June’s Favourites
Not Waving, But Drowning – Loyle Carner
Favorite Track: Ice Water
[Verse 1]
Took the third time before I finally caught her name (Uh)
Held it with the clarity of Autumn rain
It’s the morning, the rain stop falling and your girls stopped calling
But you’re hoping that she calls again (Uh)
Says she hates men and that we’re all the same
I’m with somebody else, I’ll probably let it fall to flame
But with her, it’s like we share the same sort of brain
So I dial her up and see if I can let a fool explain
And she’s the only one I’m holding when the day’s cold
And her’s the only place I’m headed when the day’s old
Like when the day’s young, we travelled every place
Told, create a move on the move and leave our place sold (Aye)
‘Cause’ she’s the one I thought I’d never meet
Two left feet on the leather street (Uh)
Joy started pinging off a better beat
Right now, it’s better than it’s ever been
True
1-888-88-DREAM-Dreamville
Favourite Track:Got Me (
Ain’t gotta fake smile, you like it facedown
Like you caught an eight count
TKO, Teddy Pendergrass
A nice guy, but see, nice guys finish last
In the bedroom, stealing cover, fight for legroom
You my best goon, come through for me like Neptunes’ classics
Get your back bent, silky black skin
If they knew how real you are, they’d probably clap hands
In your presence
Eye candy cool, but with chocolate, got a fetish
Streams of Thought Vol.2-Black Thought
Favourite Track: Conception
Tryna create another avenue of revenue
Or several because I’m in love with havin’ you
Security is just a whole ‘nother animal
I can’t assume Xanadu had a panic room
I wish the man in the moon had a manual
And gratitude for the wishes I granted you
A lifetime, finally I’m understandin’ you
The lifelines that delines in a hand or two
And how it’s difficult to undo the damage you’ve done
Once the codes run under scanner too
So if you capture the flame and it’s painful
You just charge that to the game
‘Cause it’s shameful to just fall back and complain
That you fractured the laws of attraction again
Focus on the more passionate plane
No conception’s immaculate, man
The Beginning of Something…
Because death is plural, crime is plural ,and pain is plural when you are black. It takes a village to raise a child and it takes a village to bury him. My point being everything is felt in a collective because of The Black Experience. The African Diaspora stretches far and wide, ancestral DNA being passed down for centuries along with trans-generational trauma.
May’s Favourites
THE BOPS & THE BARS
B4DASS-JOEY BADASS
Favourite Track: Paper Trails
[Verse 1]
Sitting back plotting, jotting information on my nation
Really started from the bottom, boy cotton
But they still planting plantations, we keep buying in, closed-minded men
Pride is higher than the prices on your Pradas and BalenciagasBalance my saga with the Henny agua
[Verse 2 ]
They say money is the root of all evil
I see money as the route of all people
‘Cause we all follow paper trails, paper trails
And everybody gotta pay their bills, pay their bills (It ain’t easy)
They say money is the root of all evil
I see money as the route of all people
‘Cause we all follow paper trails, paper trails
And everybody gotta pay their bills, pay their bills, hey
Tell Mama- Etta James
Favourite Track: I’d Rather Go Blind
I would rather, I would rather go blind boy
Than to see you walk away from me child, and all
So you see, I love you so much
That I don’t want to watch you leave me baby
Most of all, I just don’t, I just don’t want to be free no
Love Riddim( Single)- Rotimi
[Verse 2]
Love me like ju-ju
You touch me, I nu-nu
Tonight we go lately, yeah
I know you, they see me (Uh huh)
You make me look easy (Oh)
Tonight you gon’ have it your way
PHOTOGRAPHS/INSTA SAVES
QUOTES/ PROFOUND IDEAS
” From the womb or the blessing”-Diggy( Love Yourself )
“Even if you fight this death another will find you”
The Beginning of Something …
The real dying just to become paintings that last for day ever but will never have the scent of fresh rose gifted on mother’s. The same way a painting of her late husband doesn’t wear the same cologne.
April’s Favourites
THE BOPS & THE BARS
Text Me(Single)- Diggy(ft.Leven Kali)
[Verse 1: Diggy]
I got too much to lose to be sketchy
And if I yield be my shield and protect me
All I need is you alone, I do my own dirty work
Meet me and get ready for something new
December 31st
Mentally, spiritually, subsequently sexually
“Here’s my number hit me with a text”
Is what you said to me
I gave you mine and said to do the same
But it’s a shame how we gotta play these petty little games
I’m just hoping that you…
Forever(Single)-Sa-roc
I’m unbothered, your standards is irrelevant, I might eff around and rock a baldie all just for the hell of it
They been trying to martyr me for ages cuz of my melanin
So now I’m soaking uv rays with shea slathered on my abdomen
My dude, I’m magic, my gang is goddess, my mood is savage, that’s Genghis Khan, these bars moving mountains, my range astonishing
Dangerous sonnets like raining comets, they blazing-trails thru planets, all hail this kind of amazing
That’s right, we’ll call it self love
Discovered I was dope, and indulged like upscale drugs And u could call me arrogant if that’s gon help love, but if you trying to knock me down, your demolitions failed, bruv
Oxnard- Anderson .Paak
Favourite Track: 6 Summers
[Interlude]
The revolution will not be televised
But it will be streamed live
In 1080p on your pea-brain head in the face ass mobile device
Alright?
[Break]
This shit gon’ bang at least six summers
From out that rock you been under
Mummy wrapped, duffel bag, gutter bunny
It’s hard to stomach cold murder
It’s easier to get a nine millimeter
He was nineteen with a burner, they had to off ’em (Off ’em)
Reform, reform shoulda came sooner (Sooner)
PHOTOGRAPHS/INSTA SAVES
QUOTES/PROFOUND IDEAS
“Shadows spring from my past and swirl around me. Sometimes there is no other potion but to confront them. ”
-Amita Trasi, The Colour of Our Sky
The Beginning of Something…
chick, chick-boom!
let me plaster my mind onto these pages,
gun down my brain,
and let my imagination explode.
I’ll close my eyes count down to one
and hope my eyes won’t open to the barrel of a gun.
No weapon formed against me shall prosper in Jesus name.
chick, chick-boom.
Too late.
Bullets-
the nails that keep my coffin closed.
Open is to be alive.
And closed ? – Well you know how that goes.
Let my insides spill out on the street.
I’ll mark this avenue.
Make it mine,
This is no longer Jefferson Ave but where I got shot.
This was inspired by two of my favourite poets Steve Willis’ How the Hood Loves You Back and David Odetola’s The Wakening of Melanin Seuss. I hope to develop this piece further combining both of their styles and writing.
March’s Favourites
THE BOPS & THE BARS
Psychodrama- Dave
Favorite Track: Black
Black is distant, it’s representin’ countries that never even existed while your grandmother was livin’
Black is my Ghanaian brother readin’ into scriptures
Doin’ research on his lineage, findin’ out that he’s Egyptian
Black is people namin’ your countries on what they trade most
Coast of Ivory, Gold Coast, and the Grain Coast
But most importantly to show how deep all this pain goes
West Africa, Benin, they called it slave coast
Hozier-Hozier
Favourite Track: Angel of Small Death and the Codeine Scene
[Verse 2]
Feeling more human and hooked on her flesh, I
Lay my heart down with the rest at her feet
Fresh from the fields, all fetor and fertile
It’s bloody and raw, but I swear it is sweet
[Verse 3]
In leash-less confusion, I’ll wander the concrete
Wonder if better now having survived
The jarring of judgement and reason’s defeat the sweet
Heat of her breath in my mouth; I’m alive
Milky Way- Bas
Favourite Track: Tribe( feat. J. Cole )
Stuck in a rock and a hard place though
Is it true what they say? The higher you go, the longer the fall?
Well I dropped to the floor, the knock at the door was on cue
I thought that I saw it all ’til I saw you
Now I call you when the sun shines and the rain dries up
I’m a pit bull, but for you I be on chain tied up (one more time)
In the backyard with a muzzle on tail wagging like Oregon Trail
Waiting on you to come through just like you do, well…
PHOTOGRAPHS/INSTA SAVES
QUOTES/ PROFOUND IDEAS
“A different part of you soul speaks when you speak in your mother tongue”
Ghana Must Go by Taiye Selsa:
“That was the fist time that he learned he had a body, that he was bound inside this body, trapped, an airborne being caged” pg.296
“This was the fist time that she had learned to leave her body, just to leave the body lying there, mind wandering off.”pg.288
“After love dies a man believes in his death” pg.304
(I can’t fully remember what she said but it went something like this)… “Don’t just wait for opportunities to come to you make your own, life isn’t linear it bends and curves but will always lead you to where you are destined to be” – a random girl I met at U of C
The Beginning of Something…
Nothing should ever be so good that it hurst you so bad.
“…no you hang up”
“no you hang up”
“no you”
When the phone call disconnect and the line goes dead.
You have me feeling so unsatisfied.
Hungry for more of you.
Your voice.
I always have him leave me unsatisfied.
Always whisper enough in his ears
because I fear he will exhaust himself in between my thigh
and never be able to love me again.
February’s Favourites
THE BOPS & THE BARS
Asa( Asha)- Asa
Favorite Track: Bibanke
Bi (m) ba n ke oh oh oh oh [When I’m crying…]
K’o kun basia, fi mi si le ye[even if it fills the basin, leave me alone, please]
Bi (m) ba n ke oh oh oh oh [When I’m crying…]
K’o kun basia, k’okun basia [If it fills the basin, even if it fills the basin]
Mo ti f’oro mi fo lu wa [I have surrendered my issues to God]
K’o so, k’o so wa [May He guard us, may He guard us]
Mo ti s’oro mi fo lu wa [I have told my issues to God]
K’o so, k’o so wa [May He guard us, may He guard us]
Iwo, iwo nikan soso [You, you alone] (Repeat till fade)
Grey- Kweku Collins
Favourite Track: Aya(feat. Allan Kingdom)
[Chorus: Kweku Collins]
You had hair like the sun
A thousand souls set aflame
You had a name sound like fire
Feels like your eyes burn the same
Everythings for Sale- Boogie
Favourite Track: Skydive II (feat. 6lack)
[Chorus: Boogie]
Mother of my skies, why you always gotta intervene? (Uh)
Father of my time, don’t you got some more to give to me? (Uh)
Anything, anything
Mother of my skies, why you always gotta intervene? (Uh)
Father of my time, don’t you got some more to give to me?
PHOTOGRAPHS/INSTA SAVES
QUOTES / PROFOUND IDEAS
“I learned that courage was not the absence of fear, but the triumph over it. The brave man is not he who does not feel afraid, but he who conquers that fear”- Nelson Mandela
“I am lucky whatever fear I have inside of me, my desire to win is stronger”- Serena Williams
The Beginning of Something…
Love is so forgiving, juvenile and simple it can’t see that. Your imperfections. So child-like a heart that gives without question and always wants more.
https://itunes.apple.com/ca/album/asa-asha/307019797
https://pitchfork.com/reviews/albums/23251-grey-ep/
https://umusic.digital/vmwomc/
https://www.bellanaija.com/2019/03/new-music-zlatan-feat-dammy-krane-olamide-jo/
