"We have no eternal allies, and we have no perpetual enemies. Our interests are eternal and perpetual, and those interests it is our duty to follow."
- Lord Palmerston, 2 The House of Commons, March 1, 1848
As I return to providing advisory services to artists - before taking them on as clients - one of the most important areas I like to get into are how one's self-concept (how well a person knows and views themselves) impacts the kind of material they write; "sound" they rhyme over; and the alignment of their brand-image-reputation. Because I believe the secret to how magnetic an artist becomes lies in those elements being properly married I am very selective about who I work with and I am extremely doubtful about the prospects for the long-term success of any artist who doesn't have a team around them who can help guide them through these dynamics.
Knowing one's "Self" is the key to creative energy, marketing and leverage in business, and power in politics. If you don't know who you are, you simply cannot build anything successfully - whether a career, a business or movement. And you cannot generate credibility and respect.
Too many of us when we use the phrase "Knowledge of Self" (KOS) are reducing the most powerful concept and reality to an ideology - a dogma where phrases and words are memorized but not understood. And anything you don't understand, you can't apply.
The two missing elements in many of the definitions of KOS I hear are: 1) a deep awareness of one's emotional being, personality and moral character, 2) how knowing who you are and what is in your best interests allows you to strategically pursue goals and objectives in the world of politics, without unnecessary dependence on others and their institutions.
In these two areas I think over the last 20 years the individual who placed the most emphasis on broader aspects of KOS is the
Honorable Minister Louis Farrakhan, who frequently touches on these kind of dynamics with a phrase, "
enlightened self-interest".
The Minister's point about the journey and process that one goes through from learning who they are to being able to apply that knowledge effectively for their own benefit is relevant to all of us, regardless of creed, class or color.
A major point I made which many missed is my conviction that Jay-Z is more Self-Aware than most political, conscious rappers who in many cases hide their personality behind ideology and book knowledge. He has a form of KOS but because of how loudly those of us who claim KOS are in limiting its definition to "quoting Lessons" - memorizing a series of Instructions, Questions and Answers, Word Problems, and Statements - we drown out a fuller discussion about basic and deeper aspects of those Lessons which pertain to our individual essence, character, and personalities.
What those Lessons drive us toward in addition to what They revealed about the Knowledge of God, the history of the World, and "secret" knowledge pertaining to current events and the nature of the Universe, and so much more, is a deeper understanding of the nature of our own beings, which has been buried due to our miserable condition and opression. In knowing ourselves we have to overcome a wealth of ignorance and rubbish - as Minister Farrakhan describes:
"The Knowledge of Self is the greatest of all knowledge. It is akin to the knowledge of Allah (God). Both of these knowledges, which is really One, is the key to our return to God, Self and Power... We must know ourselves historically, biologically, genetically, but we must also go to the root of ourselves which is the knowledge of the nature in which we are created, which is the Essence of Self-Knowledge"
This begins with self-awareness which expands into self-examination, than self-analysis, and finally results in self-correction and perfection.
An individual can be intellectually informed through academic instruction and intense study but still be irrational and emotionally immature because their true Self is buried under psychoses, neuroses, compulsions, and repressions. The only way these "multiple personalities", "deamons", "spiritual diseases", or "habitual" ways of thinking and behaving - whatever verious schools of thought and "isms" call them - can be overcome is by one becoming self-aware, and making a concerted effort to examine, correct, and improve themselves.
The ability of artists to be developed and healed emotionally and spiritually will depend upon how honest they and those guiding them are allowed to be about the human condition. That artists too often are celebrated for the creativity they manifest while being "sick", "addicted" (usually 2 drugs), or "imbalanced" and even possibly because they are sick - is a problem society and industry must solve together.
The first step, though, for now, is getting in tune with who we are and what we are feeling and expressing it honestly.
In terms of self-awareness and introspection many artists can learn something from what Jay-Z expressed in a recent Forbes interview with Warren Buffet:
"My first album didn't come out until I was 26, so I had a bit more maturity. The album had all these emotions and complexities and layers that a typical hip-hop album didn't have if you were making it at 16, 17 years old. That isn't enough wealth of experience to share with the world. I had so much wealth to share with the world at that time, and I've never forgotten those things, like you say. You never forget those true things that you stick to, your basic things that make you successful.
And for me, it's that truth, finding the truth of the moment, of where I'm at the time, not trying to cater to a certain demographic or being something I'm not, not driving a truck over a 10,000-pound bridge. There are so many similarities in what he was just saying. So for me, it's just having the discipline, and the confidence in who I am. If I go into a studio and find my truth of the moment, there are a number of people in the world who can relate to what I'm saying, and are going to buy into what I'm doing.
Not because it's the new thing of the momet, but because it's genuine emotion. It's how I feel. This is how I articulate the world."
What Jay-Z is getting at is profound. That the music industry - where the Hip Hop genre is concerned in particular - revolves around young artists making music for young consumers means that immaturity is actually bred into the culture of rap music.
My position is that it will take the self-aware and emotionally mature artist - not the "conscious" rapper who can only quote and memorize ideology - to break through this prison house of immaturity and make music that is relevant to both a younger and older audience.
"How y'all gone stand by and let our music turn into pop techno cornball ass music. We don't own our music no more. Come to think of it, did we EVER own it? when I say our own music, I'm not talkin bout the artist I'm talkin bout the people ... let me be quiet. I wanna hear from the young people? easy for me to complain about this techno-pop cause I have a taste for something else. but how do you feel? These rappers ought to be shame of they damn selves, I'm not talkin the emcees rappin over this techno pop music. I believe in pimpin the system but got DAMN! not like this. #pop-technosongs. I like the idea of no distinction of race when it comes to music, but Soulkeepers, U dont give up the boom bip and the hump for the payday. I love house and techno as a side dish. But now it's served as the main course AND that's all u gone get. like chittlins in the back house. I love music PERIOD. just not ready to say goodbye to the boom bip and the hump .. kinda painful for my generation to see. just strange 2me. Yes, no1 wants 2b poor again. artists have 2 sacrifice integrity of the music sometimes 2 make ends meet. this is understood. but gotDAMN now. if you've never tasted good p*ssy you're satisfied with ass hole. (that's terrible ain't it).
Ghost has a lot of those raps where he just blacks out and takes over the track. Although he has made classic albums, it's on guest appearances and posse-cuts that he really shines. Some people just can't digest an entire Ghostface album (it will fly over their heads), but put him on a song with their favourite rapper - he'll eat em up. He’s that type of mc, you need to have him juxtaposed with others in order to truly appreciate how ill and unique he is. Put him on beside a mafioso rapper - he'll go more in depth; an r'n'b rapper - he'll get more personal; someone who is even more "left-field" than him - he'll make him look pretentious. In other words, he's a natural. Only a select few legends have been able to occasionally outshine Ghost (Nas, Rae, Meth...). The delivery is flawless. The whole verse captures the Wu-Tang essence perfectly. Just listening to it, you get the impression that he is some larger-than-life Shaolin supervillain ninja commando mothafucca wildin out in a Gotham-like environment. This, in a nutshell, is the reason why Wu-Tang became GLOBAL superstars - because their personas are something greater than just "hustlers-turned-rappers." Their image is key to their success. They draw you into their world - a stylish projection of NYC with them as major players in a city run amok. More so than any other rappers, they blur the line between the mc and the myth, and they do it without ever becoming a gimmick.
Once Brothers (ESPN, 2010) is the story of Drazen Petrovic and Vlade Divac, 2 of the greatest European basketball players of our time. Drazen and Vlade were part of the last Yugoslavian national team, which went to win the 1990 World Championships in Argentina, defeating both the USA and Soviet powerhouse teams.