Str8HipHip

*For some reason, Str8 Hip Hop is messing up every time I try to upload the song I'm describing; go to MySpace.com/starpowerhouse to hear it*

In the wake of the tragic Sean Bell verdict, I feel like sharing what such tragedy inspires me to create as an artist. I created “Laissez-Faire (Hands Off)” over the span of a week in the Spring of 2007. While participating in an intense weekly Police Awareness workshop series, our facilitator gave each member the task of creating some sort of propaganda to support the fight against police officers violating our civil rights. Some folks wrote poems, some made flyers, others created posters and comics. I’d always planned to write a strong song stating my views on the NYPD, but I’d never gotten around to it, so this was the perfect spark. One week was more than enough time for me – as long as I could generate a funky-enough chorus, and find the right musical inspiration. With those tools in place, I knew it would only take me a day, at most, to make the song, and an hour or two to record it. As the days passed, I found myself full of inspiration, mainly the militant, but insanely funky, classics of Public Enemy’s heyday. I wanted to write something that would incite a physical response as well as a mental one. Having already picked a beat I made a month earlier, I just needed a hook. With only 3 days before the project’s due date, I toyed with different sing-songy hooks that would stay in one’s head long after the song finished. Sophisticated simplicity was my aim. With only a couple of days left until I had to present my project, I started to sweat. Then it hit me like divine inspiration – “The Three Little Pigs!” Why hadn’t anyone made an anti-police song out of the most famous lines in the story? It seemed so obvious (probably too obvious; considering the seemingly millions of rappers out there, I’m sure someone has had the same stroke of genius). And though Nas said it best, that “No Idea’s Original,” I still felt like I had happened upon something that would capture my listeners’ ears in a new, interesting way.

Peace, I’m hoping to catch a tasteful ear with a (free) hip-hop creation, called The Petting Zoo by New York underground sensation StarPower, that I'm sure you'll get a kick out of listening to, which sounds different from most every rap project that came before it.

(free link to "The Petting Zoo" contains cover and all tracks-

http://www.zshare.net/download/755142891f6b3e)

Though many music heads know about British producer Bullion's
excellent Beach Boys/J. Dilla instrumental mash-up ( Pet Sounds: Songs
In The Key Of Dee ), I am pretty sure that StarPower’s the first (and only)

So who is this guy Starpower from “The Dugout” that will be selecting conscious rap artists for “The Showdown” music competition on Urbnews?

I am here to tell you:

“If you are what you say you are/ Then have no fear, the camera’s here/ And the microphones, and they wanna’ know…” - “Superstar” (Lupe Fiasco) This pretty much sums up my stance on conscious rappers. Who are “they?” Me, you, us. And what do “they” wanna know? They wanna know if you are what you say you are.

Convince me that you have knowledge of what you rap about, that you believe in it, and that you’re qualified to speak on it. That makes a conscious rapper. Not songs about freeing political prisoners, the rights of indigenous people, or the plight of the black family. Sure, those are prime subjects for some conscious rap; but then again, so is drug dealing, pimping, and violence. A conscious rapper is, first and foremost, aware of the things that define his/her own existence, and his/her ability to make you want to hear whatever the hell he or she is rapping about. If I can barely stay awake while you rap about our broken education system and the Iraq War, then guess what? You aint conscious! Because you aren’t conscious of the fact that you made a song that bores me to tears. Conversely, if you say that you “climax from paper, then ask why is life worth living” (as Nas said on “Succeess,”) you are most definitely a conscious rapper. And not just because of your introspective query on the value of life. More so because you said that you “climax from paper.” Because thought is the basis of consciousness, the ability to provoke thought is the hallmark of conscious rap, and that line made me think, “damn, this nigga really love him some money!” He’s so conscious of his love of the dollar, he bypassed all of the tired proclamations of financial prosperity that come from so many of today’s rappers (”I get money,” “my paper longer than {something really long}”), and came up with an infinitely more intriguing way to relate his passion. That’s consciousness.

You know that "I write-in-my-head, I-don't-even-use-a-pen-and-paper" shit that Jay and B.I.G. have made every overachieving rapper feel like legends in the making for being able to do? That sh-t is a cool li'l skill, I'll admit. For some, it's a rap survival technique; you may have very little access to paper, writing utensils, and privacy. But seriously, SERIOUSLY son- that sh-t is not that fresh. And I'm not hatin'. 'Cause just like giving chicks orgasms, I know how to do it, but for the most part, I only feel the urge to when I'm trying to prove a point. First of all, it's really not that dope, and it's not that difficult either. Let me list some things I've done that were at least as dope and difficult as that.

Good Things I Did (Or Am Gonna Do) Today
Current mood: StarPowerful

Woke up.

Washed.

Maybe convinced a teenage girl not to run away.

Continued to have patience for humanity, as hard as it is sometimes.

Attend "Cav's Speakeasy."

Hollered @ someone I haven't seen since '93!

Wrote this blog.

Prayed.

Told a teenage boy that I'm proof that no matter how bad you fuck up as a youth, you can straighten things out as an adult.

Prayed some more.

Listened to another up-and-coming artist's music.

Accepted a lot of money for something very important (harder than you think).

Damn, remember when I used to talk about how my album was coming out every month, and it never did, and finally it did, and I wrote a series of weird press releases and told you where you can buy it, and gave you the story behind different songs in the bulletins, and showed y'all my (I gotta admit) DOPE-ass album cover, and...and...remember that?

Well, my debut ("Problem Of The Day") dropped on 9/11. Yup, same day as Kanye and 50. 'Ye sold about 960,000, Fif about 690,000 first week. StarPower maybe 3. And I felt like I sold 3 mil. 6 months later, I have a brand new perspective on music. Not brand new; evolved, maybe? Then again, evolved sounds so...so...condescending. Let's not label it, can we rock with that? Cool.

Are You Rappin’? Or Re-enactin’?
Current mood: Starry Nights
Category: Starry Nights Music

"Everybody, fall back/
Y'all rapping, I'm reenacting/
CNN, you see it's accurate/
ESPN, see me in action/
Monday night's, when the half ends/
When you 10 years in, holla back then/"

Spoken (or rapped, I guess) like the true veteran/legend he (Hov) is. But then again I wonder, does this make sense? His adversaries are rapping and he's reenacting. Is that a good thing? I don't know. I guess he's saying he's like CNN, b/c he's real, and like ESPN b/c he's real entertainment. Others are just rappers; he's news, entertainment, the whole show. Still, I can't get past the whole "reenacting" thing. The Hov of today, some might say, is "reenacting" what the Hov of yesterday used to actually be - a rapper who was the "mouthpiece for hustlers/ventriloquist for jugglers..." Is today's Hov a little too much politician? Is he, and other rappers of today, just "stylin' on us?" Foolin' us into thinking they're still intriguing, when low record sales and lack of new, real rap stars (I agree with the popular industry theory that rap is starving for a new star - I mean superstar, and I mean this from a mainstream standpoint, but that's another blog for another day) are providing evidence to the contrary? Something to think about. But this aint about Hov, really. Two people inspired this blog. One is someone who's career, ironically, Hov seriously injured in one of his (some would say) last acts of actually being a "rapper" instead of a "reenacter."

Fake never bothered me much. Fake literally powers our world. Professionally fake people (actors, musicians, etc.) entertain us; fake body parts arouse us; fake food (30% juice, veggie substitutes, etc.) nourishes us; fake designs on buildings (faux classical architecture and wallpaper patterns); fake clothing (an oxymoron - if you're wearing it, it's real, no?); fake love (lust, infatuation, idol worship); faked interest in what attractive people say a lot of the time; just a whole lot of fakeness. But if you think about it, take away all of the fake things around us, and we'd be left with very little. So like I said, fake never bothered me much. Until now.

Yo, I didn't tell y'all that I'm at a new job, did I? Yeah, so, remember, I've been accepted into the New York Teaching Fellows; but that doesn't start until June. In the meantime, my schedule at CCA was killin' me. When you're an artist, that 11-7 sh-t ain't hittin', feel me? So my homey put me on to a job in East NY, hours 8-4. Still workin' w/the youth who need it most; I'm the site supervisor for an attendance improvement program in a high school. I'm feelin' it, although it ain't get rollin' yet. What I'm feelin' is the hours. So yeah, that's what's goin' on.

I was in City Island, partyin' w/the wife's white friends on New Years. Now she has just as many white friends as I do. So, obviously, the Powers (Mr. and Mrs. Power) are not racist, right?...How can Steve Nash be better than J.Kidd or A.I. when both of them went to the Finals with worse teams that Nash, and both are still maaaad good?...

So, couple weeks back at the International African Arts Festival in Brooklyn; lots of locked hair, shea butter, African art, and peformances promoting unity, peace, progress, and the essence of hip-hop.

Then here came "That Guy," spewing out lines such as:

"my life is a lie/ I only said hi 'cause my wife is bi..." and

"not the kinda nigga to do black on black crime/ but black on white crime?, right, I'm that kind (just kiddin')..."

and let's not forget...

"I done pissed where you ain't pissed, fucked where you ain't fucked/ I do by will what you achieve by straight luck..."