Atain Ibia
U.S. Army
Nissan Rogue
Nissan EB
Nissan ARIYA
AARP
Tecate
Photography
Film
Journalism
Logo Design
Fashion Design
Music Design
About
Lore: From Butterfly to Shabazz Palaces, Ishmael Butler Has Made an Indelible Mark (2024)
Two seconds pass by. What it feels like when the spacious penultimate selection on Shabazz Palaces’ Black Up is introduced to a pair of ears. For those who know the hip-hop luminary as Butterfly, “Swerve…the reeping of all that is worthwhile (Noir not withstanding)” is a fresh take on a voice that in an instant connotates the sighting of the Digable Planets.
The music-sphere that the 1987-initiated group revolved around included lesser-known acts—the Mos Def-led Urban Thermo Dynamics to name a faction with a sound in their realm. That sneaky jazzy intonation that will knock you upside your head or in the case of the Digable Planets, tease you if you disrespect their reality. The nature of humanity is to respond to the voices and listeners and even presences that surround you without being indifferent. They still did it their way. Every individual in each crew.
Butler’s performance style, in particular, can’t be spoken less of.
Lore: The Black Panther Story is One of the Talented and Far Reaching (2024)
Huey P. Newton sits on a veranda chair throne—in his hands, weapons. Images like these have become emblems for the Black Panther Party’s presence that coincided with the civil rights era, but they show only an aspect of a much larger picture. The major personalities the masses have chosen to focus on are truthfully not necessarily the urgent stories or a complete giving of respect to where it is due.
Researchers, in whichever role they may be contributing to the uprising of Black society in, have made an almost concerted effort to shine a light on these differentiators whose struggles or thoroughness for a limitless cause were and are, through historical context, so impactful that to not continue to cover their walks and essential by-example leadership, such as that of messengers like Mumia Abu-Jamal and Emory Douglas, would be shameful.
The Beret: The Goggins Mentality (2024)
When David Goggins berates you through your handheld device, you’re triggered in an unusual manner. For those who’ve been using platforms such as TikTok, where beautiful women rule the feed of the man who’s been using them long enough, the occasionally off-putting post beyond that realm just comes with the territory—Goggins revels in that disruption.
With the rise of motivational videos in said environments—partially due to his success as a drill sergeant—social media has become his running ground, where his physicality, whether it be his battlefield training accompanied by an attitude that instigates or simply his voice and presence with the awareness of his storied attack to his body somehow visible, moves the one the algorithm has challenged along with every word that he utters. His influence without question still leaves one—a legion of followers are sharing his message; how did they discover it? The same vigilance.