I'm introducing a new word into my slang vernacular, filibuster

A while back I posted a bunch of words/phrases that I use all the time. I somehow left prexactly (precisely + exactly) off that list and I now need to add "filibuster" to that list.

Filibuster is defined as:

"The use of irregular or obstructive tactics by a member of a legislative assembly to prevent the adoption of a measure generally favored or to force a decision against the will of the majority." (source: Dictionary.com)

"A filibuster is a type of parliamentary procedure where an individual extends debate, allowing a lone member to delay or entirely prevent a vote on a given proposal. It is commonly referred to as talking out a bill,[1] and characterized as a form of obstruction in a legislature or other decision-making body." (source: Wikipedia.com)

The main part of both of those definitions that I'm focusing on in my usage of the term is "obstructive" and "prevent".

With that in mind henceforth I will be referring to the following type of person as a FILIBUSTER.

1. The girl that tries ridiculously hard to be one of the guys so that she can get some attention from (you guessed it) one (or more) of the guys. Then when she realizes that none of the guys are interested in her, she becomes the passive female "friend" that's a c*ckblock. Get out of here with that and go grab some self-esteem and a side of female friends. This is usually the same girl that makes sure she has one or two friends with her that are cuter than her so she can get some attention indirectly. We've been hip to you, you FILIBUSTER!
2. The guy that always has something negative to say about every girl because he fell in love with the wrong chick years ago, got his feelings all destroyed nshyt, and still has not gotten over it. Look dude, if it was more than a year ago, the statute of limitations on your hatred and vitriol has passed. Let that mess go and do what most people do, go find a girl that's the exact opposite of the one you were dealing with and realize that that's not good for you either. But don't sit around hating on every girl just because she doesn't think your knowledge of football fun facts, prodding questions of prejudgement, and aura of "I'm still salty about my ex" is something she'd like to have more of. Have some pride why don't you, you FILIBUSTER!
   
   

Ok, I'm done.

Makes me laugh uncontrollably every time...

Nothing in the future of kiddie rap could possibly be better than this

Ya'll are probably laughing right now but this is classic stuff right here, lol. Go ahead and fake like you didn't like this song, for real though lol.


I'm still a little upset that whoever his ghostwriter was, the person still kept some not-so-ambiguous adult/ignorant words in the song.

Rating an Album: Nas - Life's Good

I had formed an opinion on Nas's latest release when it first came out but I wanted to hold off on writing about it here until I had a couple weeks to listen to it, hear everyone else's opinions, ignore/disregard them, and come back to it and form as objective an opinion as I could for an album that dropped less than a month ago and had high expectations. Finally, I think I'm at a point now where I can talk about it and not feel like I'm going to say something that I'll completely contradict in a conversation later.

The first thing I would like to say is that this is a good/solid album. It's NOT classic but for Nas STANS it will be. It's not the best Nas album ever. It's not in the top 3 Nas albums ever (Illmatic, Stillmatic, God's Son). This is a solid Nas album for today's market conditions.

Let's get this thing rolling song-by-song:

1. No Introduction: I honestly can't get past this beat. I think I'm in the minority on this one but this beat is really just underwhelming. Not to be lost is Nas's lyricism and ability to paint vivid pictures but yet-and-still, this just didn't set the tone for me to the point where I was excited about what I was about to hear on the remainder of the album.
2. Loco-Motive: This is a joint I heard a minute before the album dropped and this actually got me excited to hear the album. This is that vintage 90's Nas flow right here and that sinister style production complements him well when he flows like this. One of my favorite tracks on the album. I guess I'm trapped in the 90s too, huh? Lol.
3. Queens Story: Mehhhh. This is the type of back to Queens type of track that really only works with me when he has a beat like the previous song. I can listen to this but it doesn't draw me in. I'm not even all that impressed by how he leads into the next track at the end.
4. Accident Murderers: Hardest beat on the album and Fat Ricky doesn't ruin the song and holds his own pretty well though he doesn't stick to the topic of the track, lol. Nas's verses are real talk.
5. Daughters: Another one of my favorite tracks on the album. This is just a great track for younger guys with daughters. Learn from Nas. This is the type of masculine yet vulnerable stuff that Nas does well.
6. Reach Out: Blatant radio joint. It's not a bad song at all I just hate that I know this is a contrived second or third single. That beat, MJB, come on man can't we be more creative here. I won't even mention how Jay-Z does the contrived radio joints so much better (oh my bad, I just mentioned it). Nas's first verse here is pretty good though.
7. World's An Addiction: If there was one song I'd skip it would be this one. The lyrics are on point but the song overall just doesn't cut it, definitely not within the flow of the album. Jam this in-between two radio joints? Who's A&R'ing/Exec producing this project?
8. Summer on Smash: Another radio joint and it just feels like something is missing and there's a little too much at the same time. Perhaps the too much is Miguel's "verse" and Swizz's voice. I don't mind Swizz so much but there just seems to be something sonically missing here and I can't put my finger on it.
9. You Wouldn't Understand: My favorite radio joint on the album. I actually hope that he releases this as the next single and makes a video for it. For some reason this feels much more tolerant and less contrived than Reach Out or Summer on Smash. At the same time, this feels like it could have fit in on that Nastradamus album too, lol.
10. Back When: Of the NYC back in the day joints on this album, this is my favorite, lol.
11. The Don: This knocks but much like Summer on Smash I feel like something is missing.
12. Stay: The horn on here is dope but don't be fooled, we've heard it before. Yep, CyHi samples this same horn on his joint, "Woopty-Do" though his track isn't nearly as good as this one. If I were Nas I would have left off World Is An Addition and replaced it with this and kept it at this spot on the album. He's going in on this track in terms of the topics he's addressing.
13. Cherry Wine: Overall, the best track on album. Perfect radio song for urban and pop markets. Let's see how soon they drop this as a radio/video single.
14. Bye Baby: You knew it was coming. The "you got issues and they ruined us and I got my issues too yet-and-still we had great moments so I can't really be mad at least I tried I thought you was a nubian queen but it's over and now I'm about to smash 20 year olds because I'm pushing 40 but still look 21 and I'm not going to let you know I'm really effed up in the game as much as you think but I've grown from the experience and feel like a better person now" track. You knew it was coming.
15. Nasty: Vintage "Nasty" Nas. Nothing else needs to be said.
16. The Black Bond: I literally have nothing to say about this song.
17. Roses: I like this song. I think it should have been the last song on the album. So much so that I made it the last song on my mash-up of Ross and Nas's albums.
18. Where's The Love: I like what he's talking about here but I'm not feeling this beat.

Overall I give this album 3.875 out of 5. I will admit that I have my own little rating system that I use - that I won't divulge in this post but in due time I will - and that's why the rating goes to 3 significant digits, lol. But I'll just say this, I think Nas covered a lot of different stuff here but I would have like to hear a tad less of the swaggerifficness and Imma smash this and that from HIM. But at the same time I understand he probably is still mentally going through it somewhat from his divorce and that may be a part of his coping process (sorry ladies, it happens). Daughters and Bye Bye Baby are stand-outs to me in terms of content but yet-and-still I could stand to hear less of Nas talking about how he is 40 bangin' 20 year olds or another story about how things were in Queens when he grew up. Those records have their place but they don't resonate with me as much and that's likely because I have heard similar tracks before and I'm also not from New York. When it comes to lyrics, Nas never really disappoints. Even when Nas is talkin' that swagged out semi-humble brag shyt he does, he is still sick with it. He's lyrically sound on this album as usual but content-wise I think there are some things he's somewhat redundant about.

My usual problem with Nas is that his production is questionable for the current state of hip-hop with respect to him wanting to actually move units nowadays. This album flows nicely for the most part in that there are really no points during the album where you feel like there's a noticeably abrupt/bad change (some people might sight "Summer on Smash" but I'm not going to I think "World Is An Addiction" is that point). But at the same time, there's nothing really special and/or cohesive about the album's arrangement of songs either. Like I mentioned above, I normally take issue with Nas's beat selection but I have definitely seen worse when it comes to his albums. Moreover, the beat on "No Introduction" underwhelms me and when I first heard it set somewhat of an underachieving tone for the rest of the album. And the alleged supposed-to-be club banger by Swizz is decent but it feels like something is missing. And similar to what I said above, "Reach Out" is a blatant attempt to pull on the nostalgic senses of those who know where it's primary sample came from. But in general, the album is listenable all the way through for the most part. The only real sticking point I'd have is World Is An Addiction.

All these thoughts are what lead me to my 3.875 out of 5 ranking. I'm sure many of you will disagree with this and say it's classic, which is fine but I challenge you to find a verse on Life's Good that's better than Nas's verse on this song. If Nas could do this for an entire album, it would be another undeniable classic (Illmatic much?).

London and how it enlightened me

Some of you already know that I was in London about a month ago. I spent just about a week there and it was an amazing experience. Being in another country - not named Mexico, Providenciales, Canada, Jamaica, or some other place that's really just the Caribbean (don't get me wrong, I love the Caribbean - was simply an enlightening experience.

I compare London to New York to many people that I have talked to about the trip. London's expensive, even by New York City's standards. London's a melting pot of people. London's got great food, great culture, and great nightlife. London's a destination that people go to in droves and an epicentre of sorts for the rest of the world. London's like New York but in my opinion, better.

What I learned from being there for that relatively short period of time is that:

• I'm lucky/blessed (whichever you prefer) to have been able to travel there. Not many people that are from where I grew up make it to places like Los Angeles (a place I've never been by the way), let alone London.
• Although I have known this for some time, the world is so much bigger than where you are or where you've lived. There's a lot of amazing things to see in this world.
• In London it seems that unlike here in the U.S., the color of your skin doesn't matter as much. I talked with one of my best friends about this after returning and we both agreed that in London, you're mostly American first, before you're Black. This may sound pretty simple and "duhhhh" to a lot of you, but not me. I'm not one for victimizing myself as a Black man but in the United States it's not always the case that your color or race doesn't give someone the opportunity to pass judgement upon you before speaking a word to you. In London, maybe your nationality or country of residence serves the same purpose but it's not alwasy as easily determined and being judged as an American first damn sure felt better than feeling like you're being judged because you're Black, lol.
• I need to travel east of the Atlantic Ocean more! Traveling within the U.S. and Caribbean is one thing, but traveling across the pond is another. Being able to learn about, appreciate, respect, and absorb other cultures is a beautiful thing and it builds tolerance and helps keep you from judging others without cause and that's a great feeling!
• Life is short and the world is big, see as much of it as you can! It took me a long time to make it to Europe. One of my best friends implored me to make it over there while he was in graduate school there and I made the mistake of not taking advantage of that opportunity. Over ten years later, I visited, and I regret not having gone earlier. Don't make the same mistake I did! Travel to other places, meet other people, learn about other cultures, it'll help make you a better person.

Below you'll see some of the pictures I took while I was running amok in London. I was lucky enough to have a friend that I've known for almost 20 years who was visiting London at the same time so while I was there by myself, I wasn't really alone all the time. I visited just about every landmark I possibly could while there and tried to make the best use of my time. In traveling around London on the Tube and observing people and places, I noticed a few things that stood out and took a few notable/memorable things back home with me:

• Apparently jean shorts with leggings under them is the trend for young ladies in London. I saw this outfit at least 20 times per day. I'm not complaining, I'm just saying that there were definitely a LOT of people in this type of attire.
• Warm beer is apparently acceptable in British culture. I had at least 3 warm beers served to me during my stay. I'm not sure if this is really a culturally acceptable thing or if certain beers are served that way (I tried stuff I've never drank before) or if cask ale beers are always served at (bastardly) room temperature. Nevertheless, this was something that obviously stood out to me as a horrible travesty of liquid proportions.
• "Cheers" is now going to be fully incorporated into my daily vernacular.
• A line that you wait in is not a "line", it's a "queue". Having a computer engineering degree I should have recognized a long time ago that this makes far more sense if you really think about it. A "queue" is a first in, first out situation. A line is just a line. Maybe if we called it a queue in the U.S. you bamas wouldn't cut the line all the time, lol.
• An elevator is not an elevator in London, it's a "lift". This also makes sense in one way (when you're going up) but when you're going down are you supposed to call it a "drop"? That sounds like bad luck if you ask me.
• They still have pay phones! No like seriously, they have pay phones. Booths at that!

Without further adieu, here are some of the pictures from my trip, CHEERS!

Baltimore Blocks: Charm City Cupcakes

I'm not a big cupcake person but I almost forgot until today when I went to lunch with my co-workers that this spot is right around the corner from my job.

No, I can't pick up any for you, lol.

THROWBACK RAP: Roc The Mic

Still gotta bop and dance when this joint comes on.

No this dude does not have a snake wrapped around his arm, lol

In related news, apparently this guy is actually a rapper. Or, this is a pretty good joke/hoax.

HA!

Oh My Damn Hip-Hop! Face, Nas, and (raised eyebrow) DJ Khaled

FACEMOB!!!! Also, Nas's verse on this was pretty freakin' good. This is right up his lane. The track is an ill double-entendre. Oh yeah, Dwight Howard got traded to the Lakers last night too (somewhere Chris Paul is pissed).