Hello?

let’s talk about the music of my first two months of 2023.

In a particular order...

okay so first let's touch on what I've been playing out to start the years, It has to start with :

SMINO's LUV 4 RENT,
okay so that whole album is absolute gold to me. it was the perfect end to my 2022 but an even better start to my new year. the best companion on my 2.5 hr walk home from work. The perfect bus ride noise canceller.  
my faves off the album though have to be
1. Modennaminute 
2. Blu Billy
3. Curtains
4. 90 Proof
5. Matinee
6. No L's
7. Defibrillator

But let me stop before i list the whole track list, which I was close to doing. please check out this album. please.


Next up, and maybe possible due to her feature of Smino's Pro Freak is Doechii.
the songs Stressed and Girls are definitely main stays on my 2023 playlist.



Okay play me some Steve Lacy and I'll be in a good mood. Just let the playlist shuffle in Give You the World or Buttons maybe Bad Habit and I'm good for the day.



Some of my favorite rap features of of last year had to be JID's: The Forever Story and Earthgang's: Ghetto Gods.

JiD's Kody Blu 31 is easily one of my top five songs of 2022, but what's some other songs that are going to stay on my 2023 playlist are Crack Sandwich and Sistanem.

Then Earthgang's Strong Friends is another top five, the message alone is something that carried me through my last few months of 2022. but if you check out their album some of my other faves are All Eyes  on Me, Lie to Me, Waterboyz, and Black Pearls OG. 

Okay I'll just give some rapid fire 2023 playlist hits and 2022 faves:

Vince Staples: Take Me Home,  Law of Averages, When Sparks Fly (A top 10 of 2022 for sure), Sundown Town
Giveon : Scarred, Another Heartbreak, The beach
Kendrick Lamar: Savior, God, You Ain't Gotta Lie, The Recipe
Childish Gambino: 24.19 
Earl Sweatshirt: Vision, Fire in the Hole
MF DOOM: Vomitspit 
Henri Gatson: Where Are We Going
J. Cole: Pride Is The Devil
Reggie: Avalanche, I Don't Wanna Feel No More
Pharrell: Cash in Cash Out
Burna Boy: Common Person 
Jazmine Sullivan: Girls Like Me
Duckwrth: Kiss U Right Now 
SZA: Snooze, Love Language
Rex Orange County: One In A Million, Making Time, Open A Window

Okay so we will end with some oldies that I'll probably revisit at points of this year:

Frank Ocean: Ivy, Godspeed, Monks, Rushes, Comme De Garcons, Frank's Song
Big Krit: Bury Me In Gold
Jorja Smith: Blue Lights, Be Honest
Daniel Caesar: Are You Ok?, Love Again, Best Part
Brandy: Almost Doesn't Count, I wanna be down, Brokenhearted
Miguel: Come Through And Chill
Little Simz: "Sometimes I Might Be Introvert": Album) 
Beyonce: Party (feat Andre 3000)
Adele: Chasing Pavements
Boldy James: Photographic Memories
Wiki: All I Need
Whitney Houston: It's Not Right but it's Okay, One moment in time
Al Green: I'm Still In Love with You 



Then my top 5 artist of 2022/23 so far in a particular artist?
1: Smino
2:  FRANK OCEAN WHERE ARE YOU>??????????????
3: K Dot 
4: Earthgang
5: Giveon 

Is my safest place my biggest trap ?
I find myself enjoying the sunshine when it peaks through.
Reminiscing on all the places where I left pieces of my heart.
And longing for understanding on how to play my part.
A couple of the screws holdin my shit together been squeaking loose.

I left a crucial piece of myself at Tilicho Lake.
A bit of my ambition,the kid who wasn’t afraid to dream big. 
My purity.

I left behind my biggest insecurities in Tanzania.
But sometimes I hear them whisper to me.
The calling of my past mistakes. 
The kid who was afraid to be himself because he was always the ridicule of the worst hates. 
I’m happy I grew past that mind state.
But me going to sleep at 5am this past week reminds me that those demons are just 6 hours worth of mistakes away.

I left my lonely heart in Borneo. 
And traded it for a new one filled with something special.
But I’m the hare to my loneliness’ turtle. 
It creeps up on me when I slow down and let my hand off the throttle. 

All the work I put in to loving myself has seemed to fracture. 
My blackness has been used as a weapon,
and my age a shield for everyone at work to hide behind when customers start to snapping. It leaves me burning out before i can love myself again in the next attraction. 

Maybe I used up too much of me. 
Giving the pieces I kept after my travels to anyone who needed them.
Maybe I gave too much of myself away and now there’s none left for David Simmons.
Should I call back myself from the places I’ve attached to my glimpses of happy.
The blurriest blotches on my memory. 

Discarding my portions of me for those who take it for granted is no longer the move in 2023.
The winter fits me best because it reminds me that lonely and cold is maybe who I need to be.

This is the taste of our second kiss.
The first chance to return to the magic only experienced once before.
This is a child’s excitement, because everything is new. 
This is an ode To Stimulated minds.
And a bond that feels like 10 lifetimes. 
To Fountains of growth overflowing. 
This is to 2023.
And better versions of the people we want ourselves to be.
This is to new slates.
And snatching at every presented opportunity.
To unity.
The biggest blessing is having the chance to experience life through the lens of “you and me”.
This is to a new frank ocean album.
To what it’d be like to listen to the magic of Channel Orange again for the first time.
Second takes reminder us to fully enjoy the moments of our first times.
Second chances a lesson that sometimes first times need to be failures.
This is to all the first times we will have this year. 
All the second chances that will come, good and bad. 
To Me and a promise to reach the highest value of myself. 

Be careful not to give too much of yourself, 
That you have nothing left for your darker days. 
2023, i’m moving past being stuck in my more destructive ways. 
Balance for me and the one i look to protect most. 
Nurtured loved and quiet growth.

2023

Be sure to cater to your own desires. You own ambitions. Your mind and heart.

Be sure to really listen to what it is you feel and understand that not everything you feels is just your feelings. But also the comments imbedded in you from childhood when family picked at your insecurities.

For example, am i really insecure about my birthmark and careful who i take my shirt off around. Or am i still reflecting on my mother telling me it will continue to get bigger. So my thoughts are her thoughts. Her projections onto me. The damage that parents and family can inflict on their children.

Be careful that your thoughts are as free as possible from the thoughts of others. Free of The destruction that others bring you. Every jab from your older brother that you hold on to. Or every slick remark from your father that brought you down.

Be cautious and conscious of what it is you really feel. And take heed of what the people that matter say. Allow yourself to be built up and don’t dwell too deeply in the negative. It’s a year to get away from the fears of your younger self. And grow into the self belief your older self knows is there.

For too long you’ve let others poison the purity of your minds deepest caverns. Allowed that pestering voice in the back of your mind to fester in self hatred.

You matter.

You’re a king.

This is interlocked fingers
And letting loose your deepest secrets.
This is images of old love.
And arguing like old couples do but we’re only in our 20s.
This is sun kissed bliss. 
This is finding my way back to a soul i knew in a past life. 
It’s the colours of a sunset. 

I want to speak this in a different way.
celebratory of all the parts of me that are in a better space.
the growth i've gone through.
to year 2022.
to the ocean and how she heals me.
to Mya whom I love the most dearly.
to the balance i've found in darkness and solitude.
to all the broken parts of me too that remained bruised.
to the parts that are fresh and new, and barely breaking though. 
to me. to you.
to better routines and being willing to laugh even on my worse days.
to all the Challenge filled nights that help me ease me pain.
to all my challenged filled nights that give me pain anew.
the least i want to do is help her discover herself too. 
the woman i see when my eyes lock hers.
a imagine so pure and wonderful.
a soul so pure.
a beauty that leaves me craving the sensation of breathing her in. 
I hope we can be in our 2020stwinning.

Stuck in the monotonous motions of work again.

Work. Sleep.

School. Sleep.

Barely eat.

The patterns that defined the worst parts of my history. Full circle to the days i was sleeping on Irven’s floor hoping for more for myself.

I would run on 3 hours of sleep a day because my mind was never at rest. Because i was too bless to be unhappy. Because the pad took place of my mistrust for therapy.

Locking myself into my room for three days. Functioning at the bare necessity.

It’s all apart of life though.

Sometimes the lows feel unbearable. you find yourself sinking past the point where you can find any light. Life’s Aphotic zone. You try to crawl yourself out the hole but you find you’re digging the wrong way and u thoughts are burying you further. Yk?

Idk.

We move.

We live.

I write to ease the pain.
I’d rather this than to drown alone.
It was never my intention to snip my angel’s wings.
To have the rain be everlasting. 
For my presence to be a hassle.
I’m just tryna get back to better days.
Better ways for my ‘better half’.
Crawling, Back into the depths of myself that i had wished to never meet again. 

Can we have an honest conversation about a black man’s pain?
The requirement to carry the world on shoulders. 
To be our mother’s keepers and our sister’s warrior. 
The desire to shut every emotion down because of how we had grown up?
The beatings we caught just cause we had spoke up?
The mistrust of therapy because his first therapist couldn’t make simple efforts.
Like looking me dead in my eyes and telling me i was lying about something that was sitting in my folder. 
How hard it is for a black man to hold on?
To man up!
To trudge on.
Working at dead end jobs because Bermuda doesn’t offer too many alternatives.
When the only sense our freedom seems to be when your friends are burning shit.
But what if you don’t escape and just let shit sit?
What if you take on other’s pains until yours gets pushed deep within.
Cause how are you supposed to acknowledge your pain when your 50 something year old Fijian landlord comes to you with her every problem? 
When you can’t make a single friend?
And your roomate’s alarm be 3am hollering. 
When you barely can tolerate yourself,
Because you’re too blessed to have any problems.
When you think back to ATL living and remember than a kid on the bus put a lit firecracker in your backpack and caused it to spark. 
And how your shirt almost caught on fire but you were too quick to react.
And you wished you would’ve just let it burn because that might’ve been easier.
But your auntie’s first reaction was blaming you for what happened.
You don’t let the fact that shit hurts show, you just show no reaction.
Or how you were a waste of a good student. 
Never living up to the potential others saw in you.
But when you were “one of the best scholarship interviews i’ve ever had” you still can’t get any scholarship money?
Or how at 27 you turn to jokes just to keep your spirit running?
I could go deeper and shit but what’s the fucking point.
I have to man up! like always and just keep on going. 
But in spite on all of that, the black man has to keep on flying. 
We have to break the curses of wife beaters,
Children’s spirit defeaters.
Of broken homes and broken societies. 
All while i’m dealing with the war that’s inside of me.