Music

Beats for the streets and beats for work, 

Beats to cheer up and beats to mellow out,

Music to think to, drive to, fall asleep to, and dance to,

 Music to motivate and inspire.

Play it loud! 

The Sun Sets to Rise is a playlist I created with songs with "sun" in the song title or somewhere in the lyrics. It was inspired by my fascination with the way we associate the sun, a star whose mass makes up 99.9% of the total mass in our solar system, with a great many abstract human experiences. We reference the sun as the personification of love, joy, hope and renewal of life and associate our emotional response to certain pleasurable sensory experiences with the emotions we feel when we experience the radiance of the sun. The title of the playlist is derived from a line in Paradise by Coldplay.

Look at the stars. Look how they shine for you. Another line from a Coldplay track, Yellow. I am not sure but I think I may be a fan. This playlist features songs with "star" in the song title and is inspired by my fascination with the night sky. Staring at the vastness of the cosmos at night one cannot help but feel humbled; considering the immensity of our galaxy alone invokes a feeling of insignificance. This kind of perspective, this feeling of insignificance, is not how our species came to dominate our planet, though. We consider ourselves quite the movers and shakers, it seems. One definition of a star as found on the web is 

a self-luminous celestial body consisting of a mass of gas held together by its own gravity in which the energy generated by nuclear reactions in the interior is balanced by the outflow of energy to the surface, and the inward-directed gravitational forces are balanced by the outward-directed gas and radiation pressures. 

I find it interesting that we have taken these massive, amazing celestial bodies and made them our own. That which enthralls us renders us "starry eyed," we call outstanding people stars, we liken our beauty to that of stars and we use them as a standard unit of excellence.

Coz in the dark of the night you're all I can see
And you sure look like a star to me.
- Kelis, Little Star

Dans le Noir (in the dark), a passionate piece by French rapper Diam's is an indictment of a society that is rearing a generation of young people devoid of values, that distorts their body image through relentlessly destructive media, persistently denies them role models and is intrinsically and systemically racist.

I was listening to Dans le Noir on New Year's Eve while all around me people were getting set to usher in the New Year in unhinged debauchery and revelry. In the song Diam's talks about how while people are enjoying themselves in bars, she removes herself from the melée and reflects upon life. I was encouraged at that time, on the cusp of the New Year, to do likewise. Thus, on that clear starry night, alone, away from the raucousness, I took a moment to reflect on my intention to enter the New Year exactly how I planned on living the rest of my life and eventually exiting this world: with grace, poise, a legacy of love and a million dollar smile on my face. Pow!

"Freedom" - Louis Parsons

Discover Emancipator, an immensely talented producer who speaks my language. 










There are many cumbersome ways to kill a man heal a broken heart and connecting to good music is an immensely enriching way in which to accomplish this without getting your hands dirty and annoying those around you with persistent whining and whinging.

To kill the Monday blues requires a playlist not unlike this.

A man and a guitar - happiness can never be far.