2011-05-06 Toshi Sunny Balconey Jam Song 02 - Getup, get up

trancelike song, steady state ebowed thingamabob drones above the shambling thud, words in between

now available here:
http://krseward.bandcamp.com/album/not-brite

video for 33rd Floor:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uVqqntOK41s


33rd Floor

One of the first tracks I wrote for the mixtape after I spit to RJD2's Ghostwriter. Originally it was an assignment for my hip hop class at Vassar (crazy right...); we were supposed to write a response to Hip-Hop by Dead Prez. My group, at the time, picked Souls of Mischief's '93 'Til Infinity instrumental; a beat which I had never heard before (I know I lose points for that... I guess I just never got into Souls Of Mischief). I loved it.  The week that i got the assignment I spent so much time fuckin bitches and makin money that I completely forgot till the day before it was due...a day which had planned to be completely out of my mind on shrooms. It was great. This beat became a soundtrack for my trip. I walked around with one headphone in, tuned out to the world, doing everything to the rhythm of '93 'Til Infinity. My most vivid memory of this trip was me hanging out of my fourth floor dorm window in Noyes (not literally hanging for my life, but definitely in a reckless and half hazardous manner) and blasting the beat on my roommate's speakers for everyone outside to hear. It was beautiful. I felt one with God. And then all of a sudden the first verse just poured out of me. I don't even really remember writing it (except for the "is it just everything I just said instead"). I then proceeded to eat more Cap'n Crunch than I've ever consumed in one sitting and promptly passed out. 

I wrote the second and third verse maybe a week or so after along with the hook. This song (actually, even the first verse itself) in a nutshell sums up how I feel about hip hop today. With each new record that comes out today, there is always some new form of hateration explaining why it cannot be hip hop. Its retarded. The fact that hip hop started with some niggas from the projects jumpin around singing: " i said a hip hop the hippie the hippie/to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop/the rock it to... (Sugar Hill Gang's "Rapper's Delight" for all ya'll that don't know) and rappin about color TVs and a bunch of shit they wanted but ain't have, should indicate that hip hop doesn't always have to be conscious and relevant but does include that flamboyant, playful, and materialistic aspect. The concept of the cipher itself is a space where anything goes, and acceptance into the cipher is not so much based on what you say, but how you say it and how you make everybody else feel your shit. If you can make the crowd move, then you have permission to move the crowd. This is not to say that there aren't sellouts, nor that hip hop is anywhere near as good as its "golden era"; its just to say that people are too quick to judge and say something has no place in hip hop. It makes them unable to appreciate and learn from the many aspects of a particular song that are in many ways taking hip hop and music to an entirely new level (new song structures, styles and sounds etc.) outside of the lyrical realm. This is just my appeal for the public to look at the entire package. Take it all in. Remember that hip hop is characteristically contradictory before you try to dichotomize new music into hip hop and not hip hop. Think about all the people who have passed through hip hop, all the people that have influenced hip hop, and then listen. BUT Ive rambled enough (even though I'm not sure how clear i was), I hope the song explains my thoughts better (they usually do). And I hope you all enjoy. Please comment. Please tell your friends. This is stil.movement. Bitch.

Hip-Hop?

Excerpt from 1962 CBC Radio doc on Dr. Martin Luther King where King talks about the basis of his philosophy of "loving the enemy"

Full 1 hour doc here:
http://www.prx.org/pieces/32953-dr-martin-luther-king-jr-a-documentary-from-1962

MLK-3 Types of Love

01 SUBWAY 042211

2012-08-09 Toshi Schoolnight Jam - 03 Just a Little Bit

MLK-3 Types of Love

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