Tag Archives: Rapper

“This Ain’t Nothin New” Official Music Video

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This song has been to date the longest project I have ever worked on. It is simultaneously one of the musical accomplishments I am most pleased with. Not only does it sound good sonically, but the message is also precisely what I want it to be. As a writer and an artist I often find myself wanting to change things when I return to a project. Like oh, that is the wrong snare, that hi-hat is just a little too high, or that line could be rapped better. However, with “This Ain’t Nothin New” none of that is occurring. Part of my deep sense of accomplishment is the feeling that my project is finally complete.

You will find “This Ain’t Nothin New” on all major streaming platforms.

Verse one of this song is about how the history of oppression has been washed away and made trivial. It calls into question the sources of our information and reassert the importance of our internal understanding of the oppression we feel.

Verse two digs into the contradictions between the supposed oppression overcome and the current counterpart. Michelle Alexander’s “The New Jim Crow” was a major influence to the formation my analysis. Jim Crow being another name for #segregation Alexander cleverly argues that serrations is very much still alive and thriving, it is merely couched under a new name with different conditions. This verse piggy backs on that understanding and expands the conversation to more than prisons. The right to abortion and bodily control seems always under threat and Arizona just repealed the Roe v Wade legislation in the State. The real argument of this verse is that not as much had changed as people often want to believe. “The more things change, the more they stay the same.”

Verse three is about the continued reactionary response to social justice and Liberation movement across generations. It’s also about how the hate groups of the past, namely the Ku Klux Klan and White Citizens Councils have their modern counterparts; i.e. the Tea Party and Proud Boys, etc… not to mention the fact that there are still kkk and Nazis out here. Fascism has not died. In fact, it seems like there is a resurgence of it on every continent. These are scary times, for certain. The nasty part about having our history rewritten to make invisible the truth of the past and to hide the factors of our present, is that they can use that foundation to manipulate our acquiescence and thus our consent to be oppressed. Thus, #KnowledgeIsPower in this sense because we will not accept anything other than reality and from that point is the point at which our struggle for Liberation begins to thrive.

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Rappers Equal Nerds

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Rappers = Nerds

 

“The Real World”

 

“Collegiate Rapper”

 

I took a hiatus from making music while I became acclimated to life at the University of Washington, but the wheels are up and I am taking off!

What I have been learning has influenced the creation of a new project titled “Rappers = Nerds.” The premise underlying the project is that anyone can achieve success, regardless of where they have come from or where they intend to go.

My hope is that I will be able to share with people, especially teenagers and young adults how success can be achieved in high school, college, universities or the professional atmosphere of careers. Furthermore, by using the prestige I have earned as an accomplished emcee and poet will help to grab and hold their attention long enough to be a positive influence in their lives and the decisions they will make.

To achieve this, I will be using Hip-Hop and Spoken Word as the initial means to transmit these messages because they are the mediums that people both enjoy listening to and learning from. This seems to be a very likely way to bridge the gap between academia and success, and those who believe that college and a professional life is not for them. In addressing the issue of being successful, several of my songs seek to shatter many of the stereotypes that face minority groups in the United States of America.

“RappersEqualNerds” is part of a campaign to change the paradigm of what Signithi Fordham and John Ogbu termed “Oppositional Identity,” whereby it is not cool, or right for minorities, especially those who are indigent or poor to be intelligent and to excel in academic or professional environments.

I am hopeful  that teachers and mentors will be able to use this material to break through the communication barriers they confront with adolescents that are difficult to reach. If and when, teachers and mentors find that words and speeches in classrooms and mentoring sessions alone are inadequate to transmit the message that success is both possible for their students and that they deserve it, then maybe a hip hop song or spoken word piece can.

The album will be featuring such artists as K.O. Nikkita, the renowned spoken word and slam artist, and host of the infamous The Seattle Slam; Ready Ron of the Impossiblez; Mark Hoy; Project RZ; Edward Lamar Hoey Jr.; Mamma Nikki of Over Mediocre, DJ Rise and many others.

All of the music created for this project will be distributed free of charge and are available for streaming live on SoundCloud and Reverbnation. I do not believe that this type of beneficial information should come at a cost to anyone.

The final component of this project is creating a curriculum of seminars and workshops  to be brought into schools and mentoring programs. For an example of the type of material that will be covered in these discussion please take a look at the background Renaissance has prepared for his song titled, “Turn the Day Into the Night,” at the following link:

I encourage any and all teachers, mentors and even parents to draw from this material when you are finding it difficult to reach and inspire an individual or group you are working with. You are welcome to use any materials that I have posted, which includes the essays or photographs, if the intention is to benefit those you are working with and the is not a profit associated with its use. You may even send me a request on my Facebook Page to come and speak to the people you are working with.

Collegiate Rapper ((Rappers = Nerds))

https://soundcloud.com/renaissance-the-poet/collegiate-rapper

New track from the “Rappers = Nerds” project, ‘Collegiate Rapper’ byRenaissance The Poet a student at the University of Washington and prior co-creator and co-host of The Cornerstone Open Mic & Artist Showcase.

This project is about building the community, and empowering ourselves through education and this song is about the struggle a young minority faces while dealing with the system of higher education.

Project Info:

https://renaissancethepoet.wordpress.com/music-and-poetry/
For some background on the song check out:

https://renaissancethepoet.wordpress.com/2013/12/22/reflections-of-my-first-quarter-at-the-university-of-washington/

Song Lyrics

 Verse #1

Started on this track, way back, but never thought I’d make it

Pain is over-rated, fated, to be illustrated

So to demonstrate it, the facts originated,

Inside the heart of a mind, addicted to rhyme, that’ll never be faded

See, seein ain’t believing, but reason the season needed

Feed it, like a stomach and read it until defeated

Would ya believe it, I succeeded?

 Beat it, and now it’s more that I’m needin?

Feanin for readin like treasures or women, shit, I’m a heathen!  I’m breathin

Dreamin, while feadin off demons

gleamin  the realist of feelins

As They, surface to meanings,

I mean I’m seein the end

as I be turnin the bend

Of desire, fires of love

burn inside of this man

 Passion’s more than enough, to accomplish my plan

My Intellect sure helps, as I seek to expand

the limits, and the boarders, of all that I am

As a Rapper and a Poet with a Bachelor’s in Hand

Verse #2

Who’d have thought, who not, that I would go to college

Go to get that knowledge, polished, rivalin scholars

Spendin all them dollars, to rise up out the garbage

The steep end of the heap, deep, leaping from the trenches of Martyrs

Me, never thought I’d see it, sobeit that I’m not dreamin

See it, I’m in these classes, & I, still hardly believe it

But must concede it, In to the Realist

Chapter of my life, and into the illist, challenges, so fearless,

But Humility the dearest

Because, when it comes to the task,

alone is a mask, that’s worn in a dash,

the rash are reluctant to ask, for help in a smash

but how are they goona pass their classes

When they’re movin so fast, they can’t, hold onto their asses

the masses drownin , assignments are mountain

& he with the skill surpasses

Expectations, foresight insufficient to displace this

Boils down to relations, and who we orbit in these space ships

Cause this is a foreign land, for a man, who should be in prison

Not at the UW, doing the best that he can, to earn degrees,

Can you feel this?

 Verse #3

I walked into school, cool, with one goal to find

Earn a Law Degree, complete, with an opened mind

Shatter the glass ceiling, pealing, the feelings denied

Breaking the cycle, inventing the Michael, and vetting out all of the lies

Free, or so I thought, the plot, coined me enemy

I’m black, and I rap, that there, the center piece

Of their argument, I must be ignorant, try’n to be

& try’n to see, more than was destined to me, more than being a thug in the streets

But why, supply the American Dream

If the plan was to hold it from me

But they don’t understand that I walk with a team

Composed of friends and family

Who will never see me fail

cuz  I fight for them like they fight for me

and together, we trudge this hell

So, no I won’t be giving up

Renaissance ain’t had enough

Graduating Valedictorian, just the beginning of

My struggle to become a lawyer

at the UW

A dream once impossible

A crude bluff

Chorus:

Dreams, are how it all begins

Dreams, are what define the ends

Dreams, are not just latent plans

Dreams, are what define the man