August 15th. A pretty indiscriminate date. Historically there aren't many occurrences landing on this date worthy of taking a sharpie to the calendar. I however will spend August 15th feverishly pacing in front of my laptop eyeballing the cascading tiles of my Tweetdeck and refreshing multiple tabs on my internet browser. Why August 15th? is it because its Ben Affleck's Birthday? No (and if you do have Ben Affleck's birthday marked on your calendar or if you are Ben Affleck, i apologize). On August 15th Danny Brown finally drops his album "XXX" for free on Fool's Gold Records.
A very personal work, Hip hop at its most inventive, yet a complete diversion from the typical in every form. Its Danny telling a story to the listener. Its sort of like an episode of Reading Rainbow except Levar Burton is yelling at you in a high pitched squeal over an 808 drum break about drugs and bitches. You've got to admit, that scenario is both compelling and endearing. If someone told you that was going down in your hood, you would pay for admission.
So yes, on August 15th I'll be somewhere in NYC obsessing over public opinion on this album that we've spent the last couple of months recording, mixing and mastering but most important of all sequencing so that a story is told with the moral being completely amoral.
A few weeks ago my presence was requested in Boston to style the 2011 campaign for Timberland. They were in the process of creating an ad campaign centered around the release of the updated 6in' wheat h.k.a. (Hood known as) Cheese Timbs. Honestly there was no possible way that I could say no, reasoning? im from Brooklyn. From brownstone stoop to project tenement, a pair of Timbs is a signifier that you put in work. Purely a workwear brand that had the happenstance of becoming part of the fashion cannon, their significance became subject to the ebbs and flows of the fashion community. The cyclical nature of fashion spurred short hibernation periods in their fashion relevance but once thing remains clear: If you grew up in BK in the 90's, the branches of the Timberland tree logo are intertwined with the strands of your DNA helix.
If you're from BK you've worn a pair of cheese Timbs on a walk to the bodega and to your best friends wedding. You have formal Timbs that you hit with the waterproofing spray and the suede brush and your casual Timbs with the back heel leaning like Rick Ross after 3 minutes on a treadmill.
We wear Timbs and shorts, we play ball in Timbs, We have rap groups that declare their allegiance to the "Timb Tree", why wouldn't i work on it?
I linked up with the guys at Michael Indresano Photgraphy and we got to work on creating the campaign for the 2011 version of the 6in' wheat now imbued with "Anti-fatigue" technology which keeps your foot from tiring after the long work day. I really wouldn't know anything about that. After playing ball in Timbs I have the hooves of a Mountain Goat, if the ground were on fire I would have no idea until the flames hit me around the shins.
In the course of a day the crew along with prop stylist Mari Quirk (one of the most awesome people i've had the pleasure of meeting) put together an indoor set that made me feel like I was in an abandoned lot in Brooklyn, I could almost hear the whispers of gentrifiers asking for more butter for their scones.
Then I got to work making the shoot look as authentic as possible.
Here's the first of the new Ads. Its crazy to know that something that you worked on is going to be a nationwide billboard.
I grew up in a remote corner of the world that we call New York. East New York to be exact. That geographical marker "East" has never been so meaningful in my life . I've never known east from west, asking me for directions is like asking a Japanese person to perfectly pronounce the word "milliliter", but you can automatically tell East New York from from the rest of New York with one viewing of a local newscast. East NY is not a destination, The only people headed in that direction are either headed past it to Rockaway Beach or a faulty spin of the Wheel of Fortune resulted in residence there. Its not exactly like hitting "Bankrupt" it's more like hitting the $100, $200 dollar tiles. Not the most horrible thing in the world, but its hard to nickel and dime your way out of disadvantage. Its a place where housing projects out number houses and the statistic of murder per capita is replaced by murder per square inch.
My parents always taught me to question everything which not only made me very annoying to hang out with but It made me wonder what was out there beyond the 10 block radius that everyone else in my neighborhood seemed confined to. My school issued Rapid Transit pass became my passport and the A Train from Euclid Avenue was the trash strewn jumbo jet that took me all over NYC aka The World. The more I trotted around NYC the the more culture and people I was exposed to, the things that shaped my life and what I do with it came from early exposure to things outside my comfort zone.
From an early age we are told to choose what we want to do with our lives, but how can we choose when we haven't seen all the options yet?
The homie Kenji Summers introduced me to his idea for the Passport Project. A project designed to get 18-24 year olds more interested in world travel and to outfit them with the tools to do so, a passport.
Go out and see the world. Before you plan your takeover, you gotta know what you're taking over
check out http://passportproject.tumblr.com/ while Kenji tries to get this flight off the ground.
I was once told the only way to keep your idols is never to meet them, wait, none of my friends are smart enough to say something that insightful, I probably heard that while flipping past PBS to get to the Cartoon Network. Anyways, the burden of talent can be great. We bestow adoration and love on people we would never hope to know. We clear out wall space for posters and spend our illegally earned dollars supporting artists, we do all this with the expectation of never meeting them. The moment we find out that out heroes have human characteristics that are more so magnified by the scope of public scrutiny, we are turned off. Nothing worse than having a dude whos album you skipped out of 5th period to cop from the local mom and pop record shop hit on your date when you meet him years later (true fucking story).
Pic Courtesy of Mel D. Cole
Mos Def is probably one of my favorite entertainers of all time. I vehemently defend his mush mouthed Brooklyn drawl that surfaces in all of his acting roles because I have the same tendency to say "bruva" instead of brother and other dialect foibles imbued in hood born Brooklynites.
Once I got into the business (whatever that means) I learned that the criteria for being "homies" shrinks from actual personal exchanges of ideas and emotions to just being within a 10 foot radius of any said person "homies by proximity"
I've seen many a tweet go by my timeline basking in the sheer revelry of hanging with *insert rapper here* when its pretty clear that said personality is actually in the dimly lit VIP lounge of whatever seedy venue he was paid to walk through wishing that human teleportation wasn't a distant reality while you were at the bar trying to pass off expired drink tickets. Trying to establish a relationship by mouthing his lyrics while attempting to establish eye contact does not a friendship make.
Im not saying me and Mos are besties. He is not my emergency contact, We don't ride tandem bicycles in Prospect park, but he is one of the most magnetic, interesting and inspiring individuals that I have had the pleasure to know.
Its odd to make that statement being as 10 years ago I was the kid with the BlackStar stickers on his notebook.
yea I'm on some "stan" shit but whatevs.
Here's some vids i took of Mos rocking some new songs in at Brooklyn's Ft. Greene Festival.
Im pretty much addicted to this show, but my entertainment diet consists mostly of cartoons so you can judge my advice based on my completely juvenile behavior.
