“Your career will be shorter than the 21st of December
Be one of those thousand rappers no one remembers…
Yo, stop and listen, and check this proposition
Son, got lots of vision, plus lots of wisdom
Hindsight, foresight, insight, out of sight
Some try to imitate, but they are not alike”
RZA – “NYC Crack”
There is a rare writer of music that is not a failed musician but quite the scribe. They are lovers of the music and seek to honor the artist as their heart has been warmed by memorable melodies, fired by liberating lyricism, soothed by reverberating rhythms and inspired by the aurally unknown unraveled in song. These wordsmiths champion the works they admire, align with the greatest of ideas expressed and expound on them. They pinpoint the discrepancies of the dastardly not just to expose the trifling but reveal the lost possibilities pressed on the wax. This great writer is a man of extra ordinary letters on all the sciences of life offered for humanity’s enlightened pondering.
I’ve sought to honor this great ideal for over fifteen years and ain’t no rapper ever gonna try to fisticuff me without repercussions. But the defense wasn’t blows of ink bleeding a career away; rather, it was the deliverance of sincerity for anyone holding a mic, punching a drum machine, fiddling with needles or excavating dusty crates. In this, the world of the Arts, where illusions of like and dislike are a science we study with equanimity.
Still, when a writer learns something so profound it affects every word he utters the preserving of the exact script is most important. Things like the knowledge of self will do it every time. And so I remember that the countless rap editors were talented at the composition of their own interpretation yet not so caring of my cataloging my presented inspiration.
A newborn in 99, I had only been studying the 120 lessons for 3 months when I was given the opportunity to make close to a green g interviewing the Beatnuts. A proud G I was and over my Gang Starr Moment of Truth LP t-shirt, I wore my Universal Flag I bought at my first Show and Prove a month ago from Najee. Just as I gave Najee that look of confidence to override his questioning the power of my resolve to represent such distinct truth, I strolled into the Relativity Records offices with the said facade.
It is the respect of the trade that I describe the next happenings with few words. That I only note that if you do not properly do right by the Beatnuts in their business ventures, promoting their works as a good A&R plus assorted teams, marketing, promoting, street, etc. would do, there are consequences. “Beat” and “nuts” may be in the description of that aftermath. Yet my story isn’t the drama, it’s the details of the music and its making. That once I offered Juju my tape recorder, showed him how to work it and asked him to press record when he was ready, there was an understanding that I wasn’t there for the smut of stress in the press sheet.
An artist is embraced for relating to the peoples’ whimsy but they are often bound by the cliché of their own construction. Being thugged out, pussy fiendin’ MCs with exceptional beats their Dead Prez collab left the record staff dumbly stiff. But I saw more and we spoke on everything from Pun recording vocals for "What'cha Gon' Do?" laying on his back, touring with Eminem and their being offered lines of coke by a cab driver. And of course, the knowledge of self. What was eventually published was this part of the conversation:
“You Godbody? ‘Cause I see you with the Universal Flag,” Juju asked
“Yeah,” I confirmed.
“What’s your attribute?”
“Sunez Born Allah.”
“Sunez? That’s deep. How’s that go?”
“I manifest it as the Savior of the Universe Now teaches the Equality of Knowledge, Wisdom and Understanding Born Allah.”
“I had mad problems, ‘cause the Gods is not trying to hear me being God [cause I’m Latino],” Juju confessed to me.
“No, that’s an emphatic now cipher. We’re all original people. Those are false Gods you dealin’ with. The universal flag I’m wearing has a sun with eight points, with each point having a black and gold side. That adds up to the 16 shades of the original man that we exist in today. From the so-called African American to every Latino to each Asian, Japanese or Chinese…”
[from the December 1999 issue of XXL]
XXL 12.99 Beatnuts feature (the said page)
Juju eventually asked more questions for clarification. Like what the hell is Popa Wu talking bout on Ironman and what I thought of the book he just bought on the way there, Sun Tzu’s The Art of War. I answered as best as I could, recognizing that the artist often fights the clichés imposed on them and those self afflicted. That the insights gained may affect their work so much they may no longer be able to associate with the partners they once worked with. I ended that day presenting the idea that the knowledge of self applies to this great Dominican MC/beatmaker. If I was to ever share more, it would be for him to seek me out (via my phone number shared) or pay the Allah School in Mecca a visit.
It is often asked how we are to share our knowledge and understanding in the many commercial forums. Most of us declare how we would do it right, how’d we’d bob and weave the Tyson blows of interviewers, give lightning speed Jet Li’d black tiger punches of wisdom in those short 5 seconds of radio airtime to explain there ain’t no mystery God or how they’d have all the hoes and still never disrespect the Black Queen somehow?!
But who has done it? Taken the mic in his hand, funneled the anger in his heart expressing the great question and the answer, the DJ and the dancer. Who has forced the acknowledgment of familial brotherhood in song, made careers for every sibling, wisdomed the ideas of the sages while relaying the misunderstanding of the 85 and the understanding of the 5%, offering all its possibilities without pretentiousness or didacticism? From the mic to the track, the movie score to the manual, the savage alter-ego to the lessons-learned auto bio, we respect the 5% for the presentation of the greater thought, an enlightened Way within reach. There are mistakes in it all but all mistakes become lessons for that special listener. Yet, too many waste time flinging darts and daggers, slangin slander and slur at the teacher. Someone sharing truth to all the human families as they best gauge they’d understand it at that moment.
You say you’d do better? I can hardly believe that unless you were blind to small spots in the yellow garments of others, deaf to the shrill of a bad eq on "peace" and dumb to the flaws of sincere men sharing greatly.
It is that
Jordan became after Dr. J.
Ip Man was Bruce Lee’s Sifu (teacher).
and
RZA and his Wu living legacy are many a nigga’s father.
Respect the Tao, the path of the Sages.
Peace, Sunez Allah
“Your mind is closed up, son, you need to open up
Become free, feel the unity,
Hip hop brought across the seven seas, they dropped it on you and me
Out like Mandela, cut a hole from the twenty five
You in the dark, you need to step to the sunny side
It's about time you caught a sketch of these outlines
You should worry about yours, I worry about mine”
RZA– “Outlines”
