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07.17.04 01:25 PM

what a day, what a day, what a day...

yesterday proved to me that there are not enough hours in the day. mind you not all of my days are like the one presented here.

11:15 a.m. - meet with biz dev person from mobile content provider, who has been told that we have our own mobile program on verizon get it now and at&t mmode, as well as an online storefront. yet, biz dev person wants to figure out some strategies for how we can work together because their company is one of the top mobile content providers, at least in the ringtone space.

12:30 pm - run over to go sushi for lunch. i'd been craving some eel all week. sat and chatted with intern about what's going on in the company as well as within the department. a key executive in the company has recently resigned, and said intern wanted to know how that would affect my department.

2:30 pm - run over to def jam to pick up some music and a video tape from an interview one of my writers had conducted with a def jam artist. discuss timetable for my deploying that video online. then get an exclusive treat. meet with a&r for shyne, because he wants me to hear a few tracks from the forthcoming release. shyne's music is dark and contemplative, especially since a good portion of the music was recorded before he went to jail. there's fury and rage, and while it sounds like a diary of misogyny, murder, and mayhem, it is fraught with unexpected morality tales. unfortunatley, any full analysis i have of this project has to be reserved for my company's media outlets. but do expect to start hearing some music leaking out on the web and on mixtapes over the next couple of weeks.

5:00 pm - had to dash back to the office mad fast to complete this preview for New York Press of DJ. Spooky's Transmetropolitan a multicultural pastiche of spoken word, electronic music, and video, as well as his remixing of Birth of a Nation into Rebirth of a Nation all set to take place at Lincoln Center's Alice Tully Hall. The first event takes place on July 21 and the latter on July 23 and 24. I'm not sure I made my writer's deadline on this one.

6:30 pm - earlier this week, i was invited to a screening of kevin fitzgerald's freestyle: the art of rhyme but something was up with cinema village and the screening did not take place. so the wonderful press people handling cinema village's showing of the film in the first place, gave me two tickets for the night. i invited one of my good girlfriends who i haven't seen in a minute. when i got there the movie had already started, and fortunately my friend was smart enough to take her ticket and go inside. i don't think i have to say much about this documentary, because a lot of people have already said whatever it is that i would offer. in fact, Hua Hsu penned a brilliant commentary (though brief) in the village voice in its july 12 edition, and i quote "Despite cloying narration, Fitzgerald's footage and interviews are fantastic: A scene of Tupac and Biggie freestyling over Tanqueray is especially gripping, as are the sequences of freestyle legends Craig G and Supernatural watching younger versions of themselves duke it out. Like both pairs of old warriors, we're left to wonder if it was all so simple then."

9:00 pm - my friend asks what i'm doing next, and i tell her i really don't know. she mentions that music of prince .vs. the music of michael jackson event taking place at the shelter tonight, but that happens much later. besides after a full day, i'm not quite sure i have enough amp in me to make it through that late. that affair is one you have to go home after work, take a disco nap, and then arise ready to shake your tailfeather all night.

i tell her there's supposed to be some 10 year anniversary thing for ego trip over at bill adler's eyejammie fine arts gallery. then i remember i'm on the list for some kool mix event over at hammerstein ballroom, that my company is a media sponsor of. so we make our way over there.

ok, riddle me this, why do outlets that have expensive drinks not take credit cards?

the only way to get a free drink in this place, is to let kool beam the information from your id into their data collection gadget, make you sign your name, and then offer you a free pack of cigarettes, as well as a ticket for a free drink. commercialization is no joke.

we stand around for a minute, until we're told that our green bands means that we're vip and there's a box of seats for us upstairs. other folks from my company are there, and many of us talk about that nostalgic hip hop shit, since quite a few of us in that box are 30+. some of our young guns are there, but they're not as vocal about hip-hop as we are, or at least not in the way that we are. we discuss its politics, its beats, its lyrics, its artists, and throw in some rock bands for good measure. at least i do, since franz ferdinand is one of my new favorites, and as hip-hop to my ears as anything that's supposed to be hip-hop. but that's because i know the difference between hip-hop and rap, but that's an entirely different discussion and i don't want to sound like krs-one at all.

anyway, this night has two headliners - slick rick and kanye west. the host tends to draw the night out. djs spinning party jams and old school jams. mc battles and dj battles. kids breakdancing in the crowd within a cypher. i'm about to call it a night, when onto the stage appears a man in a pink suit jacket, golden shirt and pants, and pink clarke's (or who knows maybe they're ballys). yep, its rick the ruler. for the young age of most of the attendees, i'm really surprised by how much everyone knows the words to the songs or how hyper they get upon his performance. good show indeed.

then finally kanye. i knew he was there for awhile, as off to the side of the stage, i saw a crew of folks all dressed in white. like summer jam, i figured he was travelling with a choir in tow. at first, he and john legend go through a string of other people's songs that he's produced. then he does a few of his own, including a couple of the hits. by this time, the shell toes of my adidas are killing my feet. i didn't even know this was possible. so he stops performing after awhile, because he wants the adulation. he puts on encore and then john legend asks people to say "kanye, kanye, kanye." c'mon, you haven't yet earned that kid.

so he comes back out with common, a wonderful surprise, and they do a few songs that not a lot of people know, but you know the kids who listen to mixtapes or who watch dave chappelle (kanye and common performed a new common song on an episode) are tuned in. it's this ongoing thing, the day has been long for me, i've about had it. feeling that they're now going into their own little concert, i end up not waiting for the finale, though i know it will be soon, and that it will most likely be "jesus walks." so i head home.

and this ends a day in a life. a few details have been left out as they involve menial tasks required of my job at times. to include phone calls, emails, Q&A (site testing), would've added no flavor to this story at all.

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