Jay-Z

:-)

Happy New Year, everybody! I hope whatever you guys were doing was awesome or whatever. I had a very peaceful January 1, thanks for asking. I even made some resolutions, which I typically don’t do. More specifically, I made three particular yearly declarations that I plan to abide by for, at minimum, the next twelve months. Resolution One: People are dumb. Is that technically a resolution? I guess it’s more fact than anything. But, again, people are dumb. I even made a hashtag: #YallDumb. Because y’all dumb. But I digress. Resolution Two: I’m going to stop mentioning how dumb people are. Even if I DID just create a hashtag called #YallDumb. No more calling people dumb. Even if it’s true. Resolution Three: I vow to only speak to you guys in a positive tone. No more calling people dumb and rationalizing it with ‘but I just created a hashtag!’ So let’s talk about some stuff…

Who is more awesome than Oprah Winfrey? She’s a total class act and a role model to young white women around the globe. There are so many reasons I admire her. Golly, where to start? I think I would have to say her newfound respect for Jay-Z is quite appealing to someone like me. It gives me something to strive for, actually. How cool is it to have someone admonish your profession and culture, gain their respect by making an insane amount of money in the process, and have that same person wrap their arms around you and gently whisper ‘love the sinner, hate the sin’ in your ear years later? Oprah is downright decent. It only took hundreds of millions of dollars to redefine the lines of what’s unacceptable. Maybe if the ‘leaderless’ youth in Ferguson she so rightly criticized (constructively, of course. Oprah don’t be hatin’) or these underserved inner city children she so rightly lumped into a colored ball of wanton sneaker fiends could just stop making excuses and earn $520 million, then Goddess Winfrey shall bless you with her approval. And what on Earth is more coveted than Oprah’s consent to be a citizen deserving of respect?

People are entitled to their opinions, even when they are blatantly wrong and grossly off base. Please let me guide you to the right side of the argument since we are all about uplifting each other in 2015. The women (or “victims”, as some people have come to calling them) accusing Bill Cosby and the people bringing light to sexual assault aren’t terrible people, they’re just a tad misguided. They just don’t understand the issue doesn’t lie in the seriousness of the allegations levied against Cliff Huxtable; it lies in the attempted assassination of Black America’s TV dad. What is rape when THEY’RE TRYING TO BRING DOWN OUR FATHER BILL?!? Plus, Jill Scott said as much and the Founder of the Shea Butter Mafia always knows the score. Even Claire Huxtable said this is all a conspiracy. They’re trying to discredit him and, by pulling reruns of The Cosby Show off the air, are doing just that in the most systemic way possible. Now, if PHYLICIA RASHAD is saying this, then it has to be true. Why would she care about losing any residuals from her show being pulled? She was in a 2007 episode of Everybody Hates Chris; money is no object. Stop letting The Man (or woman. or women. Many women of differing races and nothing to really gain as a whole so many years after the fact) jade your opinion of Our Father, Bill Cosby.

Every generation, Black people get a leader that speaks for us and represents us in a way we all universally agree with. For the post-M.L.K. generation, that person has GOT to be Lupe Fiasco. Mr. Fiasco (née Wasalu Muhammed Jaco), for those that don’t really give a shit, is an outspoken rap artist. Here’s why you should care, though: his music consists largely of telling Black America that we are living our lives completely wrong. As accurate as this is, the true genius lies in Mr. Fiasco’s unwillingness to give us logical ways to remedy the problems plaguing our societies. This speaks to true leadership:

“Let’s point out what’s wrong and say it’s wrong! Providing alternatives isn’t what we need concern ourselves with!”

How can you not march with this man?? Furthermore, true leaders abide by one simple idiom: do as I say and not as I do. I don’t know about you, but I would hate to follow any man that actually LIVED the words he spoke. For example, Mr. Fiasco rails against the drug game that has dogged Our communities for years. However, Chilly, the co-founder of Fiasco’s music imprint, 1^st & 15^th Records, was indicted and sent to jail for the very same thing Lupe tells us to eschew. The fact that label- and his very stardom- can be directly attributed to heinous activity that also very well has contributed to even MORE violence in Mr. Fiasco’s hometown of Chicago, Illinois is merely secondary. How can people say he’s “hypocritical”, “disingenuous”, and “sanctimonious”? The man has a right to tell us how to live while shielding his own life at his convenience.

It’s a simple thing, really. Content of character does not lie in one’s actions. Clearly, it is their words that truly show us who they are. To many young Black boys and girls, Oprah Winfrey is that little poor girl from Tennessee by way of Wisconsin by way of Kosciusko, Mississippi that made something of herself. I doubt she even remembers that, and why should she? Becoming a billionaire isn’t about who you were; it’s about appealing to those that can make you more. What’s so elitist about that? Cosby taught generations of boys and girls to support his business interests. Him APPEARING to be a good person is way more lucrative than him actually BEING one. What’s so evil about that? Lupe Fiasco is a pseudo anti-establishment puppet with real outrage at the people he “represents” while maintaining faux-indignation at those that force him to acquiesce to their caricature sketches of Us. But why is that so fake? Seriously people, let’s applaud these titans of Black Excellence! And lastly, don’t forget to smile. All the best to you guys in 2015. For this and all other blessings, I pray to Our Father, Bill Fucking Cosby.

A.J. Armstrong truly believes in Our Father, Bill Cosby. At the risk of jeopardizing his resolution a mere 9 days in, all of these totally logical arguments that don’t stray from the fundamental issue of right and wrong are absolutely ridiculous. But he is also the Creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities. ❤ you, Oprah

My Last Post About Women Ever, Part III: Faded Pictures and Old Playlists

Is it weird I still think about them? What about the fact they routinely pop up in my head in the form of wistful nostalgia? How about the fact I still have pictures of them in my phone, even though some of them were two or three cells ago? Would you judge me if I told you I still pull up those pictures from time to time? Or that I stare at them longingly, wishing I could somehow relive some of the moments that continue to play on in my dreams? And the damn songs. Those songs all of them ruined because they send those complex emotions rushing back to me and make me relive the memories so often. Sometimes I sift through those pictures and replay those songs in my mind silently, some more somber than others…

“As she turned through the pages, a tear rolled down her face/I could see her reminiscing…why her life had to be this way…”

I was in love with her at 12. By then, she lived 688 miles away in a city I had just left but loved just as much. I grew up with her and fell for her temper. We fought so damn fiercely, I knew that passion would eventually be channeled into something mature and timeless. I just KNEW it would. The song doesn’t really speak to what I felt and what I wanted her to feel; she just used to sing it off-key on the couch when I visited her. That picture of her smiling at me while an Ebony Magazine sits open in her lap always conjures up the love I have for the summer of ‘99…

This one loved the song “Like You” by Bow Wow and Ciara. I sit and look at my phone, amazed that somebody so pretty then could become more beautiful years after that youthfully ignorant pose that smiles back at me. I remember that song because it blared from her phone and I knew that someone she was more interested in was calling. The bridge is a run-on sentence that ended with what my heart screamed silently at her: IAin’tNeverHadNobodyShowMeAllTheThingsThatYouDoneShowedMeAndTheSpecialWayIFeelWhenYouHoldMeWeGon’AlwaysBeTogetherBabyThat’sWhatYouToldMe- and I believe it- cuz I ain’t never had nobody do me like you….

I still hate the man on the other end of those calls, even though I never formally met him. The fact my feelings were embodied in a song reserved for another dude pissed me off. Despite it (or because of it), that drove me harder to live out those lyrics during our aimless drives in my Ford Explorer…

Love can be either a continuous melody or a painful bookend, which is why Ms. “Like You” will forever be remembered by a Ghostface Killah song, too. Not even a song, actually; the instrumental to said song…I had some SHIT to say. Is love really being up late writing angry lyrics over a Ghostface track? If you’re angry enough…it makes sense to you, trust me. The “Back Like That” beat played in some shitty iPod headphones while I scribbled a message I desperately wanted to shout in her face…

Jay-Z’s “Dear Summer” made me a stalker. The copied-and-pasted Facebook pictures of her posing in her dorm room made me weird to the people that didn’t understand what love really is. If they knew, then they had to know why I wanted to stalk her. With that song playing over and over from an iPhone 3 perched in the bushes situated below her kitchen window. She would never notice my actual presence…but she would absolutely feel a certain discomfort at the amount of weird things happening around her. Simple things like me gluing the hair in her combs to her bathroom mirror in vague messages. Or weird, square-shaped patches missing from her beige pillow covers. Or her Twitter account being followed by @ImUp_IAmAlwaysUP_AndWatching_You. Thank God that’s not a long song, my Dear [Redacted]…

The next image is hard to look at; it’s harder to describe the impact such a passing moment continues to have. She stood in front of a fountain- one I walked by daily to a building that had professors that changed my life and women that made life hard and a department that dared me to be great- and held me like she was in love with it all without her really knowing so. My Little One. The single mother that was both thirsty for knowledge and unaware of her immaturity. When somebody so young is the anchor of her entire family, her saying her ringtone for you is “No Better Love” is special. I couldn’t even come up with a decent quip for it; it’s awesome, period. I hear that song and just imagine she still smiles whenever it gets played. It’s my only bridge to a past that easily could have been my forever. Maybe it’s my ego whispering to me that I will always matter within those three or four minutes. Maybe I just like the damn song and misremember how special it really was to her. Whatever. I don’t miss her. Nope. I’m not trying to convince myself at all…

Man, she stole MY song and made it OURS. That motherfucker. That humble, pretty, stacked motherfucker. I played a song I loved and she loved the song and now we love the song. “Time of Your Life” went from being something that elevated my mood and made me smile at the ridiculous nature of day-to-day life to becoming a burgeoning couples’ mood music. Her pictures are explicit so I won’t describe them (but I damn sure will keep on looking) but what the hell…?

This last picture is always hard because I never know how to feel. She deserved better from both him and I. I never knew what she was telling him when she laid in his apartment and I’m sure he never knew about our conversations. The only picture is one I snuck while she was looking at the video to our song, too drunk to even notice the flash. Did she play our song for him? Did she introduce him to the music video with her head so perfectly nestled under his chin like she did with me on my couch? She was never mine; she was either under me or him and the influence. I wonder what that kind of tugging did to her psyche, but I never asked. I just kind of waited for her to blurt it out in her weaker moments…

“8 doobies to the face…fuck dat/12 bottles in a case…nigga, fuck dat/2 pills and a half-weight…nigga, fuck dat/Got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist…”

My Beautiful Mistake makes those words seem so surreal. Who gives a shit about growing old when living in the now is so much more pleasurable? She had no concern to even know she would forever be suspended in that nonchalant pose. I wonder so many things when I stare at it. It feels ominous and dark; it’s also telling and intimate…

“Got a high tolerance when your age don’t exist…”

Timeless photos…

A.J. Armstrong listens to a lot of Drake late at night and tends to reminisce hard; this post was supposed to come out two days earlier. He is also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities

Asshole

“Why do you suck so much at this game?”

“Because…fuck you. That’s why.”

Dictionary.com defines asshole as ‘a stupid, mean, or contemptible person’. I’m surprised somebody actually defined that word. I don’t think that really accurately defines it, though. An asshole, to me, is somebody that does things out of spite and is intelligent enough to make those spiteful things clever. An asshole won’t send a Father’s Day card to a couple that had an abortion; an asshole would buy the card, rip it in half, write ‘Almost…whew’ under the printed text, and hand deliver it to them during a quiet Sunday dinner. Well, that might be a little mean but it DAMN sure isn’t stupid.

Ignore my last post; that was me being an asshole. This is me trying to explain the inner workings of asshole-ness to you all. This is me separating the assholes from the immature audience that will just shout (or type) profanities for no other reason besides immaturity. Fuck that shit. Fuck it to hell. Fuckitty fuck-fuck, B. I’m an asshole; not an immature shit-talker that talks shit because shit is a really cool word to say over and over. I mean…SHIT.

Asshole is a term too widely used, as far as I’m concerned. That racist cop stopping young Black males in Vance County for no reason other than being Black isn’t an asshole; he’s a racist cop that loathes his life. His wife has been breaking scales for the last 12 years and his son dressed up as his favorite rapper for Halloween. Of course he’s going to be all in my shit. That’s not an asshole. That’s a guy frustrated that his shift prevents him from going to the VIP room for happy endings at Christie’s Cabaret.

Let’s talk REGULAR assholes. Regular assholes shut down the government over healthcare. Regular assholes become Business majors and explain to you how difficult being a Business major is. Regular assholes say they’re flirts but get mad when somebody takes those flirts seriously. Regular assholes are Red Sox and Yankees fans.

Now, let’s talk REAL assholes. Real assholes snatch bags from kids with crutches on Halloween. Real assholes go to war without any approval from the United Nations and forces a nation to sigh and vote for a Black man to take his position. A real asshole Rick rolls me while I’m looking up racist George Bush moments. Real assholes are evil geniuses. Real assholes killed Mufasa and blamed the dark skinned lion. Bill O’Reilly is a real asshole; that man is smart enough to evoke rage in Black men and, in turn, bolsters his ratings. You genius, you.

Am I REALLY an asshole? I’d like to think so but I don’t think I am. I’m just a guy that saw the deep end and drowned a baby gerbil in it. I’ll row by in my canoe and poke fun at your cruise ship, yes, but that’s not really an ass move. That’s just a guy that has just given up on the world and does what the MOTHERFUCK he feels like doing. This is a guy that went to Boston and counted all the Black people he saw (17) and kept a mental note just in case he wants to hold a rally in a hotel ballroom promoting the expansion of Mrs. Winner’s to The Hub. Yeah…no, I’m not quite the asshole you think I am but, Lord willing, I will be.

A.J. Armstrong is not a complete asshole; he only plays one on blogs. He is also the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities.

The Dissolution of Jay-Z

Thank God Nasir never made hundreds of millions of dollars. I’m happy Marshall still cares. I’m talking, of course, about Eminem and Nas. They are arguably two of the most influential and recognizable rap artists ever. Along with Jay-Z, these three represent an era of rap music that I really didn’t think was possible when I was younger: aging rappers still every bit as viable as their younger counterparts. They are all over 40 and selling just as well- if not better- than any other current rapper. Nas’ 2012 release, Life is Good, earned him another Grammy nod. Eminem is releasing The Marshall Mathers LP 2 on November 5. Both of these artists are still rapping at incredibly high levels. Why then, can’t the same be said for Jay-Z?

I might as well preface everything by stating firmly I have never been- nor will I ever be- a huge fan of Jay-Z. I have his entire catalog but I don’t CHERISH most of it. For every classic (Reasonable Doubt), there’s a total clunker (Vol. 3…The Life and Times of S. Carter, anybody?). With that being said, I’d be a delusional hater if I didn’t acknowledge that the great musical moments far outweigh the less stellar. The dude has been around this long for a reason. After listening to his latest release, Magna Carta…Holy Grail, I’m not so sure that’s a good thing.

I’ll keep my review of Magna Carta… brief: I hate it. I hate his super simplistic lyrics. I hate his endless references to his opulent lifestyle. I hate that 16 STELLAR instrumentals were wasted on this effort. However, what I hate the most is his willingness to bow and conform his flow to what’s “hot” today. It wouldn’t be as offensive if Mr. Carter hadn’t been so insistent about being the leading trendsetter in Hip-Hop. Clearly that isn’t the case anymore if he’s out here rapping like Young (insert name) from the South.

Magna Carta…, to me, confirms what I had suspected for a few years now. Jay-Z doesn’t care anymore. And why would or should he? The man is worth millions upon millions of dollars. Jay has been known to phone in whole albums at times (Vol. 2: Hard Knock Life was a literal sleepwalk for him), but this feels different. What I heard the three times I ran the album (because I just couldn’t take it after a certain point) was a man just done with trying to make art. Tom Ford reference here, Givenchy name-drop there…we get it, dude. You have a lot of money. And I also get that this has been Jay’s thing since day one but the difference here is that there’s no creativity to it. “Imaginary Player” was dipped in sumptuousness too; he just made it sound so INTERESTING.

So has Jay-Z fallen off lyrically? Yes, but only because of his lack of interest. If Shawn Carter wanted to craft another Blueprint-like masterpiece, Shawn Carter could craft another Blueprint-like masterpiece. But why would a man that has everything care to put forth that kind of effort? What kind of fool still actually CARES about making good music at this point? The people are going to buy it, regardless. How dare he make an effort to make the purchase worth it, right? I even have a name for it: The Kevin Hart Syndrome. You made the people listen to you and now that you have their ear, fuck what you babble into it.

I don’t hate Jay-Z. I just want him to quit and never rap again, that’s all. Yeah, it’s stupid that I still care about the art at this point, what with 2 Chainz and Future…doing whatever it is they call themselves doing, but I do. Jay-Z is rap’s Michael Jordan (and not in the sense that he was the greatest ever, so you Jay Stans stop. Just stop); we admired his dominance for so long that we have effectively convinced ourselves that his stint with the Washington Wizards HAD to be a success as well. It wasn’t. I live in D.C. Trust me, it wasn’t at all.

Shawn, your mark on the culture is indelible. You had fans from Delaware to Idaho wearing Yankee caps, unaware of how much I hate them (because it’s clearly about me at this point). You were why I wore a button-up on my first date in college. You’re why Rick Ross has completely ran with this whole Maybach theme. That’s kind of hyperbolic…Rick Ross clearly hasn’t run with anything EVER. You get my point, though. We owe you for keeping the culture going. Let us buy you a cake and a gold watch and exchange your microphone for a brochure for some beautiful Miami condos. Now if you’ll excuse me, I think Marshall has something to say. Ok…bye.

A.J. Armstrong is the rap fanatic debating your top ten at your houseparty and the creator of The Fly Hobo and His World of Oddities