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September 11, 2001 Revisited via The 9/11 Memorial Museum

A few weeks ago I went with my father to the 9/11 Memorial Museum at the base of the ‘Freedom Tower,’ the nickname given to the new colossal building at 1 World Trade Center.

It was a more bitter than sweet experience, which of course comes with the territory and history of that tragic day. Everyone who was in New York City on September 11, 2001 has a story to tell, whether they had lost a family member or friend or not. Most stories involve unexpected tragedy at a very unfortunate level. Luckily for me and my family, no one was hurt. I will forever be grateful for that. As for my friends at the time, we were mostly 6th graders in the same school, so it goes without saying we were safe. My uncle had a close call, but a personality trait of his ironically turned what could have been the end of his life into just enough time to get outta Dodge. Here are the details:

My uncle was working nearby the Twin Towers in 2001. He was running late for work that day. I wasn’t surprised to hear this considering he runs late to family gatherings and it has become a running joke that he’s never on time. On 9/11 my uncle walked out of the subway and to his surprise there were hundreds of people, everyone from Wall Street suit looking types to delivery boys running full speed uptown. My uncle was born and raised in the South Bronx and told me he knew from his childhood to run with a big crowd and not against it, because it usually means they’re running from a dangerous situation. He took off with the herd of New Yorkers fleeing lower Manhattan before he even saw or knew what had happened to the towers. He ran for dozens of blocks, and turned on the jets when he saw the flaming North and South towers at a distance. His street smarts and tardiness may have made the difference between life and death on Septmeber 11, 2001.

twin-towers-on-fire
The North and South Tower’s last moments standing.

My experience was far less life-threatening than that of my uncle, but of course was not void of shock and awe. Around 9 in the morning my school’s principal announced that there had been a terrorist attack on the World Trade Center via hijacked planes being used as missiles to strike the dual skyscrapers. I remember in my 11 short years thus far I had always called those buildings ‘The Twin Towers,’ and didn’t know they were officially referred to as ‘The World Trade Center’ until that moment. The principal ended his emergency address and after 15-20 minutes of teachers going in and out of the hallways to sort out logistics, another announcement came. The principal then announced that one tower had collapsed, and the other was in flames and on the verge of collapsing. He also announced that the entire student body would be sent home shortly.

I could only imagine how many calls the secretary had to make in the main office, but within half an hour most students had been picked up by a parent or guardian. My mother is a teacher and couldn’t pick us up since her school was following the same protocol with their own students, and my father was on his way to Ground Zero, another new term I learned that day, to aid in sorting through the wreckage as an emergency responder with Con Edison. Since they were busy at work my best friend’s mother picked him and I up as well as his older sister who was in the 8th grade, and stopped by my sister’s high school to pick her up as well. From there, we had a chilled out afternoon at my friend David’s house. The boys played football, the girls watched soap operas and eventually all of us, along with the city and the world were glued to their TVs waiting to see what would unfold un the aftermath of this unprecedented event.

The "Tribute in Light" memorial in the years following 2001.
The “Tribute in Light” memorial in the years following 2001.

Last month the 9/11 Memorial Museum opened up exclusively to first responders. Falling into this category was my dad, who spent weeks as a Con Edison emergency responder at Ground Zero in the Fall of 2001. He invited me to come as his guest.

The mood was very somber within the walls of the new museum. Contained in the sleek walls and shiny new facilities were heavy hearts and teary eyes. One of the things that resonated with me was a pillar with quotations projected onto it that were accompained with voices narrating each one as they were displayed. A barrage of  reactions on the day were brought to life, some as simple as “Oh my God!” to news briefs describing the day.

Another interesting piece I saw was a charred and twisted cylinder of metal, about 15 feet long with a 12 foot diameter more or less. I looked at the sign accompanying the display and was taken aback to learn that this hunk of steel was  small part of the antaenna from one of the fallen towers.

They had a charred ambulance on display as well as about 3/4 of what was left of a firetruck pulled from the wreckage. I honestly did not meditate too long on these two emergency vehicles, because quite frankly, it was way too heartbreaking.

My 2nd favorite part of the day at museum was a room lined with a smiling portrait of every single victim of the attacks. This was room was more sweet than bitter for me. I’m sure if I had directly known one of the 2,900+ faces smiling at me I would not have been able to look around the room with such a positive attitude, but I felt it was a nice touch to show each and every lost life in their Sunday best, smiling.

So many people die of tragedies on a daily basis around the world. It’s nothing new. I did think to myself though that in recent times of emergency in New York City that I have lived through, be it 9/11, The 2003 Blackout, or Hurricane Sandy in 2012, New Yorkers have a talent for coming together in times of need, regardless of any other issue. We have a reputation that precedes us to be fast-talking, tough as nails and often rude city slickers, but when our own streets and neighbors need a hand, New Yorkers are there for each other. With solidarity and reverence in mind it truly warmed my heart to see all the faces of these bright young professionals, building maintenance workers, and especially New York’s Finest and Bravest honored in such a way. I’m not one to usually give compliments to the NYPD, but I will say that every single illuminated face I saw in that room will forever be heroes in my mind.

I thought to myself that of all the tragic events in human history, this one was the most recent one that had affected not so much my life as an individual, but most definitely affected the great megacity where I have always lived and where my heart will always reside. It was nice to see the tradition of New Yorkers coming together and honoring and remembering their fallen sons, daughters, fathers and mothers. I only wish that whatever tragedy may occur anywhere in the future, somewhere there are photos of whoever’s lives were cut short and that they are shown, being happy.

My favorite thing I saw that day was not really a thing, it was a person. My dad, duh! He invited me to the museum with the thought in mind that I would write this article. Although my uncle was the one who had to run for his life, and I am eternally grateful that he came out unscathed, my dad thought of inviting me to the 9/11 Memorial Museum to do what he always has done: to inspire me to write. With this in mind, I only have one picture to display from my trip there. It’s this one:

me dad freedom tower

As my born and bred Bronxite fingers tap the ending remarks of this article, I find myself wiping tears off my cheeks and ultimately, being grateful.

My dad could have gotten really sick like many others in the years following his work at Ground Zero, but’s he’s as healthy as a suave-looking 56 year old man can be.

My uncle put his son, my cousin and basically my twin, Jason through high school and college, the same high school and college that I attended. My cousin and I graduated together in 2008 and 2012, and are now advancing in our respective careers. My uncle also got married since then and now has a 2nd child, a beautiful little girl, my cousin Layla. None of this may have happened if he had been on time to work that day.

freedom tower

All in all, I like the name ‘Freedom Tower’ for different reasons than most. If you take a close look at it, the new building at 1 World Trade Center kind of looks like a phoenix-esque combination of the Twin Towers into a brand new, 21st century reincarnation of it’s fallen predecessors.

The way I see it, whenever I look towards lower Manhattan I don’t just see the tallest building in the United States, nor do I see just another Manhattan skyscraper. I see everyone who I saw smiling in the museum who had passed on in the attacks of September 11, 2001. I see New York City reflected in all its posh splendor, it’s dreamy mystique, it’s gritty, hardworking everyday people and everything in between, from Staten Island to my home borough, The Bronx. I see everyone I have ever known or walked by in my life throughout the streets and avenues who survived and now live to tell about their experience that day. New Yorkers, just like me.

When I see the Freedom Tower, I see my family. I see my uncle, who had the biggest brush with danger, and my dad, who brought back his Con Edison helmet to my mom a few days after 9/11 with Bill Clinton’s autograph, as part of a running joke they had about my mom having a crush on the former president. Most of all when I see the Freedom Tower I think about myself, my own life. I think about all the ups and downs, thicks and thins I have been through and how grateful I am that my family and friends made it safely through the events of September 11, 2001. When I look at the Freedom Tower and think of all this, I feel free. I feel free, to worry about my everyday life, my career in music and writing, my family and friends, and I feel free to not worry about someone I had lost that day anymore than the occasional ‘What if?’ Most of all, I feel free to live. Not many people feel this unique freedom I feel when they look at the same building.

In all its infamously tragic events and all that followed as a result, September 11, 2001 will forever live in my mind as the ultimate day of grattiude for all the things I have in my life. I think of all that I have and how close things had come that day to having many of them taken away. When I’m feeling down, all I have to do is look up; it puts me back in a place where I always love to be: a New York state of mind. – RSM

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Racial Ambiguity: Caught in the Middle of Gentrification in New York City

The changing demographics of neighborhoods in New York City is nothing new. The Bronx, my home borough, was originally home to Native Americans, then the Dutch, the British, Irish, Italian, and Jewish diasporas long before it is as today, with Latinos as the slight majority. Oddly enough, there are times when I’m on my home street and I can’t help but feel like an outsider. Allow me to explain:

I live in Wakefield, a primarily African American and West Indian neighborhood. I have lived here since I was 3, with the exception of my years in college. Looking back on my life, my friends, neighbors, and family as well have always been very diverse. I went to elementary school a few neighborhoods over in the Bedford Park area of The Bronx, a neighborhood far more diverse than my own. I grew up unassuming, open minded, and figuratively colorblind.

In retrospect, I feel like it took me a while to grasp the idea of ‘race’ and different ‘races’ of humans. I just didn’t see it that way. Seeing that my friends’ ancestries vary tremendously and some people in my family are of mixed races, I just didn’t take much heed as a child. I still don’t take that much heed at all nowadays….

 

My best friends and family on my birthday.
My best friends and family on my 24th birthday.

….EXCEPT when the topic of gentrification arises. I feel like I’m caught between a rock and a hard place. When I walk through Williamsburg, Bushwick, or Downtown Brooklyn it’s almost as if there’s not humidity, but tension in the air. I can feel it lingering around every train station, bike rack, street corner, and every other public place where Native Brooklynites now co-exist and share public space with out of state, 20-something transplants, or ‘Hipsters,’ if you will. I feel that same tension pressing on my lightly tanned skin, dyed blonde hair, and casual/rocker style of dress as I walk through certain neighborhoods.

I’m a Latino who can pass as Caucasian, or even Pacific Islander depending on who’s guessing. It’s great to look racially ambiguous when you’re talking to a pretty young lady at a bar in WIlliamsburg, but once you leave that bar you become a hipster to the natives of the neighborhood, and a questionable figure to cops, wondering why they see some surfer-looking whiteboy strolling through the ghetto.

About 2 months ago I was headed down White Plains Road, the main avenue of my neighborhood and also the closest shopping district to my apartment. It makes sense that I would go down this street for an innocent afternoon of commerce, right?

Well, it didn’t make sense to the cops who saw me chatting with a tattoo artist outside of his shop.

They parked their patrol car, approached me and asked me “What are you doing around here?”

Kinda like they didn’t think I belonged in the neighborhood I have always lived in.

I told the 1st police officer that I had always lived around here while the 2nd proceeded to stop and frisk me.

He felt up my bookbag, which contained nothing but my netbook, a book I was reading and a few ‘Living Buddhism’ magazines.

“Whoa, you got a heavy bag,” said one of them, “You got a gun in here or something?”

So there I was, not even half a mile from my house, being questioned for being in my own neighborhood. I didn’t know whether to be confused or enraged. I was a mix of both, but I held my tongue. I knew better than to make the cops feel as stupid and racist as they were actually being, and I knew if I had said anything back to them things could have gone much worse.

After a few more patdowns and another “What are you doing around here?” they realized that I wasn’t exactly Tony Montana, and let me go.

This was a rude awakening to me. I never did mind growing up my whole life as a Latino in a mainly black neighborhood. I actually liked it very much, as well as the Bronx and New York City in general. I do find it alarming, however, that upon first glance nowadays I may be viewed as a neighborhood invader to my own block and as a result being on the NYPD’s radar. I usually get along with everyone I see; my friendliness and the reciprocation of such from most people I meet have allowed me to keep my inner-child’s eyes figuratively colorblind. As a child and adolescent I had always felt that I fit in everywhere. With gentrification on the rise in many minority neighborhoods in New York City, coming from a neighborhood that I’m the minority as a Latino has never mattered to me until recent years, and especially since the cops breathe down my neck as a result. Sometimes I feel like my notion that I fit in everywhere is a naive illusion; when I see an organic grocery store next to a bodega, I still feel like I could fit in at either place. There are times, however, when I feel like I don’t fit in anywhere, especially when I see a police cruiser around. -RSM

I was inspired to write this article by When Gentrification Brings Racism to the ‘Hood by Irvin Weathersby, via ebony.com.

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Why I’m Proud Of Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor

When I was a junior in college, I attended a Greek Life workshop with a few fraternity brothers of mine as well as representatives from every other Greek lettered organization on campus. It was an interesting workshop; there were large photos of famous, groundbreaking leaders from many different but equally important walks of life. The workshop facilitator, a middle aged, upbeat motivational speaker kind of guy, asked all undergrads in the room (about 50 of us, at least) to go around the room and write down comments about each of these leaders of their professions. After about 15 minutes, the workshop host then asked students to volunteer to pick a leader, say what they knew about this leader, read off the comments anonymously written by people in the room, and say whether you agreed or disagreed with said comments.

During the first phase of the workshop I immediately spotted Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor. I wrote a few positive comments on the posterboard next to her photo, and went on to Bill Gates’ posterboard, that of Oprah Winfrey, etc. During the second phase, I gravitated back to Justice Sotomayor’s photo and read the comments attributed to her. There were some positive comments, including my own, but they were outnumbered by many negative comments about her. She had recently been appointed to her position as Supreme Court Justice and her name and image had been circulating in the news, mostly via smear campaigns in order to sabotage her appointment as a Supreme Court Justice. Sadly, many students believed what they had heard on the news about her, and as a result posted comments like “Underqualified” and “Too Liberal” on her comment section. Most, if not all of these comments were short, vague, and ultimately baseless and void of any fact. She is one of my personal heroines, so I was not happy about this.

I volunteered to read off the comments and tell everyone what I knew about her. I let off some fumes as professionally as I could. Most of my classmates in the workshop were surprised to learn that not only did she go to my high school decades ago, but I had actually shook her hand myself at a career day event a few years back. More importantly, I took my time happily dismantling every negative comment that was attributed to her, tearing down every falsehood and half-truth with facts supported by evidence. My favorite part of my informative rant was when I took apart the ‘underqualified’ comment, refuting it with details about her education and how she had served on the U.S. Court of Appeals for quite some time before being nominated as a Supreme Court Justice, notably ruling on the 1994 Major League Baserball strike case. Ending my onslaught of corrections and highlights of Sotomayor’s career, I put the nail in the coffin with a personal challenge and said: “And if anyone who wrote these false comments or anyone who disagrees with me would like to prove me wrong at all, I invite you to try.” No one took me up on it.

 

Official Portrait of Justice Sonia Sotomayor

 

Justice Sotomayor has been in the news recently for expressing her dissent on the ruling regarding Michigan’s affirmative action policy. The ruling upheld that affirmative action, currently banned in Michigan, could be successfully defended and remain banned by decision of a popular vote. The logic is a bit wishy washy, considering that affirmative action is designed to try and level the playing field for underpriveleged college hopefuls who are mostly minorities. Now, does it really make sense to leave this decision in the hands of a popular vote when the decision would be based on the majority vote, when those who would be most directly and negatively affected are minorities? This decision will potentially threaten affirmative action policies of other states, which is sure to have been a factor in determining the future of many lesser fortunate and/or minority students who would otherwise not be able to afford or even be given a chance at higher education due to economic or other social or circumstantial issues. If all goes horribly, affirmative action may be repealed in more homogenous, conservative states (where it is actually needed most) and will shut the door of a quality higher education experience on the next generation of high school grads. When you factor in the rate of arrests and imprisonment for petty crimes amongst black and brown teenagers, the perpetually dilapitated condition of inner city schools, and how both of these factors tie into the prison-industrial complex, the odds for more impoverished teens of getting into college are grim, specifically those in inner-city neighborhoods across the U.S.

This is especially disheartening to know as it stands, even with affirmative action in place. To eliminate affirmative action in college admissions offices would kind of be like running a basketball shot game at a carnival, giving the one kid with the worst shot an extra ball, and then taking it away just because you changed your mind. Picture that, but with the educational aspirations of kids who have been through some shit, and want a better life.

All in all I commend Justice Sotomayor for expressing her dissent. Given the fact that she is a minority from an impoverished area and had excellent grades as an adolescent and young adult, affirmative action may very well have played a factor in her education, as it probably did for my education, and many of my friends and family members. Quite contrary to conservative responses on her dissent, I feel that if she didn’t express her dissent for this decision she would be doing all potential college students a disservice. In a world where college tuition and debt is through the roof, the only worse fate than having a degree with no guarantee of finding the means to repay student loans and finding a job is the fate of not even having a fighting chance of getting into a good school after high school. Let’s face it, Generation Y is damned either way, but at least let us have an equal chance to be damned with an education under our belts than without. -RSM

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Straphanging. Part 1

The following is a collection of stories that have recently taken place on or around the trains, platforms, and buses of the Greater New York City Area. They are all true. And awesome:

Kung Fu Car Transfer

So I walked aboard the F train headed to Queens at Lexington Avenue – 59th Street Station. In my train car it was just empty enough that there were a few seats available here and there. I went for one of my favorite spots when I’m feeling tired, the good ol’ corner seat, all the way at the end of the train. I like this seat for a few reasons: being right across from either a map or a window as well as being right next to two exit doors, and if you needed to transfer cars, you could do that too (although it’s illegal, no one really cares).

A few stops in, I was lounging as comfortably as I could along the steel rails and plastic seats and began to doze off as the train went further into Queens. I was just about to fall asleep, eyes closed and all, when I heard a loud and sudden “HYAAAA!” that practically catapulted me to my feet. I woke up, startled and confused, to see a black man wearing a silver and black North Face coat in his 30s right in front of me with his leg in the air, from what was apparently a roundhouse kick straight into the car transfer doors. This guy legit roundhouse kicked the door open, with Bruce Lee sound effects and all. It blew my mind.

This of course sparked much laughter from the rest of the train, most of which coming from my own mouth. One Latino dad-looking kind of man and I could not stop laughing. It was quite the wake up call; after that I didn’t even feel like sleeping.

The Ridiculously Bad Saxophone Player

Last summer I got on the train really late, around 2 or 3 am. I was on the 5 train, headed downtown. At 125th Street a man with a black square suitcase and multicolored cornrows got on the train. At that point I should have known he would pull some off-the-wall-type shit. He was a middle aged African American with neon red, light blue, neon green and yellow cornrow braids, about 5’6, a shorter guy, wearing a white tank top and acid wash jeans.

He was talking to younger man as they both got on the train, saying things like “Yeah man, check me out on SoundCloud,” and “Look out for my documentary.” The young man bade him farewell as he sat down with a smile, but then looked at me, looked at the multi-colored cornrow man, back at me, and just shook his head. I didn’t know what to expect. Neon Cornrow Man (that would be a great superhero name) began opening his suitcase. He started introducing himself as he revealed a saxophone from its case. After a rather long shpiel about his social media presence and upcoming documentary, he began to play the sax.

His saxophone skills were out of control in the very worst of ways. It looked like a 5 year old playing Mortal Kombat for the first time as he mindlessly mashed all the buttons along the instrument, and sounded something like a mutated ambulance siren. He had strong lungs, I’ll give him that much credit, especially since his sax was blaring at a surprisingly loud volume for almost 10 minutes. He did not really know how to play. He just blew all the air he possibly could into that saxophone and randomly pressed on the valves, occasionally holding an excruciatingly high note for several seconds.

Me and the man across from me had our sides splitting. It was hysterical. Many of the other passengers were rudely awakened by this mysterious, and possibly intoxicated multi-colored cornrow man. After what seemed like an eternity of the most belligerent saxophone solo I had ever heard, Multi-Colored Cornrow Man finally transferred to the car next to us. My train car breathed a collective sigh of relief as he took his ‘talents’ next door.

He began playing his out of tune tirade of a performance in the next car, but there were several gangsters on the next car that were just not having it. After about 30 seconds a few young men in snapback caps and bandanas approached Multi-Colored Cornrow Man and angrily asked him to stop playing. After a few words exchanged between the young men and Multi-Colored Cornrow Man he packed up his trusty saxophone and left. The young thugs did passengers a favor that night, surprisingly; their aggressive act of kicking Multi-Colored Cornrow Man off the train literally helped everyone else sleep that night. I’ll never forget though, aside from laughing harder than I had all year, the look on Multi-Colored Cornrow Man’s face as the gangsters kicked him off the 5 train that fateful night: disappointment, sadness, and frustration written all over it.

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Streetlights – A Sonnet

You can’t see too many stars in the city sky,

the stratosphere shrouded by clouds and pollution.

I looked down at the black tar ridden Earth, and sighed

at the grid that graphs life like some mathematical solution.

As my disappointment grew across my industrial surroundings

I had an epiphany, about the streetlights below.

They were just like the stars, their bright light now browning

into soft, dark amber that only city dwellers know.

They dot the black tar like stars do the universe

and are spackled across the urban horizon

the way loose change scatters across a purse

or the way the studs shine on the belt of Orion.

Streetlights are like stars on the surface of our world,

on a planet forever spinning in a galaxy that twirls.

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EXCLUSIVE INTERVIEW With COLLABORATIN MINDS, Hip Hop Duo from The Bronx

I recently sat down with BX hip hop duo Collaboratin Minds. The team includes Queensbridge born, BX raised and all-NYC rapper Young InQ with his right hand man, first cousin and hip hop mentor Lapse. These two are poised to take the hip hop scene by storm with their new mixtape ‘Dead To America,’ which was just released yesterday on iTunes. Hip hop heads, take heed: If you haven’t heard their music yet, you’re missing out big time. The duo has been rhyming since their early years (especially Lapse) and have collaborated with Don Mega, Fred the Godson and Rsonist of the Heatmakerz. They recently released their new music video for their single ‘BX to BK’ (Prod. Hesam, Directed by Ian Schwaier):

This is my interview with Collaboratin Minds, recorded on January 26, 2014 at Diamond District Studios. Lapse and Young InQ discuss their plans for 2014, their humble beginnings, talk about their (unexpected) musical influences and offer much insight and advice to rookie MCs. Here it is:

The transcript for the interview is below:

Ruben M.: So you’ve been rapping since you were 12 years old?

Lapse: Nah, I’ve been rapping probably like, I wouldn’t say 12, I was probably like, 8, but it wasn’t like, real shit. It was like fake shit, little kid shit.

Young InQ: You were serious! You would go HAM back in the day! He used to have these rap battles online-

L: But that wasn’t until I was like, 13.

YI: Until later right?

L: Yeah. I didn’t have a computer at the time, so-

YI: Yeah yeah yeah.

L: I’ve been trying to write since I was like 8 years old.

YI: I’ve been at it since I was like, 16 or seriously since I was like 18 or 19, I’m 23 now, so you can do the math (laughs).

L: I’m not going disclose my age right now.

(laughter)

L: I’m like 45 right now, yeah I’m 45.

(More laughter)

(Editor’s note: He’s not really 45.)

RM: Alright, I got a good question for you guys, especially considering these 2 gentlemen on the wall (points to mural of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac Shakur): Who are your biggest influences in hip hop?

L: My biggest influence was Tupac, this man right here (points to mural), until after he died then I had to get new rappers to follow and to learn their style and everything like that. And I only say ‘learn their style’ to improve mine, to make mine better, to improve my own style.  I’m not a biter, I don’t take anybody else’s style.

RM: Word. Original is the name of the game man. What about you, InQ?

YI: Well, originally, my mom had me listening to old school classics, stuff like that. I listen to like, Marvin Gaye and things like that. I know that’s not hip hop but that’s how my music knowledge started,

… Otis Redding, and things like that but as far as hip hop goes, not on some sentimental or suck up shit but this guy right here (points to Lapse), he taught me alot about what I know about hip hop and things like that.

L: That’s the good thing about InQ, he doesn’t really have any other rappers that influence him like that. He has his own unique style, period. Like, that’s InQ’s style.

RM: So ‘BX to BK’ was dope. Do you have any other releases or big plans for 2014?

YI: Hell yeah.

L: We got a lot of big releases. First, we want to release ‘BX to BK’ on a huge platform. Right now we released it through a blog site, but we definitely want to te release it through a huger platform, so if anybody has information about that you can contact us, collaboratinminds@gmail.com.

But we’re also trying to release our mixtape, called ‘Dead to America’. Our start release date was supposed to be January 28, but most likely it will be a little bit further than that, but this whole year we’ve been releasing things.

YI: Yeah, the whole year is just about performances, and releasing the mixtape and we actually have a couple of projects we want to slap the world with back to back to back on like some combo jab shit (laughs). Yeah, you know, we’re just trying to hit them with a lot of things but for right now we started off big with ‘BX to BK’. Shout out to Hesam, shout out to Ian [Schwaler], they really helped us out. We got this project coming out ‘Dead to America’  like he said, and that’s gonna be absolutely sick.

L: We got the video ‘Witness to a Murder’ dropping off soon. We put that out  last year, but we’re gonna release the video this year

RM: Alright, so I know you guys mentioned Collaboratin’ Minds. Is this the same thing, is it affiliated with Lapse Entertainment? Is this a bigger group, smaller group, how does that work with Lapse Entertainment?

YI: We’re Collaboratin’ Minds is basically us. It’s under Lapse ENT. He mentored me. I told him anything I do with this music shit is gonna help you boost your label to the top because he deserves to have his own label in my eyes, so Collaboratin’ Minds is what we do together, this is our group that we do together, and then its under Lapse ENT. Lapse ENT is the label, so basically like how Lil Wayne is under Cash Money, you have Drake who’s under YMCMB so that’s how it is, Collaboratin’ Minds is the group, Lapse ENT is the label.

RM: Who would you say you had the best experience working with so far, in your career?

L: Hesam.

YI: Beat wise, yeah. Hesam is a beast. Like I said it goes back to me working with my cousin. I watched this dude go HAM since he was like literally 8, doing the rap thing.

Pretty cool people I worked with, Rsonist of the Heatmakerz, we got him on a feature, and Fred the Godson.

RM: I heard about that.

YI: That’s really big cause that’s 2 people who come from where we come from in The Bronx, and they made it to spot where they have success. We want to follow that. It’s cool that they got back and did things with us. Pretty dope.

RM: Was being an artist always goals of yours or was it something that you just naturally fell into?

YI: Say that again?

RM: Like, was being rapper in the game- did it naturally occur, or did you just wake up one day and was like ‘One day, I’m gonna be an artist’? Or did you just naturally fall into it? Basically how did you end up making the decision like ,‘I’m gonna start hitting the studios, I’ma start recording things, I’ma start doing performances’, what made you turn up your game from like, an idea into a thing that you’re doing, is what I’m trying to say.

L: Well for me, I’ma go back to the other question you asked us too, my bad to cut you off. We also worked with [Don] Mega.

YI: We cannot forget about Mega.

L: We went out to Miami to work with Mega. We did the project, in like no lie like 5 days. Probably like a couple of hours.

YI: We started writing at JFK, we started writing at JFK, finished the writing a song from JFK literally to Miami International.

RM: You should make a new one, ‘BX to BK’ Remix, ‘JFK to Miami’.

(Laughter)

L: We got tracks about us flying out there, we had one on the mixtape called ‘Do It All’, and its about us coming from New York, flying out to Miami, working with Mega, and just going crazy. We did a whole mixtape in like, a couple of days.

YI: Everybody goes to Miami to party and shit like that.

L: No parties.

YI: We’re the only dickheads in the hotel, like, writing our ass off.

(Laughter)

L:  And the last day we were invited to a party. And we were the only ones, like, yeah we ended up going, we were knocked out.

(Laughter)

YI: Bro, imagine trying to do a mixtape in literally like, fuckin’ 4 days.

RM: I don’t want to imagine that. I’d probably knock out in the hotel too.

YI: Yeah you know what I mean, it was crazy.

RM: Your trip to Miami was my next question, but-

L: We can get into it-

YI: That’s like whole other interview.

L: Yeah that’s a whole different subject.

YI: Wait, what was the last question?

RM: The last question was ‘Was being an artist always a goal of yours, or was it something you naturally fell into?

L: It was something that was a goal, but was natural also. Like in my house, my mom, she listened to everything. Like from ODB, to basically the whole Wu Tang Clan, I was about to say Method Man but the whole Wu Tang Clan she would listen to everyday. She got mad Biggy CDs, then she had all the R&B which I hated. I hated R&B, I never liked R&B, at a certain point I was like ‘I don’t wanna hear that shit, break that CD.’

(Laughter)

She had mad shit, like OutKast, a whole bunch of different people, we listened to it, we came up on it. Big Pun of course, was definitely a big influence.

RM: Alright, Alright.

L: After a while, my aunt started coming around. She did music too. She was successful, but that’s a different story. My aunt was the best at it. She would come over, and she would like, write rhymes for my little cousins and all that, everybody she’d write rhymes for all of them and most of the time I’d be like ‘Nah, don’t write nothing for me.’ I wouldn’t tell her I would write my own rhymes and she’d be like ‘I wrote a verse for you, wanna come to the studio and record?’ and I’d be like ‘Nah.’ I write my own verses, so I would write my own verses when I got older, doing everything like that.

So basically my friends found out like ‘Yo, this nigga raps.’ I started having battles in like the 7th grade. So 8th grade came, 9th grade came, and that’s when the internet started getting into play. I started getting online, started battling everybody online. When I couldn’t see them in person, I would be online, battling people through text, through the microphone, through songs, whatever it is.

RM: Carrier pigeons? Any way you can get in contact right?

(Laughter)

L: Yeah, like niggas had crews. It was like Grand Theft Auto: Rap Version.

(Laughter)

YI: For me like, in my eyes I started late. I started in my teens but I was writing for a long time. I did poetry. For anybody who knows me, I did poetry way, way back. I used to take that shit so serious. I used to pass it to girls in school across the room and shit like that. (Laughter)

It was good, you know, it was a way to express myself ’cause I didn’t have any other way to express myself. And then one day, I was like, ‘Maybe I can put this on a beat.’ So my friend gave me the beat cause he did beats for a long time in high school. We kept it on the low, we didn’t wanna tell nobody at the time that we were doing these beats and we were doing the song and stuff. So I brought it to him [Lapse] and he was like ‘Yo, this shit is dope’.

We were in his crib recording in this hot ass basement. We were in there sweatin’. I started recording. I did the track and it was one of the best things I ever heard in my life so i was like, ‘Let me call my cousin and tell him I made a song.’ He was like ‘Yo, we’re gonna fly with this! We gotta keep doing it, keep doing it!’ Ever since then I’ve been on this seriously. Pretty natural right?

(Laughter)

RM: My next question is: What are some ups and downs about being in the rap game? Good and bad.

YI: I say the main thing is the help, the real rap. And I don’t say ‘real rap cause if you rap it’s real, cause you’re a human, you’re a person expressing yourself in a beautiful way. If you wanna be successful, you do what you have to do. What I’m saying is like, the help for other artists to help other artists. You know me, sometimes I feel like I hear a rapper who is not as far along as I am, or not sounding as good as I do, to keep it real, I would just click them off, I would just ignore them. Not knowing no background of them, not knowing anything about them or anything like that, I just wouldn’t do it cause I didn’t like what he was doing.

And that’s the worst thing about us as people. It doesn’t matter, you could be any race it doesn’t matter what race you are, we fail to recognize other people’s artistic side, and to say, ‘This is actually OK.’ Recently I’ve been trying to change. I’ve been trying to tell people ‘I actually like it. Keep doing what you’re doing, if it makes you happy, do it.’

L: For me it was like, what he said but the reverse. When I was a kid, I used to listen to everybody. It didn’t matter if you were wack, if you were nice, I would listen to you, I would do a song, I don’t care. I was getting on everybody’s track. I would say in my mind, ‘If he could make it, I could make it. I’m getting on the track with these wack niggas but after a while started seeing it as a waste of time. I was giving out too many opportunity verses. Too much stuff, so after a while I would be on someone’s track, give them my best verse, but nobody was ever gonna hear it, cause I was rapping with wack rappers.

YI: We fail to help each other out. It’s sad because I know what it’s like to do music to express yourself. And I really feel like if we had more music programs and stuff like that out there, there would probably be less violence, be a lot less, you know, murders, and all that shit would go down. Yeah, the drug rate will probably go way up, but-

(Laughter)

But at the the end of the day, you know it’s like to express yourself we gotta listen to each other more, that’s the main thing.

RM: Well said man, alright. If you could collab with anyone, dead or alive, hint, (points to mural of Notorious B.I.G. and Tupac) dead or alive who would it be and why?

L: I would collab with Stack Bundles. Dead or alive, if Stack Bundles was alive right now, I would collab with Stack. He was one of the best to ever do it. Period. He died way ahead of his time.

YI: Way ahead of his time.

L: He was super nice. Like right now, his music right now if you put that out, it would go crazy. Period.

YI: I think dead or alive, that’s a good question. When you say dead or alive you’re automatically gonna think dead, cause you know the dead-

RM: They’re usually the better ones.

YI: Yeah.

L: With alive, they could look back on this interview and be like ‘This nigga said he would collab with me back in the day and now he said nah’.

(Laughter)

RM: Dead’s like a cop out.

YI: Yeah, I’ll take dead, I’ll take dead.

(Laughter)

YI: I’ll do both. A lot of people don’t wanna don’t want to collab with this guy but I’ll collab with Kanye [West].

RM: Alright.

YI: I’ll collab with Kanye and Common on the same track. I know that’s crazy but I want them on the same track.

RM: Chicago, OK.

YI: Yeah. If i had to pick dead, and I know everybody’s gonna look at me like ‘huh?’ but honestly, I’ll go with Whitney Houston. Why?

RM: Why?

YI: Why? Because her voice was so fucking powerful! She’s one of those people where if you’re having a bad day and you just broke up with your girl and you hear some of her music, a tear’s gonna come out your eye.

(Laughter)

You’re gonna drop that one Indian tear. Nah, I’d love Whitney Houston on the track. Just a little something you know what I mean, it’d be beautiful.

Rest in peace to all of our people, we didn’t give you the typical Big and Pac answer, I’m sorry.

(Laughter)

RM: Well, I was looking for something different, So-

YI: Yeah.

L: Well for me, alive, personally alive right now I know there’s a whole bunch of big rappers, popular rappers that’s out there but for me, who I learned, like a lot of my stuff from, is [Lloyd] Banks. I would collab with Banks.

YI: For me, what I want to, or what I’m going to do I should say, is have a big New York City Mixtape. I love New York City rap. Like, it’s different from anywhere else. If we could get not all the New York City rappers, but the big ones like the Fabs and the Jays, D-Block-

L: Maino-

YI: Yeah, you know what I mean, like-

L: Uncle Murda-

YI: Yeah, Uncle Murda, like no disrespect to A$ap Rocky, Juelz [Santana], everybody at Dipset, like if we could just get everybody together on a mixtape that would be the biggest thing ever. Make it a New York thing. In hip hop, it’s not like it left New York, it’s just been sidelined by-

L: Everything else that’s going on.

(Laughter)

YI: Not trying to get into that beef, I respect the South but-

L: It’s not even beef it’s like, nigga if you grind it’s what will happen. They created a sound, like they created a trademark. Like that autotune, they went with that autotune. Like, you can’t even be mad.

YI: Nah, you know what I would never be mad if someone’s successful, cause that means they worked their ass off, that’s respect.

L: Yeah, they iight, they’re grindin’ right now. They could keep it right now, but we’re bringing it back.

YI: Oh yeah we’re bringing it back.

(Laughter)

YI: We’ll bring it back home.

RM: Alright. My last question for this part is if you could give any piece of advice to any up and coming rappers, what would it be and why?

L: Always go with your first instinct. They tell us we think too much. We try to think about stuff, like, ‘We’re playing too much,’ –

YI: That’s perfectionist.

L: ‘We’re playing too much,’ but like, just go with your first instinct.  You gotta make all the decisions. If you think a nigga’s jipping you, he’s probably jipping you. He’s jipping you. That’s it. That’s your first instinct. If you think this nigga’s  fooling you out of money, he’s fooling you out of money. Don’t give him any money. You know this whole game revolves around money. Stop paying everybody.  If you think the nigga’s a scam artist, he’s a scam artist.

Make sure the person is as professional as anybody else. Like this establishment, this establishment right here.

YI: Shout out to Diamond District by the way. Diamond District Studios, downtown.

My thing is for up and coming artists, is you can always get better. And I think that’s the sad part about a lot of rappers. They get that one hit, and then they slow down their productivity. You can always get better. Your best song is your worst song. You get what I’m saying?

RM: I like that.

YI: You know what I mean, your best song is your worst song. So just keep grindin’, don’t stop. Take it to the moon.

Wale (off camera): You’re only as good as your last joint.

YI: Exactly.

L: Another thing, if you’re recording in your house, make sure you get Pro Tools. And get to know how to use it.

(Laughter)

YI: Word. I’m tired of hearing people with horrible- listen, there’s too many studios, there’s too many people recording out here, if you have a wack sound and it’s behind, how do you say it, it’s behind, your vocals sound all choppy and-

L: Distorted.

YI: Yeah distorted. If you have wack vocals and your shit is distorted-

L: That’s 2 no-no’s.

YI: Yeah.

L: You gotta sound good, my nigga. If you’re creating, take it to an engineer or someone who can take it to the next level.

YI: An engineer. And that’s not even talking shit, that’s just real shit. That’s the truth.

L: You need an engineer, period.

YI: You don’t have one? Pay this guy (points to Lapse).

(Laughter)

Word. If you don’t have one pay this guy! That’s real talk.

RM: Any closing remarks? Anything you wanna send out there to anyone before I shut off the camera?

YI: Shout out to you, Ruben.

RM: Thank you, thank you.

YI: Shout out to Wa.

Wa: CM nigga! All day!

(Laughter)

RM: These guys are the fucking future right here! These guys!

YI: Just look out for us. I’m not even gonna say everything we’re doing. I wanna catch every last of ya with a fucking jab, I’ma say this straight to the camera: I wanna catch every last one of ya with a jab straight to the jaw and knock y’all the fuck out, cause our music is that good.

Wa: Two words: SUCKER. FREE.

(Laughter)

YI: And it is Sunday by the way!

-RSM