Hey, y’all.
Let’s get caught up, real quick.
I went on vacation earlier this month. Spent a week in a cabin in the woods. I brought two things me - a knife and a book. With the knife, I did some whittling. My main project was a stake for killing vampires. I think it came out pretty nice. Take a look.
For my choice of book, I decided to re-read Jeff Chang’s hip hop history book, Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. I read it when it was first published back in 2005. This second time around, I’ve been able to analyze the book more critically. I have some issues with it. I wrote a big, long essay about it but decided to discard it. After speaking with a friend about it, I realized it might ruffle some feathers and that’s not what I want to do. The plan was for it to be the first piece for a new department I want to open up here at Vertices. That will have to wait a few weeks while I go back to the drawing board. In the meantime, I’ll say that I can’t really recommend Can’t Stop Won’t Stop. It’s kind of a bummer but I’ve never read a hip hop history book that left me feeling satisfied that the complete and correct story had been told. It worries me a little that we’re 50 years in and it hasn’t been done right yet. The clock is ticking on getting these stories from the right sources. I wish I had time to do it myself.
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In other news, I’m just wrapping up work on a new project. It’s a collaboration-thing. Very exciting. I can’t wait to tell you all about it. In the next week or so, I turn my attention to the follow-up to Super Dope. AFTER THAT, I have two other projects lined up. The goal is to have everything done by March 2024. I’m going to be very busy. I expect these four albums will be released in the months between this fall and the end of 2024. There’s also a special edition of King Of Drums in the works. I’ll have more news on that for you soon.
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Now I’d like to tell you a quick story, apropos of nothing. In the last week, I saw the best and worst of humanity in one dramatic saga.
I live in a garbage dump. Not really. But due to an unfortunate combination of geographical factors, people treat the area where I live like a dump. Assholes come from all over the city to dump their trash and unwanted stuff. Once in a while, I - or one my neighbors - will catch a perpetrator in the act, which can be quite satisfying. A few years ago, one of my neighbors chased a dumper all the way to one of the richest neighborhoods in the city and returned their garbage to their front door. Friggin’ awesome. But more often than not, we’ll wake up in the morning to some phantom asshole’s deposit. We’ve seen old furniture, leftover scrap materials from construction projects, piles of dirt, bags of household garbage, you name it. But worst of all - animals. I’ve seen it myself a bunch of times. Either someone trapped a pest (rats, raccoons, possum etc.) and came to my little neighborhood to be rid of it OR they abandoned a pet. It’s awful.
About a week ago, one of my neighbors saw a car pull up. The driver got out, set a big ol’ rabbit loose, and drove away. What a prick. My neighbor yelled at the person but they made no acknowledgement and just kept driving.
A few of us spotted the rabbit over the next few hours. Poor thing. It was huge and fat. Looking for a place to hide. Probably lived indoors its whole life. It was in no condition to defend itself against local predators and threats. We see coyotes and foxes around here all the time. Large hawks. We were all furious and worried sick about it.
After a small group of us talked it over, we decided we had to seek help for the little (big) guy. We found a local organization called Rabbit Rescue and gave them a call.
Later that day, I came out of my house to run some errands and saw three ragtag women who arrived on bikes. They were in their late teens and early 20s. One of them had a plastic cat carrier with them. I said, “are you guys looking for the rabbit?” One of them - the leader? - said, “yeah”. This did not appear to me to be a professional operation. It was just three young friends with big hearts.
Let me tell you something. Over the better part of the next 12 hours (!), these women worked their butts off. They refused to give up on this poor abandoned bunny. Throughout the day, I stepped outside to see if they were still at it. At one point in the early evening, I saw one of them dive headlong into the bushes. After the sun went down, I fully expected them to give up and try again the next morning. But they kept going. At different points, neighbors would help out when they had some extra time to spare. I must say, it was all very inspiring. That night - maybe 10:30 PM or so - I heard a ruckus outside. I knew that could only mean one thing. They did it! They found the scared rabbit and took him away to safety. Jesus Christ, it brought a tear to my eye.
The worst and best of humanity, I tell you. It was all right there - played out over 24 hours or so.
One last thing - a few weeks ago, I promised I’d share something to celebrate the milestone of reaching 1000 subscribers to Vertices. So here’s what I have in mind: I’m working on a new song and I want to let you in on the process. Posted below is the beginning of beat I’m working on. A sketch. In the next post, we’ll take another look as it develops further. A few posts down the road, I’ll have the finished song for you. I’m thinking there’s a chance this will be the first song for the next album, but we’ll see how it goes. Let’s get to work!