freestyle rap

Freestyle rap-

Freestyle rap-

As a kid growing up in the 90’s, I’ve experience a lot of different styles of music. One I grew fond of was hip hop/ rap. This genre was the one that allowed me to create images of the musical contents while I was listening to it. An artist that created vivid images of the music in my head was Tupac Shakur. Tupac was an artist that will stay in my heart and millions of others, because of the legacy he left behind before he passed away. Tupac wasn’t just a rapper; he was a poet, an author, and an actor. He explored many different styles of writing as well as other forms of creative art.

His endless ambition to be the best artist, poet, actor, and pretty much an all round person sparks this drive for me to become like him, but even better. Personally, while I created images of his musical content in my head, a second part of my mind always tell me to be a rapper. In order to become a freestyle rap artist I need to follow 10 principles that will help direct me to that path.

Step 1- gets vocabulary-This is something I need to work on if I want to be a rap artist, because vocabulary is an essential element to hip hop/ rap.

Step 2- get focused- This is essential to hip hop as well, because all musical tracks need to have message behind. If the rap contains only rhymes, but there’s no significant meaning behind it, then it won’t attract an audience.

Step 3- gets a notebook- you can keep a notebook with you or use your phone to jot down anything that sparks an interesting topic for a track.

Step 4- Write acapella- you can begin by writing lyrics without a beat, but when you finish writing the lyrics you can incorporate step 5 and 6 into the mix.

Step 5- Download audio edit software- there are many audio edit software out there on the web. Some of the software is free, but there are some out there that you can pay for if you want a better quality or more of a professional sound to it.

Step 6- Revise to a beat- Best thing to do is to write the core of your lyrics and just fit it into the beat. This will avoid any writer’s block, because you already have your lyrics written down.

Step 7- Memorize- A key thing to do is to memorize your lyrics. That is a rookie mistake if you forget your lyrics at a function or when you record, because it will mess up the flow of the track.

Step 8- Record- After you memorized the lyrics you can begin recording and put emphasis on certain words or chorus to make the track come alive.

Step 9- Re-record- In order to become perfect you need to practice over and over again. That motto holds true for recording a track as well. People will notice if you record only once or you did multiple recordings to get the best version.

Step 10- After recording several times, you can pick out the one that feels like the best version out of all of them.

So, if you follow these steps, then you might have the ability to become a freestyle rap artist. The steps can also be found at http://www.wikihow.com/Freestyle-Rap

Keeping Creative Writing Alive

Creative Writing is a subject that isn’t touch upon by a lot of school in the nation, due to all the budget cuts in school funding. Schools throughout the nation have to cut down on any extracurricular activities such as creative writing. Gerald Richards the national chief executive said the following are main subjects’ schools focus on primarily; math, science, technology, and engineering. GERALD RICHARDS: "I think there is much more of a focus on science, technology, engineering and math. There's a lot of a focus on testing and a lot of the teaching that's going on in schools is focusing on the test and passing the test rather than thinking about how do we get kids to think."

He emphasize on how the students are just learning how to take tests and passing them, which is pretty sad because of the lack of creativity can have the students become like drones in society. If we don’t want the students to become robotic, then we need to find ways to incorporate creativity into the mix.

            Creative writing and art needs to be established as one of the main subjects in the school’s standard curriculum, because kids these days don’t have the creativity they should have for future occupations. Creative writing and art is essential to a lot of jobs out there in the market. If you don’t have the ability to write creatively, then that means you won’t have the ability to think creatively. Creativity doesn’t only lie within writing and art; creativity can spark from technology as well. Think about any Apple products. Do you think the IPod or the IPhone was created overnight? No! It took Steve Jobs and the Apple organization years to think of these innovative products. So we can see that you can find creativity everywhere, but creativity has to start from some place.

            That some place is at school, because that artwork or writing can be the pathway for a young adolescent to become a famous artist, poet, or even CEO of a billion dollar company. Although creativity should be a part of the school curriculum, the school funding is not support it. So instead of it being a lost at school there are other places students can express their creativity. There is a place in San Francisco, Mission district that is meant to give the students the ability to express and create stories, poems, and artwork. This place is called 826, because it is located at 826 Valencia Street. It’s not your ordinary tutor, where people help you with your reading, writing, and math. It’s a place where students can become imaginative and become as creative as they want to be. This is a facility that creates confidence to all the students who go there and participate.

One of the students in San Francisco is Sofia Marquez.

SOFIA MARQUEZ: "I get to use my imagination -- that's why I like writing."

So, we should find ways to incorporate creativity into the school system, because we want the students and children to become less like robots and more like creative beings.

Breaking Writer's Block

Breaking Writer’s Block

Have you ever had that moment where you are just sitting in front of a paper or computer screen and you are giving it a blank stare, because you can't process any kind of ideas to write about-- that is what you call a writer's block. If you suffer from this block, then this blog will help you overcome or prevent having this blockage.
Writer's block is a common occurrence when writers plan to write  novels, blogs, articles, papers and etc. There are a lot of symptoms when it comes to writer's block, whether it be self-consciousness or you didn't do any kind of research on the topic you write about; this list can go on forever. The one symptom I personally experience a lot from writer's block would be stress. Stress is a big cause for this lack of ability to write anything and stress can come from any kind of daily events or personal life issues. The daily event of having school and work full-time puts this physical stress on me that makes me tired and sleepy, so writing is the last thing on my mind. Now a days, dealing with school and work, I rarely can do my hobby which was to write poems.
But when I do get that opportunity, I always run into that writer's block, because I don't have any topics to write about. Not knowing what to write about gets really frustrating and I always think in my mind that an idea will pop up, but that block is always there. So, I actually took the time to go online to find ways to overcome or prevent this obstacle for you and I.

               What I found for breaking this writer’s block for creative writing helped me a lot on how to search for specific topics to write about. I found a list of where creative writing ideas spawn from.  This was just a small list I found at www.makeliterature.com of where creative writing can come from. Don’t limit yourself on this small list, there are tons of ways to where creative writing ideas come from, but these five were recommend places to where ideas could be found—Other people observation, Newspaper and Magazines, World out there, Your bookshelf or Local Library, and Your personal experiences.

                When I was on www.makeliterature.com, this website gave me tips and ideas on how you can become a better writer. This website also had links to other websites that can help you overcome the writer’s block and help you become the writer you imagine yourself to be. These tips consisted of alerts and trackers that would remind you when there are ideas and topics that relate to your topic of interest. The alert system is an easier procedure in which you type in your topic of interest and the system will email you the related site, video and etc.

                The links were portals to other website that help you become the writer you potentially can be. Certain links like www.writinghood.com showed you a list of ways on how to overcome writer’s block. There were 12 tips on how to overcome writer’s block. 1) Read your friend’s articles or post-- which is definitely helpful, because your friend’s ideas can help you created your own ideas. 2) Get away from the screen or desk—this tip helps you become less fatigue and allows for your brain to relax. 3) Use it as an opportunity—this can be the chance you can learn while you write about your topic. 4) Go back to basics—even though we live in an era where technology rules now, we can actually go back to using pen and pencil to stimulate creative writing. 5) Write about writer’s block—weird to believe that this will help you, but look at what I am doing for this blog. 6) Look at what you had written in the past—your past writing experiences can create new ideas for future writing. 7) Ask your readers for ideas—your readers are the people that are loyal to your writing, so have more people have ideas for you is a blessing. 8) Find an interesting or shocking statistics—readers have interest in statistics. 9) Write a list—writing a list can help you build ideas for future writing. 10) What’s popular right now?—popular topics in media and news are interesting topics to write about. 11) Take inspiration from music—writing about your favorite artist, song, or album can spark up ideas for your blogs. 12) Just give up—this tip is to have you come back to the idea later, if you are stuck in writer’s block.

                Hopefully, these tips and ideas for overcoming writer’s block can help you become a better writer, because it certainly helped me become a better one.

If you have any questions or comments, please write them below in the comment section.

Thank you,

Kevin Ha

Tupac immortalized in words

Tupac immortalized in words


Tupac who was the most influential rapper/hip hop artist of all time had a conscious mind and heart when it came to the social issues of poverty and violence within the Black American community. Tupac was great as a rapper/emcee who created awareness of the Black American issues, but he was even greater as a poet who influence people to explore their creative writing abilities.
I for one are the many who is influence by Tupac's creative writing, because he draws a story by using words that effects your emotion and mind. Just by reading one of his poems, I can feel his emotions whether it be sorrow, anger, or even love and emotions are essential to poetry. If you don't put emotions within the poem, then the poem will sound robotic or boring.
One of his poems name "Jada" is about Jada Pinkett-Smith (Famous actress and wife of Will Smith). Below is the poem if you like to read it and think of what the poem is about.

u r the omega of my heart
the foundation of my conception of love
when i think of what a black woman should be
its u that i first think of
u will never fully understand
how deeply my heart feels 4 u
i worry that we'll grow apart
and i'll end up losing u
u bring me 2 climax without sex
and u do it all with regal grace
u r my heart in human form
a friend i could never replace 
The poem is about the platonic relationship he develop with Jada Pinkett-Smith during his time of
incarceration. The poem express his love as a friend for Jada and how she exemplifies the true meaning of a "real black woman." 

His words are one of a kind and they can never be replace or ever be forgotten. Even though he is not here with us today, his words are keeping him alive in our minds and hearts. If you want to read more of his poetry you can visit this website http://www.alleyezonme.com/poetry/index.phtml. Also, if you want to listen to his music you can Youtube search Tupac music or even buy his existing albums.

If you have any comments let me know below.

Thank you,
Kevin Ha

Is Hip Hip really dead? (controversy)

Lack of Creativity in Hip Hop Music Today


The question--Is hip hop really dead?


Hip Hop music these days are not what it use to be, because of the digitization of musical tracks that make the genre fake or less creative. Also the genre is changing due to the new up incoming artist that use auto-tune to enhance their vocals to make the track or song more attractive and listenable. Nowadays, teenagers and early 20 year olds' listen to the degraded hip hop genre due to peer or media influence. When your friends listen to hip hop tracks that consist of auto-tuning you will automatically listen to it, because people are influence by each other. I have to admit, I am a person that listen to lyrical contents within a track and I argue with my friends about how I am not going to listen to hip hop that have integrated auto-tuning, but I was to quick to admit i won't. Eventually, I have given in to my friends' obsession of the new auto-tune hip hop and gave it a shot by listening to it. I am not going to hate on the track, because the track definitely is catchy, but I will hate on myself if I see myself listening to it all the time. Besides being influence by peers, the media plays a big part on what hip hop tracks we listen too. Our media will only play the hip hop tracks that are catchy and poppy, which defeats the purpose of calling it hip hop, because in actuality its infused hip-hop/pop.
Hip hop in general shouldn't sound poppy like you will hear from a pop track, the art form of hip hop music is to exert creative lyrical writing and relevant beats. Although, in order for the music corporations to make money they need to extract the most important part of the hip hop music and infuse digital vocalization into the track. That to me is just wrong, the music industry shouldn't change the way artists put together their music.
Just take it for example, My favorite artist right now is Lupe Fiasco who has immense talent in making legitimate hip hop tracks and he doesn't deviate his style to fit to the music industries' generic infuse hip hop/pop. Although Lupe Fiasco keeps it real with legitimate hip hop, the other portion of mainstream hip hop world has infuse itself with poppy beats to make money and appeal to the general public. To further understand this change in hip hop, Keith Kawaii has written an article that gets expertise's opinion on the changes of hip hop.
An article by Keith Kawaii reiterates on Sasha Frere Jones' and Simon Reynolds' (an iconic rap/hip hop artist in the 80's) rant about how hip hop has lost its "Blackness" in the current hip hop arena. Simon Reynolds being an iconic rap/hip hop artist himself states that "hip-hop has simply dropped the innovation baton, losing it's taste making position in the broader culture."--http://www.tinymixtapes.com/features/hip-hop-really-dead


This reinforces my opinion on how hip hop has not been the same and how it mutates the original style to fit to the broader culture like pop fusion. But the question is still up in the air, "Is hip hop really dead?" 


Well, according to Reynolds, he explains that hip hop is dead, but he also states that the death of hip hop isn't a bad thing, because it  needs to die in order for something new to emerge. "According to Reynold, yes, though he says the death of a genre isn't necessarily a bad thing, just a necessary step in order for new styles to emerge." In a sense, hip hop is not dead, but undergoing the stage of reincarnation. Hip hop can never die, because its always changing and constantly adapting to the social changes in the music industry. 

In order to get a good sense of hip hop changing, the following two music videos gives you an audio example of the transition from lyrical orientated hip hop to pop/R&B/ hip hop infusion.

The follow video is one of Lupe Fiasco's original track on his album "Food and Liquor" which has encase his true creativity and talents of poetic writing.

This track from Lupe Fiasco has 90,000 views worldwide. Which is a very small portion of the world who uses Youtube. Now, let's take a look at another hip hop artist who has been up incoming in the music industry. His artist name is Waka Flocka Flame. Waka Flocka Flame is part of the reason why hip hop is changing. The follow video is called "No Hands" which has a catchy chorus and a tone that is fit more for the nightlife. 

You can tell by just listening to the track that there is substantial difference in lyrical content and in-depth meaning between these two hip hop songs. This shows us that hip hop is on a path to reinvent itself to adapt to the zeitgeist. Zeitgeist is the general cultural, intellectual,ethical, spiritual, and/or political climate within a nation or even specific groups, along with the general ambiance, morals, sociocultural direction, and mood associated with an era.--http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zeitgeist

Let me know what you think by writing a comment below.
Thank you

maximizing the creative right brain

Maximizing the creative right brain

We all know when it comes to our brain, we have two sides that make us humans posses the ability to think logically (left side) and creatively (right side). The left side of our brain posses the characteristics of being logical and fact-orientated, so there won't be any imagination or creativity involve. Although the left side of the brain  works in such a conventional way, its cranial counterpart is perceive as the exact opposite. Our right side of our brain posses the characteristics of feeling and imagination, so basically the side of our brain that allows us to think up of creative thoughts and symbols. Perfect example of using the right side of our brain is our times as an adolescent. Think of the times when you were a kid and you would create imaginary friends and create art in preschool. These were the times where we used our right side the most and it explains how as adults only a few of us still use the right side of the brain. As an adult, we look at life differently, because we need to develop a mind that revolves around reality and social norms such as making money after college. Our left side dominates when we grow older, because our environment develops our minds to be ready for the future work environment.

An article by Dan Eden explains more about how our educational system deviates our thought process away from the right side and more towards the left. "Experiments show that most children rank highly creative (right brain) before entering school. Because our educational systems place a higher value on left brain skills such as mathematics, logic and language than it does on drawing or using our imagination, only ten percent of these same children will rank highly creative by age 7. By the time we are adults, high creativity remains in only 2 percent of the population" 

This explains why as an adults it is harder for us to think creatively, because our school system pushes us towards the left side of the brain rather than the right side. In order to maximize the creativity of the right brain,  Dan Eden has a method in which you can shut off the left part of your brain and concentrate solely on your right to increase creativity. 


"Methods have been devised to "shut off" the left brain, allowing the right side to have its say. Creative writing courses often use this method to combat "writer's block." The logical left side is easily bored by lack of input and tends to "doze off" during such activities as meditation (repeating a mantra or word over and over) or in sensory deprivation environments. The right brain is then able to "sneak" into our consciousness, filling our minds with emotional and visual vignettes and freely associated images. All too quickly, though, the left brain will assert itself and dispense with these irrational images, asserting its Spock-like logical dominance and the right brain will have to be content to find expression in dreams." 


Personally, I try to meditate or shut off the left side of my brain by taking a shower. This relaxes my mind and allows me to escape the real world and develop images and words that form together to make my poems. 
Hopefully after reading this you can try to relax your mind and begin to explore your creative side. If it is a success, let me know by leaving a comment below.

Thank you,
Kevin Ha

Latin Phrase (Dum Spiro Spero)

Dum Spiro Spero- While I breathe, I hope.

I know that Latin is a dead Roman language, but it's still a form of writing and to me the meaning behind a certain Latin phrase "Dum Spiro Spero" really jumps out at me. Dum Spiro Spero, which means "While I breathe, I hope." Or another interpretation is "As long as I breathe, I hope." I choose this phrase, because of the stories it holds and why this phrase is significant to a demographic. This phrase hold significance to a certain demographics which are the people in the south, more specifically African American in the south. The phrase Dum Spiro Spero is a state motto for South Carolina, adopted in 1776, the motto is form as part of official great seal.
I just find that Dum Spiro Spero holds so much meaning to me, because I tend to depend on Hope to get me through life. This phrase reminds me how writing in any language can exert some kind of creativity and motivation/inspiration. If you speak a different language, just think of writings or phrases that are creative and motivates you to do something about your life or how it effects your life. That's what makes creative writing so important, because its influential, motivational, and inspirational.