Capstone Bibliography

• Catarinella, Alex. "Our 5 Favorite Emerging Designers We Saw At Berlin Fashion Week."Grailed: Dry Clean Only. Grailed, 24 Jan. 2017. Web. 29 Jan. 2017. <https://www.grailed.com/drycleanonly/berlin-fashion-week-fw17>.

• This source is important for me specifically because of the fact that I am the creative director for our upcoming brand. The main goal for a creative director is to ensure that designs that are going to be showcased are ahead of current trends. They have to be ahead of multiple trends and this list from one of the most trusted menswear catalogues and sale site explains why these new designers are so great. This can be used to base multiple future designs on what clothing connoisseurs look for in order to gain attention the most attention.  

• Ginsberg, Allen . "Sunflower Sutra by Allen Ginsberg | Poetry Foundation." Poetry Foundation. Poetry Foundation, 1955. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems-and-poets/poems/detail/49304>.

• Our first project is dubbed, “The Sunflower Project”. There is an untold energy and art that the sunflower gives off that not everyone realizes. This is the piece in which our first release is based off of. Without this poem and the insight from Nigo, the sunflower project would have not sprouted.

• Haywood, Emma. “Painting on Textile Fabrics.” The Decorator and Furnisher, vol. 11, no. 5, 1888, pp. 180–180. www.jstor.org/stable/25585466.

• This source was extremely helpful even though it was about painting on furniture. Emma Haywood describes how to paint on fabric with oil paint. She states the dos and the don’ts very clearly. This was sourced because we plan on doing hand-painted merchandise as a promotional release before the first official release.

• Kiper, Anna. Fashion portfolio: design and presentation. London: Batsford, 2014. Print.

• Anna Kiper does a great job of covering the main components and concepts of designing apparel and a fashion portfolio. Most of the research conducted was about how to make a quality garment that will end up being successful in the real world. It is not as easy as it looks but Anna Kiper does a great job making it seem less difficult than it is.  

• Lengwiler, Guido. A History of Screen Printing. Cincinnati, Ohio: Cincinnati, Ohio : ST Media Group International, 2013.

• After multiple meetings, me and my partners have come to the conclusion that we want screen printing done on our shirts for the first couple of releases (no more than 3). There are many different ways to to screen print though and it is completely different from regularly printing a graphic on a shirt, one difference being that it is done by hand. Screen printing is much higher quality and that is what we want. This book explains the history of screen printing and covers multiple different techniques. This is essential for finding the best way to screen print since we only want to release high quality products.

• Mcquarrie, Edward F., and David Glen Mick. “Visual Rhetoric in Advertising: Text‐Interpretive, Experimental, and Reader‐Response Analyses.” Journal of Consumer Research, vol. 26, no. 1, 1999, pp. 37–54. www.jstor.org/stable/10.1086/209549.

• Edward Mcquarrie covers the same topic that the Small Business Administration does except this looks at the art of advertisement through a more conceptual lens. This provides a more artistic view on what advertisement is and how do it successfully. This allows me to creatively grasp the concept of advertising in order to start creating more simple but original and creative ads.

• NIGO. Atorie bai nigo. N.p.: Magajinhausu., n.d. Print.

• Like Sunflower Sutra, this is another piece of writing that was an influence for me specifically. Nigo is the reason why the sunflower came into my mind in the first place. Atelier gives readers a peek into Nigo’s vast collection of, well… collectables. They are what influences him and draw out the genius that is Nigo. This book is also essential because it was another huge factor to starting The Sunflower Project.
  
  

• Sartain, William. “Thoughts on Art and the Art Collector.” The Art World, vol. 1, no. 4, 1917, pp. 276–278. www.jstor.org/stable/25587749.

• The art collector section is one that contains the most importance to me. Reason being that me and my colleagues want to, in the future, have many of our pieces be considered art. Why do collectors collect and why are collectors important? This source explains it. It talks about why collecting art is important and the type of art that typical collectors go for. This is very useful to me specifically because, like the Grailed article, I can base certain designs off of what collectors look for in art. Mixing fine art and great design with a great business plan ensures sales.

• U.S. Small Business Administration Editors. "Advertising: The Basics | The U.S. Small Business Administration." Advertising: The Basics | The U.S. Small Business Administration | SBA.gov. U.S. Small Business Administration , 2017. Web. 01 Feb. 2017. <https://www.sba.gov/managing-business/running-business/marketing/advertising-basics>.

• This source is important because it covers the basics of advertising. Whether it be food, a device, or clothes, advertising is crucial to getting the world to know about your products. Me and my partners have had no prior experience in marketing so being able to get tips from a trustworthy network is extremely helpful. We have not used all of the advice that this site provided but we have begun to implement multiple tips into our own advertisements.

• Wagner, Eric T. "10 Rules To Build A Wildly Successful Business." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 07 July 2014. Web. 31 Jan. 2017. <http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericwagner/2014/01/14/10-rules-to-build-a-wildly-successful-business/#42671bfde287>.

• This Forbes article contains a lot of valuable information for me and my partner. Although this is from a tea company owner’s perspective, this can be very useful because it touches on the business world in general. Applying some of these rules is essential in order for keeping a healthy business whether it be tea or anything else. Art and business are already a great mix, it is just a matter of being original and these business rules do not interfere with creativity and or originality.

Quarter 2 Senior Art was by far the longest art quarter that I have ever experienced and there was a wide variety of projects that were completed over the, roughly, 13 week period. Most of the projects this quarter were color pencil based and all involved some sort of coloring with a colored pencil. All except for the first project.

The first Senior Art project for quarter 2 was a blind contour project. We were tasked with creating, not 5, not 10, but 15 contour line drawings all which had to be completely different. Being a student at SLA, you never run out of subjects to draw but the challenge was picking what you were going to draw. After the contour drawings, we were to practice our colored pencil techniques by drawing spheres and practicing our shading using color. This was much more difficult because it was my first time trying to bring a drawing to life with actual color. We also needed to do a quick sphere shaped drawing of our own and I decided to do a colored skull which was extremely difficult to color since all the different shapes that make up a skull… shading was far from easy.

Next, we created our very own color wheels using nothing but the primary colors: red, blue, and yellow. The difficult part of this project was mixing the colors to make all the tertiary colors in between the primary colors. This really helped me understand how colors work though. The project after this was a colored portrait. I chose to draw a picture of my cousin. After the portrait, we were tasked with drawing and coloring four different fruits and this was by far the most difficult project for me. Not only am I very new to using colors but having to make these colorful fruits look lifelike made things 100x harder. I chose to draw a mango, pear, blueberries, and an apple. Later came more contour line drawing but these required colors. My favorite of these was the drawing of a friend of mine who is building a personality on YouTube and is doing very well. His name is Pingy, or Jonny He (youtube channel) and he is in the drawing of the male with the blue and yellow t-shirt on. Finally was a free drawing. We were allowed to draw whatever we liked but we had to color it as well. I chose to draw a fictional character named Sasuke from the anime, Naruto Shippuden.

This quarter I learned much about colors but I also learned that I need much more practice in order to create colored drawings that I will be comfortable with. I plan on coloring all of the drawings that I do on my free time from now on just to get as much practice as I can.

Chicken Marsala:

• ½ cup all-purpose flour

• 1 tablespoon Essence, (fresh Creole seasoning)

• 2 (6 to 8-ounce) boneless, skinless chicken breasts, cut in halves and pounded thin

• 1 tablespoon olive oil

• 4 tablespoons butter

• 3 cups sliced mushrooms

• ¾ cup Marsala

• 1 cup chicken stock

• Salt and freshly ground pepper

• Chopped chives, for garnish

Directions:

• Combine flour and Essence in shallow bowl; stir thoroughly.

• Quickly dip chicken breast in seasoned flour mixture; shake to remove extra seasoning.

• Heat oil in large skillet over medium heat until very hot but not smoking.

• Add 1 tablespoon of butter and cook the chicken breasts until golden brown on both sides (about 3 minutes per side)

• Move chicken breast to plate and add 1 tablespoon of the remaining butter to the pan and add mushrooms.

• Cook and stir frequently until mushrooms are golden brown around the edges.

• Add Marsala wine and bring to boil.

• When the wine is reduced by almost half, add chicken stock and cook for 3 minutes or until the sauce has thickened.

• Lower the heat to medium and put chicken breasts back to pan and continue to cook until they have cooked through and sauce has thickened.

• Add and stir remaining tablespoons of butter; add salt and pepper.

• Garnish with chopped chives and serve right after.

Lenses:

• Processed vs. Whole Food

• Health/Nutrition

• Political

• Approximately 70% of the ingredients in this dish are processed. Although they may not be heavily processed, they are not whole foods. Many of these ingredients can be bought organically though. The only ingredients that are not processed are chives, mushrooms, and the chicken breasts. You also have to be careful what type of chicken breasts you buy because there could be some chicken breasts being sold by some companies that are the slightest bit processed. If this meal was eaten every day, your body could build acid reflux from the wine and butter. Your cholesterol could also rise because of the butter being eaten every single day. Although it is a meal on the healthy side, there are certain ingredients that cannot be consumed on a daily basis. On average, the price for Chicken Marsala is roughly $25 with all ingredients included. But you have to keep in mind that this dish can feed up to 6 people or more. Compared to fast food, a meal on average is $7 to $8 per person. If you multiply that by 6 or more people, you would be spending up to $40 to $50. Therefore it is more beneficial to cook Chicken Marsala than buying fast food.

Unfortunately, this is my final blog post of the year and I can truly say that I enjoyed my art class this year. I felt like I saw myself growing with every bit of knowledge I gained about the different types of art and every type of picture we drew and or painted. This quarter, we worked throughout the entire thing without guidance from our art teacher who was away for a surgery and recovery. But although she was away for the quarter I think that I still was able to do good with my last pieces of the year. 

My first one is a sketch of a statue from the Rodin Museum. Before our art teacher went away for surgery, we all took a trip to the Rodin Museum and just sat in the nice weather and sketched things that were in sight. It was a very relaxing assignment and a good start to the quarter. I drew a statue on the outside gate of the museum and I was able to finish in the short amount of time we spent there.

Art 2, the second class of art offered at Science Leadership Academy is all about the deeper exploration of the different types of visual arts. This quarter, we started off the by getting an overview of all the pieces we were doing and all the options we had for each piece. For each piece there were three options for the workload that you wanted. They were Passive, for the student who was in the class just because, Middle for students who are interested in art but not sure if they want to pursue futures in art, and the Future Art Student which is pretty self explanatory.

Our first assignment of quarter was another Art History assignment. We were to research art from any country that we wanted on the list of the website we were assigned to. I chose France and a dress by Yves Saint Laurent. The dress is his timeless Mondrian dress.

The second assignment is the one I am most proud of this quarter. It is an artistic collage inspired by Michelangelo’s “Creation of Adam”, as you can see the resemblance from the hands reaching out towards the diamond ring. I gave it a modern twist by adding the diamond and model cutouts form a Cosmopolitan issue. Dubbed “Girls love diamonds.” this piece is definitely the work that cherish most out of my compilation this quarter.

The third was a challenging one. Our job was to draw fabric. I chose to do something differently and draw draped robes on a made-up/fantasy character I created myself as well. I thought this was challenging because of the fact that I had to pay close attention to where the fabric was hanging and going on the model. Although it was difficult, I was still able to create good looking fabric and do it in a more creative way than just drawing the fabric alone.

The next assignment took us away from the pencil and paper and made us go digital. We were tasked with shooting a photo and professionally editing it. I did this plenty of times before and still do it even now so this was right up my alley. I shot a symmetrical photo of a mailbox which was shot using the rule of thirds. The mailbox was centered with beautiful flowers behind it which gave it the bright colors. While editing, I made sure to boost the vibrancy of the colors in order to make them pop.

The last assignment was an illustration of a children’s book, poem, novel. Being the person that I am, I chose to do an illustration of lyrics from rap songs. The songs were by Travis Scott and Kanye West, which explain my drawings which show Travis Scott and Kanye West performing actions that they speak about in their songs.

Intro:

This paper is about the way that musicians, rap artists especially, use their words to influence their fans. I think this is important because everyone loves art and it is extremely important for people to share their thoughts and art. The way that rappers use literacy and change it up to tell stories is amazing and I find it very important just because they are able to inspire and influence their fans with their music.

Essay:

I once told my English teacher to “Shut the fuck up”. I do not know if you have ever been pushed to the point that you had to do things that were out of line but I have. At the time I was some depressed little kid whose new days were just a copy of the previous one. I wanted and needed something to happen so I looked for the opportunity and when a career discussion came up I thought that I would be able to shock the rest of the class with my goals. “I want to be a fashion designer” I said. I then talked about my role model Kanye West and how he has inspired me to be different. They laughed and the teacher told me that Kanye West was such a ridiculous man and I should never try to shoot to be something that I can’t do. I think he was just trying to “be real” but I found it being one of the most disrespectful things someone has ever said to me. So, in a calm but apoplectic voice I said “Shut the fuck up. You’re a teacher…a teacher that is putting his stress and hate on his students. I don’t appreciate what you said and if you really think that then I guess I will grow up to be such a ridiculous man as well but at least I’ll be more paid than you are.” I was told to leave the class immediately.

Everyone is influenced by certain artists who are considered their icons. They use literacy in such a way that creates pieces or songs that are just perfect to certain listeners, viewers or readers. Literacy is universal. Every culture has their type of literacy that shapes and defines who they are. It is in our arts, it is in our schools, we speak using words, our world runs on math, science, and literacy. In music, literacy is expressed in multiple different ways. Also, artists all around the world have different fan bases who are influenced through the music that the specific artist creates. For example, rock or metal fans would speak and act a different way than hip hop/rap fans speak or act. They could also influence fans to do things that are out of their comfort zone and or raise their confidence.

Kanye West is my biggest influence by far and because of him, I can say that I talk, act, and dress differently from other people. West, 38, once said before that his “music isn’t just music — it’s medicine.” Like other fans of artists, I find things like this true. When you are influenced by someone as much as some fans are by their favorite artists, they vouch for what they say. They also take the information and change themselves because of it. For example, if a rapper states that they go to a restaurant every Friday, many of his fans might be influenced to visit that restaurant just because they believe that is what is the “cool” thing to do. As a person who is heavily influenced by West, I would not say that he influences me because he is famous and I want to follow him in order to be cool like he is.... I would say that instead of following him, I am learning from him. The masses do not truly understand the difference between following and learning and that is why some fans who are influenced by artists who do bad things are most likely to do bad things as well and that could be a problem.

Not only do artists influence the way people act but they also could influence the way they talk or the way they dress. Rappers specifically, use different types of slang words depending on where they are from or what they represent. For example, over the years rappers have used words like “jawn” to “trill” to “bud” as slang words to replace actual words for the sake of rhyming, for fun, or to replace the names of drugs. The way certain musicians speak has such a big influence on fans and a lot of times, fans do not even notice that the way they speak has changed. One big influence is A$AP Rocky. Rocky is a younger artist who has grasped the youth and influenced the way we speak and dess. He has brought words like “trill” and “jodye” to the world of slang and although he impacted the New York youth scene the most, kids from all over the world have been heard saying words that he has brought into the game.

It is believed that what artists (rap artists) wear has the most influence on the fans. Fashion is such an important subject in society and almost everyone does not realize how influenced they could be when it comes to fashion and style. Since the beginning of rap, fashion, streetwear especially, has been talked about and has influenced popular culture even to this day. From Notorious B.I.G. and his Coogi sweaters, to A$AP Rocky and his Raf Simons and Maison Margiela, to Kanye West in Haider Ackermann and other high fashion clothing, rappers have dominated pop culture influence when it comes to fashion for the masses. Kanye West is a perfect example...because of him people from all over the world have taken more notice to high fashion brands like Givenchy, Marcelo Burlon, and Haider Ackermann. We also cannot forget that every sneaker that has been designed by Kanye West has sold out in less than two hours upon release. Not everyone listens to hip-hop but everyone does wear clothes and when people see rappers wearing the clothes that they are, they have to have it because this person might be their idol or they love the piece. When people see each other wearing certain pieces, the influence spreads and artists themselves become trendsetters. I believe that fashion has the biggest influence on fans (besides the music) just because it has been relevant since the beginning of the idea of popular culture. Rap artists are not the only ones that have influenced their fans either. Musicians in every genre have set trends for their fans over and over again and that is why music and fashion go so perfectly together.

Music being the influential tool that it is, has been around for decades and decades. But not only has the music inspired people but the artists themselves have inspired and changed the listeners every since popular culture has become a more relevant subject in society. Artists have influenced people’s speech, attitude, and fashion sense and it can be said that this will happen for as long as people are able to express and share their art.

Art 2, the second class of art offered at Science Leadership Academy is all about the deeper exploration of the different types of visual arts. This year, we started off the by getting an overview of all the pieces we were doing and all the options we had for each piece. For each piece there were three options for the workload that you wanted. They were Passive, for the student who was in the class just because, Middle for students who are interested in art but not sure if they want to pursue futures in art, and the Future Art Student which is pretty self explanatory.

The First assignment was to do either a ceiling tile painting or 5 contour line drawings. I personally chose the contour line drawings because I prefer drawing over other mediums of art. My first drawing is a contour drawing of a paintbrush. You can tell it is a contour line drawing because there is no shadow. The shadow is expressed with thicker lines which make the line drawing more dynamic. My second drawing is of a skull, the third is of a pencil on paper, the fourth is of an eraser on pencil, and the final contour line drawing is of one of my icons, Luka Sabbat. The process of the line drawing was pretty easy and I did not have any real changes to any ideas that I came up with.

The second assignment of the quarter was a free drawing assignment. This assignment allowed the student to draw or paint whatever they liked. Me, since I am personally an anime fan decided to draw one of the most famous anime characters of all time, Son Goku. This drawing was especially difficult because of the amount of shading that had to be done. Drawings of Dragon Ball Z characters are usually very detailed and I wanted to capture the detail as well, therefore this drawing took me a pretty long time due to the detail that I decided to add to it. But overall I could say that I enjoyed doing this drawing the most because I had the freedom to draw what I wanted.

The assignment after this was a Halloween based assignment. I decided to do a middle student assignment for this one which was design and create a jack-o-lantern in any medium. My jack-o-lantern is not a realistic jack-o-lantern but more of a spooky cartoon type jack-o-lantern. I chose to do this because I thought that I would enjoy the drawing process more than having to worry about getting every single detail correct if drawing realistically.

The final assignment for this quarter was a self portrait. This is really where I wanted to get creative and I took the term self portrait and twisted it... Combining my ideas with ideas of other artists whose work I enjoy. For example, my self portrait is a dark and twisted sketch of me from another fantasy type world. This sketch is heavily influenced by George Condo who is known for his creepy but beautiful portraits of strange characters. This was by far my favorite sketch to do because I was able to use ideas from famous artists and incorporate their art styles into my self portrait.

The purpose of this paper is to tell the world my story about one of the things I love most. There is also a deeper message though. My message to this world is that if you put all your effort into something, it will happen because in a career, you only get out as much as you put in. I believe that in this piece, I did well with making my stories relevant and connecting them with my main message. That was my main goal, to give my message to the world through my stories. I want people to feel motivated to do something after reading this. If I could improve it any way, I would try and make the reader feel emotionally connected with my piece.

  Stuck In The System

Success is something that is earned, it not given, nor is it something that you can take. Since I could remember, I’ve wondered what I would become in the future. It scared me to think about myself having no success, no money, no life. The people of this forsaken planet are stuck in a system put in effect by all major governments. People are supposed to work their lives away but they don’t. Instead, in this generation, they would rather spend their time judging others, judging the ones who decide to work hard and not live in this system...judging the ones who are different and not afraid to be themselves. I call these people with no fear “creatives”.

For half of my life, I was the kid who was consumed by fear. “Gay.” That’s what people used to call me for having a passion for the thing I love most, fashion. I was so badly eaten alive by this fear and shyness that I let people around me stop me from being myself. There were so many hateful comments and phrases that people used to tell just because of what I loved. All the comments started to catch up to me, they began to mess with my mind. To this day I still cannot believe that I let the comments of other people stop me from being connected with one of things I love most in this world. “You’re gay as f*ck for that” they said as my fear was holding me back from replying. I’m not gay and I felt like I had to prove that to them. That day I decided that I would “stop loving fashion”. Instead I would do all the wrong things. I decided that I would dress like the drug dealers because that’s what “my friends” were doing...that is what all the promiscuous young females (who honestly were just hood rats) loved. I would start getting into trouble because that’s what “my friends” were doing and we can’t forget that the females loved the bad boys. When I look back at this, I realize how stupid and immature I was for letting them control my mind with their opinions. Today in society people are bound by a curse called acceptance and it is something I despise more than anything. Everyone is scared to be themselves because they are scared of others will think and I actually used to be one of those people. After five minutes of sitting at the lunch table thinking about what just happened and I turned towards all the kids who called me gay for loving fashion and the industry. I remember this perfectly... “I have nothing against gay people but I’m not gay so don’t call me that. And I love fashion and there’s nothing that you can do about it. Just because I walk in with expensive clothing designed by people whose names you can’t pronounce does not mean you can call me gay. I am my own person and no one is going to change that so why don’t you go somewhere and follow the path that Tone followed and you’ll end up a broke piece of sh*t like him, living with your grandma and selling ‘bud’ on the corner.” Their facial expressions were priceless, and they were as speechless as the teacher standing right behind me who later called my mother telling her that I was cursing at other students.

That day was so very rewarding for me. In the years that came I started letting go of all the fear that was locked inside me. I became a person who was not afraid to be themselves and once that happened I was able to focus on the thing I love most. I put 100% of my time into perfecting my craft and networking in order to begin my career. Finally, everything in my life began to go down a good path after I met Justin Carson. Justin is a creative director for the well known pop culture channel, BET! With him mentoring me I was able to meet famous stylists in the industry and I was able to network with the directors of Philadelphia and New York Fashion Week. I thought about how big this was and how I ran with all the opportunities I received. Philadelphia Fashion Week was one of the more memorable experiences. I could not remember what time I left the house. This was all new to me, I was a shy sixteen year old boy from Northeast Philadelphia. Always working on my grades, that was the top priority for me at the time. But Fashion Week was different, that was my time. I remember getting into my Lyft at 3:30 in the morning. I stood waiting for him for a while but when he was near I knew it was him because he was the only person driving on the road at that time. “Yo man, what’s up?” he said in his Indian accent. “Yo D, I’m cool man how about you?” I replied. D had serviced me throughout Fashion Week, we were practically best friends. “Same place?” he asked. I replied with an excited “Yeah man!” “Kanye West right?” he asked. I laughed and replied with a simple “Yes.”  Kanye West is my role model...he is one of the main reasons why I was inspired to just be myself and put one hundred percent of my time on what I loved. As we made our way to the city, I thought to myself…about my past and how far I advanced throughout my life. Then I could do nothing but smirk when I thought about myself, a boy who turned sixteen less than four months ago is working with the directors of Fashion Week and less than a two months ago was working with a creative director of BET. I thought about how precious of a thing life is and all the opportunities that people get and don’t take. I love those type of people, they make my life easier. At that moment I knew how dedicated I was to the fashion industry. I was going to take all these opportunities and run with them until I am making $10,000+ a month, until I am living a carefree life with a job that I love doing so much that I don’t even consider it a job, but more of a lifestyle. I understood at that moment that my life was going to change and there was no one in the world who could crush my ambition. I became a new person, I became the rockstar that I imagined I would become all of my life and best part of all, I knew that I was an ambitious creative that was no longer ‘stuck in the system’. I was free.

The memoir of MK Asante, called Buck, is a beautiful, twisted, and creative story of his life. Although it is written in his perspective, we also see the perspective of famous rappers as well. MK Asante uses famous lyrics from songs he has heard throughout his life to explain or show how he is feeling or to present a certain situation in a more creative way to appeal to the reader. Music is very powerful way of expressing yourself because anyone can do it however they want. It could be saying a poem over a beat, singing, rapping, freestyling, and even screaming at the top of your lungs. The author Mk Asante is moved by music and used lyrics as another opportunity to get his feeling across to the world. This is very important because it adds creativity and uniqueness to keep the reader interested. Not only does this keep the reader interested but it also adds a soundtrack, an image, and a view of life from famous celebrities into the readers mind.

Throughout the  book, there are multiple instances where he uses these lyrics but some seem to stand out more than others. For example, around this time in the book, the writers brother is on trial. Mk states that he wishes he was a black panther and so he could just go into the courtroom and take what is his, which is his brother. Right after, he uses a like from 2Pac’s song called ¨Panther Power¨: ¨I strike America like a case of heart disease, panther power is running through my arteries...¨. Not only does this put a soundtrack into the readers’ minds but it also is a deeper way of telling how the writer was feeling at the time. 2Pac states that that he strikes American like ¨a case of heart disease¨, by this he is implying how much power the Black Panther Party has. He then says that he has the ¨Panther power¨ flowing throughout his body...implying that the panther blood is what makes him so powerful. This ties into the writer’s (Mk Asante) statement of wishing he was in the Black Panther party because he knows of their power. Their purpose was to protect African Americans from police brutality and that is what he wanted to do...protect his older brother and stop him from being pronounced guilty.

Almost in the middle of the book, the writer was going through a time of his life when he believed that money meant everything to him. Mk believed that money could buy any woman, any car, clothes, land and freedom as well. He has gotten into a business run by drugs and money and that is what he lived by. Here, Mk uses a line that the rapper AZ said in Nas’ ¨Life’s a B*tch¨: ¨Visualizin’ the realism of life and actuality, f*ck who’s the baddest a person’s status depends on salary...¨. Again, adding lyrics shows the reader the more creative side of the writer Mk Asante as he tells us how he feels through rap lines. The author at this time has had a realization of life. This lyric implies that life can only be real to a person if they actualize it, that is if they fully immerse themselves in the living experience. He is beginning to see that everyone dies at some point and he wants to live it up any way possible and that is by getting as much money as he can. At this time of Mk’s life he believed that a high status could get him whatever he needed or wanted. He was driven by status and status is driven by money.

Towards the end, Mk starts telling us about the time of his life when he mentally started ¨growing up¨. He started seeing family, love and appreciation as the true meaning of life. He also began to open his eyes and see all the problems and hate that is in the world. The writer himself added a line to explain how life in ¨the hood¨ was perceived by him: ¨Against all odds, the math’s off, forcing us into the night, where we bargain against death for discounts on life, we get half off...¨. This quote is different from all the others in the book because it is by the author who is not as famous as the other lyricist’s lyrics he added into the book. Since many people have not heard the author rap over a beat, it does not add music or a soundtrack into the reader’s mind unlike the other famous lyrics from actual famous songs. Even though people cannot create an image as easily with this lyric, it still shows the more creative side of the author. He implies that living in the hood is a constant fight for survival. The ¨thugs¨ go out at night for their money but the risks are high since they could be in danger at all times. The line ¨we get half off¨ shows/tells the reader that the life that these men are living is not worth is not worth is because their lifespan is cut in half because of the danger they are putting themselves in.

TA - Nehisi Coates, author of ¨The Beautiful Struggle¨ says that ¨Buck takes the daily words of the American streets and forges something low and lovely, angry, profane, and beautiful, it honors the best of hip-hop’s literary canon by producing work worthy of inclusion.¨ Nehisi Coates implies (in more detail) that this book shows all the emotion of the author and taps into the emotion of the reader not only by telling a great story but through hip-hop as well. As stated before, this book is amazingly creative and the use of the best lyrics in hip-hop only strengthen this book allowing it to be one of the more creative and artistic books created.

In an interview with soundcheck staff of WNYC, Mk speaks about his own book and adding hip-hop lyrics within the story:

¨Hip hop has always been a soundtrack to my life -- everybody I know growing up, we have what we call hip hop Tourettes. That means that we're just chillin', doing something, chopping onions, walking to the store, and we're just going to be spitting lyrics out, they just jump out of us at random times we can't control it. That was a realistic thing for me then -- and even now -- that I wanted that to be a part of the story. So I tried to find lyrics and songs that I listened to then. Those songs, from your childhood -- you don't forget them. It was easy to revisit those lyrics and put them in the book.¨

The lyrics within the book were one of the main aspects recognized by the reader. Mk Asante says: ¨I tried to find lyrics and songs that I listened to then. Those songs, from your childhood -- you don't forget them. It was easy to revisit those lyrics and put them in the book.¨  

This tells the reader about how connected Mk Asante is to music and lyrics specifically. He was moved by the ¨art form¨ of rap and that is exactly what he wants the reader to experience...how he was moved by rap. He tried to include lyrics that defined moments in his life and he found the perfect ones because each one corresponds to what is happening in the book in a deeper way of thinking. At times you can’t understand what Mk is trying to say and that is when the lyrics come along, and at times you may not understand the lyrics and that is when Mk is there to explain. Music is a movement that connects with everyone in some type of way, Buck is the perfect example of that. Everyone is somehow connected with music even if have not realized is yet, everyone has their music and that was also something that the story tells the reader. Mk Asante’s music is hip-hop and rap, and by incorporating that into the story it almost motivates the reader to go out and find ¨their music¨ or explore or further explore the world of hip-hop and rap.

From start to finish, Buck will have the reader wanting to read more and more. The tale of Mk Asante is one that will be remembered because of this book. As the reader ventures more and more into this book they will find either something to relate to or something to attach their emotion to. If the reader is familiar with the lyrics he incorporates then it would allow the reader to almost create a bond with Mk Asante. That allows the reader to fully relate to Mk even if they have not gone through the same experiences as he did. Throughout his life, he has been through terrible situations that some readers might not have been through but at the end of the day music is a form of art that everyone can enjoy, therefore the ¨soundtrack¨ added into the story only allows the reader to connect with him and the story he is trying to tell. This is a story to love and remember because as the famous Maya Angelou said, ¨this is a story of surviving and thriving with passion, compassion, wit, and style.¨

Works Cited for Analytical Essay:

• Asante, Mk. Buck. New York: Random House, Inc; Spiegel & Grau. 2013. Print.

 Man, I can't believe this sh*t bruh. I make them all this damn bread and they wanna pull this off?! What do he mean they want my damn head? Ha, f*ck that bruh, I'm the main money maker in this jawn. It wasn't even a dime. Man, I just gotta get my money and dip cuz. I can't be putting my family in danger like this fam.

   My brother walks out into the alley. He starts ranting on about how what I do is bad. (Chuckle) But I'm the reason that we livin' in this single house with three floors, a big ass yard and a damn pool. I'm the reason why they never go hungry in this house. He starts talking about how I could have done good without the drugs, without the drug money. He said I could have finished college and got a good ass job. As what though? A damn boring ass lawyer? Nah I'm good. I just look at him like if I was Kanye staring down the crowd of the Kris Jenner show for laughing at me. "Are you stupid?" I ask. He tells me to watch my mouth because he's my older brother. He lightly pushes me and I ball up my fist. "Ayo Bobby", I hear from the end of the alley.

   I look at my brother and run as fast as I can. I heard that voice and recognized that jawn as soon as I heard it. I look and they started running too, so did my brother. He knew who they were too. I hid behind a car hoping that they will keep going but I hear their steps slow down and eventually stop. They asked me where I was at. They were dumb as hell for thinking I was gonna act out. I heard them cats pulling out their straps, I heard them cock them jawns. POP POP! It's my brother who started shooting first. He came out of nowhere. POP POP! That shit continues, my brother was shot. He was holding his leg right above his knee.

   I grab his strap and black out i start shooting with my eyes closed. After a while I could feel it though. The cold, numb, emptiness right below my right shoulder. I keep blastin' though. These cats ain't taking me today. I blast, I blast... I BLAST! POP POP! I close my eyes and can't remember anything after that.

 I wake up and see all these cops. I was scared as shit. My damn brother is all that was going through my head. I must have been thinkin out loud cause one of the cops told me that my brother was right in the next room...he was gonna okay. They told me that they have to take me in after I recover. They allow me to leave the room and walk right to the doorway of my brother's room. "I'm sorry" I say. He just looked at me and I smiled then ran for my life.

  "Why don't you speak Spanish in this house boy?" My father said for the seventh time today...in Spanish. "If you can understand my english, then why should I speak Spanish if I prefer speaking English?" I replied. He did not say anything after that. He hated it when his kids spoke to him in English then. Since we were "born Spanish" he wanted us to speak Spanish. He especially hated when we would use English slang around him. This whole language problem caused tension in the house for about half a year. Whenever we were at his friend's houses and spoke English, I could tell by his facial expressions that he was embarrassed that his friend's kids had no problems with speaking Spanish but we did. "Why don't you repeat that in Spanish?" He would ask. Me and my sisters all thought the way he acted was so ridiculous. But it kept on going for almost half a year. It also only began to get worse after some time.

   "You know what...I don't care anymore" he said randomly one day in the car. "You guys want to speak your language then go ahead." To my father, being able to speak perfect Spanish makes us the “perfect” Puerto Ricans, he thought that if every Puerto Rican he knew could speak great Spanish, then we as his kids should be able to as well. I felt relieved about that but it was just the beginning of my problems with the way I talk. I started talking more and more like the people I hung around. I began using way too much slang and that wasn't just a problem for my dad but it was a problem for some of my teachers at school as well. One day, fifth grade, I had a presentation to do on a project about grizzly bears. "Your voice was too low and I could not understand some of the words you were using...what is 'trynna'?" My fifth grade teacher, Ms. Schuler, said right after she told me I failed my presentation. I honestly felt like she was being racist for grading me on the way I spoke...it was a science presentation. Other students were surprised because they thought that I had one of the most well presented project. I didn't feel like talking for the rest of the day because I felt embarrassed. The way I speak is one of the main things that shape me so why is it a problem with other people? I have an A in every class so why is the way I speak so bad? I had so much hate for my teacher that day. Since my mother were together at the time, all I could do was go home and complain to her.

   "I tried to tell you that your 'friends' are bad influences" my mother said. I didn't think so though. They were are my "brothers." Even to this day they are. “Pshh, she trippin’ bro. She actin’ like I be smokin’ bud or something,” my friend Derrick said after I told him. I eventually got over it and ended up having no problems with the way I talked till I got to seventh grade. Science class. The teacher Mr. Dukulah, you might recognize him as the teacher who was prosecuted for sexually abusing a family member for eight years. His speech was no better than anybody's speech in the class, actually the school. He had a really strong African accent and sounded just like the one comedian Michael Blackson but he felt as if he spoke perfectly fine. He would even judge the way we talked. That class was difficult for everyone because he thought the way everyone was speaking was incorrect. People hated him. When we heard that he was arrested everyone was shocked and sort of thought that it was funny. People use to say he was a rapist because of the way he use to look at the girls in class. He would even make them do unnecessary things that they did not want to do. So it was ironic that he was charged with rape. Everyone failed most of their presentations because of what he thought was “good speech”. He taught in Africa a couple years before he came to the middle school I attended so he was accustomed to people having strong African accents. It is like the world is separated by languages.

   I not only have have been in bad situations because of the way I speak though. In eight grade I won a poetry contest because of my speech:

"Am I really good at this or is the truth untold ?

Either way ya fear shouldn't deny ya goals

Always heard first sight shouldn't defy ya goals

But if often times I'm right then sorry that's the way it goes

Say if time froze would you spend the time to right ya wrongs..."

Everyone in the lunchroom, snapping as I "spit" the poem like a rap. Afterwards I had people coming up to me like "yo the way you said that one line made the whole thing crazy!" I felt great because for once, the way I spoke was a good thing...people began to like it because supposedly it had "style".

   Speeches around the world are all so different though and they can be a good thing or a bad thing. For example, for certain men a woman with a certain accent could be the perfect wife. For a movie director, an actor with a specific accent could be a star. But for a national or worldwide company, not being able to speak “proper” could be what gives them bad reviews. It things like this that make language and speech a blessing and a curse.

   In 'If Black English Isn't a Language, Then Tell Me, What Is?' by James Baldwin, he says "Language, also, far more dubiously, is meant to define...". He means a completely different thing but to me this quote is very critical to what I am explaining in this essay. Language is meant to define and to translate, not a way to show class or intelegence. For example, in my poem, people did not really care how I was saying the words. Yes my accent supposedly made it "crazier" but people cared more about what I was saying than the way I said it. The world does not understand that everyone speaks differently. To some people from different countries, the way we speak English could be completely differentfrom the way they do.

   The north and the south are split with accents just like the east and the west. Language and accents could be good and bad depending on where you are located. But the big question is: was there or is there a “correct” accent somewhere out in the world or will was the world always separated because of speech? I have experienced speech prejudice in both good and bad ways and it is reasons and questions like this that make language and speech such a mystery...almost like a story that has not been fully told.

The Alchemy Lab

Inquiry: Before beginning this experiment, Mr. Sherif told us that we will be making gold by using copper. I was excited and wanted to know how copper could be turned into gold.

Research: First we found out what we had to mix for the chemicals to turn the copper gold. We used a lab write up written by our teacher and found out that we needed to heat up salt water, sodium hydroxide, zinc, and copper pennies.

Collaboration: In the beginning, most of the students failed into turning their pennies gold. Therefore we decided to work together and try to correct each other's mistakes.

Presentation: After the lab, we did not really present our gold pennies. The most that we did was show them to peers and compare our gold pennies and how we went through the process of creating them.

Reflection: If I were to do this differently, I would follow the instructions correctly to in order to get the best results that I could get.

Hi! My name is Pedro Castillo and I am currently a student at Science Leadership Academy (SLA). For this project, we were asked to research a local, state, national or world issue and write about it. I think this is a good way for students to put themselves out in the world. It’ll be a way for students to express their way of thinking. Also, a good way to see how they would want to approach their issue.

   I chose to research Philadelphia’s budget cuts and how they caused Philadelphia schools to lose their art education. I believe this is an issue because some students in Philadelphia school love to draw, sing, paint etc. We have to go throughout this entire school year without these things at school and i could not imagine another school year without them. I am interested in this issue because I am a big art fan. I spent much of my leisure time drawing and painting. I use to go to middle school waiting for art class to come and then one year i showed up the first day of school and heard we had no art classes that year. I came to SLA knowing that we had art classes and i got very excited. At the same time I also that the lack of art is still an issue. Other schools are not as lucky as we are and don’t have art classes to participate in. This is a problem because some students like showing their work to world; they want other people to see their spectacular artwork (Like this) or hear their beautiful voices or just hear their amazing thoughts in the form of a poem.

    The loss of art classes has affected some students for example, a young boy at Cook-Wissahickon Elementary School, Ravi Giberson. Ravi states how the losses of music classes are bad for him because they give time time for practice. He also says how music was a way for him express himself and that it would be difficult for him to return to school with no music. Before the school year began, Philadelphia had to borrow $50 million dollars to open schools on time and even with those millions Philly still had to lay off more than 100 staff members! They could have gotten more money with the hidden artwork that was in a Philadelphia school. Here in Philly, a school had millions in artwork in a school and kept debating on if they should sell them or if they should keep them as the “city’s history.” Those paintings could have saved the jobs of many art teachers and some schools could have had the art education they deserve. Will they sell these paintings for next year or will they let the students down...again? Will they get enough money to refund art classes and still be able to keep the paintings? Only time will tell but hoping everything goes good throughout now and next year, the city can begin funding art classes at schools and make the kids happy with their elective classes again.

Picture of million dollar artwork from philly.com

Bibliography