New Vibes

So, I don't know if you've noticed, but my last couple songs have been a tiiiiiny bit different from most...

You know, because I  wasn't rapping in any of them.

Rest assured; Aaron Ridge is still a rapper. Rather, I am still a rapper. I'm just growing bored of being just a rapper. I feel much more comfortable being a musical artist. There's so much to do in music, and I've been blessed with the ability to be able to do more than just one or two of those things. So, I'm doing some venturing out, some exploring, some discovering. It's gonna be fun. And when All Trades drops (ON MAY 13th ! Be excited !), it's gonna be that much more awesome, because as opposed to being straight rapping, it's also gonna have awesome songs like Marathons, Red Riding Hood, and I'm sure at least a couple more R&B-type songs, too. More than just music, it's just going to be an experience. And that's pretty damn sweet.

TL; DR don't fear the new vibes. Plus, you know you're feeling them. They're dope as Hell, don't even lie.

Peace In, Peace Out.

Thoughts on Stage Fright

I know that a lot of people are actually unreasonably afraid of being in front of crowds. It's a pretty common thing. Same goes for being outgoing and bold, in terms of everyday interactions; a lot of people shy away from things like that, for fear of embarrassment or negative reactions from the other party. When I tell people not to be so afraid, they say "It's not that easy. Not everyone is like you." (Read that in a whiny, high-pitched, mocking voice.)

So, I'mma address that, right quick.
I'm really not all that bold; I'm pretty quiet and introverted. I like getting lost in thought, and avoiding pretty girls' eye-contact, and just keeping to myself, in general. "THAT'S A BOLD-FACED LIE," you say. You're always so loud and talkative and outgoing and blahblahblah." (I've stopped listening to you, at this point.) You're right. I am, quite often, like that. But, that's only because I'm completely going against my nature. It's what I do. And, honestly, it's probably easier than being quiet, all the time.

I'm a performer. Public speaking, spotlight, being in front of crowds, that's all a part of the gig; I literally can't afford to be afraid of crowds. Like, it actually would come out of my pocket. It's not that I'm particularly bold, I just choose to be. I consciously decide "Hey, let's go not be nervous as Hell in front of this crowd of strangers" because it's what I do. I basically make a living off of stepping out of my comfort zone, for the amusement and entertainment of the general public.

And it's fricking terrifying.

But as terrifying as it is, I think it'd be a much suckier feeling if I had all the abilities that I do have, and never shared them with the world. That's the same reason that I try to push every shy yet talented person I meet to go public with their gifts. There are too many loud people with no talent getting shine, you guys.

So, here's what you do:

1. Remember that people are only people. When you strip away man-made titles, nice clothes, prejudices, biases, likes, dislikes, skills, and all that junk, no one of us is any intrinsically better than any other. So, when you stand in front of a crowd, remember that they need oxygen to breathe, just like you do. Don't picture them in their underwear, just picture them as all being on the same level as you. Unless you happen to be in your underwear. In which case, I'd say you're wasting your time reading this post.

2. Don't look at the crowd the entire time. If you're having trouble with #1, you can totally just avoid looking at the crowd, in the first place. Look about 6 inches over their heads. Bang. What crowd ? That's wall. Problem solved.

3. Look for people who are feeling your performance. When you're feeling bold enough to stop performing to that very attractive collection of bricks above the crowd's heads, scan for people who are getting into your act. Find a few of them, if you can, and perform to those people. Their positive reinforcement will make you feel more confident, and you'll perform better, which will draw more people in. It's a cycle.

4. THE CROWD IS NOT OUT TO GET YOU. The crowd paid money to see performers. They expect to like the performers. They want to be on your side. Now, granted, if there were a lot of sucky acts before you, you might have to let them warm up to you a bit, but most of them didn't buy tickets and give up their spare time to be dissatisfied and heckle random strangers. The crowd might be tough, at first, but, if you're good at what you're doing, the crowd is your friend. This is actually probably the most important point. I should've made it first. Oh well, sucks for anyone who got bored & stopped reading. *shrug*

This point is actually pretty much true for a lot of day-to-day interactions, too; life is easier when you don't assume that everyone you come in contact with is judging you harshly in their minds. That's paranoid, and pretty damn vain, lool.

Anyways, that's how I deal with it. Try it if you like.

Or, you know, continue singing quietly and then stopping every time someone enters the same room.

Your choice, really.


Peace In, Peace Out.

Announcement

Yeaaah, so I kiiiiiinda maybe totally didn't get around to posting that announcement about my mixtape release on my birthday... And perhaaaps I'm a tiiiiny bit late... But here's my announcement:

May 13th. "All Trades" by Aaron Ridge. This will be the mixtape. This will be the release date. What should you expect, content-wise ? Freaking awesomeness. More specifically, though, expect mostly brand-new songs, with me doing much more than just rapping. It's called "All Trades," and I intend to make that as much of a reality as is possible. Of course, "Marathons" and "The Bomb" are gonna be up in there. Some freestyles, some covers, some of this, some of that, badda-boom, badda-bing, f'geddaboudit.

It's gonna be awesome. I really haven't released a mixtape since Show-Off, so I will definitely make up for lost time, with this one.

OH, and make sure you check out www.Black-Enough.Blogspot.ca, for more blogging pleasure. You won't regret it !


Peace In, Peace Out.

THIS ISN'T EVEN MY FINAL FORM: A Very Special Announcement

A new friend of mine asked me a question, a couple months ago: "Which song do you have out, right now, that shows me the best you've got ?" He was kinda puzzled when I said that none of the songs that I currently have out showcase my full ability. After some thought, I figure he must not be the only one puzzled.

Why don't I have a song that showcases my full talent ? I mean, all these other songs are dope, but if I went 100%, surely I'd come up with something exponentially better, right ?

That's actually the whole idea: I've been holding back, for the shock value. Like Frieza. (Don't bring up Goku; you'll ruin my metaphor. Just let it be, man.) I use songs as a means of trying out techniques, so that my next serious work can benefit from that gained experience. So, maybe not Frieza... Cell. And my songs are Androids. Or maybe Buu. Yeaaaaah. Buu. Super Buu.

I digress,

For all of you wonderful, faithful, intelligent, & attractive Aaron Ridge fans out there, I'm announcing a new project. Not a speed project, not a single song, not collective work. A full-length, 13-song mixtape/EP. I'm not releasing any more information on it, yet; I'm gonna spill the beans on it in excruciating detail on January 23rd (which, for the record, is the best day ever).

Soo, good news: serious work on the way. Bad news: I'm not giving you any actual information on it for like a week and a half. Bud you can wait, right ?

Peace In, Peace Out.

Why Kwanzaa and Black History Month are both a joke

(Beware of bold text and angry writer's voice.)

So, Christmas day has passed, and we're officially 2 days into no one's favourite "holiday," Kwanzaa. For those of you who were previously unaware, Kwanzaa is basically black Hanukkah. 7 days, a different principle for each day, a feast, & gifts. And they threw in some Swahili words & dashikis, for extra flavour.

Now, don't get me wrong; I love being black, and celebrating my racial/cultural heritage. I just hate the second-rate, half-baked "holidays" we're given to do so. In fact, because I love celebrating my culture, I hate Kwanzaa and Black History Month. And I'll tell you why:

1. Kwanzaa was created as an Alternative

Kwanzaa was basically plopped down after Christmas so that it could be an alternative to Christmas. Look at other holidays. They're all FOR something. Something specific. They have specific events and history behind them that they commemorate. Christmas is when you celebrate Jesus's birth/the solstice (whatever; not the topic at hand). Jewish Passover celebrates the day the angel of death passed over their houses & didn't kill them. Halloween has a specific background, thanksgiving has a specific background, Valentine's, EVEN ST. PATRICK'S DAY HAS MORE HISTORICAL GROUNDS THAN KWANZAA. None of these holidays were created as a means of NOT celebrating something else. Even the commandeered day of Christmas, once placed, was given a specific event to celebrate. Kwanzaa HAS no event to celebrate. Nothing special happened on the 26th, that's being commemorated. It's a pacifier, basically; it's like when one kid wins a contest and gets a toy, and another kid says "MOMMY, THAT'S NOT FAIR; I WANT A TOY." And the mother just gives the other kid a toy, so that he'll shut up, and she can go back to watching her shows. I, for one, don't want a sympathy holiday to justify celebrating that I have African ancestry.

2. Kwanzaa and Black History Month are broad-spectrum, and marginalizing

Like I said before, Kwanzaa isn't actually in commemoration OF anything. It isn't even african in origin; it started in the states. So basically, you celebrate all of Africa's culture for a week. Same with Black History Month, basically; yes, you have Abraham Lincoln & Fredrick Douglas's birthdays, but why not celebrate their birthdays, in that case ? BHM is a celebration of all black accomplishments, and a time to remember our heritage. For a month(The shortest one, I might add). Now, name me ONE other race that restricts the celebration of THE ENTIRETY of its various cultures and accomplishments to any one month, let alone a damn WEEK. Shoot, we celebrate white history every time we speak, basically. Why can't I observe the principles of Unity, Creativity, Faith, and the other "Kwanzaa" principles past January 1st ? Why can't I celebrate the accomplishments of black people year-round ? Why is it even called "Black" history ? Did not all people benefit from the events that occurred ? Why is it only during February that I can learn about the accomplishments of people like Hiram Revels, the first African-American senator, or Macon Bolling Allen, first black lawyer ? And why don't we LEARN about those kinds of people ? I mean, the supersoaker is awesome, but it's not all that empowering to know that a black guy designed a toy gun. Tell me about someone OTHER than Malcolm X, MLKJ, Madam CJ Walker, and Harriet Tubman. 

Speaking of whom, WHYYY is BHM ALWAYS so SLAVERY-HEAVY ? Why is there no mention of pre-slavery history ? Basically, we're supposed to remember how crappy life was during slave-times, and then go around hi-fiving each other because we're "free" now. And sprinkle in some relatively non-goundbreaking things like invention of traffic lights. The people who SHOULD be celebrating the emancipation proclamation are white people, as a day when enough of them finally realized that black people are equal, and released them from their chains. Seriously, you expect me to be HAPPY about now having the same rights, after hundreds of years of systematic oppression, both during and post-slavery, as an old white man had 300 years ago ? Oh, let me go plan a party. We'll bake an Abraham Lincoln-shaped cake, and never eat it because it is in the image of our saviour.
Basically, what I'm saying is that when you celebrate Kwanzaa or observe Black History month, you marginalize yourself. (If you're not black, then I guess you're marginalizing us, and not yourself.) You restrict the greatness of your (or our) heritage to a tiny, government-allotted period of time, where you could instead be celebrating all year round. Celebrate African culture, not Kwanzaa; celebrate our history, not Black History month.

Peace In, Peace Out.

A Letter to my Future Daughter (Another Poem)

Why Entertainment Sucks

Now, I don't mean ALL forms of entertainment. I'm mostly talking about what's referred to as "mainstream".

SHUT UP; I AM NOT A HIPSTER.
Well, maybe a little bit ?

I'm sure that, at some point in the recent past, you've complained about how the content quality of popular music/Tv/literature has decreased, since we were younger. Or, you may complain that one of your favourite artists (*cough* anyone in Young Money *cough*) have fallen off, since their earlier days. They "sold out", as it were. Now, we all know that nostalgia plays a HUGE part in this; everything seemed more awesome when we were kids, because we didn't know that things weren't awesome. (For example, I just re-watched Monster Rancher. Significantly less awesome than 10-year-old me led me to believe.) But, can it really be ALL nostalgia ? Are we ALREADY that old man sitting on his porch, complaining about kids and their loud music, and their baggy pants, and their crazy hair, and their... *falls asleep*

I say thee, NAY.

I've realized that mainstream entertainment IS, in fact, DUMBER.

Think about it; cartoons are less witty and subtle, popular music is easy to write and follows an extremely generic structure, you can predict the discourse of almost any movie once you've seen the trailer and the first 10 minutes, and even popular dances have been simplified from challenging things like Krump and Crip-walking to the Dougie. (Now, I'm not hating on the Dougie; I love it, but you KNOW it's not as hard as the Harlem Shake.)Yes, indeed; our entertainment culture has seemingly gone soft. Even artists who were one way five years ago are completely different today. And by "different" I mean "kinda lame, in comparison". It would seem that they exchange skill for fame. We tend to call this trade-off selling out. The gravest of artistic sins.

But WHY ?! Why would you throw your career away ?

Guess what, guys: it's OUR fault. We, as a society, make selling out the terrible thing that it is. "Shut your dirty mouth," you say, "I would NEVER tell my favourite artists to sell out. I loved their old stuff." Well calm down, my unreasonable friend; because it's true. We, the consumers, consume crappy stuff. This tells the producers of the things that we consume that, hey, we like crappy stuff. As a result, they tell our favourite artists "Hey, make some more crappy stuff. The mainstream viewers love it." And we DO. Not actively, but passively. We accept the crappy stuff, so it continues.

TL;DR: WE make selling out a bad thing by not demanding higher quality from the mainstream.

Moreover, as a society, we've moved from wanting to be smart to wanting to feel smart. This is where the you find real problem. We in Western society don't care if we're actually smart, as long as there are enough stupid people to whom we can feel superior.

Think About It:instead of watching... Let's say... Jeopardy, we (as a general populous)watch... Let's say... Jersey Shore. Do we envy the cast of Jersey Shore ? Do we look up to them ? Absolutely not. We watch shows with stupid people so we can go: "WOW, there're some STUPID people out there. I feel smart, by comparison." Shows with smart people will give the exact opposite feeling: "Wow, look how much these people know; I should better myself." That, while definitely the better thought, is depressing to think. We're lazy. Why work to feel smart, answering every other question on Jeopardy, when you can laugh at Snooki stumbling around a drunk mess ? This train of thought is why entertainment isn't mentally stimulating. We're enabling it, because it enables us.

So, next time you see an artist you like not perform at his or her best, say "Hey, I'm sorry that you had to dumb yourself down to make it in the mainstream, and actually have money; it's our fault, not yours."

Artists, we're sorry. Tv, we're sorry. Please forgive us, and go back to not sucking.

Peace In, Peace Out.