Block Parties and Rum

Yo I had a crazy week my people,

Yo I love cultural diffusion with a passion, and that as you know is why I love NYC. Now I was born and raised in Williams burg Brooklyn, no --not that Williamsburg Brooklyn you trust fund babies; the mostly poor ,Puerto Rican, black, and European immigrant Williamsburg Brooklyn that the real estate developers keep secret, so white folks from Ohio will pay 1500 for a 1 bedroom apartment, that is infested with rats which have been genetically enhanced by the radioactive material in the Greenpoint Power plant. As my luck would have it, the free market system pushed me out of my homeland a year and a half ago, and since then I have been living in Little Guyana, AKA Ozone Park Queens. I gotta tell you-- I really love it down here. First off, it isn't like the rest of Queens, it 15 minute walk from East NY, and it cut off from the rest of Qz by Forest Park; so it has more of a Brooklyn feel to it. I also love my Caribbean people. I'm from the mountians of South America as far as genetics go, but I was raised around Caribbean-Latinos all my life. I gotta admit though, the Guyanese people party harder then my Latin brothas an sistas. Now my home girl is Black Guyanese, and one of my bruthas from anotha motha is Guyanese, so I kinda had an idea of how their parties went down, but damn nothing beats first hand experience. They was having a block party a block from my crib on Saturday, and my Guyanese brutha came through and we got good on some ill ass West Indian Rum, and hit it up. Let me tell you-- 23 big ass speakers piled on top of each other, damn near 2 stories of straight BOOM. Now I know that Hip Hop started with West Indian people (big ups to Kool Herc) who played reggae and dance Hall on big ass speakers, so I mean as far as my information hungry nature is concerned it was like a time machine to 1978 or something. They was playing mad classic reggae tunes and some Indian music too-- and my boy is of Hindu decent so this kid was all up on the dance floor. (for you who don't know Guyana had slaves shipped there from Africa and India) I was observing, I know some people would say I was just taking space, but I was really enjoyin myself watchin this crazy ass event. Yo and the thing I loved the most was, I must have only been the only Latino brutha there, and my area has a fair share of Latin people, so I felt I was getting a gift seein how these people party. Yo and the other shit I really loved was that toward then end of the party, they played some like Bruce Springstien-ish ode to the working man, and to me it was beautiful, that we could come together as a neighborhood in unity and love like that; whether we was Indian, black, or me lol, and recognize that for all the separation forced on us, we all trying to work hard and make it in this world. That's why I can feel like people from a completely different background; whether they West Indian, or they African American, or in the case of most of my crew back in Brooklyn--Puerto Rican, are my family; we all share in the struggle. That why it pains me to see Latinos and Blacks fighting, and that's why i feel that the tribute for the working man, and the Bob Marley joint "Crazy Bald Heads" was a great way to finish the block party off. I'm mean if we look past that Melanin shit, you'll see that all of us are the same; we all come from that tough, hard working background. Whether you suffered the trip to the US, or escaped racism in other parts of the country; we all in this together, and all of us coming together is the only thing that is going to stop the seemingly unstoppable push to get hard workin blue collar folks of all colors out of NYC. That's my piece for today.

Peace to all my people out there in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and all of NYC

Peace to my Brothers, the whole Brooklyn Pose- ASAP CREW, peace to Joe Cool my Guyanese Brutha, Peace to my sister in law G ,and of coarse to my Borinquena Queen who stays cookin that Latino-Caribbean food I love so much ;)

Peace