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hearteyes-for-killmonger · 4 years

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In My Mind x 06

The greater the power,

the more dangerous the abuse

- Edmund Burke

---

The lounge is peppered with generations of blackness. A couple of teenagers who appear to be all on their own sit together, drawn to each other by no other factor other than age and circumstance. They look up as you pass.

Around them, a group of women with children talk while HGTV plays and four men play cards.

"Nia. Down here," Erik calls and following his voice, you go down a short set of steps into an open court. At one end, teen boys are hoopin, but on the other end you notice a chair is set up and a man is giving haircuts right on the floor. He's taking off a man's white afro, shaving it down while five men stand in a broken line.. talking and waiting. "They all got interviews," Erik points proudly, following your gaze. "They each took classes here in Zone 3, that's where our classrooms are, I'll show you that next, but this right here is a big deal."

"Hell yeah it's a big deal, I want some of this," you point to the barber's clippers.

Erik snaps to it, literally snapping his fingers to have a chair brought over and when you gesture to the barber, he happily shares a pair of his clippers with you. Without an extra cape, one of the men calls on the teenage boys who fork over a towel that you use to drape around your first client. It's ghetto, but you weren't prepared with a kit and he's fine with it. He says he trusts you, whatever you do just make him interview-ready and you do just that, not noticing that Erik has left until you look up halfway through client number two. Erik is gone, somewhere, but it's cool because you're in your element and these men are more grateful than most clients you work on regularly. They act like you just gave them money in their pocket, which you can see if they actually get the jobs.. You just keep cutting hair until the line is done and high five your partner. By the time you finish cleaning up, disinfecting, and trade info with the other barber, Erik is back and gesturing for you to follow him out again.

"Wow," you grin. "Did you see the magic. The MIRACLE I worked on that hairline," you clutch the air proudly knowing he could see it. "This is why I do what I do. You see his face? PRICELESS! I hope I get a-" His finger raises cutting you off and his phone goes to his ear quickly.

"-update," you mumble, offended until you see his face darken all lightness gone. You strain to hear the voice on the line, leaning in.. wrapping your arm around his bicep to put your ear close to the phone. All you catch is Bluebird.

"Bluebird," you repeat, echoing the word from earlier when you'd first arrived. He keeps the phone to his ear, watching the far point of the hall and a teenage boy in a red shirt appears at the end, sprinting in your direction. Skrr, he collides into Erik's chest and almost slips in a panic, breathing hard, but Erik steadies him. There are scratches on his arms and a little dirt on his cheek, you notice, reaching out quickly like a mother. Poor thing, he's frantic.

Erik grips him up by the upper arms and squeezes his shoulders looking him square in the eye. "Aye. You're okay.. You're okay!"

Panting, the kid can barely answer. Erik pins him under his arm and walks him to the lounge sighing loudly on his way back. He looks like he's a million miles away, his feet moving on their own.

"Sick of this shit," he mutters along with some things too low to hear. "This building process ain't moving fast enough! We need more funds, more materials. We need weapons! Combat training modules! Drills!" His eyes have gone crazy. You walk fast to keep up beside him.

"Erik."

"I need more money.."

"ERIK!"

"WHAT."

"Calm the hell down! What's happening?"

His eyes roll and he speeds up back to the front desk. Looks like the tour is over. There's an older black man in a pinstripe suit with grey hair who you haven't met. Erik casually directs him down the hall from where you came and hoists himself onto the desk to sit.

"Ghost and Slim..," he asks looking to the guy on skates who puts a thumb up. Erik nods.

"They ain't going back to jail no time soon," Donnie chuckles.

"I'm going to get coffee, anyone want some," the girl with the feed-ins sighs heading to the hall.

"Sugar, no cream," Donnie stretches.

"I remember!"

A second later two white male officers approach the door, pulling on the handles that don't budge. You all stare through the tinted glass as the cops knock on it and wait, cupping their hands to try and see through the glass but no one makes a move to open the door.

"How you like the center so far," Donnie asks watching you. It's like he can feel you're nervous and confused.

"It's great, you guys have it all. Wish we had a place like this in Macon, I'd volunteer."

"Actually, we're looking at building in Atlanta sometime in the next two years, so you should get your chance," he nods.

The phone rings but no one answers. Everyone knows it's the cops.

"That breakfast though. Y'all be eating good," you grin ignoring the elephant in the room. The guy on the skates chuckles lowering his head before skating around the space, twisting his feet in and out as he spins to imaginary music and the snap of his own fingers.

"Show off," Erik jokes. "D, sit ya ass down somewhere cuh."

"Ayo let me be free," he sings dancing on his skates, his eyes flitting to the doors.

Seeing a flash of motion everyone looks. Getting angry, one cop kicks the door trying to cave it and fails. He tries to rattle the handle to no effect before spitting on the sidewalk. The other stares at the door with hands on his hips before grabbing his walkie talkie. They wait it out a few more seconds before splitting and one takes a walk. It's clear he's looking for another entrance.

"Anyway," D mutters, rolling around the room, seemingly unbothered.

Erik looks out watching the police who's talking on the walkie talkie. He steps over to Erik's car looking inside through the window and into the backseat before walking to the opposite side of the building.

"What's going on," you finally ask.

"Pigs out campin, tryna catch a nigga slippin," the guy on skates says.

"And they had one.. Till he ran," Donnie adds.

"The hell? What happened?" Confused, you know it has something to do with that boy who came running through. "Did they hurt him?"

No one replies. You head back down to the lounge, walking fast, and see the boy in the red shirt surrounded by people with stamped hands who tend to him. There's also the old man in the pinstripe suit.

"I didn't steal anything! I swear to God. On my mama, nigga. They some bitchass liars. I didn't do nothing." The boy is frantic, desperate for everyone to believe him as he pleads and the other man in the suit is trying to calm him enough with a hand in the air to get a complete story.

"Son?.... Calm down," he speaks in an even voice, palm high. "I'm a lawyer... and I want to help you... Tell me what did happen," he says, "From the beginning."

9:15 AM.

Kyren Scott, age 14 (and a half) and very tall for his age walks into a corner store, heading straight to the cold drinks in the back. He wears a red t-shirt, black Nikes, and jeans. His hair? Bald fade. He also rocks a chain his mama gave him for his birthday. "What the fuck y'all looking at," he snaps to the men behind the counter who watch him. He picks out a Peach Arizona and a bag of hot chips. Opening the bag, he eats a chip and turns when a voice with a accent yells out angrily. They're talking to him, the two Indian men behind the counter, but he can't fully understand them because of their accent. They slip into their native language. He's not used to it. He kisses his teeth eating another chip. "What? Don't nobody understand what y'all niggas talmbout," he smacks.

The more they talk, he can understand "thief" and "hoodlum" but it all sounds racist. Neither of those outdated words describe him. He gets angry, yelling back about how they're racist. They don't know him. They don't know his life. He roasts them as he would a bully in school and they go toe to toe with him, a child.

He has $10 in his pocket from the money he's made on his own, selling candy. He's never stolen anything.. not from them. He walks toward the register to pull out his money, just so he can leave though he's pissed off by their name-calling and assumptions. The two men freak out seeing him reach down and they threaten him.

"Police are on their way," is a phrase he understands. His father is in jail, but his father DID do it. Irritated that they'd go so far for nothing, Kyren pulls out his money, which they take, pointing to the door for him to "Get out."

"Not without my change," he waits, refusing to leave without his hard earned money. To him, $10 is a lot of snacks. "GET OUT," they yell.

By that time, the police arrive having been nearby and looking for trouble. Not many questions are asked. Kyren is grabbed and forced to the ground on his knees then his stomach by two officers who use their full body weight and force his arms behind his back, yelling at him to "STOP RESISTING." Meanwhile he yells, "What did I do?! I didn't do anything! That hurts!"

They get rougher and Kyren yells out, crying as he can feel pressure on his arm. It twists in an unnatural direction. "Shut up," they yell, kicking him in the side, holding him down as he flinches, feeling like he may need his old asthma pump. It takes the distraction of a car rolling by bumping Fuck the Police, shooting their police cruiser in the side with a big bright blue paintball for them to ease up enough for Kyren to fight, bucking, flipping over and dashing out, making a run for it on foot as they chase him. They hop in their car following him with a report that he'd stolen from the store. When they catch him, they throw him down on the ground and he rolls away, escaping again because he's too quick and active for them to keep up. On foot, he runs to the place he's heard from friends his age living in bad situations. They said that when they couldn't be home, this place was safe. He ran there hoping it would be safe for him and when he got there, he panted giving a brief summary of events to the three behind the desk. They pointed him down a hall and he ran until he saw a big man in a suit who looked strong and smart, like he could help.

"I just kept running," he says and the lawyer nods. Shaking your head, you go back to find Erik.

"Do you understand now," he asks as you stop in front of him. He's still seated on the desk. "Why I need your help. Shit is real out here.. You got the power to do shit and you ain't using it.. I want you to see this up close. Look in these people faces and say you ain't helping me do exactly what needs to be done."

"What? Don't act like I'm some great black hope," you snap. He's not about to pull this guilt trip on you again like he's so noble and you're an Aunt Tom when you've felt his bloodlust and seen it clearly in his eyes. Yeah he has a plan for good but he also has a mind for murder, something within him that you can feel so strongly it's like it's inside you. You shiver. "You're so full of it," you mumble. "Don't flip this on me! I SAID I'd help you once so I will. What YOU do with this one time determines if and HOW I help you again." Stepping closer you whisper, "So if I were you, I wouldn't lose my cool just to sock it to the man once and feed my bloodlust."

"Be very careful of how you talk to me," he warns coldly. "Everything I do is for my people.. and some hairdresser.. with no life experience outside of Georgia and minimal knowledge of politics, war, foreign affairs, police, law," he counts on his fingers, "..ain't finna tell me SHIT about how I need to fight. Tuh! Either you with me... Or you need to go cuz you don't even wanna BE in this area right now if you ain't."

"You think you're gonna punk me is that it?" Your head cocks to the side to send him a message. He can't intimidate you, hairdresser or not.

"I'd think very carefully," he warns. The others keep their eyes averted like they can't see or hear, the air thick with discomfort.

"Is that a threat?" You step forward. "I think you know where I stand, but I'm not a weapon and I won't be used by anyone but God. You, Killmonger, are no god."

Donnie sighs, getting up. "I'm bout to watch some TV, D, join me in the lounge.."

"You know what, I'm going too," you announce as they look at each other. Leading the way you're the first to go.

@thickemadame @just-juicee @kenbieeereadss @honeytoffee @abeautifulmindexposed @fd-writes @justgetitoverwith0

Paragraphs got jumbled on transfer but I fixed them.

#original #erik killmonger #killmonger #erik killmonger x reader #erik x reader #erik stevens x you #erik stevens x reader

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antivirusprogram2020 · 4 years

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I am an antivirus program (2020)

> CHAPTER 2 The new human type cannot be properly understood without an awareness of what he is continuously exposed to from the world - Theodor Adorno. Minima Moralia, 1951 We can not change the medium as the medium is predicated on the message (use my square space code for a 10% discount)- we are fixed in this web 2.0 and the control of knowledge will be met with the streamlining of UI and UX design. Design tools like the adobe programs will continue to increase their premium and their monopoly hold on the design space - to be a designer is to be implicated with this process, regardless if you pirate software or notThis is where I raise flags against the tepid conglomeration of blog sites and web in general, the astroturfing of the internet has only amplified the feedback of Graphic Design. You’d typically call this commercial design. Commercial design fits the criteria of an evolving media world, “It is important to note that this ultimate stage of pictorialization was a reversal of pattern. The world of body and mind...was not photographical at all, but anonvisual set of relations”1. Commercial Design started to drive an efficiency science behind it’s aesthetic - you make the access mode immediate and your engagement success is far higher, and you do this through the pictogram, and when photography came about, that too was made into a design appendage. “To understand the medium of the photograph is quite impossible, then, without grasping its relations to other media, both old and new. For media, as extensions of our physical and nervous systems, constitute a world of biochemical interactions that must ever seek new equilibrium as new extensions occur.”1 This is potentially a valuable understanding of media, and thus design, presented by media theorist Marshall Mcluhan, commercial design (and all art and design in a sense) are schizophrenic presentations of the world, they accumulate meanings outside the presented scope of an advertisement, or typography - they link the relational experience of the mass media consumer, as Mcluhan states. However, this is not all, he states an ‘equilibrium as new extensions occur’ - in my context now this weighs with a great importance, we know the new extensions already, something that Mcluhan unfortunately didn’t get to experience fully, and that’s the web, the modern computer, the pocket mobile device. These are in their own rights mediums, your OS (operating system) is a computer language medium that dictates other program mediums, the access mode to the rest of the systems of design, websites contain live feeds and streams to distant realities, it’s all so lucid but at the same time it feels like an astral projection. At times this can feel nauseating, that collapsing feeling of ‘space’ and ‘time’. This presents a wider problem with modern design, technology has embedded itself into the core of the practice since the dawn of paper and pen, stone and chisel etc. The problem being that while technology has stopped gapped connectivity, it refuses to go further - refuses to return the creativity of a design practice unless commandeered. This has led to the necessity for the designer to code, and script, to kit bend and utilise AI - once again “fragmenting” the work role. “Under conditions of electric circuitry, all the fragmented job patterns tend to blend once more into involving and demanding roles or forms of work that more and more resemble teaching, learning, and “human” service, in the older sense of dedicated loyalty.” Graphic design namely has done well to adapt and reshape, showing its versatility in the age of digital design. Not only that, it hybridizes aesthetic models much like a fashion season generates new styles, which keeps design itself fresh and alive, while sometimes slipping into the contrived and over-saturated. But is the “human” service really what Graphic Design is becoming? It certainly hints to this with the proactive design studio model. Interaction and Bureaucracy, it’s an efficiency tactic. All design requires hierarchy even if that hierarchy is to not have one. I see the office space, I remember the spider plant, I see the shore line, I see the whitecaps. The workers space is a micro-territorial space of capital politics and a grab for faux socialism in most cases, in some, it is an honest attempt to form comradery - the cafeteria is an effective grounds to reinforce or detourne this thinking. People like artist Olafur Eliasson effectively install a commons space for the studio team to interact and communicate, job roles are made equal in that space. “The studio, as much as we don’t like it, means working in your own little departments, compartmentalised. And there are hierarchies even though everyone’s a part of the democracy. The kitchen is a nice leveller.” It’s a universal ideology that falls into a majority of Eliasson’s work that provides an effective future-proof for how the operations of studio practice should be carried out (see the Auteur myth). My cynicism is only symptomatic of the consumerist prerequisite that allows design to exist in the first place - a degree in the topic definitely is met with a careerist sentiment, to be financially viable within a milieu of art and design subjects. Graphic Design should not try to divorce itself from this grouping, it stands stronger with the complex wovings and multitudes that allow it to bloom as an individual practice that arranges the practice of others. The efforts here are a concern with the design practice no less, and how ethics and politics are sequestered by a shifting responsibility of effects, how and why Graphic design mutated into the corporate virus that it is now. ”All media work us over completely.”8 This is Mcluhan’s sentiment from his writings in the 60’s, and It stands up true to this day, more so than ever. Algoration (the use of data algorithms to curate a web feed) are notorious and globally implemented into most ‘social media’, but outside social media, it’s used as predictive data. This is the “reversal pattern”, Graphic Design puts a face to this slippery coded underbelly. The automation of design media has become an efficient business strategy to overmine its user base data, and subsequently requires illustration. To be concise, the study of the Graphic Designer is in part the study of Media, the study of media is the lens of relational activities and connectivity. And this is the permitted virus. Adversely, the antivirus program is a research protocol invested in studying the autonomy available to a Graphic Designer, and an extended hand to all fragmented sectors that require a similar reclamation. Language dictates media – media manufactures consent, therefore language manufactures consent. A small quibble no less, that the Graphic Designer goes to bed with media every day. And in the morning they arise with vast spawns of editorials, emailing lists, content posts - lots of fucking content posts by content creatures. The homogeneous sprawl of media is a compounded expository of new design conditions. “Today, the mass audience can be used as a creative, participating force. It is, instead, merely given packages of passive entertainment.”8 The passive entertainment is reflexive of its audience, an audience that is content on not being challenged when engaging and consuming media, not being challenged when creating and releasing it - the language logic is a false preposition - things don’t have to occur in the forefront of our percepts, media can be a stealth operation for critical theory or a dog whistle for nazis. Even a glass of milk is steeped in meaning. “The photograph is just as useful for collective, as for individual, postures and gestures, whereas written and printed language is biased toward the private and individual(s) posture.”1 Mcluhan and designer Rapheal Roake seem to fit perfectly in collusion with one another here, “All design is a political act”, this fits Mcluhan’s collective principle for the photograph precisely, as this explicitly gives backing to the relational dynamics of media itself, it sits in the collective sphere - the global village. It all begins to feel like a fever dream, the spectres of Helvetica, Comic sans and Papyrus jumping on your chest as you’re paralysed in a waking dream. Blink and you’ll miss the horses head 144hz refresh rate. The grid settings of your life are closing in tighter and tighter as you cant kern in a moment for peace, please adobe I’m plugged in to your creative cloud let me use my kettle already, yes dear, they’re wacom tablet plates, we threw out the cutlery and replaced them for tote bags and ironic panel hats. The decoherence of the 21st century is here and it’s got anthropocene smeared all over its lips. Everyone wants to fuck their OLED displays, the screen is constantly flirting with me, it bulges and writhes along with it’s circuitry like an obscene Cronenburg slide show, and with a tilt of the hinge, it rips my hands straight off the bone. It’s simultaneously psychosexual and completely meaningless, but there doesn’t seem to be any Big Other alternative, can you see the demons wearing the guise of post-modernity, and where they emit a solar flare? Just tryna game the system can’t you see, if I shake it at just the right moment, at the right angle, I’ll get an additional diet coke. You don’t understand how fucking much I like diet coke. A man who finds himself among others drinking diet coke is irritated because he does not know why he is not one of the others drinking diet coke. I have graphic design Stockholm syndrome, what do you mean you don’t know who Gerrit Noordzij is? At this point going outside will trigger my flight or fight response, I’m afraid of being swooped by seagulls while I’m bound on a rock, I sleep in a bed with a faraday blanket, I’m absolutely glowing, washed in sunlight. “As for the anticipation of reality by images, the precession of images and media in relation to events, such that the connection between cause and effect becomes scrambled and it becomes impossible to tell which is the effect of the other” These collective postures translate into all modern media and are littered with effects. One is singular and rhizomatic in any given instance of engagement towards media and the invisible hand of the ‘designer’. And on the contrary the medium is an assemblage of arborescence and is later politicised in the factory line assembly - a by-product of ‘essential’ capital labor. The capital fiction is overwritten by the post-market mythos of a company and it’s figureheads, it’s in-house publishing team use individual members to feature in nice magazines. Effects, we are overcome by so many different effects daily, to the extent that we become desensitized to the potential the subsequent causes and effects, modern reality makes sure to compound these consequences of media to a sensory overload of hysteria, the neurotic ones take to pinterest to organise themselves. We like to order things, It gives clarity and comfort within the dysphoria and entropy of our lives, pinterest, tumblr, are.na, instagram are all negentropical solutions in an overstimulated digital environment. “Instant communication insures that all factors of the environment and of experience coexist in a state of active interplay.”8 To understand this I need to clarify that the medium, the message, the photograph and all subsets of visual and nonvisual information are communication - it goes without saying - but this establishes the politicised and astroturfed space of Graphic Design, a designer is expected to make commercially viable work to thrive, and usually this is achieved by co-opting styles to any degree appropriate to a brief. This results is the parody, the hyperstition and hyperobject - an overly ironic and self aware ventilation apparatus that keeps the gimmicks of Graphic Design alive. The overtures of a design piece can appear stark placid and regurgitated. It’s very much easy to default to a ctrl-c, ctrl-v automation process. Reinforced no less by an autodidact push of some educational institutions - more concerned with juggling design briefs than focusing their teachings on a core design system (despite their ever love for the Bauhaus - yes huni the library is open). Of course, with the new emphasis on a technology dominated world we are expected to rely and reinforce the techno-dependent designer (work smart not hard). And we are yet to catch up to this mutation in design, where design was once a phylogeny of different features that collected to assume a physical medium, centrered on type, constrained by fibres and ink and oil - these components have congealed onto the Macbook, the ergonomics of physical/digital unbound the Designer from the difficulties of a physical medium. So why do we remain in the realm of rehashing typefaces and conventional media, why are we tied down to the revolving doors of design trends - surely now than ever we have all the components, all the tools to produce new design movements, this can’t keep up “When the circuit learns your job, what are you going to do?”8

#antivirus #ual #graphicdesign #art #line drawing #stock #stock image #meme #chapter 2 #ANTIVIRUS%20TEXT

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7-deadlysins · 5 years

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renjun — bf headcanon [instagram edition]

• first thing is first: part of the aesthetic club (which includes him, jungwoo, kun, doyoung, johnny—has a dark theme going on & yuta—has a winwin theme. duh) but even out of all of them, renjun is the most dedicated & neat (spends HOURS editing at times)

• edit GOD. he even edits your pics for you (everyone always asks him what apps he uses but he lies and says "i just fool around on vsco or whatever" homeboy just doesn't wanna share his secrets)

• vScO oR whAtEvr stfu renjun bought a whole photo-editing tool kit app

• extremely selective of who he follows, who follows him, what he posts, what he likes and what he comments under

• has not accepted haechan's follow request yet (🐍🐍)

• RAREly comments, usually only likes posts. but if the boys ask him to "comment under my pic" he's the smartass that will comment "under my pic" 😐

• on the rare occasions that he does comment, it's always a roast, and the boys are like: renjun at least like the pic if ur gonna roast me

• comments under ur pics religiously tho (sometimes it's sweet, sometimes it's roasts)

• never responds to any memes you tag him under

• but expects you to respond to every single wtffunfact post he tags you under (tags you under about 20 a day)

• follows a handful of life & philosphy accounts, judges which ones to follow based on their feed

• but only follows abt 7 of the other members, has not followed back the rest (doesn't even want to accept haechan's)

• always ends up spilling tea/ exposing them in the comments and the other boys are actually tired of his shit

• although his posts are neat, his ig story is a MESS (usually it's using your face as a meme 99.9% of the time)

• sometimes rants/ shares personal anecdotes then deletes the post an hour later. HE's so annoying

• if someone dms him, disregarding and not being considerate to the fact that he's dating you, he will pretty much send them a handful of savage memes and end their social media life

• HATES when his friends tag him in badly edited group photos (he will untag himself. thank u, next)

• loooooves taking off guard pics of you. sometimes he gets a little philosophical and grateful while doing so, bc he notices little but more detailed things abt you, like the color of your eyes changing in the sun

• these moments will actually have him weak in the knees. dont call him out, he will die of embarassment and attacc you

• kinda uses his "passion for photography" as an excuse to look at you (through the camera screen) for a long time without having to look away or be embarassed

• sometimes takes too long trying to get the perfect shot of the food & ends up annoying you a little

• but bc of his need for aesthetics & his hobby of taking pics, he's introduced you to amazing places: museums, gardens, parks, libraries, cafés

• will do everything to get a good shot of you. once he laid on the concrete, one hand tryna take the pic, the other carrying a flashlight, trying to get the perfect shot (T^T)

• bc of that, everyone asks him to take pics of them (expecting it to come out the way ur pics do)

• but renjun takes blurry pics of everyone else. everyone gets mad, he laughs like a devil and that's about it

• you're his muse and honestly it feels good to have a bf that hypes you up, and supports you rather than one that doesn't !! yas embrace it.

• overall, he's actually so creative and one of the most supportive, funny, loving and WHIPPED bf of the century

• his ig consists of mostly you, books and museum paintings more than himself

• if i haven't said it before:

• WHIPPED culture

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materialgirlsfanfic · 6 years

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Chapter 10: Affordable Prices To Pay...(Pt. 1)

KIERSTEN

“Boy you’ll be the death of me, you’re my James Dean you make me feel like I’m seventeen…” - BEYONCE X RATHER DIE YOUNG

TWO MONTHS LATER…

“Sweetie, like always when you get into one of your moods you dip off, and close everyone off like we can’t resolve things like adults. Call me back.”

…..

“Bitch! I want to actually see you, IN person for brunch this weekend, mmmkay!? You got London on the verge of tears talking about you keep blowing her off, and even my dad has been asking for you! The project is not that deep, ain’t nobody about to be playing hide and seek with yo’ ass either. Call me hoe!

…..

“Hey Kiersten, its Jessie. Just checking in to see if we’re still good for Friday, at 7pm. We still have to discuss the little things like donors, designs, and the guest appearances for the show. But no worries! We’re almost done with everything. See you soon!”

….

“Hey, sweetheart. It’s dad, I know you may be busy with school, and your work but I wanted to discuss some things with you. I don’t like going this long without out talking to you sweet pea. Let’s do dinner Sunday. Love you, call me soon.”

…….

“Honey, I’m doing an interview with Vogue for Models On Duty, and I’ll be teaming up with June Ambrose and Ashley Graham, I’d love you to be involved. June asked for you. Being as though you aren’t answering me at least. Call her. Back.

……

“Baby girl, I’ll be swingin’ your way shortly. Give me like an hour. I had to meet with this nigga to discuss somethin’ for the club, you know how that goes. But I’m ‘bout to stop at your favorite spot. Let me know what you want.”

……

“It’s your mother again, you know the one that brought you into this world. That was in labor for 16 hours over you Kiersten Stephanie Whitaker! You’re really behaving despicably! Two months! People are asking questions and growing concerned honey, Please!

…….

She was never fond of pet names. Terms of endearment made for coddling, or pacifying sometimes expressed in a condescending manner that made her blood boil. Well pet names from her. She placed her phone down after shooting a few texts out, and deleting the majority of voice messages.

Amongst the seven, three voicemails belonged to the woman that birthed her that bordered hysteria, even at the calmest level of her tone. She could picture Fiona Whitaker swallowed in the high priced mansion where the walls were caving in with her stricken with loneliness. Where she was accompanied solely by a wine bottle, Marlboro cigarettes and a broken heart. Coping methods to perpetuate the sickness that will certainly take more than medical assistance to cure. She was sweetie in a drunken slur on most nights, honey when anger was on the surface of aggravation, and love when on the brink of being dismissed for what her mother deemed as a trivial manner.

Kiersten grimaced, setting down the chiffon material meant for sewing, that she couldn’t even attempt to make happen. She wished the internal battles didn’t always make her the common casualty from her mother’s assaults. So much so, the name coddling was salt poured onto more opened wounds. I’m not a child. Slightly started, she felt the calloused hands caress her shoulders that trailed to her wrist, and finally her hands, spreading them out beneath his large ones.

But when he called her baby? Mmm. Spoken in that gruff bravado was enough to make her knees buckle. The warm fuzzy feeling of contentment growing fonder these past months as she inhaled his distinctive scent of wood and spice.

“What you in here stressin’ about? I can feel that shit all the way from the other room.” Was her transparency that evident? Kiersten smiled smally as his lips reached her temple causing her to get further cocooned.

“I’m not stressing.” What a lie, Kiersten. Do better.

“Oh, yeah?” She could feel Messiah’s eyes boring through her as she attempted at pulling away. The makeshift desk on her vanity made up of her sewing machine, and kit only providing but so much room for her to find an escape out of her gratefully enormous walk in closet. Or as Messiah would put it: ‘Your couture bedroom’. His pronunciation of couture (CAH - tour) always causing to giggle like an idiot.

“Yeahhh.”

“Nah, stay your little ass in place.”

“Come on‘ Si, I’m working. No interruptions when we’re in our zones remember?”

“Na. I ain’t tryna hear all that baby girl. You been in here too quiet, for too long…” She felt the scruffiness of his beard nestle close to her face as they both looked into the vanity mirror, cheeks pressed together. “Damn you’re gorgeous.”

“Thank you. I appreciate that soooo much. Now, move. I wasn’t quiet but moreso focused.” She pointed down to the mop of materials to sew in front of her. “As you can see.”

“Come on mami. Come take a break.”

“Nooo, Messiah I have a deadline. You’ve been distracting me enough!” She was becoming accustomed to this… routine of there’s for lack of better words. Conforming to the ways of a hermit, Kiersten for the past month shielded away the outside world as she remained ducked and hidden in her condo. With only the exception of classes, work, and random trips to Mood fabric store, she limited herself of any social interaction. Her excuses being senior projects, creative assistant duties, and lastly the silent emergence of depression coasting that she couldn’t get a hold of. So like usual she figured solitude the best remedy. But not to London, and Brooklyne who have boarded stalking by the definition. And she couldn’t blame them. The only form of communication she was accepting was rushed over phone convos, scarce FaceTime calls, and texting at best. But a particular gentleman, a Brooklyn specimen, who wasn’t accepting the limits Kiersten was dishing out, wanted all in.

So from random pop ups, to persistent contact of the physical kind, he was the only one she was really allowing access.

But having a man of Messiah’s caliber coexist in her presence, and actually wanting to be there, was still mind boggling. Wanting to provide an ear, offer consolement to even something so trivial as a missing earring. Where, as if it was second nature or a necessity for the completion of his day, having to know the condition of her well being, and being in close proximity to receive it. Not to mention he always wanted to touch her. Always.

She inhaled a soft breath feeling herself being lifted and pulled to his steel chest, where a pinch to her ass cheek was then given, causing her to squeal.

“Eeeeee! Messiah, stop! Wha- for one I’m entirely too heavy for this, what are you-?”

“Shut that shit up, it look like I’m having a hard time holding you?”

“I didn’t say that, Messiah. I just…okay. I can spare an hour then I have to get right back to work. You’re so impossible, like seriously.” Wedged between the rock solid arms of him, was Kiersten escorted to the confines of her kitchen and sat down on the cool surface of the countertop, causing her to tug at her shorts. Exasperation was displayed as she watched him pull out various items from her cabinets and freezer. So much for that hour break.

“You know what you need, Keeks?” It wasn’t a guess that the question was posed rhetorically, but she now found herself contemplating heavily. What do I need? Her feet swung back and forth waiting, while allowing her eyes to latch onto the define muscles of his back as he maneuvered around the kitchen preparing a meal she had yet to identify.

“Besides these cute fuchsia Manolo pumps I seen, today?”

“…To get out this house…a peace of mind.” They were face to face now. Him coming towards her with a bowl filled with mixed vegetables, and a neutral expression that bordered him examining. Kiersten figeted reaching for the bowl to occupy her hands that she nervously toiled together looking back at him. But he dodged it out of her reach, and locked her in between his hands that framed her, setting the bowl by them. “How long you gon’ be hidin’, usin’ work as a scapegoat?”

“That’s not what I’m doing. So don’t…don’t try and psychoanalyze me, ‘kay?”

“That’s what you think I’m doin’? ‘Psychoanalyzin’ you like you some nutcase, or I’m a shrink?”

“Messi-”

“Nah, fuck that. So I’m not ‘spose to ask these questions? Like I’m not hip to what you doin’. You’re buying time, and shit to avoid what? Tell me why I’m here, if it’s not to be concerned but your damn well being Ki?”

“Listen, okay? I just need you to be…” Here. For as long as I need you to be. With me not having to feel like the other shoe is bound to fall any day now.She felt the emergence of tears, and gritted her teeth, now pushing him back lowering her head.

“Don’t be a fuckin’ coward. We not doin’ that shit. I told you that. Talk to me. Finish what you was about to say, and look at me. You need me to what? Be here? Hold you? Feed you? What? Pacify you? Keep you locked in and throw away the key? What, Kiersten?”

“Just be present!” From that tiny place engulfed in her stomach where the grueling feeling of turmoil resided, was the shout’s source. Messiah remained unmoved and focused, waiting for her to continue. “…like now. Messiah, just continue to make me feel like I’m not going crazy, and by myself. Please.”

He nodded. She exhaled. He cooked. She watched, and the night continued as was.

BROOKLYNE

97…98…99-

“Sorry to disturb you baby girl, but you got a minute?”

Benjamin Pierre’s presence, just like his coffee, was served strong. Like the emergence of the rigid taste of the straight black caffeinated beverage on one’s tongue, as expected it was, it still took you aback. The distinction being that stern. Her father’s deep brown melanin seemingly glowed under any light that further highlighted his strikingly handsome features; the eyes that matched her own stared at her for moments of intensity, with urgency in the midst of. She placed a halt in her morning exercise of 100 plies, and barre work giving him her full attention.

“For my favorite old man, of course. What’s up, pops?”

“Fiona contacted me…” Aw, shit. “What’s this I hear about Kiersten’s blatant refusal to go home?”

“That’s what she told you?”

“Yes, so much more. But that’s just the half.” In Brooklyne’s bedroom at an early 9:43am was a stare off. Meddling in normalcy, but she was sure wasn’t to last much longer as that thick bushy brow of his rose. Following the cross of his arms, and the tilt of his head. But Brooklyne wasn’t London. She didn’t crack under pressure easily or allowed any of Benjamin Pierre’s typical courtroom intimidating tactics to shake her the least bit. After all, I am my father’s child.

“Hm, not sure daddy…that’s strange. Last I spoke to her things were fine. And she was definitely home. FaceTimed her and everything seeing she was right in her bedroom.” Yeah, to pack the last box I was to swing by and pick up to finish decorating.

“Is that right? So when was this?”

“A…couple days ago? Yeah, Tuesday.”

“Hm. Interesting. Look, Brooklyne…two things I need you to understand if you haven’t by now…” Through a sip of her chilled bottle of Fiji water, Brooklyne concealed a gulp of concern. It’s one thing for her father to intimidate for answers, it’s another when he already knew them, she supposed, and was behind the fire of checking. “I find out everything. No matter the time of delay it maybe. No matter the circumstance, I…do. It’s what I get paid for, as you know.”

“Dad-”

“So, if and when you hear from Kiersten again and she turns out to actually be “fine” like you say she is? Tell her to call her mother. Thanks, babygirl.”

Brooklyne flopped on the bed huffing heavily.

“This too much.”

———

You’re missing me, I’m missing you

Whenever we meet, we ain’t gonna get no sleep

When I get to be together with you

It’s fait accompli, we ain’t gonna get no sleep

Slick. The droplets that trailed down his steel abdominals, flexed and illuminated his cream complexion. Under the soft light in the studio his shadow trailed closely behind as it remained in sync with Janet Jackson’s “No Sleeep”. Brooklyn seeped in light breaths, as she remained tucked away and hidden by the barre. Taking peeks was growing tiresome like her thighs, she surpassed a little warm up to get started. At this point she was truly stalling. Why am I even doing this?

“So, we startin’ from the second verse…you ready?” Lord knows I’m not.

“Mind explaining to me what’s this for again? I’m not a hip-hop dancer, we know this.”

The heat of his body radiated onto her own as he stepped forward and stood behind her. There in the ceiling to floor mirror was the detection from Brooklyne’s view, trouble. Not a simple attempt of a duet or a pas de deux rather insisted by his mother, her instructor from hell.

“As you know The Joffrey Ballet intensive my mother is instructing has a hiplet component. A mix of hip-hop an-”

“…and Ballet, Tahj. I know, hip-hop on pointe shoes. Yes, she explained this. But why me? Did you insist this little arrangement?”

“Don’t flatter yourself, Brooke. She did, actually.” She turned to him and searched his face. “I don’t know…for some strange reason she has this idea that you’re good enough. Let’s get this shit over with.”

She sneered at his sarcasm, tying her hair back. An hour in as she began feeling perspiration coat her skin, she was finally able to blur out the ridicule she felt. Taking this exactly for what it was which was simply a dance demonstration for a bunch of high school students that should last no more than four minutes.

“Shit!” A stub of her toe caused her attitude to look less than stellar, as she tripped into an awkward fourth position. From her peripheral she could see his bemusement.

“Don’t overextend your back like that. The fuck you tryin’ to do? Break it?”

“Since when did you become an expert of ballet? Focus on poplockin’ nigga.”

“You forgettin’ who my mother is? You been in her class long enough, to just be makin’ common fuck ups. What…” He walked closer to her side of the studio. “You nervous?”

“I twisted my ankle, right before the senior showcase…the senior showcase that had Juilliard talent scouts, and the director of Ailey in the audience. Guess who was accepted to both? Tahj…don’t insult me. Can we start from the top, please?” She went to her cue in stance of releve with her arms in Egyptian pose.

“…You were perfect.” She would’ve missed it, had it not been so quiet you could hear a mouse piss on cotton, as he muttered it so quickly.

“What?”

“You heard me nigga…that’s what got you accepted, right? Now, from the top.”

#i know it's been 234 years :((((#Clermont twins ff #theclermonttwinsff #heather sanders ff #chris brown ff #chrisbrownff #asap rocky ff

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jessicakmatt · 7 years

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STREETRUNNER: Always Keeping the Play Button A-1

STREETRUNNER: Always Keeping the Play Button A-1: via LANDR Blog

Certified platinum producer STREETRUNNER shares the process behind his Grammy-winning tracks.

Y’know those tracks that makes you feel like you just popped 10 NoDoz Alert Aids?

Ones with a beat so frantic, so intense, so urgent, that the rapper can barely keep up? Ones where even Lil Wayne sounds out of breath trying to maintain pace?

Ever wonder where that sound comes from? Here’s a hint – the name starts with STREET and ends with RUNNER.

A select few people get the honor of working with the hip-hop elite like Lil Wayne, Meek Mill, Eminem and 2 Chainz. Fewer still get Grammy nominations (and wins) for their work.

Nicholas Warwar, who you’ll know as STREETRUNNER, is one of those few.

But it has little to do with luck, and everything to do with a near-supernatural level of self-taught talent. From 1998 ’til today, from the MPC 2000XL to ProTools, the Miami-based producer has always done things his own way, on his own terms.

Famous not only for his work on hip-hop classics, but also for mixing, mastering and re-releasing classic Wayne leaks, STREETRUNNER’s name carries weight.

STREETRUNNER took some time away from cooking to share his thoughts on a few hotly-debated topics in modern production, like the best time of day to make music, his secret weapon for pitching tracks to rappers, and how learning ProTools affected his engineering process.

Pitching tracks to artists:

I always make sure I bring my A game. I work so hard to make sure that my play button is out of this world, no matter who I sit with. I could play 10, 15 joints, and they’d be like, “Whoa, this is fire.” I don’t do like 20 tracks in a session—I focus on one track, I make it really, really good, to where it has a very long shelf life. So this way, even if it sits on the shelf for years, you can come back to it and it’ll still be hot.

When I shop, I have the whole song formatted, I have a hook on it, I have everything to where all they have to do is come up with the verse and it’s done.

The best time of day to produce:

I’m just listening to samples man, just trying to get some ideas ready for tonight when I start working. I like to get in my zone, late night, just vibe out, make my music.

Producing with a rapper in mind:

I have certain guys that I constantly feed music to. So I try to keep my music rounded—that way any rapper can jump on it.

I like to get in my zone, late night, just vibe out, make my music.

Starting a track in the first place:

It could be inspiration, like I could hear a very good album that dropped, and I just want to start working on a beat, get inspired. Or, a lot of times, I like to get ideas from samples, or flip a sample, and then that’ll be the start of it. Different samples send you in different directions, different strides. Sometimes I’ll start with a sample but eventually get rid of it, not even use the sample, but it starts the idea.

What comes next:

Once I got the music, it’s all about drums, man. I’m very particular about drums. I really try to stay away from a cookie cutter sound, where all you hear is the same type of kits—so I try to stay away from that, and layer drums, layer sounds, layer snares, get the right sound, to where it sounds more original and less like the regular kid who just got his 808 drum kit.

I really try to stay away from a cookie cutter sound, where all you hear is the same type of kits.

Defining a memorable sound vs. “microwave productions”:

Listening to my favorite producers when I was on the come-up, they all had a very distinct sound. You didn’t really have to look at the credits. You would see, you would hear, ‘This has gotta be Mannie Fresh, this has gotta be Swizz Beatz, this has gotta be Pharrell, the Neptunes, Timbaland.’ Now it’s very hard to tell who’s doing what track. People don’t think about it like that anymore, they’re just tryna copy.

Microwave productions, you know what I’m saying?

Transitioning from an MPC 2000XL to ProTools (and how it can teach you engineering):

That was my main go-to drum machine. I bought it in ’99, and then I used it all the way through 2010. By 2012, I started messing with ProTools—but then I also got the MPC Studio, and then I got the MPC Renaissance. So I started using the hardware with the laptop—but eventually, I was just opening up ProTools and starting to do everything in there. I didn’t feel the need to use the hardware anymore, or even sequence a program or do anything on the drum machine once ProTools came out. Once I could do what I wanted to do on ProTools 10 I didn’t feel the need to do it on a drum machine, you know what I’m saying?

Especially when it came to drum programming, or getting music or samples on a drum machine—you could just do everything on ProTools. I got really good at that, but it was cool, because now I’m really good at engineering tracks too—I’ll be in the studio, and guys who are professional engineers, I’m like, “Move, get out of the way.”

Transitioning to ProTools helps with creative control:

I’ll be honest with you, it was kind of in the back of my head that I needed to [learn ProTools], but I was also stuck in my ways. I was like, “Nah, this is what I do, I jump on this MPC, I fuck shit up on there, that’s what I do.” But I knew for a fact that I had to start transitioning.

It was kind of in the back of my head that I needed to [learn ProTools], but I was also stuck in my ways.

But it worked out for the better. Because, when you go into the recording studio, there’s going to be ProTools. When you have to send in a session to get professionally mixed, they more than likely need the ProTools session. So by getting really good at working on beats in ProTools, you have the closest to the finished product, right before mixdown, that you could possibly get. Whereas on the MPC 2000XL, I was doing beats, and then dropping them into ProTools, and then sending them to get mixed, and I felt that creatively they were never mixing my tracks the way I wanted them to be.

Only a select few got mixed right. So now, I’m working on my tracks on the ProTools, I’m mixing my tracks on the ProTools, it’s like—your finished product is going to be A-1 by the time it’s all said and done.

Why you should never give up on a sample:

I got a lot of records, so I constantly go back to them. It’s crazy, you could go through the same 1000 records and you’ll always find something that you’re like, “What the fuck, how did I not sample that?” And it’s crazy, because I’ve heard people flip crazy samples and then I see where they got it from and I’m like, ‘Ahhhhh, I fucking had that record.’

So, different days, different vibes, different things you hear that you wouldn’t normally hear. Or maybe you’re putting a record on, the needle to the groove, and you’re missing that one little spot, that one little break, you know, sample riff, piano, whatever the case may be. It’s always good to revisit, see what you missed. I’ll even take a sample that I flipped ten years ago, and re-flip it, because I’m way better now, you know what I’m saying?

Influencing rappers with the vibe of your beats:

I’ll give you a back-in-the-day example, a five years ago example. When you hear Yuck, that was that 2Chainz record, the way that starts off, and it’s a sense of urgency that comes with the sound of that track, and when the drums come in.

It just depends on the vibe. Some of them are more soulful sample stuff, it’ll take you somewhere else, it’ll bring out a different emotion. But a lot of my stuff’s style is very energetic and it definitely has a certain urgency, like, ‘This needs to happen now.’ And when you rap on this, you need to rap ambitious, you can’t be lazy on this.

Even when Lil Wayne jumps on my tracks, he’s really rapping on my tracks, you know what I’m saying? I feel like it’s always brought out a very ambitious Wayne, when he jumped on my tracks.

Effects, and why “the right way” is wrong:

I honestly don’t know what other people do. I know I use reverb, I definitely use delay, but this is my thing; I’m self-taught on everything, on every level, from the drum machine back in ’99 to 2012 when I decided to put ProTools 10 onto my laptop and start focussing on my beats there. I’ve always been like, ‘Alright, lemme try this stuff out.’

This is what works for me; I get creative with automating EQs, filtering, and FilterFreak. I always use the Stereo effect, always use the reverb then maybe filter the sound with reverb, but I don’t know how other people would use it. Some people might not even think I’m using it right, but I like the way it sounds—so that’s the way I use it. Whatever feels right is the way I like it. I didn’t go to school for this, there’s no kind of training where I got to know, “This is the way you use a reverb.

For a lot of the people who went to school or got super educated on beat-making or engineering, I feel like it holds them back, and it takes away from the rawness.

For a lot of the people who went to school or got super educated on beat-making or engineering, I feel like it holds them back, and it takes away from the rawness. I feel like a lot of people—me coming from a drum machine, I feel like I still have that raw sound when I make beats, when I make music. Kids kind of skip that process and they use the same programs, like the Fruity Loops, or the Logics, whatever equipment, whatever VST or plug-in they tend to use to make beats—it limits them in the sense that they didn’t know what it was like.

For example, my first drum machine was the SD1200. [New producers] don’t know what it was like to have 12 seconds of sample time, on a whole drum machine. That’s all you had to make a beat. So you had to speed records up to 45, and then slow them down on the drum machine, and you couldn’t use entire loops, you had to use tiny sounds, and get creative with sounds, a kick, a snare, a hat, you know.

You couldn’t really sample long portions. And that’s why, when I got on the MPC 2000XL, I just kind of kept going with that method of sampling pieces and getting creative, making my own sound with samples. I never liked sampling a ten-second loop, and that was the beat. I never liked those beats when I did them. I like the more creative, chopped side of things. But I learned that from all those years of doing that, and when I get on to ProTools I use the same method in making the beats.

Follow STREETRUNNER on Instagram and Twitter so you can brag to your friends that you heard that track before it went platinum.

STREETRUNNER will be producing beats live at A3C Conference in the Loudermilk Center.

A3C is the world’s biggest hip-hop industry festival and conference, taking place Oct 4-8 in the heart of downtown Atlanta. Thousands of hip-hop fans, artists and creatives from around the world gather to enjoy over 1,500 artists including Nas, Ghostface Killah, Just Blaze, SABA, Kirk Knight, A-Trak, and more.

A3C partnered with Georgia State University’s Creative Media Industries Institute to develop the Creator Complex, which includes attend panels, workshops, mixers, mentor sessions and interviews with hundreds of tastemakers, thought-leaders and industry experts. Come say hi to folks from LANDR at the Creator Complex on Oct 6, and we’ll hook you up with free mastering and distribution.

Buy your pass today

(P.S. use coupon code landr33 for 33% off!)

The post STREETRUNNER: Always Keeping the Play Button A-1 appeared first on LANDR Blog.

from LANDR Blog http://blog.landr.com/streetrunner-studio-interview/ via https://www.youtube.com/user/corporatethief/playlists from Steve Hart https://stevehartcom.tumblr.com/post/165053499639

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