there was a strange sort of cleansing in breaking down onstage last night.

in a business of smoke, mirrors, and bubble machines, putting my humanity on display in undeniable fashion was the most honest thing I could do.

I mean, listen...I'll never have Zi's singing voice.

can kinda almost play piano but I'm probably the third-worst guitarist in town, I can only bang out the most basic beats on drum, and I only recently admitted to owning a bass, a fact that seemed to very much amuse our bassist, who pretty much patted me on the head and told me how adorable that was.

...and he's right, one day I'll be as good at bass as Sid Vicious.

I say all that to say my musical superpower is pretty much pure passion.

one of ZiZi's most consistent performance tips is to actually listen to the words that come out of you during songs...so when my verse in "pray n see" was coming up, I previewed it in my head and felt myself get angry...furious. 

my chest got tight.

my eyes got hot and I felt my fist squeeze around my mic like I was going to hit someone with it...someone without the balls to even show up. 

the instrumentation muted as the requisite images filled my head. color-coded curfew limits. bread with broken glass up in it.

seething, I paced like a caged tiger. what the fuck kind of sht is this??? 

in the moment, it was a fresh reminder that I had been betrayed by a Creator that once aspired to define my life without even having the common courtesy to exist.

HOW FUCKING DARE YOU

in my more vulnerable moments I wish I still believed in God....be pretty sweet to have Superman just swoop in and wrap all our earthly issues into his big red cape, wouldn't it?

...but even in the official storyline, Big G is canonically doing a pretty bad job.

you see that header image?

it's some anonymous Japanese kid's lunchbox after getting nuked, fucking NUKED...that happened on His watch, allegedly.

peep, I've actually read the books more than many believers...actually the shortest path to disbelief, straight through the text.

in His Infinite Wisdom, the best possible system to be enacted for the function of the Universe is one in which where one creature must kill and eat another in order not to die. 

where the thing up there that makes daylight so you can see can also hurt you quite badly. 

where children are starving and their houses were destroyed.

don't think I could forgive you.

you lied to me. you had everyone I trusted as a child lie on your behalf.

I'll never fucking forgive you.

like, how am I supposed to sing about this fucked-up future we find ourselves in and not occasionally lose my sht entirely?

I say it all the time, but this is not the world we were promised.

it fucking hurts. there is shrapnel in my spirit.

...and so I let it out. the pain, the frustration, the rage. 

fuck, here it comes again. gimme a moment yall.

[deep sigh]

okay.

thing is when I step on stage and present to the public anything I ever wrote, you should know these ain't just words to me.

these ain't just songs, these are my thoughts and prayers, the desires that lay deepest within me.

just because I'm an atheist doesn't mean I can't do confessionals.

I couldn't stuff my emotions back in the box...why should I anyway?

all there was left to do is lean into it. 

to spit on the mic and bleed on the stage and rip open my chest so people can see the beating human heart beneath all the pieces of flair.

look into my fucking eyes and tell me this is an act.

because real rap, these ain't shows, they're "demonstrations."

they model our dedication, how many of us exist under this shared inspiration and what we are capable of together.

...and look I know I'm just a fucking musician and I ate recently and I'm probably not gonna get bombed today...I am somehow one of the lucky ones.

still, if I can get someone out there to consider the root causes of the afflictions we live in by any means, then that is precisely what I will do.

none of this is okay. none of this is normal. we should not be unaffected.

I should not be unaffected.

I will not be unaffected.

you'll look long and hard before you find a mf who enjoys his comfort more than AJ but we can't be comfortable with absolutely everything...so when the situation calls for it, I will transmit my discomfort in spectacular fashion.

that's art, right?

all power to The People.

--Flor!