Am I doing this? I’m doing this (1 of 2)

SO! Guess who’s been doing some inner work? Yep, you guessed it, your friendly neighborhood commentary writer. The neighborhood of Black girls trying to keep their cool in this wild world.

Where to start?

I’ve Found My Writing Style

Since maybe 2008, I’ve had some sort of creative outlet in the world wide web. I was a really self righteous teenager, a Hotep adjacent if you will. I was reading the Autobiography of Malcolm X but listened to Keri Hilson, duality. I was being enriched by mentors showing me culture, waves of feminism, and HIGHLY educated Black people. So I read a lot, saw a lot, and was challenged to think critically regarding these things.

Aside from the public speaking I’d do for different programs I was invited to share my perspective, I wrote…a lot. I had an alter ego online where I discussed politics, gender roles, and even my ideals when it came to Black pride and self sufficiency. Also, Tha Carter III was playing in the background. Again, duality.

I’m a well rounded woman if I do say so myself.

But I was still a teenager, and conscious about the fact I was sharing these things. What if someone from a college I wanted to go to saw this? Would they turn their nose up at the fact I’m talking about politics on this platform? I wiped at least three blogs in 2009. Sadly, I should’ve saved the work but I didn’t even think about it. As soon as I see a ‘Delete Profile’ button, I’m clicking faster than Adam Sandler trying to go back his regular life.

Years passed, I got into the social media thing but I don’t have enough patience to truly sit around and try to crack algorithms. I can do it a little but, it’s tiring. Which is why I enjoy sites such as Medium and my own platform, (Thanks for being here if you’re reading this, I appreciate it) I hold the power to create my own content. I write what I want, how I want, when I want, in MY perspective.

“But what do you wanna write Laina?”, thanks for asking. I knew you were thinking that.

I consider myself a cultural critic who’s critical about things I care about.

I love nerding out about a lot of things and I get excited talking about them. I find layers, I recall events, I connect dots. To put it in the form of a piece of writing excites me and honestly, it’s a rush to share this. I enjoy documenting feelings, emotions, and ideas. I think in some part of my brain, my digital footprint is one that represents all the great things I get to witness within my interests.

I can talk about the first time I listened to Drake:

The year was 2006 and I found myself shuffling around MySpace after school on a Friday afternoon. I think this was around the time I realized famous people had MySpace pages too. For some random reason, maybe I was in the middle of a marathon or something, but I started searching actors from ‘Degrassi’. I saw Cassie Steele, Stacey Farber, & Aubrey Graham. What made his page interesting was that it wasn’t under Aubrey, and it was a music page.

First thoughts? “This dude rap? *laughs and slaps knee*”

Second thoughts though? “Damn, this kinda hard”.

(c. 12/2019)

Or my little reviews of films I love:

(‘Finally a Movie for Me and My Generation of Weirdos: A Love Letter to ‘Dope’’)

Rick Famuyiwa comes from the class of directors during the “golden age” of Black cinema in the 90s. With his film, ‘The Wood’ (also set in Inglewood) he created characters that weren’t necessarily the ‘typical’ young black men that were depicted in cinema at that time (i.e ‘Boyz In the Hood’ & ‘South Central’). They weren’t gangbangers or extra tough, they were just kids. Boys who liked sports and getting girls. Sure, they were exposed to the ills of their neighborhoods, witnessing gang violence and drugs but all in all, they just remained themselves and grew up to be productive men.

But that was 1999, this is 2015 and everything is different. Technology has changed and so has the stereotype of the average ‘hood kid’.

(c. 06/2015)

And this, about my favorite subject to talk about, Kanye. I’ve been listening to Kanye since the first album, in real time. I’ve read all the interviews, watched the videos, heard the sound bites, I AM a Kanyeologist and can write critically about the person who I call my favorite rapper. In this piece, I was trying to write about why ‘Jesus Is King’ wasn’t a surprise move to me in his career:

‘Jesus Walks’ was the seventh song on the cd and my jaw dropped. I have never heard a rapper, a rapper rapper, speak about relationships with God. Sure, you had certain rappers who provided that kind of content. Pac, Scarface, Mos Def, but this was different. This climate of rap was at a weird space. This was the thick of the bling bling era, when rap was going truly corporate. Jay Z was retiring to get into more of an executive role. 50 Cent was negotiating deals with major apparel brands. Money was on the line. You couldn’t say anything too political, social, and let alone anything about involving religion.

“Well here go my single dawg, radio needs this. They say you can rap about anything except for Jesus. That means guns, sex, lies, videotape? But if I talk about God, my record won’t get played?” Later in the verse, he explained that he knew this content would most likely not be played on major outlets, his money could be affected but, he didn’t care. He was bold about his love of Christ and was open about his walk. With that alone, he knew he was good in God’s eyes.

‘Jesus Walks’ peaked at #11 on the overall Hot 100 Billboard charts following its release May of 04. It didn’t fall of deaf ears.

(C. 10/2019)

A cultural critic who’s critical about the things I care about. I love this and I want to keep doing this. That’s what the ‘Commentary’ section of the site is about. It’s a task for me because I struggle with thinking my opinion doesn’t matter but in the spirit of my favorite intellectuals and people versed in the culture, why not? No one ever asked B Dot why was he qualified to have an opinion on music, he just did it. So yeah, music, film, television, hell sports too, I love it all. I want to make content I want to see and I’m doing it with this platform.

But, we all know this is easier said than done. It’s all a process and I’m working about fostering my potential further. I have these lofty goals of being an independent artist while still working towards a career goal, and sometimes it gets hard. I sacrifice time to study to write down script ideas or a business plan for a the production company I hope to run one day. I use a day off to pay attention to work emails when I should be writing drafts to post on here this week. It’s a balance but I’m working on it. I almost abandoned this very talk piece about four times. But I didn’t, and for that I’m proud.

Pt.2 Soon Come.

Thanks for reading,

Peace.