Peek Into the Shadow

Somebody please take mercy, because I just can't take it...


A year ago today, I was working abroad in South Korea, having quite possibly the worst time of my life. I was homesick, I was heartsick and my job was so stressful that I was literally days away from being hospitalized. I woke up a year ago feeling as if my world were going to cave in, as if everything I knew was going to be suddenly upended. I ignored the feeling, because, well, every day that I had to go to work meant that in some way or another, a little piece of myself was going to die. However, when the first words you hear in the morning as you walk into a job you hate are "Michael Jackson's dead", more than a little piece of you dies inside. I actually started a huge (read as: loud, angry and belligerent) argument with the offending coworker out of sheer disbelief, until he told me to look at all the news online, at which point, I screamed, burst into tears and felt as if someone had come along and carved out my heart.

Throughout my life, Michael's music has been a balm to my soul. Since I was a child, MJ's music has played a key role in my life. It was his music that lulled me to sleep as an infant, his music that accompanied me to my first day of school, through my first crush, my first heartbreak, and every experience in between. My parents introduced me to him at infancy, and up until I was about seven, I didn't really realize that there were other genres of music besides Michael, Oldies and "White People Music" (I was seven, cut me some slack). However, despite all of his singles, hits and albums, one song always stood out to me the most.

When I was eight, HIStory: Past, Present and Future, Book I came out, and the lead single from that album was "Scream". I was a precocious eight year old and understood that Michael was very angry at the news, and it didn't take a genius to figure out why. Although my parents had done a bang-up job of molding my musical tastes, they didn't do quite as good a job at sheltering me from the news. I had heard all of the stories about the crazy things that Michael had done: all that plastic surgery (which scared the bejeezus out of me), adopting a monkey (which I secretly thought was awesome --and still do), offering to buy the Elephant Man's bones (which I didn't believe because I didn't think he'd be that weird. I was right.), and worst of all, abusing children. As a child, I routinely overheard conversations about whether or not he'd done it, and I found myself so angry at those who accused him without ever really trying to hear his side of the story. I thought it unfair that no one listened to him and instead just made things up.

At 8, I thought I understood the rage that Michael felt when accused of things that he didn't do.

At 22, I have a much better picture.

Listening to the raw emotion on "Scream" as he snarls his way through, supported by his baby sister, my heart twists in agony. This is a man who has been pushed to his limits. This is a wounded soul and not so coincidentally, this is the same period of time when Michael began his abuse of prescription drugs to quell the roar of the tabloid mill as it churned out more lies and scandal bearing his name. This song represents the downward spiral that led to that fateful day last year, and the anger and sadness and bitterness and frustration ringing through the lyrics reaches me to the bottom of my own soul, reaches out to the hurt little girl I once was, dealing with a whole lot of issues that a child should never have to face.

I listen to this song when I'm sad. I listen to it when I'm angry. I listen to it when I'm facing an obstacle, be it a person, thing, or merely my own doubts and fears. Knowing that someone is there, was there, that knows the sort of feelings I'm feeling makes me feel less alone. What makes the song even more outstanding is the appearance by Janet, whose presence, although she is outshone by Michael six ways to Sunday, adds to the feeling of "You're not alone. I've got you." in the face of all detractors,  antagonists, and straight up malicious folks.

"Scream" isn't just a song about the media. It's a song about coping with life. We all feel pressured by external (and sometimes internal) forces. And sometimes, the feeling that "this just isn't right" is so powerful that it makes you want to scream.

I screamed that day last year, because to me, the ultimate injustice was that this man, this legend, was taken from us all too soon.

To Err is Human

A three-year old drifts off to sleep in her mother's bed, watching moonlight seep in through a rift in the curtains. A wooden face-plated clock radio with lavender backlighting and fading yellow digits traipses onward…10:01…10:02…Though it's barely a whisper, the radio's heart is beating. Undertones climb up the bottom register before they fall back down to try all over again; fighting to break free of some unseen restraint. Then a man cries "why" into the darkness…into the baby's dreams.

Reaching out, I touch her shoulder; I'm dreaming of the street.


I didn't know what that song was until I was 14 years old. Driving in the car one night with my mother, I asked her, singing the haunting rift that had stuck in my mind all those years. She gave me the name of the song and though I was ecstatic that it was a Michael Jackson tune, I obstinately told her she was probably wrong. I don't remember anything about "human nature." And what a lame name for such a great song. When we got home, I reluctantly pulled out our Thriller LP and looked at the track listing. There it was. Side two: track three. I instantly fell in love again and promised to never let it's identity slip from my memory.

Even at 14, I didn't understand why that song still shook me to the core 11 years later. Lying on the floor of my living room, I slurred over the verses, barely catching the ending rhymes "begins to beat…dreaming of the street." I didn't really care what he was saying either. I was just so happy to be reunited. Nostalgia evocatively washed over me. I cried.

To attempt to discern its meaning, I'd turn to Human Nature like an odd puzzle piece. If my mother yelled at me, I'd play it. If a fickle teenage romance soured, I'd turn it on. Abstruse teen angst? iTunes. This really didn't help my quest. The song always soothed me. Now, 7 years later, I get it. They have been 7 tumultuous years, but at least I get it.

The funny thing is, the song itself really doesn't give a good explanation of what human nature is. Imagine you're Michael Jackson's girlfriend (or if that's too much, someone else you really love). Here you are being faithful, loving him completely, and he just won't love you back the way you think you ought to be loved. You have no idea WHY he is doing this to you. You beat yourself up at night trying to find answers. You press him for answers and seem to push him further away. You can't understand why when the daytime comes he's distant, because every night you fall asleep in his arms and the world seems right to you. Finally, the time comes when things are in shambles and there's nothing to hold onto anymore. You ask "why?" And he shrugs and says regretfully "it's human nature. I like living this way." Michael just hit you with the beloved platitude "it's not you, it's me."

But Human Nature is so much more than a man married to a dream that doesn't happen to include the woman he's currently with. The man singing the song is also searching for the answers to the questions he's being asked. For anyone who's ever looked at Michael Jackson and not fully understood him (which is about 99.99% of the population) I think he explained himself in this "ballad" quite plainly. "Let me answer your question with another question," he proposes, "why do any of us do what we do to begin with?" *kanyeshrug* Some outside force is pulling him away from his current station, and to answer this call will unintentionally devastate the people who depend on him. We all constantly hurt one another, without meaning to, in pursuit of seemingly selfish dreams.

I don't think that's too complicated to understand. So why is Human Nature able to elegiacally transcend it's simple message? The music. That Sisyphean synthesized bass that either resets itself or tumbles further down the register only to regroup itself and come back; that pervasive organ-synth motif that maintains its rhythm no matter which key it transforms into; the steady tick of the percussive instruments; the simple melody of the verses merely attempting to break free at the end of the musical phrase; all these elements are as repressive as the four walls that Michael yearns to be rid of. And then he does it--sort of. His voice soars over and above, not daring to look back. The midrange guitar flies with him, albeit at a lower altitude, catching high notes on the breeze of Michael's feather-weight timbre. Up and down they race, the sheer will of his tenor piercing sonic space in a direction that had been restricted before. It seems his voice has flown around the world and back in search of an answer to the question, but the notes bring him back down to reality every time, empty handed.

And it's because the music has exactly the right tension that Human Nature was able to console me through any hardship. It's for anyone that is constantly restless, or living a lifestyle that seems innate but unfulfilling…anytime you know you have to let someone down in order to satisfy a hunger, or if you've ever had to break away from the established norm to feel comfortable with yourself…and of course if you've been on the receiving end of any of these situations. Human Nature (the song and ideology) is a lesson about incomplete moral reciprocity. And reciprocity is the basis for all human interaction.

So am I digging a little too deep here for meaning that isn't there? Maybe, but I don't think so. You don't give a song a 'dumb' title like "Human Nature" unless you actually think you can capture the essence of human nature in 4 minutes. And if there's anyone who could've done it, it was Michael Jackson. A year has passed and I still don't think I've begun to cope with what the world lost 365 days ago. But at least we can share these kinds of stories with each other.

For the Stranger in Moscow.

"Even the sun goes down. Heroes eventually die. Horoscopes often lie. And sometimes "y". Nothin' is for sure. Nothin' is for certain. Nothin' lasts forever…" -Andre Benjamin

When I first heard "Stranger in Moscow", on my aunt's copy of HIStory, I was too young too understand what Michael Jackson was singing about in this song. He had been thoroughly vilified by a press that lost all sense of objectivity, and yet my family had been able to shelter my sister and myself from the accusations and media slander. Jackson had been a hero to us more than we could even understand, and I must thank my mother, for had she let us understand what the world was trying to do to this man, we would've quicker lost an innocence that was already suffering blows from the world around us. Had I been exceptionally perceptive those 13 years ago, I wouldn't have let myself be hypnotized so completely by the echoing percussion that begins the song, lulled into the beauty without understanding the reason why it was beautiful. My body and subconscious felt the cold, but my mind could't fully grasp it. Clearly the song was sad, but what was all this KGB, Stalin imagery?

Years later I come back to the song, more critically and with more experience. I know that cold feeling very well. The darkness that comes with a rainy day as I sit at the window, forehead pressed to the cold glass. Tears fall down my face. When a song attempts to remind a listener of a feeling and succeeds, it can change lives. Michael's made music so successful at doing exactly that, but this song is different. It doesn't attempt to sound like rain. Or attempt to sound like loneliness. Stranger in Moscow simply is both of these things. How can I connect with the planet? The billions walking the earth right now, when its hard for me to connect with even one person? Whereas in my adolescence I'd built an emotional wall around myself, Michael had to exist as a prisoner, a spirit surrounded by a fortress. When he made this song, and for the majority of the years of his life, there was no way he could have hoped to connect with people personally. I felt him as a teenager coming to terms with myself. I understood.

As a young man now, I hear the song and the metaphors are not lost on me. Everyone wanted a piece of this man. Yet no one tried to put themselves in his shoes. Take my name and just let me be. The media seemed determined to break him, and he was willing to let his name, the brightest among posters, be defiled if he could just have some peace of mind. Lord have mercy, because clearly no one else did.

I hear this song and my mind conjures the image of his statue on the HIStory album cover. A modern day Ozymandias. I read Shelley's poem, I hear Jackson's song, and the conversation between them saddens me. Jackson describes the process of deterioration for the listener, the erosion of one's spirit by outside forces that leaves a shattered visage on the ground. Michael was not faultless - the size of he ego is hard to describe - yet the way in which he used his iconic status makes his ultimate fate different than that of the Ozymandias in Shelley's poem. People look at Ozymandias and are reminded that pride is foolish in the face of time. The lone and level sands stretch far away from that colossal wreck. Michael's love, however, will remain intact in the hearts and minds of anyone who hears his music, now and generations from now.

The song moves me to tears. He screams at the end. Of danger. Of loneliness. It was frightening before his death, but now that he is no longer here, the warning is twice as dire. I hear it and I am motivated to make the most of my connections with people, to tear down the bricks in the wall around me. For that inspiration, that exposure to the extremes of desolation, I have to thank you Michael. Your work will of course live on, but if people really want to understand your spirit, they must look upon this opus and despair. And then love.

I hope you look down and feel us moving closer toward love as a people, even in these trying times. Even as things fall apart around us, you remain.

Nas speaks on Derrion Albert

NAs was on CNN this morning to speak about the tragedy that happened in Chicago a few days ago where an innocent 16 year old honor student, Derrion Albert, was beaten to death an instance of Gang Violence. Nas speaks intelligently hear about the influence that music and other media has on our youth, and talks about the open letter he penned to "young warriors" following the incident, which is below:

Dear Young Warriors fighting the wrong wars! Killing each other is definitely played out. Being hurt from the lost of a love one was never cool.

Dear Young Warriors fighting the wrong war! I know that feeling, that frustration with life and needing to take it out on someone, any one. But....

We chose the dumbest things to go the hardest for. I remember seeing deaths over 8 ball jackets, Fila sneakers, and name plate chains. Deaths over "he say, she say"!!!!! "I'm from this block or I'm from that block", or "my moms n pops is f*cked up now the whole world gotta pay"!!!

I remember feeling like I was the hardest "n*gga" breathing. And I couldn't wait to prove it. But let's think. What are we really proving?? And proving what to who?? Everybody knows Chicago breeds the strongest of the strong but I just feel, me, being ya brother from another state feels your pain as if I grew up with you in ya very own household.

You have the ability and mindpower to change they way we are looked at. Look who's watching us young warriors, look who's throwing us in jail constantly, look at the ignorance in the world. Look at the racist dogs who love to see us down. Loving to bury us in the ground or in jail where we continue this worthless war on one another.

Young warriors.... We are WASTING more and more time. We gotta get on our jobs and take over the world. Cuz this movie left the theaters years ago, Juice, Menace, Boys n the Hood , Blood n Blood Out, Belly!

When we see each other why do we see hatred? Why were we born in a storm, born soldiers, WARRIORS....and instead of building each other up we are at war with each other.. May the soul of this young person find peace with the almighty. I'm with you young warriors. You're me and I'm you. But trust me! you are fighting the wrong war.

This sh*t sucks !!

-Nas

*UPDATE*

Your fight should to be about becoming bigger and better. To have your own businesses. Real businesses Not Hustles. To have careers not jobs. Not selling mixtapes. You have the resources to do anything you want. There's no excuses. We have no one to blame but ourselves.. We have so much great work to do!!!

-from GlobalGrind.com

R.I.P. DJ Roc Raida

As a few of you may be aware, DJ Roc Raida of the X-Ecutioners passed away last weekend. Complex to the time to memorialize him with a post dedicated to his work as a DJ. If you don't know the man, spend some time getting to see why people loved him and his work over at their site. Here's the Link, and May Roc Raida rest in peace.

http://www.complex.com/blogs/2009/09/21/rip-remembering-roc-raidas-greatest-moments/