Career Day Taught Me: Hip Hop Is Really Mainstream
Today I visited a suburban school in Northern, Virginia to talk about my career as an author / filmmaker. I showed the students the six books that I’ve written and I even showed them the movie poster to my first film, Can She Be Saved? As an extra bonus (in case they didn’t like my books)–I brought a old copy of my magazine, Mad Rhythms. They listened to me talk about my books and my film, but they were most excited when I told them that I had interviewed Jay-Z, been to Diddy’s house in the Hamptons and they were even more excited when I told them that I had gone to Lil’ Wayne’s 16th Birthday party. Huh? These young people were in 1st through 5th grade! They were so excited when I mentioned the name “Lil Wayne.”
I guess in my mind, I love music so much, I think that its a language that is spoken only to me, but the reality is that music is a universal language that is spoken to all people. When I mentioned to the young people that I had interviewed Jay-Z, there were all sorts of “wow”s and sighs in the room. I knew Jay-Z was really, really hot with Hard Knock Life, but is he still that hot? Apparently. That was something that surprised me today.
I had a great time inspiring and talking to young people about my career as a writer, author, filmmaker. I love it so much that it never feels like work.


In the spirit of the end of the year, I’ve decided to do a series 0f 2009 9 lists. The first being this one: The 9 Most Pathetic News Stories of 2009. I read a lot of blogs, new sites, newspapers, magazines and the like. So, I feel that I have a good grasp of what has been out there during 2009. If you think I’ve missed a pathetic news story, let me know. Let’s add it to the list. I’m putting these stories in no specific order. Let’s agree that they’re all mutually pathetic.







