver - I,I H.E.R. - I Used To Know Her Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rickwell Lil Nas X - 7 Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Vampire Weekend - Father Of The Bride

My Picks: Big Wild - Superdream Jacob Banks - The Village Illenium - ASCEND Khalid - Free Spirit Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Nick Murphy - Run Fast Sleep Naked Nilfür Yanya - Miss Universe Tyler, The Creator - IGOR

Record of the Year:

Ariana Grande - 7 Rings Billie Eilish - Bad Guy Bon Iver - Hey, Ma H.E.R. - Hard Place Khalid - Talk Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (Feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) Lizzo - Truth Hurts Post Malone & Swae Lee - Sunflower

My Picks: Avicii - SOS (Feat. Aloe Blacc) Bon Iver - Hey Ma Flume - Let You Know (Feat. London Grammer) G Flip - About You Illenium - Good Things Fall Apart (Feat. Jon Bellion) Khalid - Talk Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Taylor Swift - Lover

Song of the Year:

Billie Eilish - Bad Guy H.E.R. - Hard Place Lady Gaga - Always Remember Us This Way Lana Del Rey - Norman Fucking Rockwell Lewis Capaldi - Someone You Loved Lizzo - Truth Hurts Taylor Swift - Lover Tanya Tucker - Bring Me Flowers Now

My Picks: Flux Pavilion - Somebody Else (Feat. GLNNA)  G Flip - I Am Not Afraid Gryffin & Aloe Blacc - Hurt People Kahlid - Better Maggie Rogers - Alaska MUNA - Stayaway LÉON - You & I

Best New Artist:

Billie Eilish Black Pumas Lil Nas X Lizzo Maggie Rogers ROSALÍA Tank and the Bangas Yola

My Picks: Billie Eilish Clairo Dermot Kennedy G Flip Jacob Banks Kim Petras Maggie Rogers Nilfür Yanya

Best Pop Solo Performance:

Ariana Grande - 7 Rings Beyoncé - Spirit Billie Eilish - Bad Guy Lizzo - Truth Hurts Taylor Swift - You Need To Calm Down

My Picks: Bon Iver - Hey, Ma Billie Eilish - Bad Guy G Flip - About You Maggie Rogers - Alaska Nilfür Yanya - Heavyweight Champion of the Year

Best Pop Duo/Group Performance:

Ariana Grande & Social House - Boyfriend Jonas Brothers - Sucker Lil Nas X - Old Town Road (Feat. Billy Ray Cyrus) Post Malone & Swae Lee - Sunflower Shawn Mendes & Camila Cabello - Senorita

My Picks: James Blake - Barefoot in the Park (Feat. ROSALÍA) JOHNNYSWIM - Souvenir Khalid - Outta My Head (Feat. John Mayer) Mark Ronson - Late Night Feelings (Feat. Lykke Li) MUNA - Stayaway

Best Pop Vocal Album:

Ariana Grande - thank u, next Beyonce - The Link King: The Gift Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? Ed Sheeran - No. 6 Collaborations Project Taylor Swift - Lover

My Picks: Billie Eilish - WHEN WE ALL FALL ASLEEP, WHERE DO WE GO? G Flip - About Us Kim Petras - Clarity Maggie Rogers - Heard It In A Past Life Nilfür Yanya - Miss Universe

Best Dance Recording:

Bonobo - Linked The Chemical Brothers - Got To Keep On Meduza Feat. Goodboys - Piece Of Your Heart RÜFÜS DU SOL - Underwater Skrillex & Boyz Noize - Midnight Hour (Feat. Ty Dolla $ign)

My Picks: Big Wild - Joypunks Flume - Let You Know (Feat. London Grammer) Flux Pavilion - Somebody Else (Feat. GLNNA) Illenium - Good Things Fall Apart (Feat. Jon Bellion) Elohim - runnin

Best Dance/Electronic Album:

Apparaty - LP5 The Chemical Brothers - No Georgraphy Flume - Hi This Is Flume [Mixtape] RÜFÜS DU SOL - Solace Tycho - Weather

My Picks: Big Wild - Superdream Alan Walker - Different World Illenium - ASCEND RÜFÜS DU SOL - Solace Whethan - Life of a Wallflower Vol. 1

Best Rock Performance:

Bones UK - Pretty Waste Gary Clark Jr. - This Land Brittany Howard - History Repeats Karen O & Danger Mouse - Woman Rival Sons - Too Bad 

My Picks: FIDLAR - Get Off My Rock Karen O & Danger Mouse - Turn the Light Mother Mother - Dance and Cry The Ting Tings - Estranged Foals - Exits

Best Rock Song:

Tool - Fear Inoculum The 1975 - Give Yourself A Try Vampire Weekend - Harmony Hall Brittany Howard - History Repeats  Gary Clark Jr. - This Land 

My Picks: Brittany Howard - He Loves Me Circa Waves - Sorry I’m Yours Karen O & Danger Mouse - Woman Of Monsters and Men - Rororo Vampire Weekend - This Life

Best Rock Album:

Bring Me The Horizon - amo Cage The Elephant - Social Cues The Cranberries - In The End I Prevail - Trauma Rival Sons - Feral Roots

My Picks: Bring Me The Horizon - amo Circa Waves - What’s It Like Over There? Foals - Part I: Everything Not Saved Will Be Lost Mother Mother - Laugh and Cry The 1975 - A Brief Inquiry Into Online Relationships

Best Alternate Album:

Big Thieft - U.F.O.F. Bon Iver - I,I James Blake - Assume Form Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride Thom Yorke - Anima

My Picks: Bon Iver - I,I Nick Murphy - Ran Fast Sleep Naked James Blake - Assume Form Karen O & Danger Mouse - Lux Prima Vampire Weekend - Father of the Bride

Best R&B Performance:

Daniel Caesar & Brandy - Love Again H.E.R. - Could’ve Been (Feat. Bryson Tiller) Lizzo - Exactly How I Feel (Feat. Gucci Mane) Lucky Daye - Roll Some Mo Anderson .Paak - Come Home (Feat. Andre 3000)

My Picks: Kindness - Hard To Believe (Feat. Jazmine Sullivan & Sampha) Mahlia - What You Did (Feat. Ella Mai) Maverick Sabre - Slow Down (Feat. Jorja Smith) Nicole Bus - You Rationale - Explosions 

Best Traditional R&B Performance:

BJ The Chicago Kid - Time Today India.Arie - Steady Love Lizzo - Jerome Lucky Daye - Real Games PJ Morton - Built For Love (Feat. Jazmine Sullivan)

My Picks: BANKS - Look What You’re Doing to Me (Feat. Francis & The Lights) Jacob Banks - Love Ain’t Enough Kahlid - Better Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Ruti - Racing Cars

Best R&B Song:

H.E.R. - Could’ve Been (Feat. Bryson Tiller) Emily King - Look At Me Now Chris Brown - No Guidance (Feat. Drake) Lucky Daye - Roll Some Mo PJ Morton - Say So (Feat. JoJo)

My Picks: BJ The Chicago Kid - Reach (Feat. Afrojack) Khalid - Free Spirit Lucky Daye - Concentrate Maverick Sabre - Weakness Ruti - Racing Cars

Best Urban Contemporary Album:

Steve Lacy - Apollo XXI Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Georgia Anna Muldrow - Overload NAO - Saturn Jessie Reyes - Being Human in Public

My Picks: BANKS - III Kindness - Something Like War Lizzo - Cuz I Love You Maverick Sabre - When I Wake Up NAO - Saturn

Best R&B Album:

BJ The Chicago Kid - 1123 Lucky Daye - Painted Ella Mai - Ella Mai PJ Morton - Paul Anderson .Paak - Ventura

My Picks: BJ The Chicago Kid - 1123 Dawn Richard - New Breed Jacob Banks - The Village Kahlid - Free Spirit Anderson .Paak - Ventura

Best Rap Performance:

J. Cole - Middle Child DaBaby - Suge Dreamville - Down Bad (Feat. J.I.D., Bas, J. Cole, EARTHGANG & Young Nudy) Nipsey Hussle - Racks in the Middle (Feat. Roddy Rich & Hit-Boy) Offset - Clout (Feat. Cardi B)

My Picks: Denzel Curry - RICKY Big K.R.I.T. - K.R.I.T. HERE Freddie Gibs & Madlib - Palmolive (Feat. Pusha T & Killer Mike) Little Simz - Boss Mustard - Pure Water (Feat. Migos)

Best Rap/Song Performance:

DJ Khaled - Higher (Feat. Nipsey Hussle & John Legend) Lil Baby & Gunna - Drop Too Hard Lil Nas X - Panini Mustard - Ballin (Feat. Roddy Rich) Young Thug - The London (Feat. J. Cole & Travis Scott)

My Picks: Chance The Rapper - All Day (Feat. John Legend) GoldLink - Zulu Screams (Feat. Maleek Berry & Babi Bourelly) Kevin Abstract - Joyride Lizzo - Tempo (Feat. Missy Elliott) TOBi - Come Back Home (Feat. VanJess)

Best Rap Song:

YBN Cordae - Bad Idea (Feat. Chance The Rapper) Rick Ross - Gold Roses (Feat. Drake) 21 Savage - A Lot (Feat. J. Cole) Nipsey Hussle - Racks in the Middle (Feat. Roddy Rich & Hit-Boy) DaBaby - Suge

My Picks: Boogie - Soho (Feat. JID) JID - 151 Rum Rapsody - Nina Raja Kumari - SHOOK YBN Cordae - Have Mercy

Best Rap Album:

Dreamville - Revenger Of The Dreamer III Meek Mill - Chamionships 21 Savage - I Am> I Was Tyler, The Creator - IGOR YBN Cordae - The Lost Boy

My Picks: Denzell Curry - ZUU GoldLink - Diaspora Rapsody - Eve Lil Simz - GREY Area Tyler, The Creator - IGOR

Producer of the Year (Non-Classical):

Dan Auerbach Finneas Jack Antonoff John Hill Ricky Reed

My Picks: Big Wild Diplo Jack Antonoff Seven Lions Tyler, The Creator

[letterboxd]

The Circle of Live (Action).

“The effort here was to keep the filmmaking tradition. I think there’s a balance between innovation and tradition.” —The Lion King director Jon Favreau and cast chat with us about the visually stunning new Disney film.

Disney’s recent proclivity for making live-action films based on its animated classics reaches its technical zenith with Jon Favreau’s The Lion King (whose animated predecessor holds an impressive 4.3 out of 5 stars). Building on methods he first explored in the 2016 live-action version of The Jungle Book, Favreau has constructed a digital world comprised of the most photo-realistic animals ever rendered.

The irony is, of course, that although it’s often referred to as such, the new Lion King isn’t live action at all. Save for one individual shot, it was created entirely inside a computer. But you probably wouldn’t know that if the animals didn’t talk.

That talking is provided by a new voice cast that now better reflects the story’s setting by featuring many actors from across the African diaspora.

JD McCrary (Little) and Donald Glover (a.k.a. Childish Gambino) voice the youthful and adult versions of Simba the lion, respectively, opposite Shahadi Wright Joseph (the daughter from Us) and Beyoncé as Simba’s best friend Nala. Joseph played the same role in the long-running Broadway adaptation of The Lion King, from which the new film takes some musical and aesthetic cues.

Oscar nominee Chiwetel Ejiofor (Doctor Strange) replaces Jeremy Irons in the role of Scar, and James Earl Jones (Darth Vader himself) returns to the role of Mufasa.

Ugandan-born, German-raised actor Florence Kasumba (Black Panther)—who also appeared in the stage version of The Lion King—plays head hyena Shenzi, alongside Keegan-Michael Key (The Predator) and Eric André (Rough Night) as bickering hyena minons Kamari and Azizi.

Key and André are pretty great, but the comedic pairing in the film that is getting talked about a lot is Seth Rogen and Billy Eichner as warthog Pumba and meerkat Timon. Both are utterly hilarious.

Favreau recently got together with most of the cast (no Beyoncé, sadly) and some select press in Beverly Hills to discuss the making of the film.

On how working on The Jungle Book flowed into The Lion King: Jon Favreau (director/producer): I’ve been working on both these movies back to back for about six years. All the new technology that was available, I had finally learned how to use it by the end of Jungle Book. And at that point, with the team that we had assembled for it, all the artists. Because a lot of attention is paid to the technology, but really, these are handmade films. There are animators working on every shot, every environment that you see in the film—actually, there’s one shot that’s a real photographic shot—but everything else is built from scratch by artists. And we had a great team assembled. And then the idea of using what we learned on that and the new technologies that were available to make a story like Lion King with its great music, great characters, and great story, it seemed like a wonderful, logical conclusion. And so that was something we set out to do.

On how digital production evolved in the new film: JF: In Jungle Book, we were essentially using the same motion-capture technology for performers and cameras as had been developed ten years prior for Avatar. But towards the end of that, there was a whole slew of consumer-facing VR products that were hitting the scene. We started experimenting with it at the end of Jungle Book and realized that we could build this really cool system of filmmaking using game-engine technology. That way I could bring in people who don’t have any background in visual effects. We would design the entire environments. We took all the recordings that we had from the actors. We would animate within the game engine, in this case, it was Unity. And the crew would be able to put on the headsets, go in, scout, and actually set cameras within VR.

The effort here was to keep not just the tradition of the film and stage production that came before us, but the filmmaking tradition. Oftentimes when new technology comes online, it disrupts an industry. But with just a little bit of effort, we were able to build around the way filmmakers and film crews work. So a guy like Caleb Deschanel, a fantastic cinematographer who I’ve always wanted to work with, inviting him to do a very technically advanced film without any prior background in visual effects and just saying: hey, we’ll make it so that you could just make a movie as you would have made The Black Stallion. We would actually have cameras driven in VR space by a film crew with dollies and cranes and assistant directors, script supervisors, set dressers. So we kept the same film culture and planted it using this technology into the VR realm.

Although the film was completely animated as far as performances went, it allowed a live-action film crew to go in and use the tools they were used to. Part of what’s so beautiful about the lighting, the camera work, the shots of the film, was that we were able to inherit a whole career of experience and artistry from our fantastic team. I think that it’s nice to look at technology as an invitation for things to progress and not always something that’s going to change the way everything came before it. I think there’s a balance between innovation and tradition.

The cast of the new ‘The Lion King’.

On what excited him about the story: Donald Glover (adult Simba): Jon was really good about the circle of life having a major hand in it. I really feel that it’s good to make movies that are global and metropolitan in the sense [that we are] the citizens of the world. Like, making sure that we talk about how connected we are right now. Because it’s the first time we’ve really been able to talk to everybody at the same time. It was just, like, a necessary thing.

On getting into Scar’s head: Chiwetel Ejiofor (Scar): I felt that it was just really interesting to go into that psychology, to really try and uncover that and to look at it. I’m a huge fan of what was done before, obviously, like everybody else—Jeremy Irons—and just going back in and exploring that character again from a slightly different perspective and seeing what was there.

It’s such an incredible part to play; so complex and all of that. Having empathy—not sympathy—but empathizing with the character and trying to understand them and trying to get underneath that. And such a rich, villainous character to play. In a way as much as I—absolutely with everybody else—loved the original, you kind of make it your own and you create the sort of individuality to it in that way.

On finding a loose comedic rhythm in a digital context: Seth Rogen (Pumba): It was a lot of improvisation with Billy. We were actually together every time we recorded, which is a very rare gift to have as someone who is trying to be funny in an animated film, of which I’ve done a lot, and you’re often just alone in there. I think you can really tell that we’re playing off of each other. It’s an incredibly naturalistic feeling. They really captured Billy. That is what is amazing, I would say. He essentially played himself on a TV show for years, and this character is more Billy than that character somehow. It’s remarkable to me how his character specifically makes me laugh so hard.

Billy Eichner (Timon): I wish I was as cute in real life as I am in the movie. The Timon they designed is so adorable, and I think the juxtaposition of my personality in that little Timon body really works. And yeah. I agree with everything that Seth was saying. I can’t imagine now, looking back, not being in the room together. Being able to riff off each other and really discover our chemistry together in the same moment. You can feel it when you’re watching the movie. I had not seen the finished movie until last night and I was shocked by how much of the riffing actually ended up in the movie. I think it works. I think it feels very unique to other movies in this genre, which can often feel a bit canned.

SR: The fact that it has a looseness applied to probably the most technologically incredible movie ever made is an amazing contrast. It feels like people in a room just talking, and then it’s refined to a degree that is inconceivable in a lot of ways. That mixture is what I think is so incredible and that’s what Jon really captured in an amazing way.

On how Favreau guided their tone: Eric André (Kamari): He’s incredibly talented and really, really easy to work off of. And he is a selfless altruistic talent, which is rare. So I was in great hands with Jon. It was just a very nurturing environment and made it very easy, because I’m very, very sensitive. So the slightest wind of anything will make me tear up.

Keegan-Michael Key (Azizi): I think Jon is a great student, has an encyclopaedic knowledge of all different types of comedy. One of those pieces of knowledge is about comedic duos and the dynamic that exists between them. We had a very similar experience to Billy and Seth where we were allowed to walk around the room. It was as if we were being directed in a scene in the play. And as you said, we were all mic’d, and so everything was captured.

It was the subsequent rounds that I thought [were] interesting. Jon would get a little more technical, when I would be actually by myself. The refinement is also very fun, because we would sit there and I would have the headphones on. I would say to Jon, “We’re looking for Fibber McGee and Molly here or Abbott and Costello. What are you looking for?” He goes, “I’m actually looking for a little bit of Laurel and Hardy with an explosion at the end, but then back it up into little Apatowian for me.”

EA: With a sprinkle of Beavis and Butthead.

On the experience of going from the stage version to the film version: Florence Kasumba (Shenzi): I was lucky that I got to play the part already in Germany for more than a year. We played like eight shows a week. So Shenzi is like muscle memory, because I got to play her every day. But this Shenzi is so different. I remember in the musical, we had sometimes shows where I was embarrassed because the hyenas are so dumb and funny. They are entertaining, but this is so different, this experience, because when I listen to the dialogue, when I read them, I realized that this is way more dangerous and more serious.

I was lucky [on] my first day that I was in a black box and I was working with Eric André, and with JD. We were very physical, because the guys were so strong, it was easy for me to just be big. Because everybody is very confident, we could just really try out things. We could walk around each other. We could scare each other. We could scream, be loud, be big, be small. It’s like working in the theater, which I love. Having that freedom just made me… I was allowed to do whatever I wanted to.

‘The Lion King’ is in theaters now. Comments have been edited for clarity and length.

[goddessofthundathighs]

808’s & Heartbreak: The Story of Ivy and Erik Chapter 4: Redemption, Pt. 1

Ivy’s Heart   Introducing Bernadette   The Apology (1)   The Apology (2)

A/N: This chapter is cute & fluffy as hell. No freak nastiness.. yet.. I was asked about a sub-chapter detailing Taj’s date with Thicc Daddy, but idk.. we’ll see how that goes..

Song Inspiration: Beyoncé- Love Drought

“Nine times out of ten, I'm in my feelings
But ten times out of nine, I'm only human

Tell me, what did I do wrong?
Feel like that question has been posed
I'm movin' on
I'll always be committed, I been focused
I always paid attention, been devoted
Tell me, what did I do wrong?”

IVY’S POV

In the weeks since Erik’s return, I’ve found myself replaying that last night over & again in my mind. “Just leave!” He had never been cold to me. He always told me that I was his light. The calm in the storm that was his life.

“SO WHY THE FUCK WOULD YOU LEAVE ME?!” I shouted to no one in particular. A knock on my door pulled me out of my sulking.

“Package for Ivy Kennedy,” called the woman from the other side of the door.

“Thank you,” I responded, signing for the medium sized box. I didn’t even have to check the sender. Everyday for the last three weeks I received a new gift. A replacement Ivy leaf bracelet with matching earrings, a green Chanel classic flap bag, roses, candy, you name it, I got it. But today’s gift took the cake. I opened the box and screamed. It was the green Versace Greek platform sandals that I had been eying for months.

“How did he even –“ my thoughts trailed off as I read the note in the box.

“You’ve always been my green Goddess. These looked like they were your style.”

–E. S.

I couldn’t fight the smile that crept across my lips. Even after two years, he remembers. Erik always was one to memorize the little things.

I figured I’d go to the office today. I’d been working from home for the last 3 weeks, not wanting to risk a chance encounter with a certain charming prince. “Dr. Kennedy!” My assistant Andrea called.

“Here’s your coffee and you have a call waiting from a young woman named Shuri Udaku.”

My face fell. Shuri was Erik’s younger cousin and a scientific prodigy. I had taken her under my wing while we were dating and she never ceased to amaze me. Though I dreaded the call because I knew Erik would somehow come up, I missed her playful banter and allowed Andrea to patch the call through.

“Hi Shuri,” I said casually.

“Hello, Dr. Kennedy.” His deep voice sent shockwaves to my core.

“Erik, my assistant told me Shuri wanted to speak with me,” I tried to keep my tone even.

“She does. She’s been working on enhancements to an experiment here in the states and was wondering if she could borrow a few of the chemicals in your lab,” he explained.

“And what exactly does that have to do with you?” I asked.

“She’d asked me to come pick them up,” he responded quietly.

“If you don’t want to see me, it’s fine we’ll send someone el–“,

“No,” I interrupted. “It’s fine. I’ll be here until 3.”

ERIK’S POV

I was more than surprised she wanted to see me. Ivy could be stubborn and I was more than prepared for her to draw this out another 2 years just to get her point across.

“So what exactly am I supposed to be getting, Shuri?” I asked with a raised eyebrow.

“See if she has any Love Potion #9,” she retorted, doubling over with laughter.

“Real funny, lil nigga,” he sneered.

“I know it was, Big Nigga. Seriously though see if she has any hyaluronic acid, titanium, and agar, oh and Taj is waiting for you downstairs.”

“Thanks cuz, I owe you one.”

“Just don’t let her go this time, eh?” she said back.

“Taj Mahal, what’s up?”

“Don’t push it, Stevens,” she responded, limping in my direction.

“I see M’Baku still out here breaking your back,” I said laughing. If looks could kill, I’d be dead, but she soon returned the laugh.

“Do you really wanna talk about how great that Jabari dick is?” she asked with a raised eyebrow. “Nah.” I responded in disgust.

“So what’s the plan, T? I can just walk up in her office demanding that she listen to me. I tried that shit already & got ghosted for 3 weeks.”

“She didn’t ghost you, idiot. She types messages to you everyday, she just doesn’t send them. Every single thing you’ve sent her is on proud display around her house. She hasn’t taken off the earrings and bracelet since she got them. She misses you just as much as you miss her, she’s just prideful.”

I must’ve looked like a deer in headlights at her confession because she giggled before continuing. “Just go to her E. Both of y’all keep dancing around each other and you’re only hurting yourselves. Yes, LA is a big city, eventually y’all are gonna have to see each other.”

She was right. Being in the same city with her without communication was torture. I needed my girl.

I sat nervously in her office waiting for her to finish her meeting. When she walked in, my heart stopped. She was dressed in her lab coat and a black bodycon dress that stopped just below her knees. True to Taj’s word she was wearing the Ivy leaf bracelet and earrings and black red bottom heels. Her curly hair framed her face perfectly and to my surprise, she had a pair of gold wire-rimmed glasses similar to mine. My chest swelled with pride. This was my girl. She made a move to speak, but I interrupted. I had to get this off my chest.

IVY’S POV

“I found my daddy with panther claws in his chest.” he stated suddenly. Nigga, what? I thought to myself before he continued.

“When I was eight, I found my dad murdered in our apartment. He had panther claws in his chest. Turns out, the guy that killed him was my uncle T’Chaka, who was the king of Wakanda and Black Panther then. I had no idea that I was royalty and I had so much anger and resentment built up against them that I decided to get revenge. When I left you, I went to Wakanda and challenged T’Challa for the throne. I won and was king for all of 48 hours before he came back and kicked my ass.”

I chuckled.

“Long story short, even after all my bullshit, they accepted me. T’Challa even gave me a job as his trusted advisor, but I told him I wanted to work in the states. Imagine my surprise when I found out that the LA branch of the Wakandan Outreach Center was about 15 minutes away from my favorite chemist.”

My eyes rolled and I had to bite the inside of my cheeks to keep from smiling. Grams was right. He came back for me. As happy as I was, I couldn’t give in that easily. I still wanted to make him beg.

“I thought you needed chemicals, Stevens,” I said, leaning against my desk. He stood up and my breath hitched.

“What I need, is for you to stop acting like you don’t miss me.” He stepped closer.

“What I need is for you to stop ignoring me.” His right arm snaked around my waist and pulled me flush against his scars and his third leg. He tucked his left index finger under my chin, tilting it upward, forcing me to look into his hooded eyes.

“What I need is for you to wrap those thighs around my head and let Daddy show you how sorry I am for abandoning you.”

THE DAM BROKE.

TAG LIST: @hearteyes-for-killmonger @thehomierobbstark @wakanda-inspired @siriuslycollins @sicksadgen @wifeyofnjadaka @panthergoddessbast @amethyst1993 @princessstevens @ange-sensuel @another-imaginesblog @youreadthatright @allhailnjadaka @eriknutinthispoosy @muse-of-mbaku @blackpantherismyish @thehonorablekingerik @tgigoldie @bartierbakarimobisson

[i-am-very-very-tired]

With the impending release of his fifth studio album — the first since the four-time platinum, Grammy-nominated 2016 Views — Drake has many questions surrounding him. Can he again move a million units in a week? Can he prove all the doubters wrong after two years of ghostwriting allegations? Can he top “Hotline Bling” or “One Dance”? Can More Life overtake Take Care as Drake’s undoubted classic album?

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But also, can he, like so many artists in 2016 — Beyoncé (Lemonade), Solange (A Seat at the Table), Rihanna (Anti), Kanye West (The Life of Pablo), Young Thug (Jeffery) — take risks on his new album, exposing a deeper version of himself? Drake and his legion of fans — and his seemingly equal number of detractors — are waiting with bated breath for March 18 to see what the 6 God has been cooking up. But before we can call the new project “classic” or “trash,” before we spend the next few weeks debating the best and worst tracks, here’s the most important question that Drake has to answer: Can he stop attempting to control women?

Over the past eight years, Drake’s built up a reputation as being the compassionate and less threatening (read: soft) rapper who appears on The Ellen DeGeneres Show, cuddles up with professional athletes, and gets tattoos of Aaliyah. He’s played the role of Nice Guy by constantly smiling, and apparently wearing his heart on his sleeve. This appeals to the sensitivities of the women in his fan base. But, as is often the case with these so-called nice guys, Drake plays the charmer — he’ll call you beautiful, open doors for you and send you smiley-face emojis — but the minute he has sex with you, or you move on to someone else, he turns into Michael Ealy in The Perfect Guy.

Drake’s corniness, outward kindness and lack of sexual aggression has been misinterpreted as an overarching respect for women. He’s even been referred to as a feminist. But Drake is as much a feminist as Rachel Dolezal is a black woman. His entire catalog is steeped in respectability politics, accepting women so far as their body count goes.

Those songs pale in comparison to “Shot For Me,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Practice.” They are Drake at his worst.

While he’s constantly praised Nicki Minaj over the years, Drake belittled the Grammy-nominated artist during his beef with her former boyfriend, Meek Mill — Is that a world tour or your girl’s tour? — implying that it’s emasculating for a man to receive second billing to his significant other.

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As with stars of rock and country music, almost every successful rapper today, from Jay Z to Future to Chance the Rapper, has at some point performed lyrics that objectify or exploit women. J.Cole’s music has taken on more social justice elements over the years (Drake has spoken out for black causes as well). But Cole, in a 2013 song, called women “b—–s” —I got smart, I got rich, and I got b—–s still/And they all look like my eyebrows: thick as hell — and patriarchally dismisses female sexuality on 2014’s “No Role Modelz”:

My only regret was too young for Lisa Bonet, my only regret was too young for Nia Long/Now all I’m left with is hoes from reality shows, hand her a script the b—h probably couldn’t read along

Even so-called progressive rappers fall into this trap, namely the androgynous Young Thug and the genderfluid Young M.A.

Sometime between Drake’s early rise and his third mixtape being converted into 2009’s So Far Gone, the rapper known for singing about his romantic feelings and the pressure of newfound fame — with a flow that made every 16 bars sound like the hottest verse ever — became his own worst enemy. Drake, known for hits like 2009’s “Best I Ever Had” and 2010’s “Find Your Love,” became synonymous with quote-heavy memes on social media, and fake Twitter accounts such as @drakkardnoir pumped out fake deep quote after fake deep quote.

But the rapper’s verses about loving and being proud of college-educated, independent women — Sound so smart like you graduated college/Like you went to Yale but you probably went to Howard — paved the way for hypermasculine diatribes against the sexual agency of seemingly any woman he’s ever encountered. Through an examination of Drake’s four studio albums, plus mixtapes, collaborative projects and guest features, it is clear that the man who made music for folks who couldn’t get over their exes was himself struggling with the basic concept of “moving on.”

While So Far Gone doesn’t count as a studio album — it was his final mixtape before signing with Universal Republic — it gave listeners a sneak peek into the troublesome lyrics Drake would release in subsequent years. On the soothing track “Houstatlantavegas,” he raps about “saving” an exotic dancer from a strip club:

You go get f—– up and we just show up at your rescue/Carry you inside, get you some water and undress you.

I give you my all and the next morning you’ll forget who or why, or how, or when/Tonight is prolly ’bout to happen all over again.

Thank Me Later, Drake’s 2010 debut studio album, features the rapper slut-shaming women for having previous sexual partners. From “Karaoke” (I hope that you don’t get known for nothing crazy/Cause no man ever wants to hear those stories ’bout his lady) to “Miss Me” (Work somethin’, twerk something, basis/She just tryna make it so she’s right here getting naked. I don’t judge her, I don’t judge her/But I could never love her) to “Thank Me Now” (Alohas to women with no ties to men/That I know well, that way there are no lies), Drake positions women with previous sexual experience as undesirable. On the Rihanna-assisted “Take Care,” he seems to open up to the idea of women having sexual agency, relenting I’ve asked about you and they told me things/But my mind didn’t change and I still feel the same.

Thank Me Later was also at times a celebration of independent women – appreciating women’s “book smarts and street smarts” on “Shut it Down” and “Fancy” — but set the foundation for 2011’s Take Care, which was, at that point, the peak of Drake’s overt misogyny and objectification of women. On Take Care, which won Drake a Grammy for best rap album — he continues his focus on sex workers with “Lord Knows”:

To all these women that think like men with the same intentions

Talking strippers and models that try to gain attention.

Even a couple porn stars that I’m ashamed to mention.

“Under Ground Kings” (Sometimes I need that romance, sometimes I need that pole dance/Sometimes I need that stripper that’s gon’ tell me that she don’t dance) even creates a binary of acceptable and unacceptable behavior. While Drake has an infatuation with exotic dancers, he also makes it clear that admiration only goes as far as sex. “Trust Issues,” which Drake said he made for “fun” and thus didn’t include on the album, has Drake playing into the thoroughly debunked myth that women can’t want sex as much as men, rapping And it’s probably why I’m scared to put the time in/Women want to f— like they’re me and I’m them.

Those songs, though, pale in comparison to “Shot For Me,” “Marvin’s Room” and “Practice.” They are Drake at his worst, going beyond the behaviors of the paternalistic and disapproving ex. He goes from telling a woman she’s drinking away the pain she feels due to leaving him on “Shot For Me” — Yeah, I’m the reason why you always getting faded — to cursing out another for finding happiness with a new lover on “Marvin’s Room” (F— that n—-a that you love so bad).

Despite admitting that he’s a flawed individual in the latter song, in the former he tells the woman that he “made” her and calls her a “b—-.” This then leads to Drake’s most confusing and disturbing song to date, “Practice.” While acknowledging that women can have sex — the song is about a woman having multiple partners — Drake then spins it to his advantage: All those other men were practice, they were practice/Yeah, for me, for me, for me, for me. He senses “pain and regret” in the woman from her past, and then reluctantly accepts the fact that she has casual sex. He tops the song off with an uncomfortable, familial request: You can even call me daddy, give you someone to look up to.

But, Drake can still change. His lyrics paint the picture of a man who is constantly questioning himself.

It’s 2016’s “Hotline Bling” that ignited the re-examination of Drake’s entire catalog. The song is the rapper’s second-best-selling single of all time (behind fellow Views track “One Dance”), and won him two Grammys at last month’s award show. Not to mention, the visuals for the song will go down in music history as one of the most memorable music videos of all time.

But while the chorus is equal parts infectious and mesmerizing, Drake sneaks in two verses and a bridge full of “reductive stereotypes” and body-policing lyrics about an old fling. Whether about said woman “wearing less and goin’ out more” or “going places where you don’t belong,” Drake makes it apparent that he’s offended that she has the audacity to move on with her life. By the end of the song, Drake’s become so desperate that he’s even concerned that the woman is “bendin’ over backwards for someone else.” Textbook narcissism.

His guest appearances have been a mixed bag as well. On rapper The Game’s 2011 track “Good Girls Go Bad,” Drake raps Who’s still getting tested?/Where’s all the women that still remember who they slept with? and a year later added to 2 Chainz’s “No Lie”:

She could have a Grammy, I still treat her a– like a nominee

Just need to know what that p—- like

So one time is fine with me.

Over the past couple of years, Drake has put out two mixtapes, a solo effort If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late, and What A Time To Be Alive with Future. His male chauvinism can be found on tracks “Legend,” “Energy” and “Madonna” and repeatedly calls a woman “ungrateful” for living her life without him on “Diamonds Dancing.” As writer Tahirah Hairston pointed out, Drake has also had questionable lyrics on “Wu-Tang Forever,” “Own It,” “Furthest Thing,” “I’m The Plug” and even notable feminist Beyoncé’s “Mine.”

Back in October, Drake released three tracks from his upcoming More Life album — “Fake Love,” “Sneakin’,” and “Two Birds, One Stone.” Looking solely at those tracks, it appears Drake has let up a little on his control, instead rapping about success, fake friends and his long list of haters. Even his appearance on labelmate Nicki Minaj’s diss to Remy Ma, “No Frauds,” he steers clear of trying to preserve women’s sanctity.

For nearly a decade now, Drake has wrapped up his alarming lyrics inside catchy, Instagram-caption-worthy choruses and tunes. The “light-skinned Keith Sweat” gets away with this because he carefully crafted a “nice guy” persona that deflects the criticism that, say, a 21 Savage, Kodak Black or the Migos would receive.

For many men, Drake’s attitudes reflect their own attitudes and desires, which in turn reflect a patriarchal society that views women as sexual objects meant to be gazed at. For women, they’ve had to deal with sexism in the arts since the beginning of time, so choosing to not enjoy an artist because of his views on sexuality would mean giving up on music all together. And at the end of the day, Drake is just that good at his job, unquestionably the most influential and popular musician in the business right now.

But Drake can still change. His lyrics paint the picture of a man who is constantly questioning himself, consistently trying to become a better person, whatever that entails. From So Far Gone to More Life — age 22 to 30 — he’s learned all the lessons life can teach, from whom to trust to what forms of happiness money and fame can buy. But it seems he’s yet to learn that women aren’t sexual objects. They’re human beings. If the only women of the world were all exactly like the women he seems to respect — his mother or Rihanna or Aaliyah or Serena Williams — we’d call him Aubrey the Riveter. But, they aren’t the only women who deserve his respect.

He knows that. But it begs the question: Does he care?

Martenzie is a writer for The Undefeated. His favorite cinematic moment is when Django said "Y'all want to see somethin?"

[kalialgjordan102]

The Right One

Chapter One

  August Alsina as London Knews- King

Monica POV- We just finished having sex and I'm annoyed he wants to cuddle with me. I don't have time for this.

"London, I have to go." London sits up, "Why?" Monica slips on her shirt and shoes, "Please don't start this."

"Start with what? I thought we had something more than what's in between these sheets."

"You know I care about you London but its just not like that."

"You know you've been acting real funny since---"

"Dont London. You're just like my parents, you don't know how to let it go. You always go there! I'm fine! I'm so sick oh this mushy emotional bullish*t with everybody. Goodbye."

With that Monica walked out not looking back. She wanted to erase the past and she wish that sometimes she could be a little more soft but she was who she was. As she walking in the sore she went to grab a beer. Her and the guy reached for it. They debated on who should take it but he insisted, she did, paid and left.

When she arrived home to her two bedroom, two bathroom brick home. Her phone rung. "Hello."

"Sup?"

"Hey Malachi."

"What ya doing?"

"Just feed Popcorn (her puppy) and bout to watch TV and fall asleep. Where your mom and dad at?"

"In their bedroom doing it. Any plans for your birthday?"

"How bout we go to the beach?"

"Alright. Talk to you later."

Malachi is one of Monica's friends from childhood, like since birth. Their parents were like family and his parents were like aunt and uncle. Monica and Malachi had their time when she was teenage and up where they messed around, he even took her virginity.

Monica fell asleep... in her dreams, "Babe wake up." She saw these grey eyes. The guy comes down and kisses her lips. They were so soft and she grabs his head for more. He starts biting on her neck finding her spot making her moan and grab is hair. She then takes in his inches as he pushes further in her, "Dont stop daddy." He turns her over on all fours pulling her hair back, "You like when daddy pull your hair." She moans and screams as he pulls her hair and smack her from behind going in deeper, "YES! OH GOD YEAH! I'm about to---"

Monica jump up out her sleep and looks around. She realized her sheets was wet. Of course this have happened before but never about a strange guy she didn't know. All she knew he had soft black hair, tattoos and grey eyes and was thick. She dials the number of her other childhood friend, Eve. Eve answers the phone groggy, "Hello?"

"GIRL WAKE UP. I JUST HAD THIS DREAM."

"You're always dreaming something weird Mon. Go back to sleep and wait until the morning."

"It was a sex dream."

"I'm up, what's sup."

"I knew your nasty behind would get up for that."

"Who was it? Was he fine girl? Was it Malachi? London?"

"I don't know and no and no. And he seemed like he was fine. His voice and dominance. He was tearing that thang up."

"Okay how you not whether he was fine or not."

"Eve, it was so random. I never seen this guy before and the scary little thing I notice, he had a ring on."

"So, so does Malachi but its a class ring."

"No but his was a band. A silver band with small diamonds."

"So this guy was married but had some money. Hey!!!"

"Yeah but married and I was sleeping with him."

"Okay. Well what's the problem. You don't like being tied down so this is right up your alley. You don't do relationships."

"And for good reasons. Last boyfriend I had I cheated on him with Malachi. But in all fairness I told him that I wasn't cut out for relationships, I was honest up front. And plus I'm too young and gave my whole life ahead of me for marriage and commitment and if I die not married, I'm cool with that."

"Every guy isn't your father Monica." Tears formed in Monica's eyes as she sat at the edge of her bed, "Talk to me Monica."

"Its just that... he was so horrible. My mom, we, his whole family, loved him with everything. We supported and loved him but why was he so mean, especially to my mom. I think about the pain and how he broke our hearts and family and I built up resentment. He was a nasty bastard."

"MONICA!"

"Don't Monica me." 

"Listen, I know he putting a hurting on y'all and destroyed but you have to forgive him, not for him but for you."

"I wish I could but right now I just can't."

"Crazy how our conversations end up like this."

Monica wipes her tears, "I know. We were talking about sex and it lead to my father. And I hate the control he have, I hate it but its just so hard to look at men the same. I started to care about Malachi in ways friends don't supposed to but after that, no. And London, I care for him but its not like and I feel like he tries to pressure me to be ready for commitment and marriage, I'm not ready to be with me, I don't think I ever will. I mean I care about him and we will always be friends and like family to me."

"Its crazy how life turns out. Are you still going to the Steelers game with me?"

"Yeah. Fo' sure. Got the hat and customized wrist Steelers bandana, ya know it. And plus that's the only day I got off from the library and The Chill Grill. _________________________________________________________________ 

Steelers Game  Monica and Eve arrived early for the game making sure they had snacks. The game started twenty minutes later and they were the loudest ones on the bleachers. During half-time they were standing up dancing on the bleachers as Nicki and Bey performed with Jay. They earned a lot of whistles from guys and girls rolling their neck and eyes hating

"Keep hating. OH OH THATS MY JAM RIGT THERE! Go Beyoncé hey!"

"You are something else girl."

Monica noticed a particular group of guys watching them but she continued to dance and they must enjoyed the view because they didn't look away.

______________________________________________________________________

Who do you think the guys are? Yall remember The Chill Grill from That's So Raven? What do you guys think about Monica and everyone so far? Continue? Who was the guy in the store? Thanks, share feedback and support and invite others. Ready to dig deep into Monica's past and what do you think about her dream? Thanks again Yours Truly 😉   

[therumpus]

I. This doesn’t begin with the fire, but it’s as good a bookend as any— just one tableau of many featuring the usual cast of accusatory fingers and the figures in their line of ire. Those whom rules have favored and those who know what it is to suffer. We’d never been to that space, never met the artists and attendees who perished in a building like the wooden belly of a ship, but we know places like it, have danced and sung among fairy lights, handmade lofts, puppets built by da Vinci’s latest incarnation as a trans girl. Those people shouting shame over building codes have likely been the comfortable kind exercising freedom not to be spat on, threatened, killed for being observably at odds with the bodies they were given. Yes, I said those people, and I meant the enfranchised yapping like lapdogs from narrow confines, not the beings residing in rinky-dink bedrooms/garages that double as performance spaces for bands nowhere else will book. I’m a straight-seeming cis white girl learning to catalogue my privileges and extending them to others when I can and still I have been on the shitty side of a rental inquiry. I know how it feels to be, on paper, worth absolutely nothing and how easy to feel that way off of paper, too. II. I don’t get told to kill myself, but I know many in the LGBT community hear this regularly. Sometimes the command is convincing enough. Anger is a mirror and I don’t believe the otherwise-at-ease offended by some people’s existence are looking in it. I try to imagine having love and sympathy even for livid Jesus-freak gazillionaires stripping rights from everyone who can’t pay their way out of a bind and I can’t do it, can actually see my own humanity’s limits. Would that they too would try this exercise, or another: admit faults! Hard to trust anyone who has no sense of humor. A gentle soul who says she talks to angels has become someone I don’t recognize, taking to Facebook to slut-shame Beyoncé, tongue-lashing Obama for his immigrant sympathies, typing in vitriolic caps about all of the WHINERS who can’t accept Trump as a gift from the Lord. If he is a gift, it is a flaming column of shit wrapped in dubiously human skin, in my very un-angelic opinion. What’s absurd about the man is the obviousness of his insecurities— he doth protest too much—the kind of complex that might inspire sympathy were he not responsible for the lives and deaths of everyone within these borders and many beyond. An awareness of my faults makes me hesitant, makes me reach for the scaffolding of facts while his make him bombastic, loose-cannon, a smug, dumb charlatan, the emperor everyone knows is nude. The angel lady insists not all of God’s chosen ones were perfect. I’m a heathen by choice, prefer to direct my energies to stones, intentions, the wheel of the year. I like my lore more figurative. Still, something tells me God’s chosen weren’t hate-mongering gropers (or worse). Just a hunch. A woman’s intuition. Since childhood I have tried not to know anyone well enough to dislike them, or give them license to antagonize, but Facebook is the license now. We are all animals. At work I held and scanned sweat-stained armbands from the Holocaust, touching fabric that touched people condemned to death or to put them there: red and green triangles, Stars of David, angular S’s and skulls. This is not a metaphor. The rabbi-turned-collector I work for, who deals in Judaica, tells me something I’ve never known: shows me the band that says Jüdische Polizei, for Jews the Nazis forced to police their own people, a level of fucked-up I’d never read. Each day new 1930s and 40s equivalences grow more disturbing, like how fucking stupid and heartless are we, and what kills me is that it’s the red-blooded self-professed patriots only too happy to repeat history, likely the same people who look back at any clash and think they would have been hero underdogs, which is what all Americans fancy ourselves, right? My husband’s aunt is a troll. This is a metaphor. Says he doesn’t watch real news, directs him to YouTube conspiracy videos. These are our times: rhetoric trumps reason, is wielded like a weapon against “ignorance” by those who vilify book-learnin’. I know only too well that I don’t know everything, which makes me not want to claim expertise on anything, which is of course what I want from everyone else, the same control in different clothes. I know how to escape a dinner party mostly unscathed, how to be a worker about whom no one has license to complain, but I don’t know how to be a soul or what true goodness is. Sometimes when I am in a mood, it seems easiest to leave the earth plane altogether, let everyone else deal with this ever-intensifying mess because who am I to do it? I, riddled with faults! I, not very kind! When my serotonin levels are not set to self-destruct, I wonder how often Donald Trump thinks about offing himself and figure the answer is never. III. For the first time in three years, my husband and I were home in the U.S. for the fourth of July. We’d spent twelve months in a nation where kings own newspapers and teachers sign waivers saying they’ll never speak ill of their school, the king, or the country. Portraits of royals hang in every business and home. I watched from afar as my homeland grew foreign to me, an unfunny joke I didn’t bother to defend. At least U.S. journalism is real, I’d thought, an antidote to automatic support for all-powerful leaders. Sad! In Bhutan, foreign workers need government permission to leave town for the weekend, afternoon, even an hour. This is granted by the immigration office, assuming all goes well with a letter from one’s employer, the whims of government workers, and sometimes a whiskey bribe. We presented our papers at checkpoints and kept trips to a minimum, inconvenienced and suspect because foreign. For us, there was an endpoint to this suspicion. In our own country again, we sang “proud to be an American” with gusto, gallows humor. I didn’t yet think such a system could happen here, didn’t know that six months later I’d be shouting at the airport with hijabis and Jews holding signs saying “We’ve seen this before.” I can’t command and articulate encyclopedic knowledge on the history of anger in and toward and from the Middle East and everywhere else, which is what I feel I need every time anyone starts in against Islam, but it’s not like facts are doing too hot these days so what does it matter, why am I still trying to fight fair against people who make up the rules as they go, who pride themselves on never reading books, whose tones of voice call to mind a fat cartoon man tugging his suspenders with jazz hands, chewing one end of a cigar? Floating over my shoulders I’ve got on one side a stenographer and on the other a housecat, both judgey and withholding, not the spirits to summon in an argument against oversimplification, the casting of all of a kind of person as their worst representative—which is what U.S. Americans can anticipate now that the rest of the world sees us for what we’ve always denied that we are: buffoons, ill-meaning and otherwise. I don’t know what to do with myself so I am calling representatives, studying Spanish, reading the Quran before the Bible, wishing my boss Shabbat Shalom, trying out Insha’Allah, everything graceless as crayon art magneted to the fridge, but an alternative to withering. At the women’s march, where I didn’t march so much as shift my weight from side to side for hours, so crowded, all I did was look and listen to people who’ve done this before, their history of anger a resistance pre-dating my existence. I imagine the fire victims who might have marched with us against all manner of finger-pointing, their pockets perhaps like mine lined with stones: malachite for a resilient heart, sodalite for courage to speak truth, tiger’s eye for personal power. Among the signs about witches and coat hangers: Black lives matter. Can’t believe that statement is ever a provocation, but then what I cannot believe is redefined every time I read the news now. Home after the protest there’s a Facebook statement from the angel whisperer: “Congratulations, ladies. You just marched for terrorism.” A flame of anger. Then a video clip: someone just punched a Nazi in the face. 2017 battle cry as .gif. “We’ve seen this before” manifest as a fist. For a moment, that was all the clarity I needed.

RUMPUS ORIGINAL POETRY: “Mewl” by Sarah Lyn Rogers

[queenvibranium]

Beyoncé lost. Again.

By now, you know what happened. For the third time, Beyoncé Knowles lost the Grammy for Album of the Year. But this time, it seemed beyond disbelief, not because she happened to lose to Adele for 25, but because Beyoncé’s album Lemonade — the best and most important work of her career — still couldn’t find a way to win.

What more is Beyoncé supposed to do?

A recap: This year it was 25 over Lemonade. In 2016, Taylor Swift’s 1989 won AOTY over Kendrick’s To Pimp a Butterfly. In 2015, it was Beck’s Morning Phase over Beyoncé. In 2014, Daft Punk’s Random Access Memories beat Kendrick’s Good Kid, MAAD City. And 2013, Mumford & Sons’ Babel beat Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange.

It’s a pattern too blatant, too in your face to ignore.

In the history of the Grammy Awards, only ten black artists have won Album of the Year. That’s a stat that has been cited many times over the past two days, but simply stopping there drastically oversimplifies what it actually means. When you look at those ten artists (who accounted for 12 wins in total; Stevie Wonder won three times in four years), and understand who they were and what their albums represented, it’s a sobering reminder that the Grammys are just a metaphor for this country, and that even the richest and most celebrated black people still are very much black.

For starters, of those 12 albums, five have an asterisk. In 1991, Quincy Jones won for Back on the Block, an album featuring a who’s who in R&B and jazz, with some rap sprinkled in. It was a true flex for Quincy, showing how he was undeniably the connective tissue for three (or four) generations of black music. The next year, Natalie Cole won for Unforgettable … With Love. The album is gorgeous, and it is also primarily a covers album of songs performed by her father, Nat King Cole. In 1994, The Bodyguard soundtrack won, featuring one half Whitney Houston songs (including Dolly Parton cover turned Whitney classic “I Will Always Love You”) and another half songs by other artists, from Kenny G to Lisa Stansfield to Joe Cocker. In 2005, Ray Charles’s Genius Loves Company won, an album of duets with other popular singers (he won posthumously). And in 2007, Herbie Hancock won for River: The Joni Letters, a Joni Mitchell tribute album.

Those are all good albums. But none of them are forward facing. Three are basically lifetime achievement awards. Most of them celebrate yesteryear, with the majority defined by the term “Various Artists.” And a decent amount of the music on these black albums are performed by white artists.They live in a completely different category from something like Lemonade, a singular piece of work by a black solo artist.

If we ignore those, the number of black artists that have won Album of the Year is cut in half to five: Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Lionel Richie, Lauryn Hill, and Outkast.

Four of those five artists deserved to win Album of the Year. Lionel Richie’s win for Can’t Slow Down over Prince’s Purple Rain in 1985 was a glaringmistake. Lionel’s win is akin to 1989 beating To Pimp a Butterfly, or if Drake’s Views would have bested Lemonade for AOTY — both reminiscent of some of the mistakes of the past decade: a pop album with little weight triumphing over a classic album built to stand the test of time.

Removing Lionel from the list and there were four artists — six albums total — that you can say were albums by black artists that deserved to win Album of the Year — and did. What else do these albums have in common? They are among the most classic albums in the history of recorded music.

Stevie won in 1974, 1975 and, 1977 for Innvervisions, Fulfillingness’ First Finale, and Songs in the Key of Life. Those three albums are part of what’s commonly known as his “classic period” — 1972 to 1976 — when he made five consecutive classic albums. His first two, Music of My Mind and Talking Book, were not nominated for Album of the Year. Innervisions, his first nomination and win, was Stevie Wonder’s 16th album. The Grammys eventually got it right with Stevie, but it wasn’t just that he made the best albums of those years that he won — he had to release “Best Albums of All Time”–level material to finally be recognized.

Michael Jackson’s Thriller won in 1984, but his first classic, Off the Wall (a better album), wasn’t even nominated for Album of the Year. He lost twice more for the award, in 1988 for Bad and 1996 for HIStory: Past, Present, Future. The Grammys got it right once for Michael, but again, only after they missed a classic. In order for Michael Jackson to win, he had to make the highest-selling album of all time.

Do you see a trend? Does this trend feel familiar in your own black life? Oh, it does? Of course it does. But there’s more.

Lauryn Hill won in 1999 for The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill. This album, her solo debut, dominated the entire year leading up to the awards. It’s widely regarded as a classic, one of the great albums of the 1990s, finding the balance between R&B, hip-hop, and pop in a way very few have ever pulled off. It was a landmark year for the Album of the Year category: all five nominees were women, including Madonna, Shania Twain, Sheryl Crow, Lauryn Hill, and Garbage (fronted by Shirley Manson). Lauryn won, and she deserved to win, and again, another black artist won Album of the Year, with an Album of the Decade.

Finally, there’s Outkast. Similar to Stevie, Outkast made multiple classic albums that were ignored by the Grammys. Their fourth album, Stankonia, was nominated in 2002, but lost to the O Brother, Where Art Thou soundtrack. But then they finally — rightfully — won one, for Speakerboxxx/Love Below, an album that was too massive too ignore, even if it wasn’t their true masterwork as a duo.

But that album, a double-album consisting of (basically) an André solo album and a Big Boi solo album, changed hip-hop forever. Yes, it was the Album of the Year, but it was also a landmark moment for an entire genre of music, which is what it took for them to win — changing music forever.

And that’s it.

All of this is important to consider when attempting to answer the question of how Beyoncé could win.

Beyoncé and Lemonade are great, important works of art. It feels like we might look back on this time as the beginning of Beyoncé’s classic period, something very few artists have. The unfair, fucked-up part of it all, however, is that it’s actually going to take Beyoncé making an album as earth-shattering as Innervisions or Songs in the Key of Life to beat the next collection of Taylor Swift songs about road trips for the Album of the Year Grammy. In order to be celebrated as the artist that made the best album in one year, black artists have to make an album that stands up for 30 years.

The only reason the Grammys still matter is because they’re a reminder of surface-level progressions serving as a convenient smokescreen for one of the stories of America — the never-ending push to keep so many of us in our place. Beyoncé and Kendrick’s alternating losses for AOTY over the past four years stink of reminders of what happens when we don’t stay in our lane. And their losses serve as a reminder that making “important” music — art that mirrors the discomfort of our times, art that disrupts the status quo — is not what these Grammy gatekeepers hold at a premium, or to some degree, even appreciate.

It’s the plight of the nonwhite artist in the present day — responsible for critically carrying the load for an entire country while still not reaping the benefits of that hard work, of that self-induced trauma, beyond a pat on your sore, tired back.

Be it something as trivial as the Grammys or as relatable as getting a job, the gatekeepers still thrive on maintaining imbalance. And this will never change, until someone at the table finally steps up to the gatekeepers, risking their own comfort for the sake of others.

I truly thought that moment was coming, when Adele — appreciated for her genuine lack of a filter — won for Album of the Year. But, even in a speech thanking Beyoncé — a woman she clearly is inspired by and strives to be like — it wasn’t.

Adele’s win, which you can’t blame her for, is a Grammy issue, but Adele’s preparation for that moment is an indictment of the privilege of not understanding a world in which you, Adele, could probably beat Beyoncé. Yes, you can be shocked as hell, but to not understand why you may end up winning is to not understand this world you live in, and how your world differs. If you like Beyoncé, you cry, you salute her with pleasantries, you talk about how you don’t deserve it and you break your statue in half out of tribute to her. But if you love Beyoncé, you prepare yourself for a moment in which you could beat her, and if you do, you address the Grammys and tell them that they have been fucking up for a long time now. And that it wasn’t about her and that it wasn’t about Beyoncé, it was about the gatekeepers of the Grammys, using their power to keep people — and messages — in their place.

But loving Beyoncé is loving black people, because Beyoncé is black people. And that’s easier said than done, truly loving black people. It’s hard work, it’s uncomfortable, it’s challenging, it’s tiring. Which is why, when those big moments happen, and you’re looking for that white person in your life that likes you so much to just stand up for you — just to once take the emotional load off of you — instead of fighting, they’ll so often break you off a little something, cheer you on, pat you on the back, and then turn around and walk away.

[stone-for-the-win]

EVERYBODY DIES,BUT NOT EVERYBODY LIVES

It is not death most people are afraid of. It is getting to the end of life, only to realize that you never truly lived. There was a study done, a hospital study on 100 elderly people facing death close to their last breath. They were asked to reflect about their life’s biggest regret. Nearly all of them said they regretted not the things they did but the things they didn’t do. The risks they never took the dreams they didn’t pursue. I ask you would your last words be; if only I had – hey, you wake up. Why do you exist? Life is not meant to simply work, wait for the weekend and pay rent. No, no I don’t know much. But I know this every person on this earth has a gift. And I apologized to the black community but I can no longer pretend Martin Luther King. That man never had a dream, that dream had him.\ See people don’t choose dreams, dreams choose them. So the question I’m getting to is, do you have the courage to grab the dream that picked you? That befit you and grips you; or will you let it get away and slip through? You know I learned a fact about airplanes the other day. This was – this was so surprising to see, I was talking to a pilot and he told me that many of his passengers think planes are dangerous to fly in. But he said actually, it is a lot more dangerous for a plane to stay on the ground. I say what? Like how does that sound what he said, he said because on the ground. The plane starts to rust. Malfunction and wear, much faster than it ever would if it was in the air. As I walked away I thought, yeah, makes total sense because planes were built to live in the skies. And every person was built to live out the dream they have inside. So it is perhaps the saddest loss to live a life on the ground without ever taking off. See most of us are afraid of the thief, they comes in the night to steal all of our things. But there is a thief in your mind who is after your dreams. His name is doubt. If you see him call the cops and keep him away from the kids because he is wanted for murder. So he has killed more dreams than failure ever did. He wears many disguises and like a virus will leave you blinded, divided and turn you into a kinda. See kinda is lethal. You know what kinda is? There is a lot of kinda people, you kinda want a career change, you kinda want to get straight A’s, you kinda want to get in shape. Simple math, no numbers to crunch. If you kinda want something, then you will kinda get the results you want. What is your dream? What ignites that spark. You can’t kinda want that, you got to want it with every part of your whole heart. Will you struggle? Yeah, yeah… you will struggle, no way around it. You will fall many times, but who’s counting? Just remember, there’s no such thing as a smooth mountain. If you want to make it to the top then, there are sharp ridges that have to be stepped over. There will be times you get stressed and things you get depressed over. But let me tell you something. Steven Spielberg was rejected from film school three times, three times but he kept going. The television execs fired Oprah said she was unfit for TV but she kept going. Critics told Beyoncé that she couldn’t sing she went through depression. But she kept going. Struggle and criticisms are prerequisites for greatness. That is the law of this universe and no one escapes it. Because pain is life but you can choose what type? Either the pain on the road to success or the pain of being haunted with regret. You want my advice. Don’t think twice. We have been given a gift that we call life. So don’t blow it. You’re not defined by your past instead you were born anew in each moment. So own it now. Sometimes you’ve got to leap. And grow your wings on the way down. You better get the shot off before the clock runs out because there is ain’t no over time in life, no do over. And I know what sound like I’m preaching on speaking with force but if you don’t use your gift then you sell not only yourself, but the whole world. Short. So what invention that you have buried in your mind? What idea? What cure? What skill did you have inside to bring out to this universe? Uni meaning one, verse meaning song, you have a part to play in this song. So grab that microphone and be brave. Sing your heart out on life’s stage. You cannot go back and make a brand new beginning. But you can start now and make a brand new ending. Origin: https://youtu.be/JZ2xhBQ8eGA / Prince Ea Quelle: https://youtu.be/JZ2xhBQ8eGA /Prince Ea