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“Brooklyn…better yet know as Crooklyn”

It’s been awhile…just busy with life but still intend to update so stay tuned…for now enjoy the pixels - snapped on a 35mm around the turn of the millenium – back when life was simple!

 

“I’m the B, the R to the double E-D and”

- MC Breed passes a way November 23rd 2008 -
I can still remember when that first MC Breed cassette came out – rewind to the summer of ‘91 to Paris Audio when it was in Orchard Park (sorry kiddies only OG heads will remember).  The cassette came out on some independent label (S.D.E.G. Records) and from the look of the cover you could tell it was on some low budget/hustle out the back seat of the car variety but that didn’t matter that cause as soon as I heard ‘Ain’t No Future In Your Frontin’ in my homeboys benz that was it, it became the anthem for the summer…everywhere you went you could distinguish that familar Zapp sample intertwined with that horn and you just knew it was legit…still to this day I get nostalgic when ever a DJ spins that local favorite. That song got just as much rotation as some of the certified classics of the early nineties, plus he was from Flint so there was an instant (local) connection to us kids. It took a minute but Breed was eventually recognized by the rest of country as a  force in hip hop culture and even the most grimey B.C. kid could only crack a smile when they saw Breed along side 2Pac in that ’Gotta Get  Mine’ video knowing that a Michigan dude was getting love from across the country. Eric Breed continued on creating music but the sound became more watered down and mundane and most heads stopped following his career. As the trends changed and the different sounds and styles became more popular, an MC like Breed got lost in the shuffle, but I’ll never forget ’91 and how one local dingy cassette tape out of the Flint became a soundtrack for a bunch loose cannons from Battle Creek. So with the news of his untimely death on a cold November morning take a minute and reflect back to the days of ‘91 when ‘Ain’t no future’…the song that made everyone want “Motorola phone, fat rims and a Kenwood” and give the man his propers. R.I.P.

MC Breed Top 5 of all time complied by yours truly…
1. Ain’t No Future In Yo Frontin’
2. Kickin’ It (check the dope Eddie Kendricks sample)
3. Brother Sister (from the Zebrahead Original Soundtrack)
4. Caps Get Peeled w/ MC Eiht (DFC album)
5. Gotta Get Mine w/ 2Pac (Breed’s 2nd album)

 

“Alchemy: Heal your pain with art, learn to use it”

Circa ‘97…Analog to digital…Just some random art thats been collecting dust in my blackbook…Original organic stylings from Vital.

 

“Leave That Similak Alone… Breast Feed Your Seeds”

Life as a shorty shouldn’t be so ruff!

 

“No matter who you are, you can still catch a bullet scar”

Get your links on…
Original mid-nineties hip hop videos, interviews, nostalgia by way of Toronto…don’t sleep…http://www.themeaningofdope.com/

NY graffiti artist REAS has been engineering artistic eye jammies for a while now, check his site out for some cultured flavor…http://www.reasinternational.com/

Local sneakers heads have known for years about this low key/incognito Ypsi joint that always seems to have the color combos you can’t find in your local mall or the Eastbay catalog…Do the knowledge go visit them…ya heard…http://www.pufferreds.com/

Came across this Beastie Boy site…must be the most in-depth breakdown of any artists musical contributions…ever…check this site..then check your head http://fusionanomaly.net/beastieboys.html.

 

“I’m about my pixels”

Planted in the summer of 1990…selected from a shoebox of Kodak obscurity…cultivated inside a Photoshop…smuggled and nurtured into Illustrator…triple beam scaled and packaged at the honeycomb hideout…deseminated directly to the masses…Take two pulls and pass….

 

“If your stupid it’s not art”

Its been four years since the last time anyone from Battle Creek has sighted Rolo…Has he given up on the streets? Has he turned soft? Did he give up on his social ways?…Nah kiddies…Rolo’s currently serving a bid for trying to promote that ‘green living’…since he’s been vacationing in the belly, we’ve traded kites back ‘n forth and he blessed me with some original fresh installments of the contraband he’s been creating…let me tell you first hand when the kid gets out…all you part-time bedroom illustrators/graphic designers/tattoo artists/art school wannabees may want to pick a new career…I heard KCC has a good nursing programming you may want to enroll now…don’t sleep Rolo’s always been a talented artist..ask Ms. Jenkins…dude’s been making kids jealous of his pencil and paper skills since the days of the jeri curl…The uploaded images are just a sample…like those packets of seasoning that come with Ramen noodles…straight flavor. Do the knowledge…get at me if your interested in contacting the kid…Peace to Rolo…Peace to Central Street…Get home soon!

 

“My cousin died last year and I still can’t let go”

Myron ‘Tony’ Swift…I remember the first time I met this cat…It was the first day of school…Ms. Demasso’s 3rd grade class at Fremont Elementary…there he was standing in line at the door, donning a full length beige trenchcoat (you know the coat…the Redwood And Ross variety…the sign of a future CEO and/or an illicit street capitalist hustler). Myron was a combination of both, he had the instincts of a street harden O.G. and the charisma of a nine years young shorty…needless to say we became tight and navigated our way through early childhood school experiences…him putting me on to the artform of poorly copied hip hop cassette hand-to-hand analog file sharing…before it became digital!…names like the The Skinny Boys, The Cartoon Crew, Joeski Love, Schooly D (study up dunnys)…Myron was ahead of his time…dude and his younger brother were doing headspins on their coats…over concrete sidewalks during the infancy stage of breakdancing…countless hours were spent honing our best Air Jordan/Dominque Wilkins impressions. As we entered junior high (W.K. stand up!) and the inherent differences in our backgrounds became more profound, we naturally drifted apart and fell in with our own respective peer groups (crews)…we randomly saw each other in the hallways or after school and we would give each other a pound and share a laugh…but see Myron had to grow up a lot quicker then most kids his age, he was raised by a single mother and his older bother had been killed (over some drug beef) when he was still just an impressionable kid, plus he had a young brother to shield and provide for…So as natural as funk is to a crackhead junkie…Myron took to the streets to earn his income and along the way built up a rep as one you didn’t want to cross, cause as good as a friend he was, he was a better enemy, going to amazing lengths to protect what he had earned. Fast forward past the sensationalized hood tales to the winter of ‘94 outside of a session of nightschool, who should I bump into outside in the parking lot…none other than Myron (almost like a flashback to ‘85…the 3rd grade…360 degrees…a full circle) this time we casual bullshitted while smoking an El…once the blunt was finished he gave me pound and disappeared into the Battle Creek night…Little did I know, that would be the last time we would ever cross paths…two weeks later Myron was gatted down on a Northside Battle Creek street corner. At the time it never sunk in how much his life had a impact on mine, but 14 years later I find my self connecting the dots…Myron was and is an important piece of what I’ve become…he’s that throwback voice I hear sometimes in high-pressure situations giving me that encouragement to make something out of nothing…He’s that street cat that sometimes comes out of me when I’m running off at the mouth…more then anything he has enriched my social life learning curve…I’ll always pull for the underdog because of that dude! If your ever in town take a minute, stroll down the shadows of College Street and read Myron’s story it is the one scrawled in blood stained text/font on the walls and streets, while your there say what’s up to Twelve, Brent (Solo Sr.), or Corey. They’ll tell ya the same thing…Rest In Peace Myron Swift…A true Battle Creek legend…Thanks for everything Cousin!

Cuban Link of the day (crime-related in remembrance of Myron): Newstory on one of my eighties idols growing up…(Pele’)  Just goes to show you even legends are not immune to the streets…If you get a chance, check out the movie ‘The City Of God” it coincides with this story…a stark showcase of Brazillian Slums and the kids who run them…Til next post…Peace!

 

“Yo, I am not an invalid although I used to smoke the weed out”

 

    
Guest Street Tribe (G.S.T.) was a loose term for a crew of kids that grew up on the Northside of Battle Creek and happened to congregate on a street that ran from Emmett Street to Sherman Road, those kids have since become papas, husbands, felons, memories, professionals, artists, writers, deejays, fuck-ups, junkies, alcoholics, bluntheads, etc. The title of this blog ‘a tribe called guest’ is representative of my journey in life…it’s the starting line of my life…my home base…my reference point…it’s the way I live my life. I’ve definitely moved on to other places but it’s my litmus test if shit’s real or fugazi. This blog will be relevant to kids that came up and paid their dues in the late-eighties thru the mid-nineties…that are into art, politics, drugs, money, style, music, culture or any combination of the above. Time and space have moved on but I’m still evolving and growing and “living life like there ain’t no ‘morrow”, my aim for this blog is a showcase of links, scans, info, art, music, and shit below the radar that could only be typed/linked/copy-n-pasted by the fingers of a 30 sumthin’ aging b-boy/vinyl collecting/sneaker-loving/proud-papa-of-three/Ann-Arborite-by-way-of-B.C./ordinary kid from around the way, and will reflect some of the obscure/forgotten cultural nickel bags cultivated from the dusty ghettos of cyberspace. Comments/posts/suggestions are encouraged…5000!…Rest In Power – Myron “Tony” Swift…Hilda Marie Fenton   

A few links to check out…this kid out of Washington D.C…definitely some ill true school images as well as some interesting take on the cassette vs. mp3 debate…cocaine blunts and hip hop tapes.
Also peep Waxpoetics for those rare hip-hop/soul/jazz downloads…Just sekkle!!!