“If you don’t see yourself as a winner, then you cannot perform as a winner.” – Zig Ziglar

PEEP THE NEW VISUALS OFF OF J MISTRO & I’S #THECHILLESTWINTEREP. It was shot by the homie ARCHIE ARCHER of WHEAT CITY MAG. IT WAS COLD AS HELL THE DAY WE SHOT THIS VIDEO WHICH IS IRONIC CONSIDERING THE NAME OF THE SONG & EP BUT, EITHER WAY WE HAD MAD FUN, GOT DOPE FOOTAGE, & THE VIDEO CAME OUT REAL FLY LIKE SO VIBE OUT TO THIS!

Stef Is Dope – The Chill (Prod. By J Mistro) from Arash Taherzadeh (Archer) on Vimeo.

A goal properly set is halfway reached. – Zig Ziglar

Yo tomorrow’s Uptown Friday Nights is gonna be bananas. We’ve got the beautiful & talented girls of AKOKO are opening the show for the incredibly dope THE FUTURE BAND. To top it all off, this Friday’s event is also a benefit for DEEP SPACE ARTS so slide through, peep some dope music, & play your part to assist a worthy cause.

The fam HEZE is not only my brother in H▲H he’s a good brother in general. His latest offering GENESIS is undoubtedly an underground hip-hop classic that deserves mainstream attention. Not too many people can manage to bring a cross a socially conscious & progressive message whilst simultaneously making chill, feel-good music to ride or vibe to. HEZE manages to accomplish that. Peep the tape, it’s definitely worth a listen.

You can download GENESIS HERE.

A good friend of mine happened to tweet about this kid Iman Omari & said his stuff was dope. I can trust my homie’s taste in music so I requested a link, I peeped the work & was blown away. The vocals & songwriting are massive but, when I realized he also produced all of the tracks, I was like “daaamnn, sun’s going in!” or something of similar sentiment. Long story short, his tape titled ENERGY is definitely worth a listen.

Below are a couple cuts off his tape to preview & if you like what you hear, you can download the entire project HERE.

02 Take Away by hustleGRL

03 Midnight by hustleGRL

The homie Miles Meraki of The C.H.E.S.S. Team sent me a link to this tape, I told him I’d check it out, & I did. I wasn’t sure what to expect but, I can say that I wasn’t disappointed at all. I was actually impressed by the amount of thoughtfulness that had gone into the project. You don’t hear much of that lately. Either way, I enjoyed it so I’m sure you might dig it as well. Peepeth.

Peep the dope new jam by the homie rMell called Crewneck Season. It’s a legit joint sampling Drake’s “Crew Love” featuring The Weeknd. The homie Nomad spit a killer verse on this, too. Peepeth.

Crewneck Season (Co-Starring Nomad) by rMell

After seeing the trailer for RED TAILS I was completely blown away. A World War 2 film, with an leading cast of African-American actors, with stunning, state-of-the-art special effects? No way. The after finding out that George Lucas was producing the project, everything began to make sense. His reasoning behind wanting to help make the film makes sense & definitely strikes a cord. Check out the video interview as well as a few excerpts from his interview.

Why Red Tails took 23 years to make:

“I wrote the script many years ago, and it turned out just like Star Wars in that it was way too big for one movie. There was the story of how they got trained at Tuskegee (Institute in Alabama), and how Eleanor Roosevelt became their champion. Then there was the battle movie that had piqued my interest initially. And finally the amazing saga of the start of the civil rights movement after the war. So this literally went on for 20 years, trying to get it all into one script, which meant leaving out many things we loved and going mainly with the war story and hinting at the rest.”

Why he financed the film himself:

“Everything I do is defensive. I got into a position (to finance projects) right after The Empire Strikes Back (1980). I didn’t need to have studios telling me what to do, picking movies for me to make, having me change them and recut them. My first two films (THX 1138 and American Graffiti) were recut, and I said I just don’t want that. If I’m going to live or die by my movie, I want to be able to say, ‘Yeah, that was a terrible movie, I made a mistake, sorry.’ I don’t want to have to say I made a great movie but you guys destroyed it.”

How it might affect Black filmmakers:

“I realize that by accident I’ve now put the black film community at risk (with Red Tails, whose $58 million budget far exceeds typical all-black productions). I’m saying, if this doesn’t work, there’s a good chance you’ll stay where you are for quite a while. It’ll be harder for you guys to break out of that (lower-budget) mold. But if I can break through with this movie, then hopefully there will be someone else out there saying let’s make a prequel and sequel, and soon you have more Tyler Perrys out there.”

Sending messages through film:

“You’re going to give a message out regardless. You’re projecting your point of view and your morality and lessons learned. Those of us in the arts who are given a megaphone have to be especially vigilant. Nowadays in a lot of movies — and I’m not going to condemn the whole movie industry — there is no message. They don’t even think about that part. But there should be a point to movies. Sure, you’re giving people a diversion from the cold world for a bit, but at the same time you pass on some facts and rules and maybe a little bit of wisdom.”

Mythology and movies:

“I’ve come to the conclusion that mythology is really a form of archaeological psychology. Mythology gives you a sense of what a people believes, what they fear. That’s what I did with Star Wars. I took some basic psychological motifs and saw if people could still relate to them today. Oh, you feel this way about your father, and that way about your friends. After its success, I decided I liked the idea of doing films that spoke to and inspired young people, of saying things that needed to be said without being blatant. And that’s where Red Tails fits in.”