While it’s still fresh in my mind, as the dusk begins to settle; just as I capture life's details through the lens of a camera, my voice and the written word become ever so prevalent in times like these. Where a thought is processed and exported out into the world as quickly as its existence to consciousness; where the lines between what’s real and what’s fake blur more and more every day.

One thing becomes certain, “The Culture” is here to stay, and it is a force and energetic field, amplified and expressed through Hip Hop music.

May 3-5, 2024, will be a weekend talked about in barbershops and over spades and dominoes tables for generations to come. It’s the weekend when the world became aware of what “this thing of ours” really means and represents at its core, and that’s “culture.” And that cannot be taught or bought.
It’s either in you or it’s not.

But what is “the culture”? Certainly, hip hop is a part of it, and at the forefront of it for sure. But on a deeper level, when Kendrick said, “when I say we, it’s not just me I’m what the culture feeling,” what is that “culture” he spoke of?

Hip Hop, originating in the Bronx in the 80s, brought forth a voice to a voiceless generation. The crack epidemic changed the dynamic of the Black American family and social system, and to put it quite frankly, brothers in the hood figured out how to grab Pops’ records and loop them. Just like Black folk, we’ll figure some shit out. And fifty years later, here we are.

This music grew deeper and wider roots than I think even Kool Moe Dee could imagine. Though it spread, what hip hop did to the inner cities around Black America was different than perhaps you’d say Canada. Hip Hop became the soundtrack to our lives, and myself being a ‘91 baby caught it mid-stride. What is the culture?

The culture is when I was 12 years old walking to the bus stop, listening to my CD Walkman, “Tupac's Greatest Hits,” screaming, “Now follow as we ride, Motherfuck the rest two of the best from the Westside.”

It’s remembering when Jay-Z retired, and I walked to Best Buy to grab that wack-ass Kingdom Come CD, but also remembering hearing The Blueprint for the first time on MP3. The culture is Saturday mornings waking up to hit the barbershops and push the latest Lil Wayne mixtape, then hearing the reviews the following Monday in school. Being 15 years old when Gucci Mane’s “Bricks” dropped. I take you down memory lane to say that “the culture” is engraved in us from the moment most of us had ears.

There was a foundation that was laid, and whether we like to admit it or not, there are rules to this thing of ours.

When you love something, you study it. You dig for it, and because Hip Hop continued to expand from its conception, there was always something there for the eclectic listener. Myself, it was always Pac from birth, but that led me to Mos Def, Common, Outkast, E-40; my hunger for music never stopped. I’ve always admired the lyrical aspect of being able to articulate a moment, a memory, a feeling so well that it resonated with millions of people. Saying something so powerful that you feel like the artist made the song just for you. “Aquemini” by Outkast, “Man on the Moon” by Kid Cudi, “Blessed” by Q and K. Dot—these specific tracks have all become engrained in who I am as an artist. That’s culture.

“You Are Not From Bompton”
Bompton, Balifornia
2024

The intriguing part about Hip Hop within our culture is that it is a SPORT. Who can use their words and intellect to bring you out of your own world and into theirs. It has to be potent to pierce that veil of life. The most potent bars and intricate brush strokes on the canvas of sound is who paints the better picture or worse. I’ve always felt that in hip hop, in the art of rapping itself the things that are written should mean something. Even if it’s to turn up or turn down, or whatever, they should come from a place of authenticity and sincerity. At least that’s what I look for in my hip hop albums. Lyrical content matters in hip hop. You want to be the best? Prove you can hold the people and the charts.

Prove you can lead the level of artistry into the right direction, and not conform to the chasing of trends. Prove that what you say actually matters.

Prove your the best.

We made the culture cool.