As for Hip Hop

"As for hip hop - it died a long time ago but has not yet been put to rest. The positive aspirations of ghetto youth 's creation has become clouded with disillusion. The disillusion is fueled by corporate dollars and influence. What we've created as something to free ourselves from the bondage of poverty has been exploited and regurgitated returning to us as a monster destroying our seeds. We need to look beyond hip hop. Allow the youth to redefine who they are. Hip hop was our music like rock n’ roll was our parents. The images projected of us is not who we are. We need to redefine ourselves and our direction. This is why I produce images such as The Osiris Project. We need an alternative. The universe is vast. We can be Heroes and Heroines as opposed to bitches and hoes, pimps and playas. Look at our children and everyone you know. There is no individuality, robots one and all. Who's running the program?" —Nomzee, April 2007

One of the truly nice things that has emerged from my foray onto Myspace has been that I have been reunited with a several old and dear friends that I have lost contact with over the years, or simply don't get to say hi to nearly as much as I'd like. Add to this list my boy Norm from back in the day.

Norm and I skated in the same pack in high school, partied in the same crew moving on into young adulthood, and came of age in the same Native Tongues-inspired positive hip hop age. The last time I saw Norm I was a sophomore at West Chester College, a state school right outside of town, and he was an aspiring artist, taking classes at the local art college back downtown. Then he went out to Cali and that was the last I heard of him. Till I joined up on Myspace. Going through the site of another old friend from the era, and there was Norm.

Crazy thing is, despite the years and lack of communication, the direction that Norm took artistically and intellectually seem to me strikingly similar to my own. Norm, or now Nomzee, creates art of the type that has been called Lowbrow Art or Pop Surrealism, which uses common pop imagery from such things as comics and advertising, and manipulates it in ways that are informed but also free form. Pop surrealism at its best strives to make sophisticated art that can be appreciated by all people, not just art connoisseurs. Specifically, Nomzee's work seems to tap into the id of black American culture, twisting the images of our subconscious in ways that are comic and playful and through distortion ultimately give us a clearer vision of ourselves than any plain mirror could muster. In literature, through satire and surreal riffs, I'm trying to do the same thing.

Even more relevant in a larger generational sense, I was fascinated to see Nomzee's above riff on hip hop. My growing estrangement from my once beloved hip hop culture has been something I have been torn and embarrassed about. Even in my most intense moments of hip hop loathing, my boys from back in the day sit on my shoulders and tell me not to succumb to the hateration conspiracy. I can't tell you how much of a relief it is to see that in reality those actual boys are evolving past the ruin that our beloved art form has become as well.