TIL: C.Emmanuel Little's "Blazers and Blackness"

A good take from Diverse Education: C. Emmanuel Little writes that some black men wear dress attire because we want to do so.   In the face of the recent Mashable article about black men wearing suits to avoiding getting shot (who really thinks that works?) , Little informs readers of something that I can identify with well: appearance doesn't grant you immunity from reality:

"The painful truth is that one can dress like Fonzworth Bentley, write like Toni Morrison, and speak with erudition of Michael Eric Dyson and still die from simply being Black and breathing. You can never be “perfect” enough. Being among the best dressed on campus didn’t stop a tall Black male colleague of mine at another institution from being suspected by campus police of being an escaped inmate, despite being a tenured faculty member. Neither my suit nor my degrees saved me from being once assumed too incompetent to have written a program report myself. (Note: I did.)"

During my time on a college campus, both as a student and a professional, I had several "he can talk?!" moments- peers or colleagues seeming amazed that I could not only muster up competence that was on par with their abilities.  When I went beyond average, the excuses started to pour in.  The most glaring example of this mindset was when, during an open discussion in class, another student calmly explained that "the black students were admitted with lower test scores and GPAs". In her mind, us sitting together at the same school and in the same class could only be explained by a glitch in the system.  No suit this side of Steve Harvey could've changed her mind about how we ended up at the same school.  

I'm not the black guy from the Mashable article; I run a sponge twist through my high top fade and seldom wear a tie if I don't have to.  That doesn't make me a threat, nor a racist-fighting rebel.  Just someone who likes to dress the way they want to, independent from the insecurities of complete strangers. 

Follow me @PhylinBryan

"Life Story Told Through Rap": Part 3

It's easy for me to link every major point of growth or change in my life to the music I had on my CD player/iPod/phone at some point.  The content of the lyrics and personas of the artists behind them reflected who I was (or wanted to be) at the time, and also foreshadowed who I was about to become. These are the albums that defined the peaks and turmoil that have shaped my worldview and taught me several lessons along the way.

Part 3

Lecrae, Anomaly (2014)

I’m just a broken instrument in the hands of the Greatest/
So if the notes are off it’s ‘cause I ain’t nothin’ to play with

-Broken, Track 14

"We have all felt that hunger to be known, meaningful, and have purpose. Sometimes we allow social circles, teams, jobs, money, or possessions to define that purpose for us. This is an ode to not allowing our acceptance by others to give us meaning."

-Lecrae

 
Music transcends the limits of time and space, transporting you into a moment more vividly than a lucid dream or old photo ever could.  When I listen to Lecrae's Anomaly, I'm taken back to the drivers seat in my company '08 Chevy Impala, where I sit at a red light, head in my lap and gasping for air as the reality of every bad decision I'd made over two years comes to a turbulent head.

After graduation, some of my friends got jobs.  I got locked up.

No, I wasn't actually behind bars.  My prison was actually an office, furnished with a 5x8 cubicle that served as a metaphorical jail cell.  In about 15 months I'd gone from dapping up my favorite rappers to dodging two-faced middle managers.  I watched people younger than me find great internships and jobs while I remained in an unfulfilling job, a living cautionary tale that motivated them to succeed and not end up like me.   All the good work I'd done in college didn't seem to lead me anywhere.  I was stuck in a dream-killing job with no idea how I got there or how to escape.

Adding to my misery were peers who overcame underemployment and launched into great careers. Now everyone (seemingly) was doing better than me.  If ever I felt optimistic enough to believe otherwise,  every "I got the job!" update on Facebook, Twitter and Linkedin reminded me of just how wrong I was.

Whereas rap was once a performance enhancer- the added boost I needed to kill a radio spot or write a bomb paper- it was now turning into another reminder of my failures.  All the artists I felt shared my story weren't actually like me at all.  They were true success stories- more like the lucky kids from my graduating class who had good jobs in place the moment they left campus- unlike me, the one left smiling through interviews for $8/hour retail gigs.

Outkast already had three albums out by age 21.  Kanye didn't even need to waste time finishing school before making it big.  I wondered how I'd fallen so far behind.

The turmoil in my professional life spilled over into my personal life.  When you do well in college, it's easy to have an optimistic outlook on life: you're young, eager and ignorant to all the struggles of adulthood. However, I learned that the true test of relationships comes when you're not feeling like the best and all your expectations of yourself and your life go unmet.

My personal life wasn't improving either.  I learned that when school days are over, relationships you thought were monuments to true love get exposed as facades masking selfish pursuit. Those are then replaced with new ones that are built on an unstable foundation.  These new people are meant to replace your college bae who you supposedly only clicked with because you were both young, immature and in the same place at the same time.

These new, even more complicated "grown up" relationships wash out too.  At that point you discover the challenge of post college singleness. There's no new face to discover in the dining hall or campus party, just a lot of dull nights with alcohol, Netflix and the company of all your flaws.

When it all falls down, you grab on to the only thing that's left: hope.  I'd never found true hope through music until I listened to Lecrae's Anomaly. 

I was reintroduced to Christian rap around my senior year of college. In between sessions of Teflon Don and Drake's So Far Gone, I sampled music from Christian artists like Lecrae and Trip Lee, expecting it to sound wack like the faith based hip-hop I remembered from Sunday school.   I was surprised to discover that a few dudes learned how to praise Jesus without sounding corny.  What made this music even better was that they didn't only quote scripture (nobody is good enough to make King James' "thous" and "the's" sound cool).  It talked about real-life-- i.e. common sin-- in a way that didn't leave me feeling judged.  Amazing grace.

Anomaly felt like finding a perfect pair of jeans after years of buying knock offs that never quite fit.  It hit on on every trial I'd experienced in my post-college slump.  Regrets (as talked about on Wish) made coping with a job I hated really hard.  Monday mornings were especially tough, as I'd stare off into space at my desk wondering "what if I'd taken that awesome job that I thought didn't pay enough?" or "what if I just tried to intern for that company I really wanted to work with?".

Feelings of remorse then led to doubt (Fear) about whether or not I was ever bound for anything significant.  I couldn't find a reason to believe otherwise.  Every story I came across of someone who'd made it big included an impossible to reach caveat- a surprise benefactor or networking opportunity at a bar that sounded more the result of dumb luck rather than the fruit of persistence.

At my lowest point and completely defeated, I realized that no job, relationship or sum of money could save me (Broken); my only salvation was through the One who controls and creates it all.

If Anamoly were crafted like one of those movies that ends on a somber note, I wouldn't have liked it as much.  Fortunately, in Messengers,  Lecrae shines the proverbial white light after experiencing death from an imperfect past.  It's a great way to end an hour long album, but also helped me reconcile years of personal letdown.

I looked to music for self discovery, hoping that what I learned would allow for steady travels through my teens and into adulthood.  Several detours led me to Anomaly, and I finally found the guide map I needed all along.

_

Follow me @phlyinbryan

Amazon is a toxic workplace and we can't afford to care

 Here's a new Amazon story from Adage:  the world's biggest retailer allegedly runs its business like Nino Brown, but the heck if we'll shop somewhere else.   The facts:

"However, the bad press didn't rock the way shoppers planned to buy, according to the survey. Seventy percent of consumers surveyed said they would consider shopping at Amazon next time they wanted to make a purchase from a retail store..."

I lasted years in a destructive office culture where tattling and favoritism were the fruits of incompetence at the highest level.  The "never off the clock" culture found at Amazon is close to what was happening at my old job.  It was an often miserable experience that negatively impacted my mental well being and worldview. 

The staff of Amazon are suffering greatly.  It isn't blood diamond level guilt, but knowing that the sweet deal you got on that new Roku came at the cost of another human's happiness is tough to bear.  

Will I demonstrate a stance against toxic work environments by not shopping Amazon?  As I type from my heavily discounted MacBook Pro I say, brothers, that I know you'll get to the mountain top but I probably won't make it there with you.  

My last job didn't pay me enough to afford retail price. 

The guilt of enjoying Straight Outta Compton: What's good, what's bad and what won't ever change

Here's a quick take on Straight Outta Compton from fellow Georgia College alum Daniel Troutman.  Like a lot of people, has conflicting thoughts about whether to see the N.W.A. biopic in theaters.  Here's an excerpt:

Although they may not have intended it, their music has been used by record labels to create a globally popular genre of music that perpetuates harmful Black stereotypes, endorses community violence, crime, drugs, and assault on women.

I take pride in saying I knew about Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, MC Ren, Eazy E and DJ Yella before the recent rush of nostalgia.   N.W.A. first made my playlist back in '05.  I was a high school junior in search of new music to download and stumbled on their catalog.  After hours of listening and dozens of illegal downloads (F*** The Police, right?) I could call out the lyrics to the mainstream hits like Express Yourself as well as some of the lesser known, more explicit ones like Gangsta Gangsta and Eazy Duz It.  These same tracks are played throughout Compton, while the part of their catalog that got them them well deserved criticism (A B**** Iz A B****) is mostly absent.   F. Gary Gray's 2 1/2 hour feature played it safe; let the movie tell it, these guys were thugs who had only good intentions.

Knowing that Gray was a friend of Cube, I didn't expect much else.   As a long time fan, I knew the bad stuff before the Compton's premiere. I read about Dr. Dre beating up Dee Barnes.  I knew Eazy E's rhymes were mostly about shooting people who weren't crooked cops and having "bitches galore".  Listening to the unedited version of the album Straight Outta Compton was uncomfortable the first time I heard it and still is today. 

I don't practice or condone violence against women, verbal or physical.  I don't think there's any way to make it OK for an artist to do so in real life or in a song.  So why did I pay to see their film last week?

I can't speak for everyone who bought a ticket to see Compton, but for me raunchy lyrics were never the real draw. I was more fascinated by the story and circumstances behind their rise.  When the comparatively squeaky clean Run-DMC had the mainstream ready to fully embrace rap, five foul-mouthed guys from a city nobody had ever heard of made records about toting sawed off shotguns and carjacking- and people ate it up. 

 Music that had conservatives protesting N.W.A. also landed the group's members dinner with the President, a starring role in an Academy Award nominated film and later making billionaire deals with Apple and joining Hollywood's A-list.

There are some who'll see Compton because they like their entertainment with gratuitous violence and sex.  But for others (like me) the story is the main attraction.  When you know all the twists that took place in the story of N.W.A., Jerry Heller and Death Row Records between 1986-95, it's not hard to see how the movie's original draft had its total run time clocked at well over 3 hours.  Some of the scenes that did wind up in the movie aren't particularly flattering to the main subjects from a morally conservative perspective- I found the hotel party scene more disgusting than humorous, anachronistic jokes aside.  That aside, movie goers shouldn't feel guilty about enjoying the film.  

Paying to see Compton in theaters doesn't mean I support all of N.W.A.'s antics more than seeing American Gangster or The Wolf of Wallstreet made me a fan of heroin trafficking or corporate fraud.  The main focus of a feature film is to entertain; anyone looking to the genre for an objective history lesson will always end up disappointed.  Full stories with three perspectives (his, theirs and what really happened) aren't even present in documentaries, let alone fully scripted projects like Compton.  Despite whatever rehearsed answers are given by Cube, Dre or Grey in promotional interviews this movie was made for one reason: to line pockets and manufacture legacies. 

Is Compton void of facts that weren't pretty but pertinent to telling the whole truth? Absolutely.  Are the excuses for doing so, as told by Gray, valid?  Not really.  An exponentially larger audience will exit N.W.A.'s momentary resurgence with a slanted viewpoint that leaves out the ugly part of their rise. That's not fair.  It's not right.  I wish a mention of Dre's assault on Barnes was allowed into the script.  I wish people would hold Ice Cube more accountable for holding a tired argument against not using "bitch" so much.  But so goes Hollywood- the stories are told by the ones with the power to tell them, right or wrong. 

"Life Story Told Through Rap": Part 2

It's easy for me to link every major point of growth or change in my life to the music I had on my CD player/iPod/phone at some point.  The content of the lyrics and personas of the artists behind them reflected who I was (or wanted to be) at the time, and also foreshadowed who I was about to become. These are the albums that defined the peaks and turmoil that have shaped my worldview and taught me several lessons along the way.

Part 2

Rick Ross, Teflon Don (2010)

"Telfon Don, I am invincible"- MC Hammer, Track 8

The best part of college is the confidence instilled in you by professors.  Through both verbal and tangible validation, they give you the reassurance that you're way more than enough.  An encouraging word here, followed by a "seize the day" speech there, all capped off by an 'A' once the semester wrapped up.

The music business is the same way, I imagine.  A few good album reviews, a co-sign or two via retweet from an A-list rapper and an artist starts to believe their own hype.  From 2006-09, Rick Ross strung together three consecutive number one albums.  By the time Teflon Don hit in 2010, the word was out- Ross was a superstar.

While Rick Ross was banking hit records, I was starting to discover my gift area.  As a senior in high school, I started stringing together 'A' papers in English and garnering a good praise from epic speeches in Rhetoric- no easy feat for the slacker student I was.  Momentum built through my first few years of college as I continued to make solid grades and saw that my talking in rhetoric class translated into other areas well.  When I wasn't studying, I lived in our campus radio station. I was having fun doing a weekly show my buddy Ian and soon enough we were getting great feedback.  On the heels of that I took on more on-air work, eventually getting up to three show per week. People around me liked my work and, after enough positive reinforcement, I did too.

The first singles off Don debuted in the middle of my summer internship at Atlanta radio powerhouse V-103.  As an intern for the Frank and Wanda morning show I regularly came across big stars of music and entertainment,  Ross himself included.  I was 21 on a Bud Light budget and found myself in the same places as industry vets with upscale liquor brands.  I'd had interactions with people that had numerous Grammy nominations, Billboard chart toppers and overwhelming notoriety between them. Walking through a parade of all-stars media and entertainment all-stars, I didn't feel star struck- I felt like I belonged.

 Ross was also a fish out of water in his own right.  His carefully masked and initially denied past as a correctional officer threw his credibility into question; his lyrics featured boasts of a life of crime that he'd obviously only lived through via second hand (at best) accounts from real drug dealers.  Fortunately for Ross, the importance of perceived real life street credit to a rapper's popularity had greatly transformed by 2010.  The feud between Tupac and the Notorious B.I.G. made authenticity less of a requisite for success and more of a death sentence.  Ross gave record execs the best of both worlds: dangerous lyrics without the fear of a drive-by outside the studio.  He was a manufactured star whose rapid rise to fame placed him among, and in many cases above, music's best acts.

A lot was going right.  The internship I'd wanted since high school was mine.  I was breezing through classes and developing a good reputation in campus radio.  Rick Ross might have had "30 cars" and a "whole lot of dancers" ("MC Hammer") but my Dean's list mini-plaque and couple dozen listeners had me feeling just as good.

To top it off I was single, and finally around females who'd matured past the thug-seeking phase.  This good fortune was not lost on me.  My ego ballooned and I wasn't letting any of the air out.  To paraphrase the hook from "B.M.F." (Track 9), I was Big Meech and Larry Hover armed with textbooks and a refund check.

I loved my college experience, but the success I had on campus masked the reality of challenges that hit after graduation.  While it's not easy to do well in school but the formula for success is simple: Get enough questions right, earn an A.  Talk to the right girl, get a date.  Put in more hours than your peers, get better at your craft.  Wash. Rinse. Repeat.  It's a process that didn't take me long to master and mislead me into thinking the real world would work the same way.

Nope.

"Life Story Told Through Rap": Part 1

"I've got the power!

That wasn't just the hook to Snap!'s 1990 single, it was also the punchline to a popular joke that made the rounds throughout my 3rd grade peer group (according to the joke, it's what a particularly mean teacher said after a vengeful, heroic student shoved a live extension cord down her pants.  We were 8-- don't judge).   Dated as the song is now, the refrain tells you everything you need to know about the power of music. 

I've got the power!  Over your mood, self-esteem, relationships and faith.  The intricate workings of your mind manipulated through simple synths and beat machines.  I've got the power!

It's easy for me to link every major point of growth or change in my life to the music I had on my CD player/iPod/phone at some point.  The content of the lyrics and persona of the artist behind them reflected who I was (or wanted to be) at the time and also foreshadowed who I was about to become. These are the albums that, for me, defined the peaks and turmoil that have shaped my worldview and taught several lessons along the way.

Big Boi and Dre Present... OutKast, Outkast (2001)

"...out the Point, to Campbellton Rd."- Git Up, Git Out (Remix), Track 15

A routine Sunday morning drive to Church first made me realize that a big part of my life experience was shared with two mega stars.  Before hearing the shout outs to Campbellton Road and Southwest Atlanta littered throughout Big Boi and Dre Present, OutKast's music made sense to me only as an assortment of radio hits and occasional words of reverence from my older cousin, a Tri-Cities High School alum who scolded me for "not knowing nothing about the Dungeon Family" and then jokingly asked me for directions ("how to get to") Sesame Street.  

That ultimately serendipitous route to church, through the SWATS and past Campbellton Road on the way to East Point felt mundane to me until I recognized that these places were abstract and fascinating enough to be the subject of hot records for worldwide audiences.  Atlanta wasn't just home- it was a place to be proud of, Northern transplants and their unwanted opinions be damned. While the uninitiated who popped in Big Boi and Dre could only imagine slamming Cadillac doors outside Greenbriar or walking through Underground, I had been there, done that and had the MARTA card to prove it.  

This album, viewed as a throwaway greatest hits compilation by some hardcore 'Kast fans, was much more to me.  It helped me see that culture and a unique upbringing didn't exclusively exist in a far away place- I could be significant right where I was. 

The College Dropout, Kanye West (2004)

".. I turn tragedy to triumph/make music that's fire/spit my soul through the wire"- Through The Wire, Track 19

When album releases were still exciting, The College Dropout was the one I anticipated most.  I was 14 when it dropped and promptly listened through each track during marathon sessions of Madden '04.  

Before it drew public scorn, Kanye West's confidence was absolutely contagious.  He was simply apologetically different, a personification for everything that a rapper wasn't supposed to be at that time.  Suddenly me and the other black dudes in Honors classes didn't have to exhaust ourselves by existing in two worlds, dressing like trap stars while scuffing our Air Force's to make Lit class on time.  

Most of Dropout's themes didn't touch on personal experiences I'd had by 9th grade.  Even still, I figured that the road I was headed down was more likely to contain job disillusionment (Spaceship, Track 6) and seemingly insurmountable creative rejection (Last Call, Track 21) than the jail bids and drug deals gone awry other rappers were talking about.  If OutKast let me know that I had a story, Dropout made it clear that I didn't have to be embarrassed about it. 

Part 2, profiling music that provided the background to my fling with arrogance coming next week.