Inspiration Records

It's time to come out with it. With the Future Toxic Project (free downloads at www.thefutureistoxic.com) on hold, I have been in the background working on my third album and first full length LP. My goal is to showcase a little more of my emcee talents than I usually do, so I am working with other producers than just myself. The production credits so far include local producers Brainstorm of Dyme Def, Production Prophets and we are in process of getting to work with Ryan Lewis (www.ryanlewisproductions.com).

 

So far, we have chopped up five songs but have almost twenty planned. I cannot express how excited I am for this release. It has been more than a year since my last release, LOVE (Inspiration Records) and I cannot begin to explain how much I have grown and changed.

 

The album will be titled, "Welcome to My Mind" and will be released in partnership with my Label, Benny Benz Records and Entertainment and Inspiration Records.

 

For the sake of the tease, here is a free clip of "Seldom ShutUp" from the album. http://www.zshare.net/audio/72152633c1877ba4/

It seems too often we encounter situations that test our strength. Physical, mental, social, emotional-- all tests of our personal character. We simply dive into our pools of life hoping that we have the strength to overcome the situations we encounter before they consume us and we don't survive. But we do survive. Time after time we pull ourselves up, whether enveloped in success or failure, and we move on to our next personal challenge.

 

Sometimes that challenge is a project, sometimes a goal and, more often than not, sometimes it's a relationship. 

 

It's in these relationships that we fail the most. We are not the only ones hopeful of their success. We have to rely on the partners we chose in these endeavors, that they invest the same passion and determination we promised and deliver them.

 

Regardless of the painful, heart-wrenching failures we encounter, sometimes we succeed. That success could be the last moment of pride in your life and you wouldn't care. "It was worth it," you would say, taking every hit to your person without a single hint of remorse, because you and your partner can now look back together and say, "look what we overcame." To both of you, that's all that matters.

 

Tried, I have. Failed, I have just as often. But tomorrow I succeed. I hoped. I stayed through the tears of the bad and the laughter of the good. I had the strength. We had the strength. It was hard. Sometimes it felt impossible. But we made it.

 

Congratulations to the soldiers and their loved ones. Your relationships have been tested but you will forever be stronger because of this.

 

Congratulations, Chealsea. I Love you and I'm proud. We made it together.

 

-Ben

Law was enacted last week in the nation of Portugal legalizing gay marriage. All I can ask is why the hell we haven't done this yet? We were born into a nation and raised with the idea of not only physical, but emotional and social freedom. These freedoms include a freedom from not only religious views that may go against a belief in gay rights, but also any personal homophobic beliefs. Many people choose to look at this as a matter of whether a person is born homosexual or if they make a conscious decision at some point in their lives. They believe that if they can dictate whether or not homosexuality is a natural occurrence or not, they can then call it irrational and illegalize it. I believe this is irrelevant because many practices such as smoking, alcohol consumption, driving while on a cell phone, etc. are irrational, unhealthy, and often times deadly yet are also constitutionally protected practices. Therefore, whether rational or irrational, homosexuality is a practice that should be protected by the constitution regardless of public opinion and especially the scrutiny of a church that should be separated from our state in the first place.

 

You ask yourself, "as a rap fan, why should I care? Why is this important to me?" This is important because you are a part of the biggest homophobic genre since country music. That is NOT something to be proud of. If we stress the importance of gay rights in our music and choose to not support artists who do the opposite, we can change millions of people's ideas not only about gay marriage but also one of the largest negative affiliations and connotations we have as a genre. I am not proud of hip-hop and its inability to be welcoming to people of all races, beliefs, social status, and orientations. Especially for a genre birthed out of ghetto persecution and racial oppression.

 

Non-Epic FAIL.

It takes three hundred million americans to unify for a cause. It only takes one earthquake to destroy a home, a community, a nation. Please donate or volunteer what you can, where you can, and however you can to help the victims of this tragic event. Following is a link to Google, who is donating one million dollars towards aid and has posted donation opportunities for UNICEF and CARE. Please donate.

 

Angry musician, out.

 

 

Look, this isnt targeted at any one person specifically (just everyone in general), and as Geo would say, "Dont take this either personal, emotional, or literal." I am not a great artist. I know that. But I try my best and I continue to grow. So whats the deal with these artists reaching out to me like they can help me when they dont really have anything to offer themselves? I swear, if I get another link emailed to me for the myspace of "super producer whats-his-name" out of "hollyhood" or "sea-town," I am going to change my website, just to change my email address, just to get away from you people. Thats right, I said it: "You people." You, the one-take, one-instrument, auto-tuned excuse for a "musician." You people. You who dont use samples and clearly dont understand what hip-hop is and where its roots are. You want to be like 'Pac, Weezy? Cool. So does everybody else. The difference is that you will never be! Its not because you are incapable of rising to stardome, its because you are incapable of putting in the WORK that makes you a star. So pick up a real instrument, put down your keyboard. Take voice lessons, turn off your auto-tuner, and invest hours in the studio instead of one-taking everything. Oh, and get off them drugs.

 

Word to your mother.