I’m really not one for goodbyes. And frankly, who among us really is? The feeling of finality in a goodbye is scary, really. It’s an inescapable closure. The extra syllable in ‘good’ brings about a formality and completeness that’s saved exclusively for breakups, deaths, and all other somber resolutions. Think about it – when was the […]
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In honor of February being Dilla Month, I’ve got my own Dilla related story to contribute: Let’s take a little trip back in time to my 16 year old self. It’s the summer of 2000, right around the height of my backpacker phase. No, not the Patagonia rocking, Clif Bar stashing, trailblazing type. What I’m […]
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“The invention of the ship was also the invention of the shipwreck.” Paul Virilio Cultural theorist Paul Virilio used this analogy to relay in simplest terms what the casualty of progress can be. To be concise, no matter how good the going gets for anything, the bad is sure to be there, handcuffed forevermore as […]
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Doing the rounds through my go-to websites for daily consumption, I can never predict which wormhole will be opened up by my curiosity. Today an article on the discovery of a well intact Ornithomimus fossil piqued my interest, leading me to a random Tumblr search for related dinosaur news. Full disclosure if you don’t know […]
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October marks the 15 year anniversary of OutKast’s charismatic, genre-juggling, mind-bending, cosmic funk escapade – Stankonia. And you would think that I, a fan of OutKast since they were just two dope boys in a Cadillac crumblin’ herb, would have known this off the top of my head. Nope. The thought of this milestone for the album […]
Read moreDear Summer, I know you’ve been good to me. The fun of our fling is a thing that won’t leave me quickly. We’ve had our moments, memorable and indelible, to cement this season as better than the last. But – sorry, yes there’s a but – the flame has fizzled, I’m starting to drift a little and […]
Read moreWhen I first heard of the New Zealand neo-funk/soul/r&b/everything-sonically-pleasing-under-the-sun-quartet, Hiatus Kaiyote, it was through their 2013 hit, “Nakamarra” featuring the legendary Abstract Emcee, Q-Tip. The experience of being introduced to that track and subsequently the band’s full body of work felt like a reprisal of self for me. It was eye-opening, really, what with their […]
Read moreNever in my wildest of imaginations did I even think of spending my 31st birthday running madly down the middle of Sunset Boulevard, joined by hundreds of other people of all shapes and creeds participating in the same bizarre scene – a seemingly frenzied horde chasing after a flatbed truck creeping slowly along, with a live […]
Read more“So here’s to new mistakes, beautiful ones, tremendous ones, ones that stir your soul and re-arrange the norms holding you back.” Almost exactly a year ago, I toasted away 2013 with those words. As that year dissipated into a now long-gone haze of selfies, Macklemore’s shopping habits, and Beyonce influencing millions on how they should […]
Read moreIn the last four weeks, four unarmed black men have been killed by law enforcement across the country – Mike Brown in Ferguson, MO, Eric Garner in New York, NY, John Crawford in Dayton, OH and Ezell Ford in Los Angeles, CA. Though the issue of racially charged police brutality is sadly one that has […]
Read moreA year after my senior year in high school I deejayed this one house party for an acquaintance of mine. Acquaintance for the fact that back in high school, she just happened to know me from sharing a few classes with her, yet too cool enough to not want to get to know me any […]
Read moreBack in the very first edition of “Editor’s Note”, I made mention of a past job I had of being a telemarketer. I mean, when you think of entry level jobs for a young dude, you can narrow it down to a core triumvirate: fast food, retail and telemarketing. The money was fast, the sales […]
Read moreThe vivacity of certain memories can be at such a high level that invoking them with a quick recollection can lead to a deluge of emotion, remembrance, and nostalgia, washing away the potential haziness that surrounds less significant flashbacks. I remember it like it was yesterday: I get a mid-day phone call from my then-boss […]
Read moreFlipping through channels, you find yourself easily opting to stay on one that’s showing re-runs of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. The fact that anyone would need to ask why would automatically label their childhood as one that was deprived of the joy we all would feel as Will got into another mess with Carlton […]
Read moreChange can strike terror in many at the most, and at the very least can even cause those most welcoming of it to flinch. For as much a constant as change is, it also can suffocate in too much of it, creating a chaos that’s more cacophony than the symphony your life needs. I say […]
Read moreJury duty. Everyone has to do it. As citizens of the good ‘ol U-S-of-A, it is our civic duty to fulfill such a service. And such was what I had to keep reminding myself last week as I sat in the courtroom, joining other people, from all walks of life, who were probably repeating such […]
Read moreBack in the day I was a pretty avid gamer. I’m talking having pretty much every major gaming system all the way up to the Playstation 2 – Nintendo, Super Nintendo, Genesis, Game Boy, Saturn, Dreamcast, N64 – nearly everything except the Virtual Boy, because honestly you were a bonafide buster if you had that. […]
Read moreRecently, while covering the 2013 BET Awards Experience weekend, I had the privilege of sitting in on a live exclusive interview with Pharrell Williams himself. It goes without saying that the wisdom he shared with the audience that night was equal parts extensive, varied, crucial, and insightful. Now let’s take a second to step back […]
Read moreBack in the day, in what seems like a lifetime ago, I was a telemarketer for a mortgage lender. Yup. I was among the hated that called you right around any inopportune time and had that mind-numbingly annoying two second lag before answering you back after your third ‘Hello?’. It didn’t really matter whatever it […]
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THE 5TH ELEMENT MAGAZINE 