#baisley

[bevanne46]

A QUILTER'S GARDEN

It's almost that time of year again!!

I really wish we could plant fabric seeds!

[yearningforunity]

Preme and Prince

The Supreme Team

[llondonfog]

becoming a (cat)parent changes you in ways you thought would never be possible 😭

[latelecaster]

Los guitarristas de Baroness: John Baisley & Gina Gleason

[petsincollections]

Swan Finds Home At The Bronx Zoo

A swan was rescued from heavy mud by the ASPCA when Baisley Park Lake in Queens was being drained. The swan was presented to the Bronx Zoo. After being brought back to health, the swan is introduced to the zoo's lake.

Lehman College, Bronx Business for Everybody

Digital Culture of Metropolitan New York

[phoenix]

Kicking off Octoberween at Trisk with another anthology movie, plucked randomly from a pack of 50 movies, called The Tenement.

Like most anthology movies, it's a mixed bag, made worse by a lower budget, but click the link to read all my thoughts.

[fluffydancer618]

Artfight dump. gg. send post

Characters and to who they belongs to:

Ace by MothmanX

Percy by Bang99507

Ani by @ananinidraws

Jacq Staron by @justtrashperson

Sona of @1dkreally

Yang by @yinyangle

Fennec Farthings by @morkify

Si Zhong (祀忠) by @my-name-is-daniel-yes

? by @jasperakalucy

Unnamed by @just-illegal-art

Dandi-Lion by @fluffylilgremlin

Hope, dog of @thestrangebreed

Dostobus by @boomshaboom

Heart Mage by @isitsafetodrinktherainwater32

Jude by CcinoLino

Ryu The Dragon Shirmp by @michidrawing

Baisley by @grimmothee

Gummi by Amberlea

Go check them out cause they're freakin' cool

[mariacallous]

NEW YORK (WABC) -- As many as 70 New York City Housing Authority employees were arrested Tuesday in a federal investigation.

The U.S. Attorney is charging the dozens of current and former NYCHA employees with bribery and extortion offenses.

The defendants have been charged with allegedly accepting cash payments from contractors in exchange for awarding NYCHA contracts.

It marks the largest number of federal bribery charges brought on a single day in Department of Justice history.

While arrests were made at NYCHA facilities in all five boroughs, a sizable number of them were at the Baisley Park Houses on Foch Boulevard in Jamaica, Queens.

The defendants appeared to exploit a loophole for smaller contracts. City contracts for smaller repairs in public housing, less than $10,000, can be awarded without going through a public bidding process.

These "micro-purchase" projects appear to have been awarded by the defendants through kickbacks, officials say.

The corruption investigation involves the city's Department of Investigation, Homeland Security Investigations and the U.S. Attorney's office in Manhattan.

Few other details were released.

[thebronxisburningblog]

“You already know bro, we gonna be rich.”

- overhead it

Man on phone, Queens, NY

Guy R. Brewer Blvd, NYCHA Baisley Houses

August 2024

[ms-cellanies]

HOORAY, this blind dog was rescued from 40 degree cold water. He was taken to the Emergency Vet & was reunited with his owner.

@russalex @angreav @iamthebadwolf85 @catedevalois @maneth985   @ogtumble @amatasera @fuckdumblr  @ladyoftheteaandblood @sirrah22 @stripedsilverfeline @larouau12 @ughseriously @usearki @ladytuarach @glendathegoodone @cricketcat9 @aregrettablehullabaloo @micaleann @toasty-hancock @hellcatblues  @middleagedandoutoftouch @sabbykatt3 @cursethedarkness @gretchenk0720  @aliceliddellsmirror @inkededucatednnerdy @notpedeka @photoboybg69  @contemplatingoutlander @nildespirandum @izhunny @ladytigrane @wolfsmom1 @phoenix-maat @writernotwaiting  @glitterypeanutmugnickel  @captain-krazy @bitchycatwizard @paulfe  @mishlady @dorcascristyforever @beerboy100 @ultimatenutshackfangirl  @lokilickedme @bakufuhakutaku  @a-sundry-bag @prettyhatemachine01 @texmexdarling @oshea52  @posttexasstressdisorder  @evieplease @queen-of-cats @catchester  @jimbr549  @ladygreytea76 @azusalover​ 

[baileyblues]

OC rant i made to my friends

There's so many grammar mistakes in this but i'm too lazy to fix so pls bear w/ me

if anyone actually reads this pls pressure me into acutally writing the lore

Bailey's original name was baisley, the original god of the worlds but her followers called her unique bc they didnt' know her actual name.

because she violated the heavenly law and broke the universe's balance, universe (very first existence) stripped her of her power and scattered it across the cosmos

of course, she descended as a god, but still retained her most important powers, which are associated w/ the stars. and she has no recollection of her past life

and of course, new gods were created in order to fill her role, aka the 3 balance gods were created, each holding diffeent types of balances, as well as a new god of the worlds that was supposed to hold her role. the new god compared to baisley, was soo much weaker than her.

baisley deceded onto the hybrid realm on earth, and as she fell she fell into a coma in order to preserve her strength. she was eventually found by 2 witch sisters, heather and elementa. she doesn't remember her past, but took on the name "bailey" as it was very similar to her original name and she felt familiar w/ it.

baisley came from the realm of the gods, but also had her own mini dimention to which she used as her living quaters/abode.

there were 6 gods who were made to replace baisley in terms of her duty, 3 of them were balance gods, one was made for her original role, and the other two created balance together (or was supposed to)

bc of baisley's descent and the creation of the new gods, specifically mayhem and harmony, mayhem is the embodiment of chaos and those 2 are like yin and yang which forever balance eachtoher and the world. BUT mayhem being basically chaos, breaks the heavenly law, and instead releases chaos onto the mortal realm/earth. ofc, harmony reports it to her higher ups, time and reality, and they also tell her to fix it. so she goes to heaven and calls upon angels as reinforcements and decend down to earth, which was just utter chaos and darkness. the fight goes on for a bit, and eventually they balance out. time and reality both punish them equally, for unbalancing the equilibrium and sends them to a fixed reincarnation cycle that will end when both has repayed for their crimes. however, the forces on earth still stay there, leading up to the events of the main oc story.

umbra, being the creation of mayhem, basically takes mayhem's place. and ofc, on harmony's side, there's several angles still on earth. ofc, they do eventually die and umbra gets sealed, but both sides tranfered their knowledge onto new generations to fight the war for them the first dark elemental, suvillain, was an apprintice of umbra and a general. during umbra's original reign, she also used her energy to creat jinx, an artifical being. the angels found about her plan and tried to purify it, which actually worked and made jinx into a pure hearted person, despite being a dark angel. so jinx naturally sacrifices herself for umbra, only to be discarded by her.

later umbra gets sealed by the secret hybrid society, which at this time the hybrids and humans are in seperate realms and this is a secret organization where they fight agaisnt ddark forces which lasts for a pretty damn long time. it's basically history at this point. the 2 witch sisters, heather and elementa, are part of the society, along with impius, who has yet to be promoted to being the demon king/king of hell. elementa is an alpha shapeshifter, which is a hybrid that's selected by gods to balance the world. this only happens when teh world is in grave danger and usually no 2 ASS (IT'S AN ABRIVATION OK) can live at the same time bc of the time gap between them.

umbra get sealed, and at this point, jinx already died but was sent in a reincarnation cycle for one life time and was chosen by Death as their apprintice. so jinx follows death adn eventually becoes the princess of the underworld. at this point, it's already a couple of generations into the elemental's, which were originally only the light and dark force during the war, but new elements popped up with time, and new brances appeared. such as nature, fire, water, being the original 3 other than dark and lgiht, then their derivatives, wind from nature, ice from water, and lava from fire.right now there are 11 generations of elementsals in the current main timeline

impius gets promoted into becoming the king of hell, which he accepts (this is very important, since in the future this will be very relavent)

actually gonna skip the timeline a bit. umbra gets "revived" again by accident, bc she has a cult that's in some sort of distorted dark realm to which klin (fandom oc who becomes the main character later on) takes an importatn item taht speeds up umbra's ressurection, since she's technically sealed but not dead, though wasin a coma like state where she can shift her conciousness.

jinx, impius, and ofc heather and elementa participates in the new battle, along with our main trio, olympia, karma, and krystal. the witch sisters send the main trio back in time for a bit to see if they are able to prevent umbra's past seal into undoing (gonna figure out the timeline issure later), but fails. ofc, umbra gets revived, jinx is tramatized, and deliah, who is a descended of a civilization/society umbra destoryed, sought out to kill her after waht she's done to her homeland. jinx has to make a decision btwn her mother creator and her advisor, her best friend. klin is suffering bc she gets shouldered w/ big responsibilities, and chooses to sacrifice a part of her soul with bloodlust, a blood angel who was exiled from heaven (this won't make sense w/out context but if yall want i can tell yall) in order to try and defeat umbra

i'd be surprised if anyone actually read all of this apsorewhaiolhdsa

just wanted to put this somewhere (and also cuz my friends asked for it)

[3lianav]

Chapters: 5/? Fandom: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), Rise of the Guardians (2012) Rating: Mature Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood) Characters: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon), Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Astrid Hofferson, Stormfly (How to Train Your Dragon), Ruffnut Thorston, Tuffnut Thorston, Barf and Belch (How to Train Your Dragon), Fishlegs Ingerman, Meatlug (How to Train Your Dragon), Snotlout Jorgenson, Hookfang (How to Train Your Dragon), Dagur the Deranged, Heather (How to Train Your Dragon), Tsar Lunar Lunanoff X | The Man in the Moon, Stoick the Vast, Gobber the Belch, Berkians (How to Train Your Dragon), Gothi (How to Train Your Dragon) Additional Tags: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fantasy, Magical Creatures, Norse Mythology - Freeform, Mythical Beings & Creatures, Magic, Romance, Action/Adventure, Blood and Violence, Realistic Vikings, No Guardians, Eventual Romance, Minor Original Character(s), Minor Background Relationships, Slow Burn, Hiccstrid at the beginning, But HiJack is endgame, Sexual Content, Not Beta Read, first drafts Series: Part 1 of The Fires of Winter Summary:

Between the Dragon Riders' war against the Dragon Hunters, a new evil lurks in the fringe of Midgard and threatens the very life of the realm itself. A prophecy reveals a hidden world. Creatures once in the shadows step into the light. Memories of long past surface and Hiccup Haddock finds himself stuck in a war in two worlds, desperate to keep them from colliding. In the pith of it all, a young spirit, whose glacier eyes pierce his soul, holds the key to ending the battle, once and for all.

An epic tale of adventure, tragedy, romance and- of course- dragons.

  Hiatus

[seafoamdew]

BAISLEY, HOW DID I NOT REALIZE THIS WAS YOU??? I should have known by the wonderful art style and amazing quality alone!

LMAOOOO THANK YOU! I was so happy to see you liking my hijack stuff I thought you knew 😂😂

[styleofdiamandis]

BLACK LIVES MATTER: MARINA IN ADIDAS JUMPSUIT

Over the past few days I’ve gathered a couple of looks from 2020 to 2019 that I haven’t posted yet (forgive meeeeee!). But hey, better late than never! Here’s what Marina wore to the Black Lives Matter Protest in London back on June 7th, 2020.

The Greek-Welsh singer kept it comfortable yet stylish in a cool jumpsuit by German cult label Adidas! Featuring a shirred waist and zip-up front, this easy-to-style jumpsuit also has the label’s signature 3 stripe detail and logo embroidered on its leg.

Marina also wore these KISS Eyewear retro-inspired rectangle sunglasses with rivet dot details.

Next, Marina rocked her vintage Betsey Johnson beach ball neon multi-color faux patent leather shoulder bag with sea-themed charms in gold ($78.00 - sold out) which was exclusively sold at Macy’s.

Finally, her colorful and silver metallic sneakers are the Baisley sneakers by Bronx!

[ao3feed-hijack]

snatching precious moments from the peaceful jaws of time

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/g7DLavl

by seafoam_dew (baisley)

A collection of one-shots, drabbles and whatever takes my fancy for the Hijack arranged marriage au because I'm too impatient to write out a full-on fic with plots and slow burns.

Words: 1642, Chapters: 1/?, Language: English

Fandoms: How to Train Your Dragon (Movies), DreamWorks Dragons (Cartoon), Rise of the Guardians (2012)

Rating: Teen And Up Audiences

Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings

Categories: M/M

Characters: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III, Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood), Jack's Sister (Rise of the Guardians), Jack's Mother (Rise of the Guardians), Jack's Father (Rise of the Guardians), Stoick the Vast, Toothless (How to Train Your Dragon), Astrid Hofferson, Snotlout Jorgenson, Ruffnut Thorston, Tuffnut Thorston, Gobber the Belch, Fishlegs Ingerman

Relationships: Hiccup Horrendous Haddock III/Jack Frost (Guardians of Childhood)

Additional Tags: One Shot Collection, Self-Indulgent, Arranged Marriage, Other Additional Tags to Be Added

read it on the AO3 at https://ift.tt/g7DLavl

[caltropspress]

RAPS + CRAFTS #9: junclassic

1. Introduce yourself. Past projects? Current projects?

My name is junclassic. One word. All small letters. Like dead prez and ee cummings. My recent project is my latest album, Long Days and Short Lives. It's an album that explores daily mundane experiences that sometimes comprise a long day. While having those long days, we often contemplate what got us there and question whether we are moving in the right direction with our lives. These moments can conjure feelings of great inspiration as well as deep despair and crippling self doubt. It can make a good guy wanna flip. Hopefully, at the end of all that contemplation we obtain a calm wisdom or a carefully crafted perspective that somehow guides us through the uncertainty.

2. Where do you write? Do you have a routine time you write? Do you discipline yourself, or just let the words come when they will? Do you typically write on a daily basis?

I write wherever. In the 90s, I often wrote on the A, J, and E trains. Or in Baisley Park on a bench for hours with a Dutch and a Heineken. Nowadays I write mostly in my bedroom or in my girl's living room. For some reason, I feel like I come up with my best shit at my girl's crib when she is knocked out. So this is between like 2 and 6am. That's when I'm in the zone. I tend to write at night. Often till sun comes up. On Long Days and Short Lives, from a song called "Suit of Armor," one of my favorites on the project, the first bar is: "When I'm inspired I can't sleep / That's when I'm at my best." I stay up like insomniacs in laundromats. Ha. There was definitely a time when I disciplined myself by forcing myself to write. Back in '96, I joined my first group, E and J, with my man Ed. We used to practice knocking out three verses. Two 16s (one each) and two 8s for the 3rd verse within 4 hours or less. Ed said one day, "What if they need a new song from us and we gotta tour the next day? We gotta be able to knock 'em out." For some reason, that rigid approach made a mark on me. And I continued to force myself to write bars for years. But the mindset became, "Lemme write now while I can. Because the day may come when I can't write anymore." So I pushed out a lot of material. But now, I don't like to force it. I'd rather it come naturally. Plus, I'm a lot more choosy with my words these days. I also stack lines in the back of my notebook, which I've been doing since 1997, so when I feel the urge to write and get stuck, I have lines I can run to the back of the notebook to keep the vibe going.

3. What’s your medium—pen and paper, laptop, on your phone? Or do you compose a verse in your head and keep it there until it’s time to record?

My medium is paper. Always will be. Sometimes I think of a line, then scratch it out and tweak it. Sometimes I move lines around. I need a visual medium to see and read the words. Never been too good at constructing verses in my head. That's an amazing talent I have rarely come across. But I used to be nasty off the top.

4. Do you write in bars, or is it more disorganized than that?

I write in bars. Learned to count them early during the E and J days in 1996. Counting bars was important because that's how we knew when a song was complete. For me and E, it was a race to 16. Soon as we hit that sweet 16 it was a celebration. Crack the Cisco!

5. How long into writing a verse or a song do you know it’s not working out the way you had in mind? Do you trash the material forever, or do you keep the discarded material to be reworked later?

It varies on when I know whether a verse or song is or isn't working. Might be midway, verse and a half in, when I say, "This ain't it." I've had some ambitious concepts I tried to do that I couldn't properly pull off. And I didn't realize it until the 4th verse. Yep. 4th verse. I'll share that one. I wanted to do a tribute to Nas' "I Gave You Power" back in 2020 for my last album The Hope Business. So I wrote a song from the perspective of a body camera that somehow gains self awareness. After repeatedly witnessing police brutality in real time, the camera decides to detonate itself and explode on a bigoted officer. In the first two verses, I described several horrific scenes that really happened. The third verse the camera gets awareness. And in the 4th verse it detonates. But after nearing completion, I just felt like something was missing from the song. So I never recorded the joint. Still got the lyrics, though. I don't discard lyrics. Them shits take a long time to come up with. Still got verses in my head from 1997 that I find very interesting and just might use one day.

6. Have you engaged with any other type of writing, whether presently or in the past? Fiction? Poetry? Playwriting? If so, how has that mode influenced your songwriting?

I have engaged in other writing outside of rhymes fo sho. I work with at-risk youth as part of my 9-to-5, and I have to document what we discuss and some of the activities we partake in. So I write nonfiction for a living. I think it helps with my writing process. The things the kids experience and my advice to them also adds to my perspective. I really like to focus on details. I think capturing detail makes for compelling writing. I want to get better at that. And the nonfiction writing is full of details. So that helps. 

7. How much editing do you do after initially writing a verse/song? Do you labor over verses, working on them over a long period of time, or do you start and finish a piece in a quick burst?

I definitely edit verses. But I used to be much quicker with my editing than I am now. I definitely labor over verses. I'll be stuck on a line for a half hour or longer. I'll burn an L and sit there and stare at that page until those words come. And when that breakthrough happens! Man, it's euphoric. It's a great release. But if I really can't get it, I'll go for a walk. Listen to music. Or watch something interesting and come back to it. Sometimes I might just say eff it and stop. Start something new. And never come back to it until I stumble over the four bars previously abandoned and think, "This is dope!" and add that four to the new verse I started. Or make it a hook.

8. Do you write to a beat, or do you adjust and tweak lyrics to fit a beat?

Sometimes I'll write to a beat. But my preferred method is writing acapella. That's where I started. Writing in class my junior year of high school. Writing on the train. Writing when I had no music. So my flow, my enunciation of the words, became the music. The way the words rolled off the tongue made a beat of its own. Which I always thought was dope. The method I use the most is listening to the beat for a bit, finding the tempo, then writing with no beat. Sometimes the beat playing repeatedly can become a distraction. I wanna focus on the words.

9. What dictates the direction of your lyrics? Are you led by an idea or topic you have in mind beforehand? Is it stream-of-consciousness? Is what you come up with determined by the constraint of the rhymes?

The direction of the lyrics depend. Usually the beat will dictate the lyrical concept. But there are times when I have lyrics and find a beat that works for them. But typically the beat brings out the content. For the song "Dignity," off Long Days, the beat called for the content. But funny enough, I had a lot of those bars before I heard the beat: "Panicking / Team player but I'm managing / Need some peanut butter so we can smother the jam I'm in." I had that line already. But I was looking for a moody beat to drop those to. Shout to Koba Dera, who produced "Dignity." He nailed it. My man l8sho told me that song is gonna be his winter anthem. That beat feels like a cold wind. 

10. Do you like to experiment with different forms and rhyme schemes, or do you keep your bars free and flexible?

I definitely like to play with flows and rhyme schemes. I feel like the best emcees keep the listener guessing. So I try to be somewhat unpredictable. I'd say I have four different flows. I have a slow steady flow. I have a fast flow. I have this thing about rhyming words in between the bars. And I have a more traditional flow where I gotta make the end of every bar rhyme. But I prefer to play with it. There are times when I am rigid and sparse with the flow, but that's usually when I'm just talking to the listener. On "Cousin Boogzee," produced by Iron Fizt, another cat who nailed it with the beat, I'm just talking: "And it's sweet when the mayor saying crime going down / While rounds are going off / And kids are diving toward the ground/...I mean diving like they by the pool / They bodied my little bro right by the school". Rest in Paradise Step.

11. What’s a verse you’re particularly proud of, one where you met the vision for what you desire to do with your lyrics?

A verse I'm particularly proud of is the second verse in "Suit of Armor," a song I mentioned earlier. The verse: "You barter with mortgage lenders / I argue with fortune tellers." So you are doing grown man business by working on a mortgage. I'm arguing with people who predict the future. I am not where you are. I'm in a more desperate position. Then it continues, "Had past lives I just can't remember / Or surrender…" Then one of my favorite bars, "Fake promises / Raised my pain tolerance." That's just real. "Remain anonymous / Strain to maintain dominance." Then arguably my favorite four bars on the whole project: "Old head / Steps on the train looking so calm / Train starts moving but dude don't even hold on / Every stride worry free / I glance at him nervously / Hope he don't slip but he used to the adversity." He's used to shit being difficult. That's why his stride is worry free, despite the train moving. He does this shit. Daily. So it's not as intense or scary to him.

12. Can you pick a favorite bar of yours and describe the genesis of it?

A favorite bar of mine became the album title. I said in 1997: "Brothers going through long days and short lives." That was so compelling to me I held onto that shit for 25 years and named my new album after that bar. It says so much with so little. Since I dropped this album on November 4th, several people I met through music have passed away. The oldest was 50. That's a short life. God Bless Your life Big Spiega. God bless Your life Kuya Alan. I feel the most profound lines are the ones that seem simple but can mean so much.

13. Do you feel strongly one way or another about punch-ins? Will you whittle a bar down in order to account for breath control, or are you comfortable punching-in so you don’t have to sacrifice any words?

I definitely feel a way about punch-ins. To me, it's cheating. Something I try not to do, unless absolutely necessary. I come from being able to perform your music. Not rapping over vocals either. That shit is the worst. Sounds like two people talking at the exact same time. Hate that shit! I like to be able to deliver the verse in one reading or one take. But a one-take recording and having it sound right is a rare and extremely difficult task. But I rarely punch-in. I'll do it over and over until I can get it with no punches. Did I punch on my new album? Yes. Yes I did.

14. What non-hiphop material do you turn to for inspiration? What non-music has influenced your work recently?

Non-hiphop that inspires me is my life. My life and mood at the time I create heavily dictates what comes off the pen. I recently had a situation that inspired the "Pull Up" song on the album. I felt aggressive when I wrote that after an unfriendly encounter, so that's what came out. That vibe was missing from the album so I added it in the 11th hour after J Slikk sent this crazy ass beat. And many people dig the song, so I guess they feel where I'm coming from. I am also inspired by Prince. "Work to Do" by The Isley Brothers motivated me to move the pen in 2022 after seeing them perform it on Verzuz. "I got work to do. Work to dooooo." Their sound, the harmonies, and the urgency in their message, emboldened me to share my urgency and insecurities. 

15. Writers are often saddled with self-doubt. Do you struggle to like your own shit, or does it all sound dope to you?

Self-doubt is real. I write until I like my writing. But once I put it out for consumption, all the self-doubt and insecurity comes roaring back. Now my perspective doesn't mean so much. I may think it's dope as hell. But if I don't get feedback that substantiates my perceived dopeness, it affects the way I feel about the work. I question it. And I often feel like I was bugging and it really ain't all that. Until someone validates it and says, "This is incredible." That has happened repeatedly with Long Days and Short Lives. There was a time when I couldn't listen to the album because I thought people weren't listening. When people quote certain lines, that puts a great battery in my back that I'm on-point. But self-doubt is a mafucka, and it rears its ugly head after every release I put out. 

16. Who’s a rapper you listen to with such a distinguishable style that you need to resist the urge to imitate them?

Nas is the GOAT to me. I feel like my flow starts to speed up when I listen to him too much. Nas got the illest flow. DOOM is another one. Especially with the one-liners and rhyming words in between the rhymes as well as at the end of the bar. DOOM is one of the best at that and I find myself doing it a lot. Jadakiss and his measured flow is another style I imitate. Buckshot started it all for me, though. Enta Da Stage is my favorite album. Buck's delivery is perfect. I like how measured his words are. That's something I try to recreate. Till I listen to Nas and wanna add more words in each bar again - haha. 

17. Do you have an agenda as an artist? Are there overarching concerns you want to communicate to the listener?

I realized a long time ago that I'd rather inform than entertain. I don't wanna have to rap a fantasy life just to keep your interest. Listen listener, it ain't about you. Many years ago, maybe 2009, I wrote: "I do the music cause it's therapeutic / I used to sit secluded / With Clue exclusives / And catch visions to it." I write because it helps me make sense out of a nonsensical world. Like I mentioned earlier, I'm trying to capture the details that make it all make sense. On the last song of Long Days and Short Lives, a song called "Talkin' Bout," I start the verse with: "Shinin' / Feeling like a blind man drivin' / I ain't really knowin' where I'm goin' / But I'm ridin'." That felt so real to me. I don't know where I'm headed, but I know I'm moving somewhere. And I'm confident. I'm riding with my chest out. Like a blind man driving. I may not be able to see forward, but I'm moving forward regardless.

RAPS + CRAFTS is a series of questions posed to rappers about their craft and process. It is designed to give respect and credit to their engagement with the art of songwriting. The format is inspired, in part, by Rob McLennan’s 12 or 20 interview series.