Ignorance Is A Bitch

"Niggas like to not know. Niggas don't read. Books are like Kryptonite to a nigga. Niggas love to be ignorant." - some shit Chris Rock said from Bring The Pain 1996.

My Twitter profile is @duckyhines and I joke a lot about music, rap and the rules of Twitter. The first rule of Twitter is everything you post is up for criticism. The second rule is don't react. Joking is one thing and I've done some fucked up shit in real life but some people think doing fucked up shit without risking consequences is okay. My parents didn't give me a lot of excuses to not fuck up. If I fucked something up even when I was a kid, it was my job to accept fucking up and then fix it after I endure the consequences. Some people's parents didn't teach them shit. I learned to read when I was four and was taught manners to survive as a responsible person in the real world. Nowadays people think they can do anything they want to anybody and have no circumstances. For example, I posted an opinion on a rap battle I saw on YouTube. I got some unflattering reactions on MY opinion. It didn't bother me but it made me think that if they said that in person I'd be ready to address it in a calm manner.Then again, some people don't say anything in person. They just do shit to do it without any kind of repercussion expected. I grew up in an era where people actually fought if there was a disagreement. Even in school if you had a problem with someone and someone spread hearsay, you HAD to see them or be labeled a punk. In this Facebooger and Twitter age where people are more concerned with their profile views, people are saying all kinds of wild shit for a reaction. Then in real life they're either timid or really oblivious to the fact that someone might just smack the shit out of them for crossing a serious line. They don't give a fuck and are too ignorant as to why they should give a fuck. It's ignorance. Just now I had what is known from The Boondocks as a "Nigger Moment". Am I proud of this? No, but I'm being honest. I go to the library to use the computer when I'm not near one at home (I plan on getting a MacBook Pro). I also check out books because I love to read and stay informed. Back to the Nigger Moment. I put my thumb drive into the computer and set my backpack down so I could get hand sanitizer. It's a public library. It just makes sense to me. I return to the computer and someone is trying to log in when my stuff is clearly there. The guy looked at me like something was wrong with me when I told him my stuff was at the computer because I was using it. This ignorant motherfucker says something like "You shouldn't have left your stuff there." Instantly I asked him to repeat it in a calm manner but my right fist was ready to Roy Jones him if he really wanted to be bout that life. This is the library! The fucking library! I told buddy he could go into the computer lab where there were quite a few available computers. Buddy said I should go in there. I asked him "Excuse me" and he walks away. When I was younger you had to be ready to fight. Even if you were going to get jumped, you had to fight. Running wasn't an option. You might get beat up or lose a fight but you had to be ready to defend yourself. Somewhere around when Boyz N The Hood came out drive-bys were suddenly en vogue and people started shooting when there used to just be fights. Now people shoot for the dumbest reasons...then video tape it as proof they're really as tough as they want the world to believe they are. I could go on about music that "celebrates" selling dope, shooting guns and misogamy but I'd be a hypocrite because I love N.W.A. It was "music" to them but a lot of uninformed people based their lives on what Ice Cube, Eazy (RIP), Ren and Dre depicted in these songs over twenty years ago. There's also a scene in one of my favorite movies Jay-Z's Fade To Black. Hov's conversing with an aspiring rapper that is complaining about people wanting to hear false crime tales and flossing in music. Hov and O.G. Juan are telling the kid to "be the fuck him" and make music from the heart. It's a line between feeding ignorance to a lot of the masses that are ignorant but also being enlightened and giving people intelligent art. People will consume ignorance in mass amounts (Rush Limbaugh, Bill O'Reilly, McRib sandwiches) if you package it in an appealing manner. Hov even made a song about it that I love and not too many people are hip to this version. http://t.co/4dyDyJtf In this song Hov pokes fun at the masses that only want him to talk about jewelry, slanging coke and cars. It's a great double meaning. A lot of people are caught in generational cycles of not knowing shit. I have friends that have parents that never graduated high school after their parents never graduated high school and never held a full time job where people's lives depended on them. My dad was a branch manager for a huge insurance company and my mother retired as a case worker for the state. I got into trouble when I was younger because I hated listening to people, thought I was too smart to ever get caught, didn't care about getting locked up until I read mandatory sentences for selling crack and I wanted to get fresh. People that had lesser resources didn't have a choice. Others like myself had a choice and I made poor choices. I could've been caught so many times as a juvenile offender. To some people drugs, fast cars, partying, getting fresh, cares for nothing else outside of that realm and fast women with fat asses are a way of life. That's all they know. They're content with impregnating that hot broad with a fat ass and being a baby-daddy because that's all they see. Then they get mad when that hot broad with a fat ass hopefully becomes a responsible parent and meets a nice guy that wants to settle down with her. I know too many guys that think once that woman has their kid, that woman's vagina is 24/7 access for them. They're ignorant of meeting someone to marry and raise a family with in a safe and nurturing environment. Months ago I wrote about how The Westside of St. Louis looks the same as it did in the 1980s and how some people never leave. They feel it's "their hood". Gentrification proves a whole neighborhood doesn't belong to a group of friends on a certain block unless they go to city hall, purchase that real estate with a deed and pay property taxes on it. Somebody might read this and not know what the fuck GENTRIFICATION is. I try to educate in serious moments and be enlightened. I try to better myself. Not knowing certain things bother me so I read, ask questions and observe so I become knowledgeable. Some people don't care about being smart or having tact. They just want to do what they want to do with no worry of fulfilling their future. They'll consume any and everything in front of them like they don't have a choice. They're ignorant to healthy food, opportunities to come up in the world and a whole world beyond what they see everyday. Those that live in these indigenous environments are in a cycle they're unaware of. They just speak on things and react with no knowledge of what's really around them. Going back to my dad, there's a belief that people that had both parents were soft. There's a belief that people that speak with diction and pronounce words correctly are soft or not "real niggas". Well, I had O.G.s that put me on to so much game and principles that these so-called "real niggas" never learned. The O.G.s who were doing their thing out in the street accepted me for me, especially because I didn't act like the dumb ignorant cats around me that had no vision and couldn't think for themselves. They were used to reacting to situations instead of thinking their way through situations and preparing for the next one. Ignorance is a bitch. Life's a bitch if you let it be but you can tame a bitch. I don't mean a woman, I mean a bitch regardless of their genitalia. Ignorance will stop progress. I hate ignorance and cannot be around someone that is too ignorant to learn or see different aspects of life. The worst ignorant motherfuckers are the entitled ones. I wrote on this last month about "new rappers" thinking they should get an ice cream cone because they put a few words together. They're ignorant to politics of the industry, what to do, how to do it and when to do it. They're content with being ignorant until someone "discovers" them or "holds them back" in some elaborate conspiracy to stop them from "changing the game" or whatever the fuck that shit means. I don't have time to entertain that train of thought or even argue with them. I just wish them the best and keep it moving. My parents didn't want me to be ignorant and to this day I can't make excuses for anything. I just learn, move on and keep a positive frame of mind despite the ignorance of others. I pray for them. If I can't enlighten them I can at least pray for them. Trying to down someone for bettering themselves or have some kind of order in their lives is the most hoe-ass shit I've ever heard of. To some people ignorance is a way of life and they're happy with that. Get that line of thinking the fuck out of here. Be aware, y'all. Peace. - Moolah

Fuck Rap (with good reason)

Fuck rap and motherfuck most of these "rappers". If anyone is familiar with me, I'm a normal guy that makes Hip-Hop music and makes a few sheckles off it. I'm not going to wax poetically about the good ol' days or The Golden Era. Nope. Not gonna do it. I'm going to talk about why I listen to more deadmau5 than I listen to what people believe is rap. If anyone hasn't noticed, the WORLD is in a fucking recession. I can relate to big money rapping shit but for the most part, it has given broke motherfuckers a reason to lie in their raps. They're not making music from their hearts in most cases because they want to portray an image knowing they ain't bout that life to go out and actually get that shit they're rapping about. I haven't cursed a lot in my blogs lately but then again, I haven't blogged in two moths. I also don't believe in video blogging on YouTube unless I'm promoting a show or a product or are cracking jokes. That shit is time-consuming and people really only care about what you look like and what you're wearing. FUCK RAP. MOTHERFUCK most of these "rappers". A lot of these new "rappers" have no touch on the real world and the shit that goes on in it. Maybe they're not to blame for their own ignorance but then again, fuck 'em twice and three times on Sundays. Especially a lot of local WANT TO BE RAPPERS. My comrades who I know work hard at projects, shows, airplay, endorsements, publishing and promoting themselves are excluded from this group of douchebags I'm talking about. Niggas that put a legacy in St. Louis and have songs that rock the clubs and the airwaves here are not the subject of this post. I'm talking about those whining-ass, never did a real show and want to hop on a bandwagon niggas: FACEBOOK AND TWITTER RAPPERS AND THE DICK BLOWERS they idolize. In St. Louis there was an era from 1996-2006 where you HAD to rock the Hi-Pointe on Monday nights and Blueberry Hill on Friday nights.  When The Science at Blueberry Hill ended, most people hung at Halo at The Pageant. I was not serious about music at the time and I was a youngster anyway more concerned with buying sneakers and not getting caught on the North Side with a pistol. My friends and people I know the local music scene in real life were a part of that moreso than me. When I got serious about music, it was a bit after. Anyway, most of those people, even niggas that spit "gangster" or "street" shit had bars in those places. Real battles, unlimited shit and cyphers came out of those places. Also shouts out to the Red Sea (RIP) basement. Most of my friends in the local scene in St. Louis came out of those settings and proved their mettle there. Relationships that stand to this day were built before MySpace rappers, Twitter rappers and Facebook rappers. This is going to be a long post. Nelly broke through in 2000 followed by Chingy, Jibbs, J-Kwon, Huey, Chocolate Tai, Penelope Jones, Ebony Eyes, Potzee and a host of others that had major label situations. You know how all those people got those situations good, bad and otherwise? Dumb niggas gonna guess just money. Money helps but all of those artists had their own developed and individual talent whether or not you rocked with them. GETTING THE FUCK OUT OF ST. LOUIS BUT STILL REPRESENTING THE CRIB HELPED THEM GET EXPOSURE IN REAL SHOWCASES WITH MUSIC PRODUCED BY PROFESSIONALS. Nowadays in the Facebook and Twitter era, "rappers" interrupt your conversation about whatever to spam their link to their "smash hit". When I tweet some shit to someone I don't know like "Nigga, I am not your publicist" you've got to remember, this individual interrupted MY conversation with whomever. My friends' Facebook walls get hit all the time about "Check this out" and shit. If YOU ARE out making moves with your music then go on and post but there is a sect of people that never leave their house and just post links all day. They don't put money into their music to develop their sound or go out of town to see what else is going on. They have a belief just because they MAKE MUSIC that they should get the major shows in town and get accepted as royalty. This isn't just a problem in St. Louis but it's more of a common thing. I hear that "everybody raps in St. Louis". The thing is, are they good at it? Shouts to my homegirl Bell for her Mic Check Mondays event at Daddy's Money on Broadway. She built that up and it's a nice outlet for people to be heard. There are people here in St. Louis that don't utilize this outlet. Now one could also complain all local shows only contain other rappers in the crowd that will do what they will do: perform and leave. I'm not going to give all the game away but if that's all you're going to do, you're not a viable local entertainer. I also recently performed at SLUMFest (St. Louis Underground Music Festival) for the first time. I enjoyed it. However, leading up to the March registration EVERYONE that performed (aside from artists that actually put the event together) had to register with a five dollar fee and submission of two or three songs. Now most of these new "rappers" rap about being guapped out and swagging to the max or whatever the fuck these clowns talk about. They're the same cats trying to sell me a plain CD with marker writing on it when my CD is professionally mastered and packaged with my picture on it. Seriously. Now, after literally thousands of people registered there were thousands of omissions. People felt like there was a "backpacker" conspiracy against anyone that wasn't selected to perform. Most of these people have made no moves and built no relationships. They thought their poorly produced and mixed product would make the cut. A lot of these "rappers" grew up in an era where everyone got a trophy for participation. Dumb Fuck, the music industry doesn't work like that. You gotta have your shit together and guess what: it helps if you're talented. There was no "backpack" conspiracy. My homeboy T-Dubb-O who I know as a real individual and a top-notch emcee originally got left off. I was offering him part of my set. He said it's good. Lo and behold some spots were available and we campaigned like hell to get him on. He got on. During that whole time he NEVER complained about it. This is my homeboy in real life and he wanted me to cook. On the opposite spectrum there was a lot of bitching from people that didn't make it. They whined and bitched like nobody's putting on for St. Louis and such. There were a couple of questions to be asked of these individuals: Is your stage show dope? Do deejays know you? Are you really building your name up in the scene one way or another?... In most cases those answers were fuck no. In days where mugs had to carry crates of records and plug in equipment to a light pole there was none of this bitch-ass whining. You had to go out and get it. Now mufuckas feel obligated to get on because they rap. Nobody gives a fuck that you rap. You can make them give a fuck by putting in work and investing in yourself instead of camping out for sneakers and buying European belts for an image or your personal swag. Then there are the rappers that are "on" that have people believe there is no recession. People listen to these people and this is not to blame the rappers but a lot of fans are stupid. They can't decipher reality from the rap world. I've seen the industry for myself on so many occasions. Let me just say your money has to be right and/or be VERY CONNECTED to get in. That is the nature of business in the world so why should it be any different in the "rap game"? You don't have money to shoot a video? Nobody gives a fuck. You don't have money to press real professional CDs? Nobody gives a fuck. You don't have money to promote your work in the street or in publications? Nobody gives a fuck. You don't know how to perform without your original verses on the song instead of having a show mix with hooks and ad libs or just the instrumental by it self? You're a clown ass rapper, not an emcee. On top of that, mugs just want to rap to get "on" but have done no research on the business. They bitch and whine. The big dogs say this is not a business for sensitive niggas. Well, there are a lot of sensitive rappers that can't take criticism and think they can compete with a local artist that put in work and built their name up. Dumb Fuck, your target can't be the local guy. You got to make music to the quality of the big dogs and invest in yourself. How does one do that? Well, I'm not your publicist or your manager but you can learn and pay your dues so you can figure it out. Also, one more thing: people get hung up on lists and think people are hating on them. In most cases these paranoid people aren't known enough to be hated. They come back to the conspiracy theories. One of my other homeys in real life Tef Poe homeboy made a list of Top 50 St. Louis Hip-Hop artists people should know. Personal relationship aside (we grew up together): I was on that list. I had no idea about that list until he told me about it. I was like "cool". However, in a city of literally thousands of "rappers" people felt left off and that there was biased opinions. I can't completely speak for my brother but I'll keep it as funky as I can: THERE WERE PEOPLE ON THAT LIST THAT DO NOT FUCK WITH HIM AND HE WAS G ENOUGH TO PUT THEM ON THE LIST ANYWAY. Why did he put them on the list? The greater goal is to shed light on the scene here in St. Louis but again when he could've talked about his project that came out the same day War Machine 2, that's not good enough for a lot of people. So from ME: fuck rappers. Seriously. I fuck with real individuals that make great music but I don't fuck with rappers that ain't bout it. If it's not anything I can feel or rock with in real life, fuck it and that's how I feel about these "rappers". When you see people riding around Collins Ave in Miami in Lambos and you're rubbing elbows with big wigs, it puts a lot of things in perspective. I figured out the game. I'm not going to share it all but if you fuck with me in real life, I will share it with you. If you don't then just keep rapping and not working on building yourself up as a marketable artist. The industry does not give a fuck about you until they can make money off you. If you can't make money off you then how can anyone else? That's what it's about but you gotta earn your stripes first and foremost. Until you do, fuck you if you're a "rapper". Oh, and my listening to deadmau5...he's not making records about $300 jeans and sipping champagne he can't really afford or selling more dope than The Black Widow. Plus, hot girls like club music but you didn't hear that from me. I say peace - Moolah.