Friendship

I live for the moments where between friends, you burst out into laughter from an inside unspoken joke.

The moments where you sit side by side and just from the posture you can tell where their mind ends.

I live for the chatter that fills the empty moments, the passion that pours from minds revealing to you the moments they hide until they let you inside.

I live for the friendships that live through everything, through the wear and tear, the scares.

The friendships that even if you move, leave, they stay there. The friendships that free your soul let you let down your hair.

I LIVE for my complete polar opposites. Nothing in common, no relative similarities, but they understand me as if they were my identical twin. The friendships that nobody understands. Yet they work perfectly for us.

The friends who make you laugh, wipe your tears, advice with no fear. Friends who poke your heart, some of them might have not clicked with from the start. The friends who’ve seen my passion and listened to me, the ones who always cradle my dreams.

It’s rare to find friendships that last that have stuck with you from the past and the future is yours to touch. Its uncommon to find a friend who understands you, who knows you, who makes you better. It’s impossible to find a friend you can trust, a friend who will trust you.

Sometimes I look at my friends, my true friends, “my ride or dies” and I wonder why an angel from somewhere, anywhere, decided to touch me. It took a lot to trust the people I trust today, and I pray and hope they feel the same way.

I never get a chance to honestly tell you but, I love you guys. Without you I’d be an island but I am so glad I don’t have to stand on my own.

Dance.

When I’m in the middle of choreography and I can see all the moves coming together in the mirror that faces me, there is something inside me that settles. All the noise and all the pain and bullshit that is just outside the realm of my heaven dissipates. The music replaces my blood, my heart beat the drum and the snare, my blood palettes the melody. Flowing with a rhythmic beauty that would leave the feeble minded weak. Insane. It can get frustrating to miss a step but the toil is worth the final product. And when the dance steps begin to fade and my head lifts out of the daze, I see the last move complete itself, my breathing is so heavy it’s lost any pattern, I feel whole. My body can ache and my mind gets tired but when I dance none of that matters. As cliche as it sounds I lose myself. I lose myself and I never want to be found because where I’m going.. thats my heaven.

Down With Webster.

You cant just pretend to be Down With Webster. It’s not a skill mastered with ease. The 7 eccentric boys are what they like to call a ‘tossed salad’ in tenth grade history. Each with their own eclectic style which molds together to create a band of super music heroes. Rappers, singers, a DJ, instruments, it’s all there.

The band is a perfect blend of rock and roll and hip-hop, swing jazz and mellow soul and everything between. 

DWW originated from The Beaches here in Toronto and signed with universal in early 2009. The group consists of Bucky and Cam as the dirty rappers, Pat singing his heart and strumming his guitar. Tyler on the keyboard, Marty and his crazy fro on Drums, Kap as the Hype Man and Diggy as the spinning DJ. 

And the combination has yet to fail. 

Even though they haven’t hit international success as other fellow Canadian musicians their moment to shine looms around the corner waiting to greet them. A couple of tracks to consider in your repotoire from the 7 are, Grind and Let Me In from their self titled album, and Time To Win and Rich Girl from the second studio album Time To Win. The music is original, the band; innovative and their careers on an extremely good path. Dont knock the hustle of DWW. Just throw on a pair of headphones and let them make you shake like Jello.

The Love Affair: White Boys and Hip Hop

Long gone is the image of the white male who only listens to “Blink182” or “Fall-Out Boy?”. Replaced by the stereotypical “white musicians” is hip-hop. When it comes to music they see nothing but rhythm and beats. Raw material attracts even the meekest of the pack. Not a knock I learned some of my cherished music knowledge from a white boy. I know a few white boys who represent the culture more than your average hip-hop pursuers. Every show. Album release. Event. Be sure to look out for the biggest fans cloaked in TNA and DC kicks. Kids who know more about the history than your average hip-hop head. Who can teach you classics like you never saw them. Lay out the mechanisms of a track that will have you experiencing music like never before. Hip-Hop isn’t dead, no it never died. It just moved postal codes.

a poem about love.

 got you in a time of need. 
You make me whole, and you feed, my soul. 
And you thump like the heart beneath my skin
Drums like pulse and my running veins
Intoxicate me
More powerful than any drug I’ve ever known 
Give me more reign than a queen on a throne
I don’t need fancy flowers from you 
I don’t need you too hold me too make me feel good
You move my body more than I ever knew Never get sick of you, 
You make me smile like a fool
And without hestitation I can turn to you
Make me feel more than a woman, make me feel brand new
Unhealthy won’t define me it’s an obsession with you
You feed my mind, my heart, personal soul food
I can’t get mad when you cheat on me
I want the world to explore you 
Admire your broad, beautiful, tapestry 
Let the others live our fantasy
And even when you do to them what you do to me
We share our hidden secret that they’ll never see
I’d never leave you, hurt or abuse you
I need you more that I need cooked food
I confess my love and dying adoration. 
I’m yours forever.
I love you.
I’ll always keep you.
Music.

Black

I look in the mirror
What do I see in the reflection

Symmetry, beauty, dark perfection.

I look to the left and what do I see?
A little girl, half my size, eager to be me.
Because we,
Soar free let our feathers fly father than the eye
Could possibly see
She chases my face with her glassy eager eyes
and tries to understand how a woman of her colour
Could soar more than 
Her dreams could ever vie.
And I tell her “wheel beyond your greatest dreams,
Behind you, baby, you got support, the greatest team” 

And she turned to me
Innocent eyes
As real as she could be 
And said

“They tell us, we’ll never succeed
Live up to the stereotypes
Maury 
Jerry
B.E.T.”

Please 
Don’t see what they see
I see black kings and queens that live 
to give
to achieve
what those before them wouldn’t believe

But remember,

We dont need a month to celebrate who we are
To make other people recognize we are our own
Blazing stars
We dont need a calendar to show us where we stand
Roar loud we should 
Like a passionate marching band
We dont need them to approve of what we do
We’ve done enough to prove
That no one can fill our shoes.
We dont need 28 days to tell us we’re an unsolved mystery
They can see it in our daily grind
We always create.. Black History

Haniyfa.

Black 

Melanin, sweet sin, dark temptation. 

The touch the feel the glow is my mental fixation. 

Brothers and sisters alike with the beauty of a colour just pale of the night. 
A range from chocolate dark to albino white The colours you can’t buy. 
No matter HOW MUCH you fuckin try. 

That’s right, we got the gift and embrace it; we the shit, and after they take a hit man withdrawals a bitch. 

And trust when we say black don’t crack? Trust me, black don’t ever dry pavement, no lotion, skin groaning crack 

Fact, our pigmentation is a representation of the power beyond our greatest nation. Different shades mask our motives and hide our building aggravation, and the aggravation because NOW our skins a sensation? 

They can tan, sit in the sun for hours, our skin is not a cripple, yes it gives us power. It’s ours. 

Embrace the beauty, that holds the fact that black skin will always be in. Perfection, relative, but we always shine, we win. 

Stand tall, we are machines. A perfect specimin of an undying dream. We represents the kings and the queens that came before our team. We are the team that will leave behind a legacy of the highest esteem. 

The way we walk and talk and can’t be represented by chalk .That’s why we got em to their knees. Begging for a lil more colour. 
lease 

What we got can’t be bought. 
The way we move can’t be taught.
There is no way to mimic our thoughts 

And everything about us, well everything about us… 

is just that, no other way to define it, we just black.

Untitled.

Growing up, I was never her. 
Everything about my being was always compared to the human being, her. 
Every image I ever saw was of, her. 

I grew up thinking my beauty would never amount to what my community was so proud about. 
I remember thinking my skin was a sin Hating God for drowning me in melanin. 
I never loved me for the beauty within, I only noticed the flaw I considered my skin. 

Then I met him.

And he was in my eyes the epitome of perfection, 
The perfect solution, he’d dilute me, my correction Everything about him made me conjure a connection. He had clouded my young heart like a fatal infection. 
Yet what I feared most was his rejection because my skin wasn’t enough, a mistaken complexion. 

He was light.
I was dark. 

And in my heart I knew it was my skin that had once destroyed me and I had given in. I let my insecurities win. I didn’t care to be thin but the things I would do to colour theme fit in. 

I wanted to be her, 
And I wanted him to be with me 

I let this colour define who I was supposed to be. 
Took a toll on being and I started believing that maybe, I wasn’t worth something to see in. I kept agreeing with the ignorance around me letting myself think that this was a flaw nothing good was around me. 

I let my skin define who I was for the longest time I can remember to the point where I hated facing my peers on the 1st of September. Fell into a depression couldn’t face others because I thought I was damaged. 

Took a lot for me to be comfortable in my skin. Took a lot to love me for who I am. To anyone who has ever had to deal with the hatred of your own skin remember this, Light or dark, white or black, your skin doesn’t define what you lack. That is a representation of who you are. This applies to EVERY race. 

Love yourself because you’re never far from being misjudged. I know it can be hard when people constantly tell you your too dark or your too light. It’s your job to prove that YOU love the skin YOUR in. Don’t let other peoples beauty define you. Trust me, I doubt you’d be here if your skin was a sin. Everyday you look in the mirror and you see the flaws think to yourself “will I let my skin be my downfall?”