Something you’ll find pillars of a community have in common, is a sheer love for that community.
If left untethered, sometimes that love will go too far and all of a sudden you’ll find your heart full of hate. Sometimes I’m afflicted by this curse. People will ask me about the local scene and instead of bigging it up, I struggle to find the words to convince them to check it out. I don’t talk shit anymore, but I certainly have moments where I’ve made folk less interested in what we’re up to.
As artists, we’re in positions of influence and what we say and do has an impact.
Lately I reflect on how my terror campaign across bike path advocacy has played out and it made me realize I want to be more hospitable as a human.
In entertainment, people come to you for good vibes
There is definitely a sect of people who want to commiserate in misery together.
That is a saturated market. There are a lot more people out there interested in finding positive energies they can mesh with. Most people are just trying to get through the day.
When they encounter something special, they want it to be a good memory. As an entertainer, you are the something special. If you are a sourpuss, you can’t be surprised that people overlook what you do.
This comes down to posture, facial reactions and everything else.
Real professionals understand how they appear at all times and make sure they come off in an inviting fashion.
If we make it all sound like trash, why would anyone care?
As the passionate advocates for the scene we’re supposed to be, we’re the ones that need to shine love on people.
Whether it be Coolman Logan’s ability to ride beats while rhyming with grace or the way Shhvelly captures the scene through his lens. It’s our ability to shine light on each other that makes the difference. What our little local scene really needs is an abundance of people advocating for the dopeness out there.
There’s a valid argument to be made that people need to avoid promoting wack shit, and that’s fine, but there needs to be space for the dope to train the wack into future dope.
We need a real place to build our own culture as something true to ourselves.
There’s a balance between a culture built in acceptance and blindly accepting everything.
We need some objective ranking system
Once we all show love, we need some way to provide opportunity to the right people.
Or at least we need a way where the people who decide what’s lit are actual factual fans. Not the sorority clique version artists cling to. Or maybe I just want my own sorority clique. Still my bigger point is that without real deal fans hearing our shit and giving their opinions, we have no idea what’s dope. We’re just in our little corner.
If there was some standard, or way to organize it, like on some Montreal Hip Hop baseball card shit, it’d be a lot more interesting.
I’d at least love to know there are the equivalent of career paths being established.
Either way when that does come, most of us can’t be whiners about it.
Show love and your day will come.
Live Long and Prosper Everyone
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