The Late Great Steve Jobs

The saying “You never know what someone has gone through” is true, every one of us have a story to tell. I’ve had the chance of listening to a 2011 speech from the great Steve Jobs, at Stanford University’s commencement ceremony. Jobs named this speech “How to live before you die”, sharing with the soon to be graduates some of his life stories and lessons.

               His first point was called “Connect the dots” where he spoke on his past. Jobs told the story of how he made the courageous decision of dropping out of college, because it was costing too much of his parents savings. I admire this story because his decision to drop out of school made him even hungrier for success.

After Jobs dropped out he spent nights sleeping on the floor of many of his friends’ dorm rooms, and he’d often walk for miles to get a hot meal. Also, when he dropped out of the courses he was taking, he began “dropping in” on the courses he was more interested in. Those classes helped Jobs in his future endeavors with Apple, setting the Apple computer apart with its beautiful typography.

The next point I’d like to touch on from his speech is on “Love and loss”.  At one point in time, Jobs was fired from Apple after having a fall out with the company. Most people would see this occurrence as a time of grief, but Jobs did the opposite. Once again we can see Jobs using his time of hardships to start over and retaliate ten times stronger. Shortly after his fall out with Apple, Jobs started two companies named Next and Pixar. After Apple brought the company Next, Jobs was back at his stomping grounds stronger than ever.

One key lesson I’ve learned from Jobs’ speech is, sometimes it takes the moments of despair and struggle to help you refocus and go for the gold. It is best to take these moments and build on them rather than letting them be our demise. Also, Jobs spoke on passion. He expressed that passion will be one of the main factors in your success. I love this because it inspires young people like myself to find our passion, our love, the things we really care about. After all, if Jobs didn’t have passion for his work, he would have quit at the face of his trials a long time ago.

Resource: www.Ted.com - Steve Jobs

Aaliyah album comes to fruition

There has been a lot of controversy over the recent news that Hip-hop artist Drake, will be executive producing a new album from the late R&B artist/actor Aaliyah. The album will include unreleased vocals of the artist before she passed.

During her career, Aaliyah has collaborated with artists and producers such as Missy Elliot, TImbaland, Magoo, and Jermaine Dupri. However, none of these artists or producers were asked to collaborate on this new album. Aside from the music, they’ve had personal relationships with Aaliyah. In a recent interview with Timbaland, he expressed how he acted as a big brother towards Aaliyah.

In a recent interview with New York’s Power 105, Missy Elliot expressed her perspective on the situation. Elliot mentioned that out of respect for the family, they should be the ones to initiate an Aaliyah album. She also said that there’s a difference between the ways Aaliyah’s family mourns her death, and how fans and supporters mourn her death. After all, “they knew her before she was Aaliyah to the world” says Elliot.

Prior to the Power 105 interview, media sources got in touch with Aaliyahs brother Rashad Haughton. He precisely stated, “There is no official album being supported by the Haughton family.

In this predicament, the families voice morally should out weigh the rest. For example, imagine if a set of businessmen decided to release a Michael Jackson album with unreleased vocals from “The King of Pop”, without any consent or input from the Jackson family? The project would seem more about the revenue rather than paying homage to a great artist.

Morally speaking, the correct way to approach this album would have been for the family to be contacted, and offered a project plan they’d agree on. After that step is taken, I definitely believe they’d want to involve other producers and artists like Missy Elliot and Timbaland. I believe that’s the only way characteristics of the late Aaliyah can be added to the album, other than her vocals.

Drake will receive Aaliyah’s catalog of music, and he can put any kind of twist to her vocals. Though, if he were to bring Aaliyah’s affiliates into the picture, they may be able to give a real life situation Aaliyah faced at the time she recorded it.

In the end, this will be a tough task for Drake, though it isn’t too late to fix.

Check out the first released track entitled “Enough Said” and let me know what you think.

Lupe Fiasco Speaks out

In a Hip-Hop culture where women are often lyrically degraded, and sexually exploited, it’s rare seeing male artists speaking out against it all. Though, if you’re familiar with Lupe Fiasco’s past projects, you’d see that this is nothing new. You can always count on Lupe Fiasco to give you a different point of view, that doesn’t always go with the grain of mainstream trends.

In June of 2012, Lupe Fiasco released a song titled “Bitch Bad” expressing how our culture has adapted to the derogatory term into something we call women. In the dictionary, the term can be commonly defined as a female dog, but in the urban dictionary the term can mean a variety of things and “A woman” being one of them.

In the song Lupe Fiasco addresses the issue of younger males hearing their mothers and, older women singing along to the very songs that downgrade women. As a result of hearing the women of his life singing these lyrics, the term suddenly becomes something acceptable. As Lupe says it, the young man will then “skew respect for dishonor”.

Fiasco’s second verse addresses young women growing up thinking the term is appropriate. He paints a picture of a group of little girls surfing the uncensored Internet, with no supervision. The young girls view a music video, and the lyrics are similar to the one played in the car by the young mans mother. Aside from the derogatory term, the girls see a woman dancing with little to no clothing on. Impressed by the attention received from the man in the music video, the young girls will try and imitate her behavior. This verse shows the process of how young girls grow up listening to the word, and then after seeing the video they now have a clear definition of what a “Bad Bitch” is according to society.

In Fiasco’s third verse he shows how the generation of once little boys and girls will one day meet. The young girl is a mere reflection of the girls on the television she has seen throughout her life, and she flaunts her body to the now young man in an attempt to get his attention. However, the young man has grown an association of dishonor with how the young woman is portraying herself; through comparison to his mother.

Lastly, throughout the music video Fiasco shows images of black facing, which has struck up major controversy to audience members and spectators. Though I feel Fiasco is making a strategic connection between the humiliation of black facing and how our culture is actually acting. Lupe Fiasco then ends the music video with the actors taking off the black make-up, which I feel is a call for our community to wake up and change their ways.

Overall, this was a great approach to helping people realize the bad connotations that come along with the word.

Keep the content filled music coming Lupe Fiasco “Good Vibes Music” is behind you.

Highly Anticipated Album Releases (August)

• 2 Chainz - "Based On a T.R.U. Story" (August 14th, 2012)
• The-Dream - "Love IV MMXII" (August 14th, 2012)
• Melanie Amaro - "Love Me Now" (August 16th, 2012)
• Busta Rhymes - "Year of The Dragon" (August 20th, 2012)
• Trey Songz - "Chapter V" (August 21st, 2012)
• DJ Khaled - "Kiss the Ring" (August 21st, 2012)
• Brandy - "Two Eleven" (August 28th, 2012)
• Prodigy - "The Bumpsy Johnson Album" (August 28th, 2012)
• Jadakiss - "Loyalty Comes First" (August 28th, 2012)
• J. Cole - "Better than Your Average" (August 28th, 2012)
• Tamia- "Beautiful Surprise" (August 28th, 2012)
• Jhene Aiko - "Souled Out" (TBA)

BET’s Music Matters artist is Perfectly Imperfect

Elle Varner a recent BET Matters artists drops her new album entitled “Perfectly Imperfect”. The artist made her first appearance on the Billboard charts with “Only wanna give it to you” which featured her former classmate J. Cole. She then gave us “Refill” earlier this year, which is currently at number 29 of Billboards R&B/Hip-Hop charts, and number 25 on Billboards Heatseekers songs.


In her 106 & Park interview Varner speaks on her album title “Perfectly Imperfect”. She says it is not just saying she is perfectly imperfect or flawless, but her album is perfectly imperfect because it isn’t something that has been in the works for years being perfected. It is more of something that she just had to say, “This is it”. Varner also went on to say “The numbers are just extra”. This shows music listeners that Varner isn’t in the industry just to make record sales or compete with other artists; she truly loves making good music

Beyond vocals, it is very impressive how Varner presents herself. Her unique sense of fashion creates a sexy, conservative, yet creative image all in one. In the 106 & Park interview, Varner gives a special thanks to her stylist Wouri ViceWardrobe.

It is good to see a new artist on the rise; Producer JD said it best in reference to Anthony Hamilton’s career “The 1 thing I love about what I do, is taking an artist that few people know and turning them into somebody that everyone knows”. I can honestly say it is good to see this artist making her dreams come true. Many artists have great singles, but few artists have albums that listeners can play from cover to cover, and “Perfectly Imperfect” is definitely one of those albums.

“Good Vibes Music” will definitely continue to follow Elle Varner in her career, some of her coming project includes a duet with BET Music Matters upcoming artist Luke James. In the meantime, go out and support Elle Varner’s album “Perfectly Imperfect”, I know you will enjoy it as much as I did.