I've never committed these type of thoughts to any type of online medium before, mainly because I felt like the points I was trying to get across were never fully fleshed out to point where others could understand it but I feel it's all made sense now.
Honestly, the older I get, the last thing I want to be doing is working for someone. I've been through more jobs than I can count, and I've always considered the fact that the majority of the money from those jobs has been spent trying to get dreams of mine off the ground. Whether it was buying my first set of turntables and records, trying to buy quality skateboards to try to get into skateboarding in my teen years, or buying art materials like spraypaint, I've always been trying to focus on my dreams and my passions.
As I have went through college and the corporate world, I realized that at the end of the day the last thing I want to be is answering to someone or begging for someone's approval to "put me on" when I can already do that on my own with what I want with the internet and other avenues. I'm trying to be a boss. It just sucks not having that capital, but it all starts somewhere. I'm trying to put the people that helped me ot in life on and help their dreams grow instead of I respect the fact that people are doing them and doing what they can to make a living and pay the bills, but I'm trying to do something greater than that.
I've been trying to start a skate/clothing brand since high school. I've been making music since I was 13. I could of given up on those, but trying to work those avenues and putting some effort into it has brought me some moderate success. I don't think I would be able to die happy if I didn't atleast try or gave up on them and wondered "what if" after the fact.
We need more leaders and more followers. More people willing to make big moves and not answer to anybody. I want to be that person that inspires others to live their dreams cause they saw someone like themselves do it and become successful.
The ideas that Kanye was conveying sparked something...but reading some of the comments in the Kanye vs Kimmel thread really had me thinking.
Even though the members of Odd Future are younger than me, I've always respected them because as a young black male that's been skateboarding since the age of 5, it was cool to see these black kids from Los Angeles come up with something that people liked and they weren't afraid to be themselves. Same with Pharrell an his appropriation of skate culture.
I guess, it was because back in the day when I was coming up, people used to see me skate and call me a "whiteboy" and an "oreo" cause they thought skateboarding was something only white people do. My mom even told me when I was a teen back in the late 90s that she "had never seen any black skaters". But, even then, seeing some of my favorite skaters in magazines like Kareem Campbell, Sal Barbier, Ray Barbee, etc...made me realize that wasn't the case. It makes me beyond happy to see skateboarding accepted more amongst the black community, especially here in NYC.
So, I'm trying to live my dreams and try to do something with my life with my passions and share that and hopefully see some success. But we need more owners, more doers, more movers, more shakers. More people that are willing to stand on their own and do them amongst the status quo. We need people that are more accepting of the dreams of others and are willing to accept their differences and put them aside to work for a common goal.
Only time will tell.
