Express: By Any Means necessary

A good friend sent me this link over email. It's a preview for an up and coming documentary film about new forms of hip hop dance appearing in South Central, LA.. .

RIZE

Its goal is to explore the creation of an expressive art form that has risen out of the dynamics of the social oppression experienced by the ghettos. In our consumer age where hip hop and R&B have quickly become staple foods of entertainment and amusement, it's encouraging to see something that tries to get at the heart of it all: a desire to express genuine experiences and emotion.

"Did I waste it?
Not so much I couldn't taste it
Life should be fragrant
Roof top to the basement
The last of the rock stars
When hip hop drove the big cars
In the time when new media
Was the big idea
That was the big idea" - U2, 'Kite'

Are ya feelin' me?

In today's world there's so much damn noise, who knows what's real and what's not anymore.

I'm a fan of the current hip hop trends coming out of Chicago.. . I think Kanye, Legend, and Common are on to something bigger than the big money and the big cars (though chances are they'll have their fun with those too). 50 Cent can keep his style, I'm in it for the substance. Go ahead, spit somethin that matters.

I was talking with Angelo Capili, a deep friend and mentor to me, over a beautiful prime rib from Housten's (no big chunks of meat for me in China) when the topic of 'consumer identity' came up. Back in the day, expression was something you had to do yourself, and you had to work hard at it too. You had to paint your own picture, play your own song, or at the least pay exorbitant amounts of money to someone else to do it for you and to your liking. In these days of new media and instant access, we're bombarded with options. The clothes, the music, the movies; we can pick and choose what captures our fancy and use it as our medium of expression. What's the soundtrack to your life? If any actor could play you in a movie who would it be?

Yet too often the waste is mixed in with the goods, and the poison with the remedies.

"The chosen one from the land of the frozen sun
When drunk nights get remembered more than sober ones
Walk like warriors, we were never told to run
Explored the world to return to where my soul begun
Never looking back or too far in front of me
The present is a gift
and I just wanna BE" - Common, Be

Yea, I'm feelin' that right now.

Tryin' to be who I am, what I was made to be. College was a time where I had my perspective, worldviews, principles shaped and established. Now is the time to live it out and see what lands. I've got my content, it's time to flesh out its form. What's it gonna look like expressed in real time, real life?

Everyone wants someone, somewhere to know what's goin on inside.

Deep in our souls, there is always something that needs to get out. I wonder how often people are truly able to do it, get what's on their hearts, minds, and soul out into the world. I wonder how often people settle for the plastic forms of expression handed them by our consumer society. That stuff is suffocatin', numbs are brains and dumbs our senses. Which artists provide real expression the people can actually stand up to and find meaning in. Let me hang with these peoples. I wanna be one of these peoples.

"Never think just for
Shits and giggles
Do we spit sylable riddles
For bits and kibbles
So chics can wiggles and shake
Cause this image is fake...
What we do, is try to give you what you ain't used to
Soul music, somethin' we can all relate to" -Jurassic 5, If You Only Knew

Yea, I'm feelin that too.

I noticed that good expression often leads to good movements. Here's to those who spoke their minds, wrote their hearts, sang their souls out and caught a breeze of the revolutionary spirit of their day, made this side of eternity a better place in preparation for the next.

"One man come in the name of love
One man come and go
One man come, he to justify
One man to overthrow...
One man caught on a barbed wire fence
One man he resist
One man washed on an empty beach.
One man betrayed with a kiss...
Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride...
In the name of Love
What more in the name of Love?" - U2, Pride

Come on now.

Sometimes the movements end in success, sometimes they are crushed. Some are righteous, others twisted and evil. Some have long ended and disappeared, others are still rising, building momentum.

"What is the Kingdom of God like?...It is like a mustard seed, which a man took and planted in his garden. It grew and became a tree, and the birds of the air perched in its branches... It is like a yeast that a woman took and mixed into a large amount of flour until it worked all through the dough." Luke 13:18-20

.. . Now that's the big idea. Not new media, but new world, new you, new me.

Inside, we've all got something to say. What do you wanna say? I don't want to hear what everyone else tells you to say, wear, listen to, see. I wanna see YOU! Don't be plastic, be real. Tell me why it matters. Are you lonely? Are you hurt? Are you joyful? Are you free? What's goin on underneath all that skin and bone. How's yer soul? Express yourself by any means necessary, surround yourself with the words, the rhymes, the images, and the sounds that matters, that bring joy, that give life and figure out where it can all take you.. .

"All that noise, and all that sound,
All those places I got found.
And birds go flying at the speed of sound,
to show you how it all began.
Birds came flying from the underground,
if you could see it then you'd understand,
ah when you see it then you'll understand?" - Coldplay, Speed of Sound

Keep going.

"Killers..this life this life
Lovers..this life this life
Hustlers..this life this life
Thieves..this life this life
Gamblers..this life this life
Niggaz..Crackers..Children..Mothers..Fathers..Lovers..Neighbors..Hungry..
Full..the beautiful..the stars..the distance..the close..the stars..
The heavens..this life
The floor..this life this life
The high..this life
The beneath..this life this life
All..all..everywhere..everywhere..anywhere..somewhere..home...

Come on, this how it goes on..
Ghetto people in the world today, get up!
Ha! Look alive, breathe..wooh!
Ha! How it goes..." -Mos Def, Modern Marvel

Yea, somethin' like that.