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I’m a little sad sometimes thinking about my dad passing away and how much NaS music I could have played him to prove that rap ain’t all trash. Knowing my dad tho’ he’d prA’Li still dismiss the music since it would still broach topics which he didn’t feel were progressive to Black people’s success.

My dad did NOT fux with drugs or the tacit approval that rappers give to the lifestyle of sale and consumption. That wasn’t my dad’s generation tho’. It is mine just like the Hip-Hop music which I chased thru marathon midnite cassette recording sessions and how I chased the Design markers to fill up my blackbooks and how I chased the Bally tennis shoes all thru Brooklyn until I found them on Fulton Mall is a half size too small. Like how I chased the Polo Ralph Lauren on the store racks or on other people’s backs.

Hip-Hop was always my barometer for what the good life should be. Sometimes that meant getting fresh and going to a party. Other times it meant gaining knowledge of self and going to college to gain knowledge of the world. Hip-Hop was info, style, communication, art, food, sex, everything. NaS new album reminds me that Hip-Hop can still be all of those things. And even tho’ my dad is gone beyond, and my mom isn’t always at my reach, and my debt sometimes causes me to get legal letters from the landlord, life is good.

Thank you NaS for the reminder. Life. Is. Good…