What does rap music tend to be about? First thing that comes to a person’s mind: sex, money, murder, women, drugs, and anything illegal you can think of. But, what’s ignored is the content which surrounds the swears and inappropriate deeds. Tupac said it best. In a 1994 BET interview on the topic of black on black violence, Shakur spoke of scenarios in which young black men are situated in the ghettos of America, “It’s not that he wants to kill. He does not want to die”. It’s this desperation that the media construes to people that is left unheard.The importance of vulgarity is the immense power it carries. Unfortunately, this is something The impact of these dangerous words and things hit harder than anything else, and that’s exactly what they’re putting out there.
In Dead Man’s Tetris by Flying Lotus, Snoop Dogg says “could’ve been the drink, might have been the smoke, in light of all that he was considered dope”. The usage of contraband in this sense is speaking of a man who is no longer alive, either from alcohol poisoning or drug overdose. Regardless, in the end, he was “considered dope,” which has multiple meanings. Dope is a (usually derogatory) term to refer to relatively strong drugs. This puts on the assumption that all this man was remembered for was doing drugs. Dope could also refer to his intelligence, not only because he is dead, but because of the situation in which led to his death was all his own. Drugs destroyed him. Dope could also mean he was remembered well by his people for doing these “dope” things. This meaning highlights this trend of fear in black communities. Thug behavior is embraced because the guys who do what the dead man did are afraid. They’re afraid that their actions have consequences, so they relish in the fact he went out in this way. It’s dope to run away, and regardless of how it may seem at first, this is lighting substance abuse in a negative light. It’s not the first song to hit this note.
Kendrick Lamar rocked the charts a few years ago with his hit single “Swimming Pools (Drank)” The hook of the song glorifies drinking with catchy lines like “I got a swimming pool full of liquor and they dive in it”. From the chorus, Lamar sets off a song with the anthem of the glorification of alcoholism, but indeed proves the opposite. The song takes place at a party Lamar’s at in his teenhood. There is so much alcohol it overwhelms him. If he drinks anymore (which is apparently “only 2 or 3 shots”) he thinks he’ll “drown in the poison”. Already the song explains through its verses and marketing that it’s all about facades. Kendrick, wanting to impress his friends and party-goers, pretends to want to get intoxicated, but actually doesn’t, much like the song’s presentation. This is reaffirmed with the next line, where Kendrick says “I think that I’m feelin’ the vibe”, referring to the party through alcohol. The key word is “think” which highlights the theme of uncertainty this song associates with drinking, not even close to encouraging it.
To be more recent, Future’s recent “Mask Off” is something most old white people want to avoid. Immediately, they are met with the obnoxious barraging of unintelligible lyricism and vulgarity. Less than half of the song are unique words, with the most prominent noun used on the track being “percocets”, a hard drug. But within these words most interestingly is the line “chase a check, never chase a bitch”. Simplicity aside, the meaning of this line is to go after money and quantifiable things over the subjective. Things like love and a woman are no match to a lot of money and a lot of women. Future teaches his audience how to count, and his blunt, but telling vocabulary shows the other side to the melancholy of black culture, accepting it as it is and the importance of having more. The simplicity is accepting all of these drugs and violence in the world these rappers grew up in.
In conclusion, it is to be known that point of the so called “bad influences” that rap adorns are just seen through the wrong lens. The place these rappers came from, their experiences living in poverty, in gang fights, substance use, and racism should not be viewed under a lens of the protective quality, but one seeing strength, impact, and reflectiveness.
“I’m not on the outside looking in, I’m not on the inside looking out; I’m in the dead fucking center, looking around.” - Kendrick Lamar, “Ab-Soul’s Outro”
Works Cited
“FUTURE - Mask Off Lyrics.” Directlyrics,www.directlyrics.com/future-mask-off-lyrics.html. Accessed 13 May 2017.
Flying Lotus. “Dead Man's Tetris Lyrics.” Azlyrics, Azlyrics,www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/flyinglotus/deadmanstetris.html. Accessed 13 May 2017.
Kendrick Lamar. “Ab-Soul's Outro.” Azlyrics, Azlyrics,www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kendricklamar/absoulsoutro.html. Accessed 13 May 2017.
Kendrick Lamar. “Swimming Pools Lyrics.” Azlyrics, Azlyrics,www.azlyrics.com/lyrics/kendricklamar/swimmingpoolsdrank.html.Accessed 13 May 2017.
BETNetworks. “Tupac Shakur: ‘God Has Cursed Me To See What Life Should Be Like.’” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Sept. 2016,www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIl3k9C7HGo. Accessed 13 May 2017.
HuffPostLive. “Geraldo Rivera: Hip-Hop Has Done More Damage To Black People Than Racism.” YouTube, YouTube, 19 Feb. 2015,www.youtube.com/watch?v=SqES8vQE-ZA. Accessed 13 May 2017.
This is my best 2fer because I'm very passionate about it, much like my other one. It has more of an argumentative tone, but does not slip into the personal. It hits harder. I like it.
Our assignment was to create a stamp or logo that represented us. The point of having this logo was so that we could then have a symbol for which we could be recognized by. We had to figure out ways to use negative and positive space to our advantage.
When I was thinking of my logo I thought of things that I like, feel strong about and do. In the beginning I was thinking of do something more complex like a surfer and palm tree forming a K but I am not a very good drawer and it was hard to tell what it was. I then thought of using the sign language sign for K because K is the first letter of my name and because the sign looks like a peace sign. After looking at my teachers logos, Marcie Hull and Steven Herrera, I was inspired to create a more simple logo that involved my initials, like theirs. I first started by sketching and trying out anything I could think of. Eventually I came across the idea of having the B and K be next to each other. After thinking some more I thought I could put a T across the center making the B and K clearer. I decided to use negative space for the T as it allowed me to include meanwhile being discreet. After looking at it for a bit I decided to add a rectangle above the top of the T in positive place to make it more clear and because I thought it looked nice. By now I had it all on my computer because I found it easier to navigate negative and positive space this way. I finally decided that I was going to add the G in positive space at the bottom part of the B. I finally liked my logo so I decided that I didn’t want to change much so I just cleaned it up to make it look nicer.
It was a hard process to understand negative and positive space for me as I had never thought of images and things in this way and it was a bit mind boggling. I got stuck a lot with trying to understand how you could fit another image inside one however I was able to solve this when I saw the arrow inside the FedEX logo. For some reason this example, after already seeing so many, made sense to me and made my mind click. I was able to learn a lot about negative and positive space but the biggest thing that stuck out to me was that their can both be used to your advantage if you know how too and by knowing how to use them it can change the way you design/create a image or logo.
Negative space is the space around the subject. The space around the space of the subject/ like the background.I found the negative space but finding the subject which was the bird in the middle so the space around the is the space I had to cut out. It helps seeing the negative space makes the subject of the whole image stand out. In my eyes seeing the negative space enhances the drawing. This is because seeing the background makes the subject stand out.
Andrés Cheatley
Este es quien soy
Hijo de Lisa y Dave
Hermano de Ashlee
Sobrino de Renee y DougMi familia viene de la isla de Irlanda.
Yo nunca viví allí mismo, pero, mi bisabuela y abuelo hizo.
Tengo muchas herencias, como el latín, el español y el árabe
soy gracioso
Yo soy blanco
Me siento cómodo
yo soy delgada
Soy alto tengo ojos azules
The stamp above symbolizes me in many ways. The flower above is an orange blossom. An orange blossom has a meaning that many people don’t know about. The meaning is chastity, purity and loveliness. It’s a symbol of me because my heart is big enough for love and forgiveness and my purity is where God wants it to be. In my brainstorm, i used words such as loving, forgiving, funny, outgoing, outspoken, and creative. The orange blossom is my favorite flower.
When I brainstormed my words, I looked for words that had common meanings. At first, I was going to draw a diamond but I thought that's a diamond would be basic. So instead, I looked deeper and found characteristic traits that I never knew about myself. I realized that all flowers had meanings, so I researched my favorite flower and found out its meaning and how it connected with me.
The negative space is the white. The positive space is the flower. I chose to do it this way because I feel like the flower is a powerful and positive symbol. Positive space refers to the main focus of a picture, while negative space refers to the background. In this case, the flower is the mains focus.Obviously, my name is what I think represents me the most. I say it and hear it more than any other word. My name was one of the first words I wrote down during the brainstorming. Because of this, I decided to choose my first initial to be part of my stamp. At first, I chose a design that had a lot of lines that would be impossible to cut out because there was no negative or positive space. I had to start over. The importance of negative and positive space is so that the design can really pop out, and I think my cutout represents that well. Like I mentioned earlier, my original stamp was all lines. That was hard for me to cut out because when you draw lines, there is no negative space. Once I started to understand this, I realized it would be best if I started over and that’s how I ended up with this design.
The task was to create an rubber stamp that described you as a person, now this might seem like an easy task but in reality it was the exact opposite. For me personally , I would consider myself a variety of things so to dim that down to little was a struggle for me. The fact that also can not draw was another struggle for me.
I started off trying to be very complex. I wanted to make it different that was when my difficulties started. I had some many things that described and could not choose one, That is when I came up with the idea of combining some of them. Which to lead to my first stamp which was an emoji. A mixture of me being funny and outgoing. After drawing my image finish it was then I knew I would have trouble with cutting out the positive and negative space so decided to go with a second approach. After going back to the drawing board a couple times I decided that I would be simple. I decided I would find a way to do my initials in a creative way. This is my final design as you can see above. The picture above symbolizes me in many ways. When to start of it is my. An I have such connection with this because it was not the name given my birth but I identify with this more than the one given to me.
Both positive and negative space was very important when designing my stamp. I wanted to make my stamp visually interesting and made sure something stood out so I cut out certain parts that connect my initials. Instead of making one of my letters positive and the other negative I thought it would be best if both were positive so it has some type of unison to it.
When I started brainstorming the cut out stamp I wanted it to focus on something related to the sport of track and field. I decided on a simple design of track shoes but these design did not work because I could not draw the shoes properly. After the different spikes and track shoes designs did not work, I decided to move on from the shoe idea and draw an actual track. This stamp symbolizes me because since track and field is a major part of my life I find that most people know me for running track. My current events are 100m, 200m, 400 x 100 and long jump so I spend hours every day practicing or competing.
My first design of the track field was originally an entire track field with the word "determination" in the center but due t how long the word is I also had to scrap that idea. Finally I simplified it to a singular ring with the word "track" arranged into a peak formation. The orange negative space serves as a contrast to the purple positive space. The lack of negative space in the letter "A" it what helps create the peak formation. My biggest challenge was cutting out the letters for the circular track. The razors that I used kept ripping the paper and was terrible at cutting the curves.
With a steady hand, I glued all of my pieces together. The ridges formed along the field represent my challenges and progressions in life. In summary the important aspects of my life are summed up in a simplistic stamp design.TRACK is life!
I am extremely passionate about children's education. It is my ‘life mission’ to ensure that every child I meet has access to books and quality education. In addition to my passion for literature, SLA has taught me the importance of community and gratitude. I asked myself, "How you can combine your literary passion and your love for the community?" From there, "Annabelle and The Garden" was born.
I created a website to serve as a home for "Annabelle and The Garden" and my senior capstone. This website is not just a home for my senior capstone. It's main function is to engage little readers with our beautiful planet Earth and the worlds in books all around them. On the “Lesson Plans’ parents/guardians and educators can perform experiments and activities with little readers.
My SLA admission interview ended with the question, "How can you make SLA a better place?". As my graduation ceremony approaches and my capstone process ends, I leave a similar question for you. "How can you make the world a better place?"
"Annabelle and The Garden" is available for purchase on Barnes & Noble. You can also read an excerpt of the book on Barnes & Noble's website. All of the proceeds are being donated to KidsGardening.org. For 35 years KidsGardening has been a leader in the school gardening movement. They encourage garden based learning.
When a person is growing, there are numerous events that they will go through. Some will bring happy memories that they will love, whilst some will bring sad, terrible, painful memories. Even though these painful memories will be hated because of the pain that is associated with them, they are truly needed. A life lived with only happiness will not reap the same result as that lived with constant pain. This is because, one cannot successfully become stronger without experiencing some form of pain.
There are numerous sayings, such as; “No pain, no gain”, “We only learn things the hard way”, and “From adversary comes strength”, that support this ideology. These sayings tie to a phenomenon known as post traumatic growth. Post traumatic growth was originally coined by psychologists Richard Tedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun. Calhoun and Tedeschi interviewed numerous people that had gone through life changing events such as bereavement, housefires, serious illness, and becoming refugees. The interviews showed that by experiencing these horrific events, people gained what Tedeschi and Calhoun called “Positive life changes”. The people who were surveyed discovered skills they never knew they possessed, gained a new inner strength, and among other things became appreciative of life.
Another psychologist named Judith Neal, did a study with 40 people who went through post traumatic growth. Most of them stated that they initially had experienced “a dark night of the soul” where their values were questioned and life seemed to have no meaning. This caused them to go through a phase of spiritual searching where they tried to understand what they went through and find new values. Then they went through a stage that Neal called spiritual integration. In this stage they applied the new principles to their life and found a gratitude for being alive and for experiencing such an event. For the people that Neal surveyed it can be concluded that suffering had brought them to a new and stronger place in life. The surveyed people may have lost everything physically and internally (based on the questioning of the principles), but among their newly gained principles, they had also gained a new mental strength to face such traumatic events and persevere through them.
From a physical perspective, pain also makes a person stronger. This is most evident in cases such as that of the Shaolin monks. These monks are notorious for their practices that involve striking others with steel poles, receiving numerous kick to the groin, and essentially inflicting pain upon oneself. The monks conduct these activities because they believe that it strengthens the body part that is being hit, and scientifically they are right. Gradually the pain that is being inflicted gets stronger and stronger. Once a person’s body gets used to one level of pain the next level is brought. This process takes numerous years to occur and has resulted in monks being able to do things such as bending steel with their necks and being able to withstand a hit to the groin as if nothing has happened. This just goes to show of how pain can strengthen people.
Normally when someone hears the word pain, negative thoughts are the only ones that seem to arise. People fail to note that pain, and negativity in general, can bring strength. Traumatic events can cause one to reach new levels that they have never presumed possible. The process may not seem easy and may not be fun, but the rewards that will be reaped will be great.
Leknes, Siri, and Brock Bastian. "The Benefits of Pain." SpringerLink. Springer Netherlands, 01 Feb. 2014. Web. 13 May 2017.
Taylor, Steve. "Can Suffering Make Us Stronger?" Psychology Today. Sussex Publishers, 04 Nov. 2011. Web. 13 May 2017.
"The iron crotch exercise (铁裆功)." Braineggs. N.p., 10 Apr. 2016. Web. 13 May 2017.
This assignment/project corresponds to the negative and positive space discussion we have had in class. This project itself was done over the course of about 2 weeks. During the first day, we had to brainstorm ten words that we thought resembled ourselves. Next step was to pick three out of the ten words you felt best described you, and find images that represent those three words. Then after finding those images, sketching each one of those images out. After drawing those images out we had to combine all of the drawings together in a way that showed both positive and negative space. Once we did that we had to cut out the positive space and glue the negative space onto a piece of construction paper. The three words I picked were compassion, August, active, and creative. The pencil is used to represent my creativeness in many different ways. In terms of writing, drawing, and designing. The Leo sign is representing my birth month, the hands in the shape of a heart symbolize the great amount of compassion I have within me, and the track lines represent my activeness. This project was quite interesting because it not only got to increase my understanding of what negative and positive space is and how to show it. but also getting to show others, such as my classmates some things that represent me and to give them a chance to get to know even more about me.
