This Is 30

They say 30 is the new 20 and in a few days I'll be the new 20. I feel as if people say that to escape the reality of their age. Honestly, I don't mind turning 30. It seems as if everyone around me is more concerned about me turning 30 than I am. 

You're only as old as you feel, I truly believe that. Look at your favorite HipHop artists, Jigga is running rap and he's on his 40's & big Sean is in his 20's but looks like he's in his late 40's. So I don't get hung up on #'s. There's a lot of folks that are a decade younger but look two decades older than me.

I'm excited about this next decade, because this is where your physical gifts are met with an increased mental capacity. I've also learned that life isn't about things, it's about people and experiences. And I'm learning to say, "No" a lot more. "Hey A.B. can you do this that and the third for me? You won't get paid for it but it'll be a great learning experience." "No." My time is precious. And speaking of time I am utilizing it a lot more efficiently. No more waking up an hour before the 9-5 starts. I take the time out to enjoy my mornings and embrace the peace and quiet of life, before the nonsense of the job hits.

Men are like wine, we get better with time, but only if we become the man that we know we can be. Ain't nothing cool about being the old dude in skinny jeans and neon Nike free's hanging with a crowd of 20-something's. You look outta place, pops. Even if you feel younger than you are, just try hanging with the younger age group that you feel you belong to. I bet $$$ you will realize that that's not your cup of tea.

In the end all I can say is bye to 29 and hi to 30. Am I where I thought I would be? Nope. Am I working my ass off to get there and exceed my own high expectations? Yes. 

So if you're facing a big "age milestone" don't fret and never have a regret.

Follow Me on Twitter: @OmahaHostage

Milking It

"HipHop depreciates the value of luxury, personally I won't allow you to fuck with me..." -JadaKiss 

So I'm blogging straight off my iPhone cause work is damn slow, yo. I have a problem and my problem is the milking of HipHop. The above bar is something I think about a lot, Amerikkkans swear up n down that HipHop makes high end items trashy...but at the same time those high end brands rake in those trashy dollar$...moving on though.

First off I'd like to talk about the minstrel show known as Miley Cyrus, I get it, Amerikka gets it, the world gets it; she wants to shed her Di$ney image. Buuuuut the way that she's shedding the image by mocking the culture of HipHop, disgusts me. That J's on my feet chorus sounds like a Lil Bow Wow and Jermaine Dupri throwaway. Just fucking horrible and coonish. But the media is eating it up cause the sheep are programmed to love it. Stop it 5. Mike Will needs to chill biggin up the chicken buttlet twerker and donating those beats in exchange for a "Hannah Handjob". This phase will die off and she'll be with a nice lily white boy and rocking some Vera Wang gown at the next Grammys word to Timberlake post Janet titty.

Aye Macklemore I gotta question...how the fuck are YouTube comments slandering gays, HipHop's fault? Help me understand, broham...last time I checked I never heard of MC QueefGod or Young Cum Lord69...don't blame HipHop for gay bashing when Ye' and A$AP Rocky running round wearing leggings and skirts. Macklemore really slandering HipHop and he's a rapper...that's like going in to work and shitting on the whole company that signs your paycheck ...fuck outta here fam. You're fired.

Bling Bling rap...that's all I hear...fuck outta here. We came from nothing and got a little $$$ so hell yeah we're gonna celebrate what we got. Look in the mirror during tax return season, if you haven't copped anything new and celebrated then you're lying to yourself, fam'ron. If you don't like flashy rap, grab a Talib Kweli cd and light an incense. Word to Lourdes (sp?) who's shitting on HipHop over a boom bap beat, but I'm chillin.

That's it for my rant. 

Follow me on twitter: @OmahaHostage

The Great Divide: Black Male Patriarchy

 “They nervous when they see the black man walking down the street boppin, hold yo’ head and keep rocking,  pants sag, fuck a cop swag, keep (2) Pac’n, it’s a new world doctrine, oppression is not an option…” –Jay Electronica From Act II (Rough Demo)

            I came across a debate on twitter about Black Male Patriarchy and Negro Bed Wenches…I’m very puzzled by the term of Black Male Patriarchy because Patriarchy is defined as “A System or Government in which the father or eldest male is head of the family and descent is traced through the male line.” But what the hell is Black Male Patriarchy? I’ll tell you what it is…it’s a damn myth. Unless people (mainly sistas) consider the made up rules that black men have to abide by, to get by in Amerikkka. Let me give you some of these patriarchic rules: when the weather is frightful and a brotha is rocking a hood, a store clerk will politely remind him to take off that hood. Thanks for the reminder, sweetheart. As a black man I actually appreciate how law enforcement agencies take appropriate precautions against us to protect the American people. The media loves to shine the spotlight on us, for doing amazing things, like robbing liquor stores and murdering my own kind. And to be the face of crime is amazing, that’s just the tip of the iceberg of what Black Male Patriarchy is in Amerikkka.

            So I’m obviously being a smart ass, cause fact of the matter is that bullshit that’s been getting kicked lately is a damn lie. The black male is vilified in mainstream media…we aint keeping our sistas down. That system is nonexistent in the black community.

            Where did this term come from? Honestly, I just started seeing “Black Male Patriarchy” once the slander for the tv show Scandal began. You can’t shit on Olivia Pope, the black community won’t allow it..even though she’s president’s side piece.  And  when Tariq Nasheed introduced the phrase “Negro Bed Wench”. It started to pop up all over social media.  Here’s the definition according to Tariq à http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u5v-5YhPau4 If you don’t wanna view the vid, just peep the sista in Django Unchained that was Calvin Candie’s piece. That’s a negro bed wench aka the female uncle tom.

                Fact of the matter is that this debate/argument is just stupid. I feel as if we as people can’t get along…for shit!!! If it ain’t me shooting my brotha cause he reps a different color bandanna, or slandering my own kind to be accepted by the infrastructure, colorism aka “dark skin niggas be like, light skin niggas be like…” “she’s pretty to be so dark” etc., now it’s black feminists  vs. the phantom black male patriarchy.  We out here just lost in the Matrix. Blacks are about to reach a trillion dollars in buying power, but we can’t even get over us being different shades of black.  That dives in to us not knowing our history and trying to create our own history as we live. We’re out here tryna follow the drinking gourd, but you can’t head north in a barrel fulla crabs, fam. Get it together, black folks.

Follow me on twitter: @OmahaHostage

Zebra Cake (Breakdown)

I dusted off the mic and started back on this rap shit, I thought that I could be cool waiting on others and hit when the time is right... but the time is now. As I was working and doing homework, I would always get sidetrack and pen some bars in my phone. Or I would be putting together some coffee tables at work and just freestyling my ass off to the point where my coworkers would be like, "You say something A.B.?" So here's a breakdown of Zebra Cake. The inspiration came from the beat itself you really don't hear something so simple yet dope in rap. I felt as if gave me the freedom to kick what I needed, just to get my point across.

V1: How many of y'all living ya dream, (Just a simple question to get the listener back focused on what they should be doing)I'm doing that right now with the song I sing(I'm not necessarily signing but being in that booth always feels like a dream), I started from the bottom, it was too many problems(Self explanatory), I left them crabs in a barrel, started climbing the ladder(This is a play on the mentality of too many folks at the bottom that are comfortable, so they pull you down with them once you start taking the appropriate steps to reach a goal), the higher that I got, I took the road less traveled(I'm saying that I don't want to follow the same path that everyone else took), soon as I took that route the herd start thinning out,(No one is on the journey that I am on, so I'm only competing with myself) now, Social media is like the wild Wild West,(savages on FB, Instagram, Twitter, Vine etc.) niggas with no couth wanna destroy ya rep, (Niggas that aint got shit going for themselves love to slander and get a reaction, I used to think folks were making up haters, but a lot of folks need a purpose and some couth. Just look at a celebrity's @'s on twitter. )but Im cool at all times, even when slander is at all time high, (when the heathens arrive, I just shut the mini-blinds )niggas ask why? Cause no one can do it better than this Omaha fella(I believe in me, even if the people can't grasp my vision, yet.), every bar that I pen has calligraphy letters(this is just another way of me saying that I'll deliver something a little fancy in each bar), since the balls in my court I'm just waiting to check up(waiting on whoever to play ball), dream shaking in the paint, Kobe from the wing, Lebron with a lane, I do the damn thang,(just some boasting bars) scary niggas with a pistol, we call em bishop (this was a bar that I used to use on niggas way back in high school, niggas loved to kick that I'll use a gun to blow ya face off, but that Bishop from juice line would shut that down)my flow's too smooth to induce the hiccups(my flow isn't erk n jerk, it's pretty consistent), Im like water through a stream, you niggas been stuck(I move fluidly on tracks, I still write my lyrics down, I don't punch in and waste the engineer's time), I ain't broke a sweat yet I'm just getting my wind up X2(this verse came too easy to me.)

V2: The wave that I'm on, got me feeling like King Kong,(Still playing with my flow, I caught the beat running, if you peep the way my verse comes in on the beat. I'm feeling big like the monkey on the empire state building) and my stomach's in knots from all of this King Fong's(I was eating a bunch of King Fong's while penning the verses for this joint.), Moët Chandon helps ease the pain(champagne for the pain, using Moet as pepto bismol), no more strip clubs for me, I can't stand the rain, but these bastards don't get it, the assets is liquid(I never understood the making it rain wave, sometimes Rap makes the dumbest shit cool. Throwing up thousands of dollars just to say that you have $$$. You can't YOLO your funds. You gotta build a foundation with the $$$ you're making off music), Wall Street fails and I'm still here flipping, yeah that's word to my grape V's, the sneaker revolution and the beasts that hype(I'm saying fuck the wolves on wall street that continue to fuck with the people's funds, I can still make that hand to hand $$$. The sneaker game is turning in to the drug game, cop a pair of kicks for $180, turn around and sell em for $350-$400+. You can make money, just gotta be creative and have a strong internet connection), we were raised to survive, self taught to thrive,(If you grew up poor, most likely you were raised in survival mode, now that you're grown it's time to go past survival and actually thrive. Stop settling for "at least". Do more. ) I walk a fine line between the sun and the moon, 1 day it's Durags, the next its boat shoes(this is me relating to my fellow brothers, we have to tip toe between who we are and who the dominate society wants us to be, all while breaking down stereotypes.), new era hat over the the stocking cap, sperry's on a ferry, I'm enjoying the view(one day I'm lounging in a durag and fitted cap, the next I'm rocking sperry's on a boat, but I'm still me.), (Ric flair whooooo) shoutout my boy Lovelace, admire what ya doing just keep up the pace, ain't too many niggas out here doing shit for their race...cause Cash Rules Everything Around Me...(this is just a shoutout to the young homie Brandon, from rounding up shopping carts to windsor knots. And also reaching back once he moved forward, helping the youth. Most of us, have the idea that it's me, me, me, but your blessings will come tenfold if you help those that need it).

V3. Zebra...Cake...you can't read my stripes(This is just playing off of what Jigga did on the original, I aint near 500 mil so I ain't gotta pound cake <pound of cake>, I got that paycheck to paycheck $$$, cheap zebra cake. Then I'm playing off of the stripes on the actual cake.), I'm playing chess, just to get my piece of the pie(more dessert references, you gotta think ahead if you want to make it in Amerikkka.), you can see right through me, I got nothing to hide(this is fooling the listener "you just said 'you can't read my stripes' now you got nothing to hide...so it's a contradiction, but like I said before I'm playing chess.), cause I'm a man of my word, just look in my eyes(The older I get the more I know the importance of keeping my word and being a man of my word), old school nigga I ain't nowhere near 40, almost 30, but my face talk for me, yeah you know black don't crack(Young guy with old school morals, I feel like my generation is so cut throat and will do anything to get a little recognition, step on toes before they lace on their on boots. Also I look a lot younger than I am...freckled faced villain.), black Omaha you know it's more than rap, just some real fly shit, 5 black hands keep the $$$ tight knit(support your own, just speaking on the black hands theory, your $$$ should go through so many black owned businesses before it leaves the community. Black Omaha is more than a color it's a positive movement highlighting the foks that aren't doing negative b.s. That gets so much attention on the news.), these bars are priceless, ...that's why you getting em for free, if I didn't love y'all, I'd charge you a fee,(free music, I appreciate you listening) cash rules everything around me, but I gotta say fuck $$$ cause it comes with dream, some of y'all will get it, some of yall won't(we get so caught up chasing $$$ that we forget about what we really want out of life. Do what you love and you will be rewarded for it greatly), get ya life savers on, cause I'm rocking the boat, my...flow is on a whole nother' level(Going back to my rap style and the cadence I used on the track. the other verses were smooth except for this last one), I upped the ante, my city don't settle(tryna build to the point where Omaha won't settle for subpar songs), step ya game up if you sparring with me, but I ain't met a rapper yet with that kind of ability, cause rap rules everything around me...(Just the competitive nature coming out and saying I love rap)

Take a listen here--> https://soundcloud.com/a-beezy-1/zebra-cake-pound-cake-remake

Follow me on Twitter/Instagram @OmahaHostage

The Self-Cleaning Oven

   

      Yo, it’s been a minute since I wrote a blog, to be honest I haven’t been inspired to write anything that’ll be entertaining yet informative. And I try not to force creativity because that’s when shit gets lame like Ne-Yo singing live at the NBA all-star game. But it’s time to bless the concrete and street corners with another blog, yo. “About what, A.B.?” The self-cleaning oven theory…

            I always thought about crime when I was little in the aspect of you see a million cop cars riding around “poor/urban/inner city” neighborhoods, but crime was always high. Why is that? The almighty dollar, bruh. And that almighty dollar is the root cause of “the self-cleaning oven” theory. Think about an oven that cleans itself, it cooks your food and cleans itself. The only thing you have to do is prepare the food and clean the outside and around the burners. So keep that in mind while you read this blog.

            Food Prep: Money makes the world go round, being a part of law enforcement is a job FIRST. You get paid from a job, plain and simple. No jobs equal higher crime rates. Niggas (all people I call nigga) ain’t got a job they’re gonna go out and get that money by any means. Or niggas just gonna be niggas and do triflin’ shit. Take away opportunities and jobs in a community and plant a police station in the middle of “crime central”. Voila food prep.

            Cooking/Eating:  So now you got all these cops out on the streets in the hood, patrolling. This is what I like to call cooking/eating. The oven aka the hood is doing what it does best cooking. So now with the food prep aka no jobs/opportunities done its time to cook/eat. Sharks in the water(squad cars). Petty arrests, even more petty tickets being handed out at the first of the month…wake up wake up. Why the first of the month? Most folks in the hood are on a fixed income and handle business soon as that EBT card is loaded up. They’re like a school of fish to the great whites. Whooop Whooop, license and registration please…oh you have a warrant for blah blah blah. Same for the petty drug dealers, they’re products of needing money quickly and bullshit jobs or no jobs. So they’re out tough on the first week of the month serving and tryna make it out. Undercovers out working over time(more $$$) to eat off the hand to hand entrepreneurs. More arrests equal more $$$ for the county and that trickles down when it's time for that annual review and raise.

            Cleaning the surface:  So now on the outside looking in you’re thinking that the cops are so overwhelmed that they can’t arrest everyone…bullshit.  Or thinking the cops are doing a great job when you see a “big bust” on tv…more bullshit. If shit really worked in law enforcement you would cut off the head and the body would fall, but nah they gotta keep eating. No crime no $$$. Simple and plain. Don’t go after the supplier bringing it in or the middle man connecting the supplier and dealer. Just arrest the petty dealers because they keep repopulating. Circle of crime.

           

           Self-Cleaning:  Murder in the hood is the equivalent of the self-cleaning function on the oven. Detectives work “over time” to solve these unsolved murders. Black on black, brown on brown, and poor on poor murders are considered self-cleaning. No one is gonna jump through hoops to solve those murders but they sure will milk that clock to act like they’re working a hot lead that’ll lead to an arrest.  Don’t arrest the connects or suppliers the streets need to be the walking dead. The more of a daze the streets are in, the easier it is to manipulate em and eat off of them…

Food for thought, you do the dishes: To keep these pigs from eating off of concrete, the hood needs to get their affairs in order. Don't give em a reason to lock you up. There is no better feeling than being pulled over by the five-0 and having all of your shit together. "They won't catch me slipping" is my motto. And it should be the hoods motto also. You can fight bullshit tickets & charges...keyword: FIGHT! Folks give up too damn easily when fighting against an establishment. That hand to hand money is great until them alphabet boys come kicking in your door. And these senseless murders is just what the establishment wants...But hey I know, "I gotta rep this hood til the death of me, even though I don't own any of this land and this man's face looks just like my face, but he's from a different part of the city reppin a different hood, so I must take this muthafucka out." <-- shit sounds stupid don't it. That's that crab in a barrel syndrome that the establishment banks on…self-cleaning oven, but y’all don’t hear me though. The sink is full and there are no clean plates.

Twitter: @OmahaHostage