The Musik Lounge

Five years ago I was living in hell. Broken and full of despair, a path forward arose. A life lived fast, with no real care for anything or anyone had caught up to me. I’d spent my twenties chasing dreams of working in the music industry born out of a passion for sounds that I can’t put into words. As my perception voided out anything mattering I closed doors and stopped listening. Failing to heed warnings from friends and family, failing to turn into that which had always been there for me, music ceased to matter. This isn’t a dirge of self pity. That path forward was a path back to listening. A path back to that which always inspired and uplifted me. The sounds changed, the styles evolved. I’m a hiphop head. Love the boom bap. The message. The history. I was copping artists' whole discographies via those mail in CD clubs of the 90s. Consuming every issue of the Source and XXL. And when the internet hit?! Free downloads and a trove of information. My earliest memories tell me I lo...

"Get Lost" by Will J. A chopped vocal sample plays in the background, my partner reads her book and the world spins. To some out of control, to others it’s unfolding exactly how it is supposed to. We are months into the COVID days and all I know is that creativity is flowing. It’s often hard to pinpoint when what we are exposed to was actually created, we have projects like folklore & How I’m Feeling Now which the creatives behind are explicitly detailing how they were made under state mandated lockdown. Black is King just released and while clearly an undertaking long before the pandemic, it speaks to now in ways that imply crystal ball like foresight. Or, sadly, just an awareness of what being black in America means. The point is that while holed up in our homes we can only scroll, stream & tik tok for so long before our minds need something else - and we all have something creative inside of us whether we embrace it or get paid for it. And unlike any other era ...