Scorpeze explains it all…

Saturday June 27th, 2009

It has taken me this long to get my thoughts together.

I’m not trying to make this some definitive tribute statement, either…I’m just speaking from my soul…

Another Black man is gone before he could grow old…that in itself is a tragedy…but what makes it significant is that that Black man is the greatest entertainer ever…

Yes, I said it.

Michael Jackson is the greatest entertainer ever.

I definitely do not wish to shortchange James Brown. James Brown is the blueprint of modern Black music. Michael knew this and studied JB’s every move. He loved James—as a mentor, as an entertainer, and as a person. To me it speaks volumes that Michael came out of his exile to honor James when he passed….

Michael put his own issues aside and came out for JB when so may of JB’s disciples and progeny were shamefully absent….

James Brown lived a long life, and good sense would tell you that JB was older than what he said he was….so when JB passed, it was major but not unexpected…

I haven’t told anyone this until the last couple of days…Michael Jackson introduced me to music…It was because of him that I made up my mind early in my childhood that I would make music…

I’ve heard quite a few other people, famous and not, say the same thing over the past few days…

Over the years, I have defended him against unfair and false criticism…the thing that angers me the most about his life is the willful ignorance of those who hate him…

I’ve never seen anyone be hated with the fervor I’ve seen some people hate Michael Jackson…

I’ve heard people call for his death…and now that it has happened, I’ve heard people say that they are glad…

and they base these feelings on what exactly?

Because he was eccentric? I bet you there are weirder people in your family…

this didn’t start with the allegations, this hatred of Michael Jackson has been building steadily since 1987….I’ve watched it with my own eyes…

I watched the press start going out of their way to make it seem like everything he did was cat shit crazy…

“Bizarre singer Michael Jackson flew a kite in his yard today…the famously weird singer for some odd reason flew a kite for about an hour this afternoon ….some found the scene disturbing…”

Silly shit like that…

A real life example is when Michael bounced his baby on his knee to calm his crying…Martin Bashir acted like he was choking the baby…

Who DOESN’T bounce crying babies on their knee?

I think the thing I found most disturbing about the venom directed at Michael Jackson was the Black people who turned their backs on him…

Michael Jackson represented for Black people all of his life.

His career is based on his Blackness…

He paid for David Ruffin’s funeral.

John H. Johnson (publisher of Ebony and Jet) was one of his advisers.

He owned Sly Stone’s publishing and made sure Sly was taken care of.

His heroes were James Brown, Jackie Wilson, and Sammy Davis., Jr…he spent his 50th birthday listening to James Brown…

There are rumors that after acquiring the publishing rights to Little Richard’s songs, Mike gave them back to Richard…not sold, gave…

Michael would bring in busloads of poor children South Central, Watts and other black populated areas of LA county to Neverland to have their run of the place…

Saul Williams said that his education was funded by part of a 25 million dollar donation by Michael to the United Negro College fund.

Michael was friends with Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton.

He loved to vacation in Africa and tried to spread the word about the historic and physical beauty of the continent…he stated that he believes all things come from Africa….

He made a song called THEY Don’t Care About US (feel free to read between the lines)

He loved the documentary Unforgivable Blackness about the story of Jack Johnson.

He made street dancing popular long before the breakdancing phenomenon of the mid-80s….in the mid-70’s, Mike was popping and locking. He always gave credit to the dancers in the streets, many times hiring them for his videos.

He made a video with real gang members, long before gang-banging became chic.

He made a video showing Black people as royalty in Africa.

His vocal style with all the ad-libs, scatting, and slang is undeniably Black.

Michael NEVER looked down on hip-hop…he reached out to, collaborated with, and mentored many young hip-hop artists.

He called Tommy Mottola a devil, loved to eat KFC (with the skin removed) and drink Crown Royal, his first date with Lisa Marie was to go see the Temptations and The Fifth Dimension in Las Vegas.

She asked him, “Where will we stay?

“In my room.”, he replied.

“Will we sleep in the same bed?” she continued

“Hell yeah, girl!…” was his answer…

was he not Black?

He had a perm and married a white girl…how Black is that?…LOL

I kid….but I never felt that Michael did not want to be Black.

I don’t want to focus on the controversy because that cheapens his legacy…as a man, he had faults…but who among us does not?

The plain and simple truth is the reason why Michael touched so many of us in such a personal way is because what his mission was….

he summed up it here, very succinctly:

“Love is my message….”
-Michael Jackson, 1980

he told us many times over the years…

“All the colors of the world should be lovin’ each other/wholeheartedly/Yes, its all right/take my message to your brother and tell him twice/Spread the word and try to teach the man/who’s hating his brother/when hate won’t do/When we’re all the same/cause the blood inside of me is inside of you…”

Michael Jackson was not just a simple singer and dancer…he was a revolutionary…

As a songwriter and producer, he does not get his due…he is the definitive for behind the sound…he is the funky one…he is the one with the gift…

he used Quincy to articulate his intent, but he did it without Quincy, before and after Quincy….

He is a musical genius…bar none…

His lyrics are rich with meaning and emotion…people get caught up in the spectacle and miss what he was saying…

“something’s soon to come over you/you just cant please the world and yourself/gotta start doing what’s right for you/cause life is being happy yourself…”
-Bless His Soul

“live inside cryin’ eyes/your touch/your heart/your warmth/lullaby/love to dream/don’t it seem/the tears/the pain/reality/

don’t cha know/these dreams I wish could be/the real you and me/I come running back to you/you push me away/you push/you push me away…”
-Push Me Away

“I am the damned/I am the dead/I am the agony inside the dying head/this is injustice/woe unto me/I pray this punishment will have mercy on me…”
-Who Is It

“this time I’m leaving all of my cares behind/I taste the good life and its fine/no more this pain and strife/this life’s willing to be/and I’ve got enough/and I know what’s right for me

I’ve done my time and I have paid the price/all you have to do/is state my name out loud/forget your worries/and let’s dance and shout/cause we’re here to live so free/Ive got to let me be…”
-Everybody

“the world keeps changing/rearranging minds and thoughts/predictions fly of doom/the baby boom/has come of age/we’ll work it out

I told my brother/don’t u ask me for no favors/I’m conditioned by the system/don’t you preach to me/don’t scream and shout

she pray to God/to Buddha/then she sings a Talmud song/confusions contradictions/the self/do we know right from wrong?

I just want you to recognize me in the temple/you cant hurt me/Ive found peace within myself…”
-Jam

“Now, I’m a man whose for all seasons/and what the city offers me/ain’t naturally/I live to greet the stars but there’s no stars to see/ I’m gonna search this world until I find my destiny…

If its the rich life/I don’t want it/happiness ain’t always material things

I want destiny/its the place for me/gimme the simple life/I’m getting ‘way from here/let me be me/cmon/let me feel free…”
-Destiny

These are words that came from his heart and his pen…incredibly profound words….a lot of us were listening…

This is why we felt Michael, because he reached out and did his best to make us feel, to unite us, to make us dance…

His voice is instantly recognizable…a beautiful, soulful instrument of both joy and pain…from his first songs to his last…

When I listen to Get On The Floor, I am captured by the breakdown….he breathes and scats in amazing rhythm…then he begins to chant:

“get up/wontcha gon’ get down/shake ya body/wont cha gon get down….”

he repeats this over and over….his vocal percussion blending in with the the drums and tom-toms…

he keeps repeating this until you feel like you are in some kind of voodoo ritual….he brings the groove back with a scream…he’s still chanting but harder…urging you to move…

the groove climaxes and he is whooping and screaming as if possessed…

when he comes back to the lyrics he is so exhilarated that he is laughing out loud while he sings…

he was feeling the groove as much as we were…we had no choice but to surrender…

many other folks my age, when we were kids, and we watched Michael sing and dance, he seemed to be a supernatural force of nature…he seemed more than human…

it was the little things…the glowing socks…the glowing pavement when he walked on it…the laser light behind him in Rock With You…it felt real….it felt natural…like he was some kind of funk sorcerer who knew magic…

Magic.

That’s the word that keeps coming up when people talk about Michael…his mystique and his brilliance made us think somehow, someway magic was real….

You watch him in The Wiz…and you realize that he really is The Scarecrow…

His music at its core…was primal…there was a combination of darkness and light behind it all…he could do the ballads and the smooth stuff….but when he was unleashed over a funk groove, that’s when we got the raw Mike…

songs like Workin Day And Night, Wanna be Startin Somethin’, Heartbreak Hotel, Remember The Time, Everybody…

We fed on his energy and we couldn’t get enough of it…

If you really listened to his music…I mean REALLY listened…he told us everything we needed to know…

One of his most enduring and heartbreaking songs is That’s What You Get (For Being Polite)…it is pure autobiography…

“love’s not harsh/love’s not bad/ but what he’s doing for love is so sad…

he wants to be so bad/he wants to be so bad/all the time/gettin in/thinks he can get out/something’s deep in side of him/eating up the pride in him/that makes him buy things for the girls/that’s what you get for being polite…”
-That’s What You Get For Being Polite

But even though we are grown men and women and we know that he is human just like us…we still have the notion that he is really some kind of spiritual force in human form…as we all are really…

But now that he has passed, it underlines with mean finality that underneath it all, he was flesh and blood…

All of that wisdom, artistry, energy, excitement, sensitivity and love seems like its been taken away from us….

People, my heart is heavy…because for all that the brother gave to us all,we did not return his love like we should have…

It is not just that it ends this way for Michael….for all the respect shown, the media still will not let go of their bigotry and disdain….they still allude and make innuendo…they fear his power and refuse to let the brother shine and go on to his glory like he deserves…

But then I think about it, and all of that wisdom, artistry, energy, excitement, love, and sensitivity will never die…Michael will live on forever…

We will never forget him.

We will still sing along, we will still dance, we will still watch and listen.

We mourn the loss of him not as a celebrity, but as a friend….he was a friend to us…

I listen to the people who knew him personally and I hear their devastation…I listen to what THEY say about him and I know I was right about him…if he wasn’t as special as he seemed to be, this might be just a little easier to take…

I’m not ashamed to say that I love Michael Jackson…and the world doesn’t feel the same without him here…

you kind of always expected him to be here…

Through his life, he taught me so much about life, music, compassion, survival, expression…and I feel I’m a better person for being a Michael Jackson fan…

I pray for his family, especially his parents, and his children.

I pray that people will show respect, restrain, and compassion now that he has moved on.

I pray that people will move away from the spectacle and really and truly re-discover his music and his gift…and even though its far fetched, maybe see him for who he really is.

Michael Jackson sacrificed his life to entertain us, to make us happy, and possibly teach us a thing or two…no matter what you thought of him, that deserves respect….

Michael Jackson is the greatest entertainer ever.

We will not see a phenomenon like him again.

Michael Jackson was more than the greatest entertainer ever…he was a great man…

and the world was a much better place when he was here with us.

He is The King.

I don’t know if these words made any sense to anyone, but I felt they needed to be said.

Rest In Peace, Brother Michael

Thank you. For everything.

I posted this on The Lesson forum of Okayplayer’s message board this past winter when asked if Thriller was merely a pop album with no artistic value.

I’ve been asked to re-post it,  here it is.

I’m still composing my words about what happened yesterday,  so I give you this for now.

-Scorp

The Artistic Merit of Thriller

while we all might be sick of hearing it and while it may not be as heavy as a What’s Going On or Innervisions…the fact is many records we regard as “art” dont have the sociological or spiritual depth of those records…

it would be easy to say that the work of Leroy Burgess or even James Brown is fluff based on the subject matter and dismiss it as not being artistic..which is in fact what mainstream music press does to Black music as a whole…and I have a problem with that…

it would be easy to say that I Want You is just a record abt being horny just the same as a Jodeci record is….

now as far as Thriller is concerned, it is an artistic as well as a commercial landmark for these reasons:

A) you said in another post that you do not regard MJ as a songwriter or producer…which is unfair because he CLEARLY does both…as far as his first 2 albums w/Q…..people tend to overestimate Q’s role…they tend to think that without a producer at the helm, Mike is helpless…it was Mike(w/the help of Randy Jackson) who created the the Jackson sound….it wasnt Jackie, Tito, or Marlon….and you see how well Jermaine faired on his own….

the the biggest issue that led J5 to leave Motown was lack of creative control….Mike was tired of being a singing puppet…he wanted his freedom in the studio…

CBS was unsure and made the group do two albums w/Philly Intl…after that it was time to put up or shut up…

so Mike and the boys got in the studio….CBS sent some studio pros in to make sure the shit didnt go wrong….the result was the Destiny album…the album that put them back on top….

with the exception of Blame It On The Boogie, ya boy wrote every song on that record…

he wanted to distance himself from his family and create a new sound for himself….since he’d already lent his sound to the family brand he brought in Q….

NOBODY else wanted Q…the word was that he was too old, that his track record in pop was unproven…look at the facts….before OTW and Thriller, Q was known as a bandleader and film composer, NOT a pop hitmaker….he’d had success w/the Brojays but that’s it…the last pop hit that he was responsible for before that was It’s My Party by Leslie Gore….

if you hit you tube and listen to the demos that Mike brought Q, you will see that very little is different from the album versions…

matter of fact, here ya go:
Dont Stop demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pCWJfzH6FDY

Working Day and Night demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t51jUmABMlc

let’s go to the Thriller demos….

The Girl Is Mine demo 1:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ztXxORezhpg

Girl Is Mine studio demo 2:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GWUgNAAfcfU

Billie Jean demo:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9E_1eYWx4fM

so…my point…is that Mike created these albums from his own vision….he hired Quincy for a)legitimacy and 2)to run the studio 3) for his connections 4)quality control

so what you hear is his vision not Quincy’s…so from an artistic standpoint, he didnt just sit around and sing what Quincy put in front of him….he knew what he wanted and hired Q to translate….

after OTW, Mike went and cranked out another Jacksons album, Triumph…where he wrote every song except two…

so w.out Master Quincy, Mike was responsible for:
Shake Your Body
Heartbreak Hotel
Lovely One
Can You Feel It
Walk Right Now
Things I Do For You
…and the remaining songs on both Jacksons albums of that period…

but the music snobs like to think that Maestro Quincy sat Green Mike down and told him what to do….we can also add the folks that think Rod Temperton wrote every song on those two albums…and that’s the reason why those records came out the way they did…

Mike created those albums from his own creative muse, so artistically for him, that’s a W….

B) as far as Thriller specifically…Mike did something that no one else had done….he created the musical bridge for mainstream music from the 70’s to the 80’s…he was the cat who survived the 70’s and led the way to he 80’s, where most other 70’s cats were tryna figure out what to do next…most of them were doing disco knock-offs and praying for their survival…

people glaze over it now…but what soul/R&B figure could create a hit rock record that was embraced across the board…AND considered authentic by the rock audience?(the snobs may have been pissed off, but they werent the ones buying the records)…what soul/R&B cat was collaborating with Van Halen….and have it WORK?

it wasnt Prince….w/out Beat It, could you have a Let’s Go Crazy?

what other soul/R&B cat could get one of the Beatles on Black radio in the 80’s?

what soul/R&B cat would get Vincent Price to drop spoken word in the middle a funk/R&B cut cum horror movie?

who was else at the time was incorporating African chants and percussion at a time when everyone was whitening it up sonically(including MJ)…and who would reference Soul Makossa in the 80’s?

listen to the fact that a Black artist who was considered strictly soul/R&B decided to do a stylistic tour de force in one album when it hadnt been done before…

Thriller had:
Funk
straight R&B
Quiet Storm
MOR Pop
Rock

…all in one album by a Black aritst when such a thing was not only unheard of but frowned upon…..

futhermore, on Thriller he spoke abt teen preganancy, gang violence, challenging the social constructs of manhood, the culture of gossip, emotional blackmail, obsession, false accusations of paternity, and belief in one’s self…

fluff?

these are ARTISTIC RISKS….they could have gone horribly awry, but they didnt….he did the record HIS way….and in a rare occurence that we will only see once in a lifetime, hit the bulls-eye and pleased EVERYBODY…the effects of that had both deep positive and negative effects on his work and the entire music industry after that….

let’s remember…when Thriller was being conceived and recorded, MJ was still thought of as strictly an R&B act (Rolling Stone refused to do a cover story on him at the time), a boy band singer made good and the success or failure of the record was of little consequence to anyone BUT MJ…so pulling those strings wasnt as easy as we’d think it to be….

but WHY did he want to make a record like Thriller?….was it just to win the awards and make copious amounts of dough?

partially, yeah…but beyond that…why would MJ risk his entire career (which he’d done a few times before at that point) on a record that everybody, even QUINCY, thought would only be a mild follow up to OTW?

because he wanted out of the box…he wanted the limitations placed on Black musical artistry lifted…to end the segregation, so to speak…to send a message that you can follow your muse no matter what people say or think…you can do the kind of music you want to do and nobody should get in your way or try to stop you….

and he DID that…he achieved that goal of ARTISTIC freedom that reaps commercial success where it is unusual that the two paths EVER cross…

and whether you believe it or not is beside the point….MJ kicked down a huge barrier with Thriller…and many artists, regardless of culture or genre have reaped the benefits…

so at a superficial glance, it could appear that Thriller is nothing but the hottest chick in school for a couple years…but what happens when you talk to that chick and find out that there’s more there than just eye candy…

so like I said….people can feel how they wanna feel abt the artist and the record, we’re all entitled to our opinions…but give credit where credit is due is all Im saying….

yeah, sometimes I call him “Quaincy”

I was just effin around on you tube one day and I stumbled upon this footage of a Quincy Jones concert circa 1981…

I guess Q was presenting The Dude album live in Japan(there’s more footage if you search)…the band includes some of Q’s studio henchmen:

Greg Phillinganes(keys) John Robinson (drums) and Louis Johnson(bass)

the vocalist is the incredible Patti Austin…

if you ask me, this song–written by Rod Temperton–was intended for Michael Jackson…but for whatever reason,  he didnt do it…kinda like he didnt sing the opening verse of Secret Garden(and was replaced by Al B. Sure)

either way…cool video, cool song…

Enjoy.

Singer.

Songwriter.

Pottymouth.

All good.

How do you pen and sing lyrics like “fuck me for fun” and “go out like a whore for it” and still come off classy?

This is Monique singing her hit (We Had) A Thing by her former band Abstract Truth…

Others are all about her voice,  I’m into her intricately woven tales of complexity of relationships…the voice is a bonus…

the first time I ever heard of her was when she was standing about 10 feet in front of me performing at the Silver Room Block Party in Summer 06…

chances are if she’s featured on a record, then its a smoker…and chances are even better that there may be coarse language…

at some point we’ve all said/thought “baby, don’t you love me no more?”…LOL

watch for the hook at 3:42…

Unlike most teenage African-American males in the early 90’s,  I didnt have any hate in my heart for Albert Brown, III…known to the world as Al B. Sure

I dug his actual music….I felt dude had a unique and actually funky sound and he wrote good songs…

on the production tip, Al and Kyle West was killin shit…let’s not get into the jams he produced…

I guarantee you liked at LEAST one of they joints, whether you admit or not…

1992:  I was in HS and I was with, let’s call her Chironda…I didn’t want to be seen with an album by a grown man called Sexy Versus but I bumped the shit out of this record…

I wasnt into Chironda to the point where I was cryin over her, but she was fucking up royally, and this joint kinda detailed the frustration…it was less “why is she doing this?….it was more “Jesus Christ, dumbass…”

I think Al B helped me make up my mind to give her the heave-ho…Chironda wrote me dumb-ass grammaticaly incorrect poetry and letters with monstrous spelling errors to mend fences but I wasnt tryna hear it…Looking back, I feel a lil bad cuz I heard through the grapevine that she thought she was really in love and me telling her to kick rocks put her through a thang…I could have been more sensitive abt it, but there are times in life when patience is thin and you dont feel like being understanding…

Winter 91/92:  It was a known fact that Jodeci’s Forever My Lady album only had one good side…the first side with the slow jams…well, what is NOT well known is that that side was produced by ya boy, Albert J. Brown Sure. DeVante produced the uptempo New Jack Swing garbage side 2 by himself…However, Al B came back to lace the last joint on the album, which I’ve posted below…

Boy, do I remember this shit…I’d just gotten the heave-ho from Carlene, the chick one grade up that made me forsake all others…

May winged monkeys wipe they booties with her shiny, luxurious mane of silky black hair…

When I met Carlene, she was the sweetest, most adorable, sunshine and kittens thang ever….she turned out to be a ice cold asshole…

One day, everythang was lovely…next thing I knew, I’d been fired…she used to stroll by me and give the smallest, yet most smug look/nod combo…

kinda like, “sup, n***a?…”

I’d try to give her my best “fuck you, whore” look in return…but somehow I think that just tickled her even more…she prolly laughed her ass off as soon as she was out of eyesight….

So I would go to my piece of shit job after school, then come home, go up to my room, turn off all the lights and listen to selections from this album…

Xs We Share(read as: Times We Share for those not hip to Modern Negro Song Titling Linguistics) really made my chest burn…

The scenes that flashed thru my mind of our long good-byes when I dropped her off at home or her calling me to tell me that her mother was gone and it was all clear for me to fall thru made me reach for the phone to try and recreate the late school night phone magic that we’d once shared…

No answer.

After I got myself together and started moving on, this bastard had the nerve to propose a late night creep…

Now normally, that sort of thang wouldnt have sounded so bad to teenage Scorp…but  considering the cold-blooded dismissal I’d received–this time I was offended…I declined…

her reply:

“Suit yourself…”

I dunno if I can really thank Al B for this joint…LOL

Summer of  ‘88 this jam below was out…I wasnt really old enough to think straight yet, but I was in the midst of one of those “girl, beat it–I’m about to get my swag on (c) DeAndre Way…wait, please come back” thangs…so I rocked this on my canary fucking yellow Magnavox boombox….Al spoke the troof to this young Black youth…

Sometimes, Al be preaching on his jams….vocal limitations aside (let’s be real, he’s not a great singer)…Al was one of the last R&B cats to speak for real bruhs when it came to matters of the heart….even though Al was most likely to be the cat your lady was thinking abt while y’all were foggin up the windows of ya mom’s Taurus in the late 80’s/early 90’s, he didnt play it that way for the most part…

In Al’s songs, he doesn’t end up on top all the time…he wrote alot about being dumped, cheated on, neglected, etc…it was around this time that I started noticing a trend among “desirable” singers…most of them who wrote their own stuff wrote abt being dissed and alone…a few years later, I made the connection that “the beautiful people” struggle with love just as much as anybody else–sometimes even more…

look at Al’s friend Halle Berry, who is an international movie star and considered to be one of the most beautiful women in the world–it took her until age 40 to find somebody to treat her right(or so we assume) and give her a child….and when she was having relationships difficulties, most folks assumed that SHE was the crazy one…

Marvin Gaye was one of the most gifted artists of our times and also desired by millions of women…a friend recalled that during Marvin’s last days, she found him in his room crying…she asked him what was wrong and Marvin replied:

“Nobody loves me.”

Prince is a two time divorcee’ and single at age 51…

sample lyric:

“all of my purple  life/I’ve been looking for a dame/that would wanna be my wife/that was my intention main…”

Madonna is a two time divorcee and a single mother…

let’s not get into the many civilians I know who would be considered attractive and have ahd trouble sustaining long term-relationships…

But I digress…

So when I heard The Monobrowed One had a new joint abt to drop, my ears perked up…I checked the snippets…

Yo.

Not bad.

I might have to cop that….and Ive heard other cats sayin the same…

Clown me if you wanna, but dig…a cat dont get blessed by Quincy Jones, win the Sony Innovators Award, and serve as MJ’s understudy on one of the deadliest slow jams of all time if he wack, ya dig…..

Now his sons on the other hand…let’s just say I hope they find another career path…

The new Al B joint is called Honey, I’m Home and it drops today, June 23rd.

Buenos noches,

Scorp

WTF is this, Scorp?

Here’s the backstory:

2000.

Dearborn, MI

My brother paid me a visit, so we decide to hit this new bar by my crib…

We’re standin around waiting on drinks…they got video screens errywhere…

This video comes on.

Wauw.

WHO is THAT?

I continue to shoot the shit with my sibling while keeping an eagle eye on this video…Im waiting for the end so I can find out who this bouncy young lady is…

um….this is a scene plucked right out of my g*ddamn fantasies…

do they even make women like that?

and she hollarin at a big dude?

F’REAL????

Sheeeeeeeeeeeit.

*schmooves eyebrows*

Tarsha…if you out there…and you see me at the local watering hole…

*fanger guns*

I’ll definitely be at the store on July 7th to cop this…

I knew from the snippet that this joint was powerful…for that reason I’ve kinda avoided playing it…

I wanna talk about the subject matter of the song, but I won’t…

All I’ll say that is I think it talks abt two situations…

You did it again, Max.

The new single Bad Habits is out on iTunes…I’ma wait for the album…

In troubled times, I turn to God and Marvin Gaye…

The connection I feel to Marvin Gaye’s music is something very significant that I am not comfortable getting into here…

But I can say that whatever Marv’s failures were as a man… as an artist, God spoke through him…

In my eyes, Marvin was a minister…his words speak to the downtrodden, the sick, the poor, and the lonely…

He reminds us that the most important thing is love and that’s God’s will is that we give as much love as we can…it’s just that simple…

I won’t get too deep here…but I can say with all certainty that God is real…

You don’t have to be a holy roller or join any specific faith or religious organization to receive the benefits of God’s love…

Like Marvin says, God loves us whether we know it or not…

Some folks call on God only in times of trouble or need…and that is understandable…but He’s there all the time….

it wouldn’t hurt to give thanks to God when your life is on an upswing…or to thank him for the day you’ve been given…

there are some who dont believe, and while it’s natural to doubt…the proof is always there…

God has never let me down, turned His back on me, or been unjust…

I speak to him frankly like I speak to you, friend…he will understand…

if I am in need, God provides…

and he will do the same for you…

all you have to do is call on him…

the old adage is true–he may not give you what you want, but he’ll give you what you need…

I talk to God and I listen to Marvin Gaye.

…and I keep going on.

Thank you for your time.

 

Sums it up.

 

I know that this site and this blog is supposed to be about Windimoto and the music and the culture and all of that.

But behind the music are real people…

so…

I just wanna rap to you a taste on a human tip…

Look around you…

Take a good look at who you see…

wife, husband, children, brother, sister, mother, father, cousin, friend…

now, thank God for them…

So many things we take for granted are things that others dont have…

Sometimes, life is hard…sometimes life hurts…but bear in mind when things get bleak, that for some people life is hard all the time, and it hurts them everyday…

To quote the old song…be thankful for what you got.

cuz there’s somebody out there who doesnt have what you have…there’s somebody out there who dont feel the sun on their skin…

there’s somebody out there who aint really smiled in a long time…

if you’re one of those people…I give you a quote from the legendary Detroit DJ, The Electrifying Mojo:

“if you feel like you’ve reached the end of your rope….tie a knot…keep hangin’, keep remembering….that there aint nobody bad like you…”

Thank you for your time.