Tuesday Night we gathered @ 420 Lounge in NYC to premiere our music video for “Poppin’ On TV”. It was a good night new york city…
Our friends and family were in the building, celebrating with us the release of our video. People from school, work, “Notorious”, and “back home” were in attendance. (even people I haven’t seen in 14 years… wow….).
THANK YOU!!!
- to all the people who attended the event
- to all of the people who helped make the video happen: The True 2 Life Music Team, Omar Derby (the director) and his crew, The Poppin’ On TV Models, the makeup artists, stylists, and supporters who came to lend a hand.
- to all the people who have supported us during the years by going to shows, giving words of encouragement and positivity.
We completely appreciate it and are thankful to have you guys on our side. The world could be heartless and the winters can be cold, but the warm and friendly environment we felt at the video premiere party makes it all worth it.
We have alot to be thankful for.
Sincerely,
K.Words
PS - Shouts to Swagg & Money Bags for the pictures. If you have any pictures from the event, send them to TRUE2LIFEPR@gmail.com. Gobble, Gobble.
Okay, so some friends of mine were joking around with me cause during election night I was using Obama to drive traffic to our website.
Guilty as charged.
Don’t get me wrong though.. I respect everything that night stands for, but it’s a recession… and brothas gotta eat. Anyway, I came across on hiphopdx.com:
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Rev. Al Shaprton, a frequent critic of Hip Hop believes that the Obama victory will “force” Hip Hop artists to behave better. Sharpton predicts that the Obama administration will force a decline in the more violent and misogynistic elements of the culture. “You can’t be using the ‘b’ word, the ‘n’ word, the ‘h’ word when you have Barack Obama redefining overnight the image that black people want to have,” Sharpton says. “Here’s the greatest political victory in the history of black America, and the thug rappers can’t come near it. They will have to change or become irrelevant.”
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Now, my personal convictions and beliefs often clash with those of our community’s popular black “leaders”. And yeah, I’m a lil’ tough on Sharpton, Messy Jesse and their cohorts, but I gotta speak my mind on this one.
He says: “Here’s the greatest political victory in the history of black America, and the thug rappers can’t come near it.”
What is that even supposed to mean?
Does he really think anyone is holding Trick Daddy and Noreaga’s successes in the same light as Obama’s?
(no shots @ Trick & NORE, but I’m sayin….)
Does he really think the Obama victory is gonna force rappers to “behave” better??? Like all of a sudden rappers won’t curse?
Chill son, you wildin’.
The only thing that’ll make people “behave” is home training and/or money. If us rappers (who use the B/N/H words) truly see financial repercussions for our word choices, I can see us stopping. Maybe not me, though. Partially because I barely use curse words and limit my uses of the n-word in raps anyway, and partially because I don’t want to give up who I am as an artist by thinking too much and not expressing myself as naturally as possible.
I’m not gonna lie.. I, too, shake my head sometimes at potty mouth emcees… but often vulgarity helps get your point across. Like is there any way to express the feeling behind “Fuck Don Imus” without using the F-word? I don’t think so… but anyway, Al seems to be leveraging Obama-mania to further his own political agendas. Not a surprise, though…
If urging people not to riot is grandstanding, Al must be the grandfather of grandstanding. Wouldn’t MLK say the same thing??? Dude is akin’ more and more like Rollo Goodlove from The Boondocks.
I understand the rampant negativity in hip-hop can get pretty bad sometimes, but let’s work on fixing our communities forreal rather than just blaming it on gangsta rap. That whole thing is getting quite old…
- WORDS!
ps - I respect the “leaders” of our community and everything they have done and sacrificed for black people…. forreal… I do.
Since last night, things have changed for me. I don’t get followed around in stores anymore. My blood pressure has dropped significantly. Cops no longer pull me over. My credit situation is so dope that creditors that I owe don’t even call, they just erase my debts.
Sike!
But forreal, it does feel good to be black right now. Last night I was at the homie Keith’s Obama party and I couldn’t help but be slightly weirded out about the whole thing. A little negative. I dunno. It was surreal, but I think I have issues living in the moment and just enjoying something. Especially things that I really care about. (it’s not that I care about politics, just that I love black people and want to see them succeed in everything. Any black contestant on reality or game shows are my favorites off rip. Like remember the Jenkins/Watkins/Jones families on Family Feud? I used to OD cheer for them… but i digress…)
It’s like with music… with every accolade and achievement True 2 Life Music reaches, I still don’t feel satisfied. I find ways to make our show that much better, I learn how to mix drums that much crisper, or I think about all the work that still needs to be done. I would never just feel like “I’m good” or “my work is done” just because I reached some milestone in my career. That’s some complacent shit right there. Hard work and love for my culture [hiphop and black] is just part of me..
The same feeling goes for black people/America when it comes to this election. Obama won. That’s great. But now, people need to carry over that same passion and energy to the way we live our everyday lives. We need to understand that Obama’s job is to improve and lead AMERICA as a whole and that won’t always necessarily be reflected in our communities. IT IS STILL ON US TO IMPROVE OUR SITUATION.
So yeah, like ‘Cise was saying in the post before, it’s time to work. We just lived history. For those of us who were not around during the Civil Rights Movement, this is the single most defining moment for black people in America. We need to delve further into politics because right now, they’re gonna realize that our voices must be heard, and our concerns must be considered. As Obama represents a shift in the way American politics is looked at, it’s about time the same is done about the leadership in our own community. Let’s shift things for the better. For the future.
So, a few weeks ago, I was meeting with Omar Derby (the director for the Poppin’ On TV video, coming soon) going over one of the edits of the video. (coming soon, forreal y’all). This guy (Nat Beal) next to me asked if I would watch his video and give my reaction. Check it out.. then let us know…
What’s your reaction? Tomorrow’s the big day.
- K.Words
ps: we will be putting on a small non-formal post election event…details to come
Filthy put us on to some exclusives this morning…a collection of photography of the Obama campaign. The photos were taken by Scout Tufankjian and posted on her website. There was some really dope shots in there. I had to thief some of them and post to our blog just because. Hopefully she (Scout is a female photographer based in Brooklyn!) sees her credit and doesn’t try to send Polaris after us.
Anyways…there are only 6 days until election day! I’m anxious just thinking that the face of this country can be changed in less than a week. We HAVE to elect that man Obama! These images are definitely moving enough to give you hope that Obama has the power to unite this country and bring change we need.
Last night we performed in front of an electric crowd of about 3000 at Rutgers University to open up for Lupe Fiasco. Jerz was in the building and as you can guess we’ll say…the show was dope.
But for real tho…the show was dope. Like our last show at Loyola and Towson the crowd was live and we WENT IN. We were feeling good from taking the stage soaring through performing our latest single to close out the set. Then Lu took the stage and ROCKED OUT. His show set gets better and better every performance and its a dope benchmark for any performer out. Word. Lu did a back flip at the end of his set. Seriously. And for real…True 2 Life is heading to that point where we can offer others the same opportunity to open and become that level of inspiration.
Thanks to everyone that came out and thank you Rutgers for having a good time with us. We had mad fun.
Our intro music is on. We’re back stage stretching out, sipping water, getting our minds right. Many times there’s butterflies in the stomach…still. Not out of nervousness, but out of anxiety… cause we know when we walk onto the stage and I start spittin’ “I put trust in my pen….” [the opening words from our opening song "The Struggle & The Dream"] .. with Concise & Slang on either side… the reaction is going to be crazy. The show has begun.
A smile comes to my face when I see people say “Wait til my face starts Poppin’ on TV“. Or when they react to certain punchlines/flow patterns. That’s dope. It’s very gratifying as an artist to see all the work you put into your craft and your grind resulting in satisfied fans. It drives me to see that we could take a stage in front of thousands of people who don’t know us from Adam, and end up making so many fans, friends, supporters… all off the strength of our music, our passion, our energy… it’s what we do. There’s nothing like it. The feeling ranks up there with sex, roscoe’s chicken & waffles, and hitting a fade away three pointer at the buzzer to win the game. Swish.
Obviously, Lupe Fiasco is on the road to being a hip-hop MEGA star… his name is drawing more and more people and his live show is definitely worth it. So many may think we’re lucky to be able to open for Lupe at so many shows… or T-Pain or The Dream or any other major artist we’re opening for. I guess we’re lucky… kinda. But I believe it is moreso our grind, our talent, and our passion that puts us on stage in front of thousands of people, sans record deal, sans major radio rotation, sans major industry cosign. I would say we’re lucky that god has blessed us with the talent and that our parents instilled principles of hard work into us. Thank you moms. Thank you dads. And for all the love you gave…Thank you Loyola.
Soon, lord willing, up and coming artists will be feeling the same way to be able to open for US.
True 2 Life Music is on the rise…Catch us at a city near you.
Best Regards,
Mr. Mr. Words
ps: We’ll also be opening up for Lupe Fiasco @ Rutgers University this Saturday, Oct. 18th
