I started putting down the meaty portions of this piece on a wrinkled brown paper bag, as I stood leaning against a urine stained wall in the heart of Bedstuy, approximately 3am in the morning two months ago. A light breeze ruffled my cape. My t-shirt proudly proclaims in a quote etched across the front, “Suburbanite.” A kid no older than five walks by drinking an anti-freeze colored quarter water. Diagonally across the street there’s a bodega, with the usual handful of hustlers and hoods doing their thing indiscreetly.
My face says it all. I’m battle ready, Duke. Not that it can’t happen, but I wish that it would. In ancient history, Japanese warriors called Samurai chose to commit ritual suicide by slicing through their abdomen rather than dying a dishonorable death. I’m a warrior in a world overwhelmingly populated by cowards that can’t even convince themselves that they stand by the code that they falsely represent daily, in a vain attempt to convince others that they believe in it.
I’m battle ready, Duke. I don’t mean to sound sin-ical, but I dissected your frivolous expose, sifted through your manuscript, and observed your cowardly style. I write fire. This is what I do. I’ll battle anyone in a written form that many consider art, performing mental calisthenics finessing brain muscles that have long ago succumbed to atrophy in your minute pea shaped skull. I do this, I believe in this…therefore, I live by this code.
B-Boys still stay true to that code. As do Graf artists and most D-Jays. Rappers…let me just say that most of your lyrical heroes are zeroes. Scared within their own skin, so outwardly they project images that contradict their internal heart condition. It’s hilarious in some ways, but disgusting and depressing as well.
Follow me…an MC disses another MC lyrically, cause that’s what they do, right? The MC that gets disrespected says he’s going to physically see the MC that dissed him lyrically. It’s like a pumped up dude that gets into a verbal spat with his lady friend (not knowing that you never win a verbal battle with a confident female that’s quick with the tongue). She quickly chews him up and spits him out like thick brownish phlegm, by telling him everything that he’s not, questioning his performance in the sack and telling him to get a real job nukka. Verbally. He retorts, stutters and stumbles over his words, before connecting with a two-piece jab that shatters her glass jaw.
I liken that to an emcee that can’t fight his battles with the skills that define what is supposed to genetically be a part of his makeup. Kool Moe Dee versus Busy Bee…KRS versus Melle Mel…Shan versus KRS…LL versus Ice T, Hammer and Kool Mo Dee. What happened to the honor? What happened to Emcees battling for each other’s names? It’s basically non-existent because most Rap artist are not battle ready. They’re cowards. RZA battled a bunch of unknown Emcees a couple of years back, and lost. In defeat, he still maintained a warrior’s integrity. A coward dies a thousand deaths. RZA lived on for another day.
I’m battle ready, Duke. Challenge me in what I do and I will study your style and use the mighty pen in order to feed you a big slice of unsweetened humble pie. Once again, I am not trying to be sin-ical, but I will dissect your frivolous expose, sift through your manuscript, and expose your cowardly style.
Kanye West said, “George Bush doesn’t care about Black people,” and everyone and their mother gave him mad props.
“Kanye’s Ill Yo!” “Did you hear what Kanye said?”
I deeply respect what he did, but that’s a clear example of our expectations as a society. Kanye got respect for saying what he felt. Wow! I thought that men express their beliefs and deal with the consequences associated with taking action. That’s what leaders have done historically, from Frederick Douglas, to Che Guevara, to any other Civil Rights leader you’d like to place in this sentence. But, we have been conditioned to believe that inaction is the norm, and taking action in any form that is viewed as confrontational is radical.
If George Bush was a warrior, he would have challenged Kanye verbally, and proved how much he really cares about the people of various colors unlike his own throughout the world. But, he’s a coward, as most people that are reading this piece are. They don’t stand up for their beliefs…they don’t leave their house each day willing to battle whoever wants it in defense of what they believe in.
Sharpen your sword, focus on mastery of your art form and by prepared to live or die by your beliefs. I remember that back in the days an MC from the Five Percent Nation, whose name escapes me said, “If I was a pork chop, I’d commit suicide…purposely jump into the skillet to get fried.” Duke was battle ready. His words articulated the fact that he would rather die than go against his beliefs. How many people live by this code today? I do. Test me. I’m battle ready, Dukes.
Written with a sharpened #2 pencil by: Moses Miller