Auld Lang SEE: A Parting Gift for 2014

As we approach the end of another year, I can't help but to think of all the successes I've had along the way and all the beautiful people who helped make the progress possible. I won't be able to spend New Years with my favorite people (on the U.S. side of the pond), but I'll be with you in spirit, and I'll be with you as a friend, collaborator, co-pilot, advocate and brother moving forward into another year of *great possibility*. I love you all so much...

A couple gifts as we approach the end of the year...In this blog: a unique sort of year in review with the Critical Darlings Podcast and 'Dandelions', a new song about people of color, immigrants, and "the other" in the United States.

I hardly have the patience to sit through someone's year end blog, detailing the exploits of another year gone by, and I certainly don't expect you to read my self indulgent reminders to myself that my work is indeed going somewhere. Mostly, you'll just have to take my word for it. You can jump down to the new audio below, but I will take a quick second to bullet a few of the year's highlights, because, well, I work hard and should at least acknowledge my own small victories.

This year, I:

• Joined the faculty of West Bank School of Music and had an excellent six-week class before the summer. 
• Was welcomed to the COMPAS Arts artist roster and look forward to lots of good work with them this coming year. 
• Had a smashing year working with youth again over the summer, teaching on the meaning of art, hip hop, and social justice with students from all over the world. 
• Shattered a personal record of albums sold with my latest work, 'The Cosmos According to Your Closed Eyes' 
• Created so much new and vital work that I can hardly stand not releasing it this very instant, but I must wait. I must do it right. But fear not, the new full length album, 'JAWS OF LIFE' really is coming (as is so much more new and exciting work). 
• Collaborated tirelessly on so many new songs, side projects, and the like that it'll take some time to organize their release around the next big solo album.
• Dropped a lovely little ep with collaborator Dameun Strange as "Strange Perspective", a four song suite we call 'Nobody Sleeps Tonight'
• Enjoyed my first year conceptualizing, recording and producing an new Podcast with friend Mark Mikula and had a lot of fun doing it.
• Really wrote some of my best work ever. I still feel like I'm finding my voice, searching for that certain something in my work, and I know that as we approach the end of another year, I am that much closer to attaining that.

While I enjoy time with my beloved abroad, I think of the families that had their sons stolen from them all too soon. The families that had love ripped out of their life. Peace torn from the pages of their family holidays. My heart and thoughts are with them. I simply can not imagine what it's like. To have a family member stolen by the people who proclaim to serve and protect. By the human beings who take offense to our protests of unlawful, irresponsible and spineless murder of our brothers, sons, fathers, uncles and friends. 

In these times, it is thoughtless to not acknowledge that pain. It is irresponsible as a person to live and love without living and loving for those that we have lost.

"We are passing news of death in the streets/told to keep our dignity, accept our defeat/

keep our voices down, stay off the air/

but we ar dandelions and we are every where"

This episode doesn't present your typical end of year list, rather offers our thoughts on the past year. We look at the things that we experienced and impacted us the most through a free-form conversation for 20 minutes and present a list of 14 statuses from our Facebook timelines over the last year that made us feel something. It's fun, thoughtful and with current events the way they are, also thought provoking. We talk about everything from Prince to Ferguson to artistic and professional development to having conversations about white privilege to awkward laundry room moments and so much more.

Happy New Year, may all of your hopes and aspirations be that much closer to fulfillment in the months to come.

As always, thanks for reading, listening and thinking,

SEE

For more, please visit www.seemoreperspective.com

Dandelions (Sad Sic Remix)

First of all, I realize that another member of our community here in the Twin Cities, Dem Atlas, just put out an ep with a song by the same title. It has a similar meaning. I put this song out nearly two years ago.

But that's not the point. I just wanted to clear the air.

The point is that when I dropped this, I don't think people knew what it was about. It's about right now. It's about the historical context for what's happening right now. Take a deep look into what's happening in the U.S. right now. Use this song as a lens.

This song is for all communities of color, immigrants, people of the LGBTQ community, women, folks with disabilities...This song is for the "other".

I hope it offers some insight. I hope it makes you angry. I hope you do something about that. I hope you'll join the movement for legitimate change in this country, in this world. I hope this song offers perspective, because, like dandelions, we are indeed everywhere. I hope. I sing. I teach. I learn...in solidarity, in the struggle.

I love you. You're more beautiful than the world may ever give you credit for.

 the gardens that grow don’t happen on accident
roots run deep and get tapped into madness
like we’re mappin’ the grandest but we ‘re plantin’ the sadnesses
steady uproot and be scrappin the tannest kids
trapped in a land that gives frantic and panicked attacks
see our seeds rise sayin’ “send ‘em all travelin’ back”
mad and they adamant that stolen land is owned won’t be handin’ it back
but couldn’t last in our absences and
keep us around but won’t be havin’ the classes mix
roses are reserved for the gardens of palaces
but what’s a rose by another name?
just a thorny weed over growin’ the same
and they out on their own and their outta control
and they outta they mind and they outta they soul
and we got stay focused and we gotta keep reachin’
into earth out in the world til it ceases
keep reachin’…

they call us weeds
…just an inconvenience
they don’t like the way we grow
what it means is
they’re intimidated
we just growin’
we ain’t assimilated
we just growin’

They call us weeds, they don’t like the way we grow
Try to cut us down, say we tryin’ to take control
only growing...diggin’ in the dirt
pushin’ through the shit, the garbage and the murk
we’re in your backyard
we’re at your schools
we’re in your hoods
wearin’ the truth
We are growing through the pain
We are dandelions, and We are everywhere

Estranged from our roots scattered from our family
kept from the truth makin’ magic from insanity
what we own is insufficient
but we spread it out like it was butter on a biscuit
butter on the concrete, draggin’ on the gravel
they rub it in and tryin’ to drive it home with gavels
I mean edgers, I mean drugs, I mean pesticides
I mean fast food, distractions that anesthetize
I mean the fucked up messages are emphasized
I mean relationships, sex and violence, desensitized
I mean prison, I mean slaves they expect to die
I mean inspect these lies so we can set aside
And move forward with a present mind
Bring our seeds to a plot where they can centralize
on the come up, been workin’ for so long
not to take control just tryin’ to hold on
no home, our seeds ride on the wind
searching for some space where we can begin again
no home, our seeds ride on the wind
searching for some space where we can begin again

They call us weeds, they don’t like the way we grow
Try to cut us down, say we tryin’ to take control
only growing...diggin’ in the dirt
pushin’ through the shit, the garbage and the murk
we’re in your backyard
we’re at your schools
we’re in your hoods
wearin’ the truth
We are growing through the pain
We are dandelions, and We are everywhere

the hand picked get care in the gardens
the right food, light, water - we starvin’
we know what you value, it’s so obvious
our voices drowned out by media and lobbyists
come out and say it, you really just don’t give a fuck
if it ain’t affectin’ you, you givin’ nothin’ up
willfull ignorance of privilege keeps takin’ in
countless bodies in the green that you rakin’ in
you call it gardenin’, we call it genocide
you call it human rights to kill us off with pesticides
rights of businesses take precedence to little kids
we treated foul for tryin’ get our voices in the mix
We are passing news of death in the streets
Told to keep our dignity, accept our defeat
Keep our voices down, stay off the air
We are dandelions and we are everywhere

We are systematically poisoned and uprooted
We are growing through the pain
We are dandelions, and We are everywhere