KHARTOUM STAND UP

I usually hear about weird stuff that shows up on the internet as soon as it happens, but I only discovered BANGS about a month ago. He's a Sudanese rapper out of Khartoum, Sudan who now lives in Melbourne, Australia, and he's something to see alright. BANGS raps about a lot of things, but mostly the shawtys, and more specifically, taking them to the movies.



It's got close to 3 million views. About this video I need to say a few things.

1) If you can watch that silly-ass music video and not laugh and/or fall in love with the utter so-bad-it's-goodness of BANGS then I'm afraid you need to go drown yourself in the toilet cause your life is just not one worth living.

2) Where the hell did BANGS get an iPhone? And why do the parts of the video where he's on the phone have such high production values? It's like they spent all their money on the iPhone scene and then the budget ran out so they had to use the iPhone to film and edit the rest of the video. Still though, iPhone status gets BANGS mad points, cause I live in America and I still use a Motorola Razr.

Like any respectable hip hop artist, BANGS has a fairly sizable community of haters, which are quite vocal in comments on reposts of the BANGS videos on Youtube.

"good lord this dude is just downright awful. most likely one of the if not the worst rapper I've ever seen. you suck" -mrpotato623, mad cause BANGS is stylin on him

"can anyone else not see how horrible this is? and the government wonders how we get broke! you guys investing the wrong money to the wrong people GOD DAMN..." -kennyboi619, mad cause his videos never broke double-digit views

There's this type of hate, but then you get stuff like THIS, which I have a VERY SERIOUS PROBLEM WITH.

"your music is a joke but if you were 2 rap n your native language or rap about all the things that are happening over there or educate others, i think you would make a greater impact that trying to imitate what you think is going on in America ok" -caramelcutie313, RACIST

That's right caramelcutie313, you're fucking racist. And I will explain in great detail why.

To demonstrate this we're gonna look at a rapper that is very very different from BANGS... K'NAAN was born in Somalia and as a young boy lived in the Capital city of Mogadishu at the height of the brutal Somali Civil War, which caused the deaths of hundreds of thousands through combat and starvation. At age 13 K'NAAN and his family were able to move to New York City and then Canada, where he learned English and began his rap career.


Themes of K'NAAN's music include the state of world affairs and current events, uplifting impoverished peoples, and reflections of his Somalian roots. He has recorded several tracks in his native Somali. He's a talented and successful rapper and I like him.

Now, what does he have to do with BANGS?

Exactly. He has nothing to do with BANGS.

Fuckheads like caramelcutie313 think that because a rapper is African he can only make cultural NPR-y hip hop about genocide and shit, and if you ask me it's downright disgusting. K'NAAN and BANGS are two people who moved from states of oppression to the free world, in which they are able to pursue their own dreams and forge their own destinies. K'NAAN has chosen to make socially conscious rap because that's how he expresses himself as an artist. But ya boy BANGS is a different guy from the sky, and he just wants to rap about taking girls to the movies, and if you think there's something wrong with that then there's something wrong with you.

I hope you enjoyed the blog post,
Cause I did too,
Anytime you wanna read again just holler at me.
Baby girl, we can make it,
To be better than before.
Anything you want me to blog,
I can blog it fo' sho.

My Head is Bloody, but Unbowed

Last week I watched that movie where MORGAN FREEMAN plays NELSON MANDELA and gets wrapped up in the South African national rugby team as he fights to bring an apartheid-stricken nation back together again. It was a very good film, and I was especially happy to watch it since South Africa is one of those places that fascinates me while remaining a complete cultural mystery. While the work itself as a whole was impressive, what left the strongest impression on me was the poem Invictus, which the film is named after and uses a number of times throughout the story.

I don't really dig poetry in any kind of a deep way, so for a poem to speak to me it takes quality. In the film, NELSON MANDELA shares this poem with the captain of the rugby team saying something to the effect of "these words helped me to stand up at times in my life when all I wanted to do was lie down."

Out of the night that covers me,
Black as the pit from pole to pole,
I thank whatever gods may be
For my unconquerable soul.

In the fell clutch of circumstance
I have not winced nor cried aloud.
Under the bludgeonings of chance
My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Beyond this place of wrath and tears
Looms but the Horror of the shade,
And yet the menace of the years
Finds and shall find me unafraid.

It matters not how strait the gate,
How charged with punishments the scroll,
I am the master of my fate:
I am the captain of my soul.

The message of this poem is beautiful to me. It inspires perseverance in difficult circumstances through the power of self-knowledge and self-determination.

When I took sociology my senior year of high school, one of the concepts they taught us was the idea of people being products of their environment. Individuals get so caught up in living up to the expectations that other people set for them that they become internalized, and people lose sight of all the potential they have to do what's best for them and what makes them truly happy. This is what I like to call mental slavery.

Now I know that's a pretty heavy phrase that means a lot of different things to different people, but what I mean when I say it is this; I think the root cause of why a lot of people in this world are unhappy is that they feel they have no control over their own destinies, for whatever number of reasons. This idea is most commonly applied to social mobility but if you ask me it's about spiritual mobility. It can apply to almost anybody in any situation.

Living at school has taught me a lot about exactly this kind of thing. People enter the college environment with all kinds of expectations as to what it's supposed to be like and how they have to act in order to be a part of the experience they've set themselves up for (which is different for everybody). Usually this only leads to trouble when a person compromises his/herself in that process.

I'm here to say that no matter where you are in life you ought to never stop doing what you know is right, because then you're just a tool. You've given up control of yourself and become simply a product of your environment, your past, or whatever else holds you down. You've got to know yourself, take care of yourself, and stand up for yourself with indomitable spirit.

You are the master of your fate, and you are the captain of your soul.

Music Saves Lives Every Day

You ask a Buddhist what the truth about life is, the first thing he'll tell you is this; "Existence is suffering". I'm not a Buddhist but I tell you they're right. Everybody suffers sometimes, I don't care who they are. Successful, rich, famous, loved, all the friends in the world, every reason to be satisfied, it doesn't matter. Sometimes you could look somebody right in the eye and never even know how absolutely down and out they were. It's because there is no such thing as a perfect person, and we all get the pain once in a while, in one form or another, big and small, short-term and long-term.

So then why don't we all just hold hands and jump into the grand canyon together or something? Because I believe that just as existence is suffering, existence is joy. Life is beautiful, and it's these parts of life that make up for the hard times. It's how we take care of ourselves and each other. Everyone realizes this in different ways, and in my personal life music is what does it for me in a big way.

I am an only child, and though blessed with many wonderful friends I often find myself feeling all by myself and without anyone I trust enough to freely speak person-to-person on a deep level with. My personality is such that I tell myself I don't need anybody and deal with most personal problems independently. But the truth of the matter is that I do get by with a little help from my friends; and one of those friends is CHARLES MINGUS.



CHARLES MINGUS (pictured above and below) had a tough time on this Earth. Though a revered jazz musician, he was poor his whole life, and was prone to long bouts of depression. Late in his life he was evicted from his NYC apartment because he couldn't pay his rent, before Lou Gehrig's disease prevented him from playing music and eventually led to his death in 1979 at the age of 56. MINGUS was known as "the Angry Man of Jazz" because of his extreme temper both on stage and off. He would get frustrated about one thing or another and start throwing insults, chairs and fists at audiences and band members. One time he punched professional trombone player JIMMY KNEPPER in the mouth, not only knocking his tooth out but permanently affecting his range on the instrument.

MINGUS' music is incredibly emotional. Listeners can feel his pain, his hopes and dreams, and his happy moments. All emotions have the potential to inspire profound and beautiful works of art. When you listen to the music I do (jazz, blues especially), this is something you come to appreciate in a very strong way.

I can't relate to CHARLES MINGUS in any specific way. I'll probably count myself among those lucky to never experience poverty or be evicted from my home, but when you listen to his music you gain a sort of shared appreciation for the emotion that went into creating it. In this way, MINGUS understands how I feel when no one else can, even though he's been dead for more than 30 years and never met me. A comforting thought. It's not a cure for feeling down but it helps, for damn sure it helps.

It's in this way that music saves lives every day. It's one of the things that helps me, but for you it may well be something else entirely. Underwater basket weaving or something. I sure hope you find it and embrace it if you haven't already.