New Year, New Decade, New Outlooks
ByBlah blah blah…it’s a new year and yada yada yada. F**k all that, it a new decade. Let’s Goooooooo!
I mean, the past decade was a great learning experience…college, radio, crazy girlfriends, shortcomings, and more and more of the whole damn thing. It is resolute that many of those transgressions will not repeat themselves in the next decade because, well, I’m not havin’ it the way that I used to. It’s funny to reflect and know that I needed most of every single day to make me who I am today. Trial and error.
There was a time that I really thought that life was gonna be crazy easy without any kinds of circumstantial consequence; I was proven wrong. So enough about what happened and into what’s happening and what will happen.
I’m incredibly juiced up to leave the past in the past…situations, relationships, faux friends and so on and so forth. I’m going to go ahead and continue to do me and only me and if folks don’t like it…they can kiss my ass from here to across the street.
So on the horizon, we have some kick ass possibilities that will earmark this book of life and project the outcome of the close future. I’ve collaborated with some seriously talented folks that share a lot of the same passions. What makes the whole scheme work out is that we all have different things to bring to the table, yet, understand each other’s niches enough to respect and give our two cents as we see fit.
The funniest shit that straight kills me about the collabo is that for the first time in my life, I am the most mainstream cat in the circle by a long shot; like these clowns are so grimy, gritty, and underground with theirs that if we were compared with big name artists, they’d be Wu Tang and I’d be Nickelback…and you know how much I hate a damn Nickelback.
I am alright with being “mainstream” now without the “”. It’s taken a lot of years for me to be ok with the format and even longer to embrace it. I guess it took me being leaving the south, a place that I detested for the most part because of how extreme it is down there…Working radio was painful in many cases because of the inability to keep people informed; on every level possible. I really thought mainstream…sorry POP/TOP 40 was playing the same songs every hour and twelve minutes for 6-7 months straight. Not just regular ass pop either, the type of shit you’d hear at the dentist or a soccer mom’s favorite coffee shop. Maybe it’s because Colby Caillait, Nickelback, Rob Thomas, and Sara Barelleis doesn’t represent me. Maybe it’s because there was no energy and for the last leg a complete waste of 100,000 watts. Maybe it was because I had to sit and listen to a guy who…well I won’t blast him off like that… tell me, the only black person in media in the market, to tone it down because I sounded too “street”, which in layman’s terms meant that I sounded too black. Wrong for two reasons… 1. So the fuck what, I am black…and 2. He was probably the only person in my life that told me I sound black…funny shit though because people would actually call in and ask what race I was because evidently having the name “Dre” and proper enunciation of the English language was confusing.
All of that off of my chest, it took me driving cross country and getting back to The San Fran. Bay then getting up here to New York to get the full scope of why I hated the format…the fact was I didn’t. (Actually, in March, I heard a specific station sign on which had subliminals in their launch that prompted me to flee from the path I hath previously chosen.) At the end of the day, and if you’re a DJ reading this, really stop and ask yourself this question…especially in this “pause” era… Do I want to play a bunch of violent, angry ass hood shit to make your boys and random knuckleheads stand around the dance floor or do I want to play records that provoke a great mood where everyone is chill and has a great time? Plain and simple…it took two hood parties I DJ’d at that collectively had 34 guys and one of their little sisters show up…no bueno for a female based DJ. More than anything else, I’m a fun based DJ…no political agenda, not trying to save a withering genre, and no, I’m not last of a dying breed; nor do I want to be.
I will, in this year of 2010 make the following predictions:
- I’ll be back on radio in some capacity
- I’ll produce a string of kick as CD’s
- I’ll rock crowds of 3500+
- I will not turn over a new leaf and go in for the underground
- I probably won’t put out another boo hoo slow jam mix
- I’m going to work myself nearly to death
- I will exceed expectations
Part II of the journey has begun!