Canvas

I've been written on with invisible paint. Ever since I entered the auditorium of Northeastern University almost a decade ago to encounter a rainbow of breakdancers, graffiti writers, DJs and MCs in the purest essence of hip-hop, my soul was soaked in colored rain. It doesn't come off. It moves with me, as does the darkness of that Mos Def song that the selector blended through the record needle that day. That day was confirmation that I'm only a canvas. I have never written a thing. I have only been written on. Any creation thought to be mine is just my unique display of the hues splashed about and around me.

 Passive, not active.

 From the impressions of the Spanish songs my sun-kissed Afro Honduran grandmother would sing while swaying her hips to the elongated conversations with Thaione Davis in Dr Wax record store about music and more, I am the composition of others. The sculpture appears as a passing moment. As soon as you blink, your eyes open to a transformed work of art that is not the same as that which you shut your eyes to for less than a millisecond. That sculpture is you and I. Enthralled with Reflection Eternal's "Memories" as I stir strange thoughts on my keyboard, I reflect on how Talib Kweli made me a rapper as I received him into my canvas. Common is my fingers, Neil Young is my back, and my father is my courage. My granddad must make up my head, because any faint flashes of intelligence that I may have are blurred copies of his universal of brilliance. My aunt tells me so. Mother is my eccentricity, her father is my aesthetic sensuality, and her brothers and sister are my creativity. What else will I become? That is left to what else I experience. She writes inspiration on my heart with a feathered quill, drawing me as close while my reality tells me I'm distant. Bu what she said in code on my body makes me believe that when I lie alone she is there. The festival of San Joaquin will see me bring devotion to the Virgin in hopes that she would delete the space between us. Her united state is a handgun pointing to the West, squeezed by some entity that writes on my loins, "seek her" in the blood its bullets steal from my flesh . That is what the universe has stamped upon me. With no agency to resist, I am at peace that the canvas, my life, is in the best of small hands, and trust that the world's inscriptions upon me will blow my wandering self to her bosom, persuaded by the wind as it whispers my name darkly.

The Yesteryear Tomorrow

On the way to LA this past Saturday, I was nearly late for the train that would set my foot on its soil just before sunset. I nearly missed the train, and took rapid strides to arrive on time. Usually, time does not matter. These trains are always late. But, not this one. It was right on time, or even a minute early. As my ticket dropped from the machine a few seconds after the train doors opened, I rushed on the train, holding many of the highlights of Western philosophy in my hand. I caught a glimpse of it as I was boarding the vessel. It called me to it. The postmodern textures of the train cars didn't suit my contemplative mood, a mood that can take me from future to past. I walked from car to car to find solace, but could not. Then, as I kept moving to the last car of the train, I really saw it.

As I walked into the ancient car, with the seats adorned with light brown fabric from a Wonder Years show, and the floors gleaming as the sun bounced off its vintage metal strips, I passed into a porthole leading to that which had already been. I recognized it though when it was present, I didn't exist. It was like going from 2009 to 1965 instantly. I saw the world differently through its windows. Through these transparent glass holes, I can see conservative Christian dogmas and Jefferson Starship psychedelia at war in the California palm trees. They almost ruptured at the conflict. This car was the sore thumb in a modern world, being made years earlier. I could taste the patriarchy in the air, as foul as the very center of Archie Bunker's infamous chair. Yet, the flower scent of the winds of change mixed with the stench, assuring me that life requires the picking of forbidden fruits semi blind, making the taste of both the good and evil inevitable. I felt neither peace nor war here, just contemplation. As I exited the train and entered the modern era again, I wondered what had happened to me in this short hour when I was between Aristotle, Governor Regan, and these memory laden seats. Yet, I felt that I was related to everything in the universe in this olden train car.  Is the car God? Maybe not. Maybe God doesn't know where God is because there is nowhere to be known but the all, which is nothing. This reflection makes no sense because the essence and existence upon which I reflect is beyond the rational facades you mask your own ignorance with . Just the reality as I see it. Selah.

The word of the Lord from the God.

 

Track 3 'Sophia'..Gilead7's thoughts

IF YOU HAVEN'T HEARD THE SONG OF THE WEEK, GO TOHTTP://WWW.MYSPACE.COM/ADVENTISHERE TO LISTEN TO IT.

I'm writing this from the back of Cafe Florian on 57th St. Sitting with my laptop (peace to 2nd thought, who came through with the goods). Got a lot of songs in my ITunes library. This makes it hard to decide on what I should listen to. The collection of songs overflows with creativity. So much creativity. This is really what the 3rd ADVENT song 'Sophia' is about.

We're gonna go with Simon and Garfunkel's 'Scaroborough Fair/Canticle for now. On to 'Sophia." It's a hard concept to describe (at least for me), so theologians reading feel free to add or correct me.  In the book of Proverbs, what has been translated in some English versions as 'wisdom' comes from the Greek, 'Sophia'. The original Hebrew word is 'hokmah'. Sophia can be translated as 'God's creative agent in the world.'In the Gospel of John, the term 'logos' serves a similar function (thanks in part to Philo, a Jew who had become Hellenized, and spoke of wisdom as 'logos', or that through which all things come into being) with the author of this Gospel asserting that Jesus is synonymous with God's creative agent in the world (and the 'logos' was made flesh). Sophia can thought of as the life giving and life sustaining force of the universe; the ultimate guiding reality that humanity should strive to encounter and emulate. That's what this song is all about. Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary' is blaring through my headphones right now btw. 

I haven't told you anything about the song. Irresponsible me. I.B. and I are at a point in our artistic lives where our creations need to to be recognized by a wider audience. Not just on some fame shit. We believe that our music has a significant contribution to pay to the world, with all of its joys and ailments. We have a lot to learn from Sophia, this endless ultimate creativity that impregnates the universe. So, we're not gurus who have something that the rest of you don't. We're on a journey with our lives and our art to pursue as much as we can handle with our 'feeble ass minds' to quote Reverend X The Spirit of Truth. This song is simply our speaking openly about a journey that all of humanity is on, and we 'glue our hearts to the millions, to the children that walk /their own path to find out they really wasn't lost'. That is the background of the song. 

The 'text' of the song reflects just what I've said, Let me point out some ways how. I should probably listen to Susan McKeown's version of 'Johnny Scott' while I type this part. Let's click that up. IB speaks about in the 1st verse about how his situation is '..portholes jammed,' and also references about how artists who take the road less travelled and create authentic art are overlooked. He also implies that those who chase after passing fads of music and urban culture (like many commercial musicians do) were on the path toward Sophia just by being alive but they have become sidetracked by what corrupt record labels and cultural norms have told them they should be. He says,' the gat that you raise is just a flag/you can wave it all you want, but what it mean if you don't last?' I B assures us that following the organic nature of the universe, the creative agency of Sophia, the energy of the universe, is to a large degree innate, and we can get there by not keeping up with the Jones', but following our heart. Many times, this is what leads us to that wisdom, that wisdom that is so powerful it changes in ways that allow it to give answers to whatever historical period its seekers find themselves in.

Let me take it home while playing GZA's 'Beneath The Surface.' My verse hosts me reviewing my career. You'll hear it. But simply, I planned to be a lot further than I am in my creations, like overseas, on tour, etc. But where am I? I'm '...in holes in walls where I hold the steel.' As I find Sophia, which is a never ending process, my passion to spend my life doing art for the audience of the world and contributing to a harmonious universe become one. This is a level when you can't tell where Sophia ends and where I begin.

Briefly: The DaVinci Code samples at the beginning of the track simply enforce that Sophia comes in a variety of forms from Christian to Atheist, Masonic to Pagan, etc. Sophia is NOT any of these forms, but transcends them. Also, Sophia is very closely related to divinity in the Christian tradition. Much of the tradition would say there is no difference. Sophia is a female personification,  and coincides with how God is referred to as female throughout the record. Go Bahamadia. Listening to Respect The Architect.

PS. The waitress in this joint is beyond beautiful. Beyond goddess. So be it.

WE'LL SEE YOU AT DARKROOM FOR THE SHOW ON THE 23RD>>>>2210 W. CHICAGO...FIRST OFFICIAL UNVEILING OF THE ADVENT IDEA

'Sophia' Gilead7's thoughts

I'm writing this from the back of Cafe Florian on 57th St. Sitting with my laptop (peace to 2nd thought, who came through with the goods). Got a lot of songs in my ITunes library. This makes it hard to decide on what I should listen to. The collection of songs overflows with creativity. So much creativity. This is really what the 3rd ADVENT song 'Sophia' is about.

We're gonna go with Simon and Garfunkel's 'Scaroborough Fair/Canticle for now. On to 'Sophia." In the book of Proverbs, what has been translated in some English versions as 'wisdom' comes from the Greek, 'Sophia (translation of the Hebrew 'Chokhma'. Sophia can be translated as 'God's creative agent in the world,' or the order of the universe. . In the Gospel of John, the term 'logos' serves a similar function, with the author of this Gospel asserting that Jesus is synonymous with God's creative agent in the world (and the 'logos' was made flesh, though logos was articulated as more male than female). Sophia can thought of as the life giving and life sustaining force of the universe; the essential pure and good reality that humanity should strive to encounter and emulate. That's what this song is all about. Hendrix's 'The Wind Cries Mary' is blaring through my headphones right now btw. 

I haven't told you anything about the song. Irresponsible me. I.B. and I are at a point in our artistic lives where our creations need to to be recognized by a wider audience. Not just on some fame shit. We believe that our music has a significant contribution to pay to the world, with all of its joys and ailments. We have a lot to learn from Sophia, this endless ultimate creativity that impregnates the universe. So, we're not gurus who have something that the rest of you don't. We're on a journey with our lives and our art to pursue as much as we can handle with our 'feeble ass minds' to quote Reverend X The Spirit of Truth. This song is simply our speaking openly about a journey that all of humanity is on, and we 'glue our hearts to the millions, the children that walk /their own path to find out they really wasn't lost'. That is the background of the song. 

The 'text' of the song reflects just what I've said, Let me point out some ways how. I should probably listen to Susan McKeown's version of 'Johnny Scott' while I type this part. Let's click that up. IB speaks about in the 1st verse about how his situation is '..portholes jammed,' and also references about how artists who take the road less travelled and create authentic art are overlooked. He also implies that those who chase after passing fads of music and urban culture (like many commercial musicians do) were on the path toward Sophia just by being alive but they have become sidetracked by what corrupt record labels and cultural norms have told them they should be. He says,' the gat that you raise is just a flag/you can wave it all you want, but what it mean if you don't last?' I B assures us that following the organic nature of the universe, the creative agency of Sophia, the energy of the universe, is to a large degree innate, and we can get there by not keeping up with the Jones', but following our heart.

Let me take it home while playing GZA's 'Beneath The Surface.' My verse hosts me reviewing my career. You'll hear it. But simply, I planned to be a lot further than I am in my creations, like overseas, on tour, etc. But where am I? I'm '...in holes in walls where I hold the steel.' As I find Sophia, which is a never ending process, my passion to spend my life doing art for the audience of the world and contributing to a harmonious universe become one. This is a level when you can't tell where Sophia ends and where I begin.

Briefly: The DaVinci Code samples at the beginning of the track simply enforce that Sophia comes in a variety of forms from Christian to Atheist, Masonic to Pagan, etc. Sophia is NOT any of these forms, but transcends them. Also, Sophia is very closely related to divinity in the Christian tradition. Much of the tradition would say there is no difference. Sophia is a female, and coincides with how God is referred to as female throughout the record. Go Bahamadia. Listening to Respect The Architect.

PS. The waitress in this joint is beyond beautiful. Beyond goddess. So be it.

New Gilead7 7inch record available on ReServed NOW

Yeah. Somehow I conned ReServed Records to press another project. A 7 inch vinyl too. How I don't know. It was just released a few weeks ago. Read about it and listen to snippets here: http://crosstalkchicago.com/newfeatures/featured/pages/RR010_Gilead7.htm. These songs are from an instrumental album I'm doing. Instrumental in the sense that I'm making all the beats. Other folks are rhyming on my stuff. The vinyl features Thaione Davis for all ya'll fans (www.myspace.com/thaione), who was URB's top 100 of 2005, and an impeccable musician. Nizm, and GQ Tha Teacha (www.myspace.com/gqthateacha) also show up and kill it with the slickness and the reggae. Skech 185 (www.myspace.com/skech185) is on the bside, along with Tall Black Guy (www.myspace.com/tallblkguyproductions), who ends the short vinyl ep with an instrumental. If you like, grab it

AVAILABLE IN CHICAGO AT:
Grammaphone (2843 N. Clark)
Dusty Groove America (1120 N. Ashland) :http://www.dustygroove.com/item.php?id=wcb7fny7zf&ref=browse.php&refQ=kwfilter%3DGilead7%2Bfeat%2BNizm%2C%2BThaione%2BDavis%2B%26amp%3B%2BOthers%26amp%3Bincl_oos%3D1%26amp%3Bincl_cs%3D1%26amp%3Bformat%3Dall

Hyde Park Records (1377 E. 53rd St)
Reckless Records (1532 N. Milwaukee):
http://www.reckless.com/index.php?RcSes=f71d37faa0626871025781c7ec435ec5&keywords=Gilead+7&format=&cond=&store=&is_search=true

Online/International:DEEJAY. DE http://www.deejay.de/GILEAD7-MOVERS-AND-SHAKAS-RR010__7171
PLASTID RU:http://www.msplinks.com/MDFodHRwOi8vd3d3LmltdXNpYy5kay9pdGVtLzAwMDAwMDE1NTgzNDMvZ2lsZWFkNy0yMDA4LW1vdmVycy1hbmQtc2hha2FzLTc= GUINESS RECORDS: http://www.guinness-records.com/?action_detail=true&id=21348
LOOP 23: http (Germany)://http://www.loop23.de/article/view/215765
HHV (Germany): http://www.hhv.de/index.php?rid=150761
Calamel (Japan): http://dovewax.net/?pid=11007082
Jazzy Sport (Japan): http://www.jazzysport.com/musicshop/new_release/hiphop/right.html


My 1st record, "The Darkroom: The Abandonment of Christendom," is sold here:
http://sphereofhiphop.myshopify.com/products/gilead7-the-darkroom

http://www.reckless.com/index.php?keywords=gilead+7&format=&cond=&store=&is_search=true

And digitally on ITunes, etc.

Amazon digital: (with the vintage cover): http://www.amazon.com/Darkroom-Abandonment-Christendom/dp/B000XRKXHU/ref=sr_f3_2?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1228802722&sr=103-2

The 2nd one: "Death Penalty Shots," is a digital d'load at these stores:

AMAZON.COM http://www.amazon.com/Death-Penalty-Shots/dp/B000WZ4G4O/ref=sr_f3_1?ie=UTF8&s=dmusic&qid=1228802722&sr=103-1
VIRGIN MEGA Fr: http://www.virginmega.fr/musique/album/gilead-7-death-penalty-shots-103071470,page1.htm
RHAPSODY: http://mp3.rhapsody.com/gilead-7/death-penalty-shots
EMUSIC: http://www.emusic.com/album/Gilead-7-Death-Penalty-Shots-MP3-Download/11100655.html
lRUCKUS:
GROUPIETUNES: http://www.ruckus.com/ruckus/music/album.do?from=search&albumId=1405572

Check out other projects released by ReServed Records:
ReSERVED RECORDS COMPILATION: http://www.qualityjunk.com/index.php?main_page=product_info&cPath=1&products_id=135
WORDZ/STOWAWAYS 12 INCH VINYL: http://sphereofhiphop.myshopify.com/products/wordz-stowaways-reserved-records-split-12-single
STOWAWAYS: "DO BLACK PEOPLE LIKE HIP-HOP?" http://sphereofhiphop.myshopify.com/products/stowaways-do-black-people-like-hip-hop
BOBBY BISHOP: "THE HIP-HOP ALTERNATIVE" http://sphereofhiphop.myshopify.com/products/bobby-bishop-the-hip-hop-alternative
WORDZ: "YOU HAVEN'T HEARD ME YET" http://sphereofhiphop.myshopify.com/products/wordz-you-havent-heard-me-yet

Sorry for being so long...just blogging and sharing what I do with you...a lot of ya'll ask me to let you know more about what I try to do with music cus you may just see me walking down hyde park with a hood on rushing from class to class. YALL STILL HAVE NOT SHARED WITH ME YOUR LIVES IN TYPE FORM THOUGH! I WANNA HEAR YOUR STORIES TOO..C'MON NOW!!!

Sanctify

What is the religious? What is the secular? As a person of some sort of faith, should I cruise my philosophically dirempted/fragmented/sometimes happy ass to a meeting place to commune with 'the Real' (I'm not Lacan, though that term somewhat symbolizes what I'm saying, and you know what I mean anyway) on a regular basis? Once a week, coincedentally on Sundays? My mother thinks that I should. She tells me that that's the way I was raised and that I need some sort of spiritual protection. Truth of the matter is, it's just those youthful experiences in these meeting places that pose as pit stops for the divine that I've been wounded. Artistically. Intellectually. Historically. Culturally. Why the hell would I want to go back to a place like that? Where a mediocre orator reads passages from centuries ago and gives a substandard interpretation with only his (they were dudes for the most part, that's not a pronoun symbolizing all of humanity) socioeconomic mediation. Chambers where I was told to separate myself from those who didn't believe like me, who hadn't experienced 'the Real' the way I had (or the way that they had, the way that they thought that I had), but if I make this split, then I make no split at all, for in all my separations, I only draw farther from the inseparable secular who desires to make me whole, and I it. Oh well. Going to church is ancient for me.

However, when my urban pant-saggin' walk dances me past the little, cold, dark chapel in the Chicago Theological Seminary, the ghosts that I thought I'd given up in my turn from Pentacostalism appear once again. Now they seem more real. As I kneel before the altar amidst medieval texts and liturgical unlit candles, my soul takes a warmth unfathomable. I mumble some 'prayer' to whatever 'the Real' is, and am translated, just like I listened to Deva Premal's renditions of native mantras. I then am in reality but beyond it but in it. That forth and back motion declares in symbol that when I left the church, that 'Real' had never left me. This essence, different but same, transmitted by the mayas on stone walls, the Buddha in reversion of common ways of life, and Jesus' willingness to embrace the cross, among others, bombards me. Then, as I embrace the temple of God that surrounds us all, I discover that going to church is to trek towards an idol. This sacred incision into space and time that chills my flesh in this secluded place is the same force grabbing my spirit when I grip mics and speak in tongues logos, inventing angels. People are walking by to go to the seminary co-op. Future pastors speed by the realm with thoughts of ravaging students and/or parishoners in heated passions of ilicit sex. But I forget that they're there, as I realize that the universe's essence that I live every day is only amplified in this place ony because it was intentionally constructed to speak of God. This is only the refueling. I must go out and embrace the world as the world embraces me. You may not see me going to church, but this encounter in this sacred space reminds me to always live church.

Flow of absolute

The realm divine sign theses for consumption/irruption upon modern ways of thinking/the swing of my pen leaves your favorite icon leaking/rapper theologian, whatever you want to call it/it not me just a by product without profit/the origin of this species naturally selects/the likes of MCs to check and dissect/called the elect with weapons that existentially redirect/souls to the origins and ponder if they are even souls at all/march around yo' femine walls and wait for jericho to fall/plaster judith plaskow on the mental over a heavy instrumental/subtract james cone for good measure, now central/with a thesis of nothingness like snapshots of Zizek and Walter Benjamin texts at a birds eye/i/psychoanalyse my lines and fabricate associations for what lies behind/it don't just sound good, its food for the soul/master slave dialectic where I move and take control/future process realities til the technology refigures chromosomes and restores flesh to Whitehead's bones/fuck it im human/ghoulish to useless humans losin the true shit and rhymin foolish/RZA told you to leave the Dr. Seuss behind/Now when that stlye presents itself he's the first in line/well what I tell you about icons/the church told you about icons/contrast, my words bite with the hiss of a snake like the sound of sprayed krylon/the color's multi/like the syllables i overspoil the track with/ball out the park in battle like 9th inning/return, the modern scribe's just beginning...