Greetings! Welcome readers of new and welcome back readers of old! For those of you who are just joining me for the first time be prepared to enter the mind of a young educated Black male from Harlem. Naturally one would assume the topics I would write about are Hip Hop, Black History, Pop Culture, Art and Politics. All the basics are covered, but I will from time to time take departures from my norm to be vulnerable and delve deep into some of my innermost thoughts about me as a person. This will be new to old readers and will be standard for new readers. As many have noticed I haven’t posted on my blog in a while, over a year to be exact. Allow me to explain why. I used to post with regularity a few years ago when my future was looking bright and everywhere was rife with opportunity. It was Summer 2014 and I had just gotten the prestigious Mellon-Mays Undergraduate Fellowship for college students interested in pursuing the professoriate. As part of the fellowship I spent the entire summer in Chicago at the University of Chicago. Besides the ridiculously hostile climate (80 people shot over 4^th of July weekend) the city was new and exciting. I had met and hit it off with this beautiful sister who was also a fellow Mellon Fellow there for the summer. I left NYC with a few grand in my pocket courtesy of the Fellowship, needless to say I felt on top of the world! One day during one of our seminars Prof. Cathy Cohen, principle investigator for the Black Youth Project at the Center for the study of Race, Politics, and Culture at the University of Chicago asked me if I would be interested in writing about Hip Hop for the Black Youth Project blog. I was overjoyed and thus began my blogging journey. Fast-forward the summer is over, the beautiful sister I met and low-key fell in love with broke it off, my moms was still sick, and I began to gain weight due to depression.

I continued to maintain the blogging and decided to create my own blog. Fast-forward some more and life got in the way and blogging took a back seat. Things like blogging and creating music just didn’t interest me like they once did. I was more concerned about how my moms and I were going to pay the rent and not get evicted then writing. Fast-forward some more and things picked up again (got accepted into the Moore Undergraduate Research Program and Crossing in my African Rites of Passage program Ndugu and Nzinga) and then they went back down hill. The highs and lows pushed me further into a dark headspace where all the things that gave me joy like this blog, making music etc. held little to no importance to me in the grand scheme of things. I had floated by for years collecting W after W until it all came crashing down and I was rejected from 16 grad schools! Some of it was my fault (being too sure that things were just going to keep going in my favor and not putting in the work) and partly due to some bad advice. Fast-forward I finished undergrad and went to South Africa thanks to my Mellon-Mays fellowship and en route to Cape Town, I laid over in London long enough to explore the city! Shortly afterwards I was able to secure a full-time position with a company that although paid me more money than I ever made in life from a job up until then, it showed me just how ugly and miserable humans can be towards one another.

Everyday I was constantly berated, belittled, and ridiculed. I was eventually fired which was a blessing because my soul didn’t need that type of negativity and I stayed longer than I should have due to having to provide for my family. Fast-forward I graduated from City College where Michelle Obama spoke as the guest of honor. I was again on top of the world and then another slow descent into darkness. Fast-forward some more I found a new job that I wake up happy and actually look forward to going to and I’m slowly getting the school itch for real after almost a year. Since I’m in a better place mentally where my mom is doing better health wise and I’m rediscovering my passions, I figured this is the perfect time to come back to blogging. Now that I’ve filled in the gaps in my absence, we start anew! I look forward to embarking on this new journey with you all and I vow to never leave you or my passions again! Until next time…BE EASY!

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