'SEX TAPE': The Sex-Positive Hip Hop Album You Didn't Know You Were Waiting For

It's finally here! After teasing out the smallest bit of information about my latest "Top Secret Project" the last few months (and several years in the making), it is finally available for your aural pleasure!

I’m so thrilled to be revealing the brand new 'SEX TAPE', RIGHT NOW! I seriously can’t tell you how proud I am of this album; The beats, the guests, it’s just too much. I COULD HARDLY STAND KEEPING IT A SECRET FOR SO LONG. If you’ve ever loved me, if you’ve ever cared; or even if you’ve ever hated me, and never cared, give it a listen. If you like it, buy it. If you love it, share the link, and buy it for your loved ones. If you hate it, buy it for your enemies, and send the link to people you have zero respect or tolerance for. Either way, it’s definitely some of my best work yet, and I believe it deserves a shot at your ears, your mind, your spirit, and your imagination. Truly.

Read more about the new album, and stream/download/share from here.

Addressing unchecked ignorance about the founding and history of the United States in a comment on Facebook

I just saw someone post the following: 

"Isn't looting not really protest? ...anyone lucky enough to have made it to the United States should feel blessed, that's all I have to say."

Anyone out there agree with that? It was hard for me to grasp that this is a point of view a lot of people relate with...and that's a huge part of the problem.

I thought I'd post my response in case others  might benefit from it. If you are someone who thinks this way, please dig deep. I'm not being condescending, either, our future depends on you. Dig deep, reflect on where this idea comes from, and learn. Really, where do you get these ideas? Did you come to this conclusion by looking at all the facts? By having discussions and figuring out what felt right and what seemed wrong? As people just trying to make it in this world, we simply don't know everything. We can't. It's ok that we don't. But it's important that we listen to those who know about things where our own knowledge lacks. It's vital that we LEARN.

Enslaved people shipped as cargo to the United States were not "lucky" just to be here. Their descendants, who are murdered in the streets, in public, on camera, *by the very people that have sworn to serve and protect*, #every28hours, are not "blessed" just to be here.  

The little bit of property damage is beside the point. there are literally thousands upon thousands of peaceful protestors out there right now! These peaceful protestors are actually being abused and provoked by police, with almost zero media coverage. 

We have come to the point where people of color are being murdered in the streets almost every day by police without any justice, not even close. It is essentially legal for police officers to murder unarmed people of color in the United States. That's what we're dealing with. That's what we've been dealing with since the birth of the United States. 

Without deflecting, without jumping to a "but..." How does this information make you feel? How do you think it would make you feel to have some understanding of this since birth? To have a cultural understanding of an imminent threat by a deadly force that is supposed to protect society, for generations, since our country was founded? Now tell me about a broken window at a CVS...

"Q. How would you define somebody who smashes in the window of a television store and takes what he wants?

BALDWIN: Before I get to that, how would you define somebody who puts a cat where he is and takes all the money out of the ghetto where he makes it? Who is looting whom? Grabbing off the TV set? He doesn't really want the TV set. He's saying screw you. It's just judgment, by the way, on the value of the TV set. He doesn't want it. He wants to let you know he's there. The question I'm trying to raise is a very serious question. The mass media-television and all the major news agencies-endlessly use that word "looter". On television you always see black hands reaching in, you know. And so the American public concludes that these savages are trying to steal everything from us, And no one has seriously tried to get where the trouble is. After all, you're accusing a captive population who has been robbed of everything of looting. I think it's obscene."

A Seed Doesn't Know It's a Seed

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Katia and I wrote a beautiful track. End of story.

Just before that, we met at her apartment and brainstormed what we might want to write about, talked about what we had been feeling and thinking, etc...and a week later we had this. we tried once recording and it didn't work out, so this is the second effort and I personally think it's damn near perfect.
lyrics
A seed doesn't know it's a seed
it doesn't conceive the possibility of trees
when a heart rips open and it bleeds
there's nothing but confusion, the pain, and the heaves (x2)

the soil spills in and reality shifts
and just in that moment thinkin' that'll be it
this is the end, that inevitable death
and of course it is, when you're settlin' for less

but for the portion who believe in the stretch
from here to there, they can see how it connects
to somethin' greater than th emoment full of stress
beyond horizon and the steps to the next

A seed doesn't know it's a seed
it doesn't conceive the possibility of trees
when a heart rips open and it bleeds
there's nothing but confusion, the pain, and the heaves (x2)

when you're there, how will you know?
if you can never make it then there's no where to go
when you're unredeemed in the dirt alone
and the discontentment's the grit in between your bones

if you make it then you made it and it's already done
against the pressure of the earth to the light of the sun
reach to the light
for the light of the sun

but we don't really know that we're seeds
we don't perceive the possibilities, indeed
when a heart rips open and it bleeds
it must be the end, the fateful moment when we leave (x2)

the horizon is always the horizon
unachievable, that's why we keep aspirin'
once we're "there", there's a new "there" ahead
and here we are, it kind of messes with your head

the perpetual here is the desire and the doubt
the passion and the movement that keeps us reaching out
stagnation breeds disease when you ain't namin' it
and stayin' here without a goal can be dangerous...

(hook and bridge repeat)

credits

released 24 January 2015
Written and Performed by Katia Cardenas and SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE
Bass line by Katia Cardenas
Produced and Engineered by SEE MORE PERSPECTIVE

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

Strange Perspective: Nobody Sleeps Tonight EP

"These two other worldly gentlemen provide a witty and quirky blend of Hip Hop, Jazz and dancy, catchy-yet-soulful song writing. This EP is a collection of remixes from 'Lost Souls Boys' Choir present Jazz Funeral' and from the upcoming album 'Diary of a Droid'"

"...but like true geeks anywhere, push that nerdiness far enough and it will eventually come full circle to be an ironic sort of cool. That's what you have..." Mike Walsh, City Pages

Check out this and more at www.seemoreperspective.com

'I Put a Spell on You' and more

Here's a bunch of spooky music videos to accompany your Halloween preparations. Check 'em out. They're fun :)

The first one is a Strange Perspective rendition of the classic previously performed by such greats as Screamin' Jay Hawkins, Creedence Clearwater Revival, and Nina Simone. The performance is from Halloween at Hell's Kitchen, Downtown Minneapolis a few years back. This video features Dameun Strange on keys, Chris Cox on trombone, Bryan Berry on guitar and Kahlil Brewington on drums.



These next two videos are promo for the show that last video was from, and for the album 'Strange Perspective and the Lost Souls Boys Choir'.





This one  was promo for a project I did with Guante, remixing and imagining his debut" Guante's Haunted Studio Apartment'.



There's more out there if you look, but I thought I'd highlight my favorites here.

Here's to an awesome Halloween this year!