NDG has a lot to offer. It's a mostly English part of Montreal with a literal university campus located on the far end. In my humble opinion we sleep on the deeg.
This means when I see anything happening in the hood, I feel compelled to go. This is what lead to me attending the Montreal stop of Ready Rock Dee's 30 for 30 tour.
Close to home is my favourite
Bonnie and I left at 6:01 PM. Three gruelling minutes later, our endurance pushed to the limits, we arrived. On the real the weather was nice. The short walk was lovely.
One of my least favourite parts of 2:00 AM on St Laurent is trying to get home. The Ubers refuse to go to DG. The taxi is pricey and the night bus stops a 30 minute walk from home.
Call it selfish but I want to see more events happen here. I think there are a lot of people who'd be down to pull up, appreciating the location.
Thank goodness The Wheel Club (located Sherbrooke & Cavendish) is letting us throw the next NARS event there.
What is a cypher?
According to a quick Google a cypher is a gathering of rappers, etc., in a circle making music together. An improv experience is implied.
A cypher track often ends up being a song featuring many rappers. Each takes 16 bars or more to flex, skills or otherwise. These verses are then put together in the best order, creating a song.
It should be said most of the cypher tracks we see are writtens. I know there's an appearance of freestyling when you see it on Youtube, but real talk people make these as products to be sold. No one is gambling on freestyles to be good, even if sometimes they are better.
Key word is sometimes.
Often a cypher verse will be used as a way to prove you are dope. You want to imagine that the people who hear the verse have never heard you before. You're also trying to eat the dinner of everyone else on the track.
This cypher event was to record the live performance of each artist's cypher verse. Several of my peers were invited to do perform. I was excited to show love.
30 FOR 30 Montreal Cypher
We all packed into eXclusive Style, the clothing store attached to DG Kicks. More accurately we stood outside and chopped it up.
I knew about half the people in the crowd. Too many to name but there was conversation aplenty. Tyrell pulled up in a Gabi. shirt.
We inevitably moved inside and Ready Rock Dee made it clear each artist could run it back if needed. We were to show love each time. Shimeah Beyond hosted the event and proceeded to introduce each artist before their verse.
Basics kicked it off setting the bar high. Shobiz514 came through name dropping everyone as a scheme. Brooks Gettemm bossed up the vibe with her unforgiving presence. King K LV reminded us his views cut him from an elite cloth.
Widget made sure we remembered he was a legend. He called his kids to make sure they could witness greatness. Ready Rock Dee closed it out with a powerful New York take no prisoners vibe.
Forty-five mins later it was done. More politiking and I was home by 8:15 PM.
Becoming a board member
Monday phased into Tuesday. The daytime period of the week has been a mad scramble to stay on top of everything. The being unemployed thing is daunting.
While I do have a couple of hustles in play, I find myself struggling to stay motivated. I like belonging to something. I also like learning new things outside of my comfort zone.
This lead me to applying for a role on the board of directors of Notre-Dames-Des-Art (NDA). I felt I could learn a lot about how not for profits operate. They felt I could bring some knowledge to the table.
The first board meeting happened and I realized the formalities are real. We had to first and second the start of the meeting and the agenda. At first I felt a desire to mock the ceremony of it all, but I appreciate how serious it is.
Over this 2 year term I will serve an organization that has a mission to showcase NDG art. We also want to help with art mentorship programs. It really does align with my personal missions.
I can't profit personally off of anything I do with NDA. However learning about grants, and how to throw events in cooperation with other organizations, including the city, is going to help me grow into a better man.
Let's volunteer more as artists
I can only speak for myself but it seems to be that we are all missing a grassroots opportunity to grow our personal brands. This next part is going to sound selfish, maybe it is.
I wish the whole world wanted to do nice things for free. Myself, along with many others tend to be more selfish about life. My selfish impulses often lead me down paths of altruism.
NDA just threw a fundraiser at The Wheel Club that was a dance party for kids. From what I hear it was a successful event. If you need different motivations for giving time, being present around a large number of strangers, where you make their kids happy, gives you a lot of networking potential.
I'm not trying to give my time to showboat. I want to meet the community and this feels like a nice way to break the ice. If I can be branded as part of an organization that allows me to give back to people, I can learn a lot more about where I live.
I can then better understand my community and better become a voice for the people. So much of my life is spent at dive bars and other venues. I'm super curious about the regular lives of family folk.
My PRSPCTV can always grow.
Good start to the week
I confess I haven't worked out in a few days. My knee was hurting so I figured I'd give myself a rest. Otherwise this week has started out grand.
This will be the third blog in three days. The best part is I've now caught up to Wednesday so that tomorrow I can write about whatever happens at Growve tonight. I enjoyed the cypher event. Ready Rock Dee got me inspired and I'm sure we can create more events replicating his cypher.
Being a board director is pretty cool. I like the responsibility and challenge of working towards something positive in the hood.
Looking forward to what's next.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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