growNman
growNman
155 Unshackled Creativity
What up, Doe, and welcome back to I'm Growing Man, Shaman John D in the building. Excuse me. You know, I was watching this interview between two popular popular MCs, and what's crazy is that I was just thinking, like, they can't put music out because stuff gotta get clear. I think we're at the point where we probably shouldn't sign under any type of organization that could prevent you from being creative with anybody you want. And I just couldn't understand that. It's almost like this. If I signed to somebody, like, and I'm a podcaster, that they could control the content I put out if I wanted to do some, like if I wanted to go go do a show with somebody. And it was like, well, you can't do that because you got to get cleared. Clear for what? Like, who are y'all? Like, I just don't understand. Like, if I'm a if I'm creative in the musical world, and I just wanted to go make some music because I like the person and we make some good, we have some good energy, and I couldn't do it because it has to be cleared, that's wild. I like that's that's kind of I don't know why nobody's contesting that. You know, um, I think there's a lot of people that we would want to see people do music, but they can't because of certain things like that. I don't know. Maybe it's something I don't understand, but I know if it ever matriculated, that's why I won't ever sign to anybody that could control anything like that. Like I couldn't go talk to some like to a different audience because the people that I signed with got control over the content. Yeah, I think I think we have to reconsider what we're giving away when we're in the creative world of like mesmerizing people. Like they could really limit the awesomeness you could create if you can't do that because somebody else has to clear it. Yeah, that disturbs my soul just to think. Like, if I was really good at if I was a like a I'm pretty sure if I was a rapper or a singer and I was really good, I would have signed because of my position in life. I'm like thinking I need this money, and I'd be pretty much give them everything. That's crazy too, because that's that's compromising, you know. You don't know what you're giving away when you when somebody helps you along the way. So I just want people to be careful when they're chasing this distraction called money. You give away a lot of stuff that could limit, you know, how impactful you could really be. Like just imagine, imagine that the conversation I was just watching, and it was talking about something gotta get cleared. Let's say it don't get cleared, right? Those two verses together could have literally changed like another generation of rappers or anybody that's creative that likes to listen to that type of music. Like you just don't know what the combination of sounds and the energy, what people can make, that makes people feel like it'll just stay around forever because somebody is worried about money. Oh, it just hurts. But, anyways, I want to say shout out to all of you who are so cold in your craft that somebody came and paid you. You know, uh I wish the circumstances were different, but overall that's cold. Like, because I've seen people that say that they want to do things like that, and then when I learned what it actually takes, yeah, you guys, you guys deserve, you know, more than that, let's say that, because the amount of work you put in to be able to like like distract somebody, you know, just for a few minutes, that's it's impressive. And I think hopefully as artists get more mature into the game, that they don't have to give that away. Like if I wanted to if I went to China and I ran into somebody from I don't know, Zimbabwe, and they're an artist, and it was like, man, let's go to the studio. Like, I would have to, like, we gotta worry about it getting clear. Like, we might have be, we might have created something at that moment that could just shock the world. But if you're under a an organization, you gotta worry about if it's gonna get cleared. And then you, I don't know. I wonder how many, how, how many beautiful sounds of music has been in people's archives because it never got released, because it never was cleared. That's crazy. That we found ways to limit, I don't know. I don't know where that came from, but I guess just watching, you know, I didn't even finish the the interview. I was so disturbed that a couple of MCs, a couple of favorite people's MCs can't just make music because they want to and put it out. Man, and it's almost like it's just that's just what it is. And I feel like we gotta be smarter than that at this point because it's almost like you're in jail, you know, like you you locked up. I don't know. I don't like the person that clears it, what are they looking for? How much money they can make? I just don't know. So I hope going forward again that people who create music um have in their contract that they can make any and everything that they want outside of whatever they owe the actual company. Like let's say I owe you two studio albums, I can do that, and then but I can make music anywhere I want. You know, I don't know what it would look like, but I don't want to be able to make something beautiful and I can't put it out. Man, I don't know. I guess it might be some good and some bad, but whoever the gatekeeper is, why are they the ones that know what should be shelved or not, and not the artist? Because I think the gatekeeper is just thinking about how much money they can make. But there's some beautiful music that just matures over time, and it doesn't have to be an immediate, like I don't know. I don't know nothing about the game, I just know that I would hate for somebody to limit my creativity because they're worried about some type of profit. Man, but I'm gonna continue uh working on ways to um become a better communicator because like just talking about how these two MCs made me stop and everything, there was another MC. He was, oh my God, you know, I'm gonna stop. So the first two MCs I was referring to was Black Thought and Red Man. I don't know why I act like I can't say people's names. Um, maybe I don't know how they'll feel if that's how I say them. So, you know, so it was Black Thought and Red Man. So then I heard Rock Kim, he was talking, right? And he was just he was describing Eminem. He was describing Eminem, and he was just like, if Eminem was black, he could be the modern day Martin Luther King. And I was just thinking, like, why? I was like, Eminem is so cold in putting words together that if he was black, he would have a different experience, but he would have the work ethic of being able to make these words help people. Like, I think I think Kendrick Lamar in this day and age has the most potential to create words to help people heal, grow, mature, uh, be more aware of the things that are going on, not only in your own home, but in the world. And that's powerful. So when he said the modern day Martin Luther King, and I'm like, what does that look like? I was like, whoever it is, he has to be able to put words together so people can receive them. So I think not saying that I'm trying to become the modern day Martin Luther King, but I do believe communication is so important. And from what I gather, um what Rockim said, like we need we need better practices to like to be in a better position. I think now we found a way to make money different ways, but we need to work on ourselves. And I think working on ourselves deliberately will it makes you move differently, you know. Um, you could be caught in the hamster wheel of a trap that's gonna make you say God, God did this like like God don't make no mistakes. He don't, you made the mistake. So I think we have to find ways to get better for real. And and through communication, I think this is where I'm gonna go with it. Working on communication, the earlier the better. Now, as parents, I think that we need to become a safe space for our kids to be able to talk to us when whatever's happened in their life, the toughest thing that's happening in their life, that they're able to come discuss those things with us. If you're not a safe space, they're gonna get their information from their friends, and everybody knows they don't know anything, they're the same age, and their decision making is not gonna be the best. So being single parents or parents in low-income areas, it can be stressful and not working on communication, a lot of times it's a lot of yelling in a household, a lot of inappropriate language, it's a lot of verbal abuse. And I've I grew up in that, and it's not healthy for anybody. But in order for us to change, literally change our neighborhoods, we have to work on communication. When you work on communication, your kids will be able to receive a message that you want them to have opposed to misunderstanding and making mistakes that they shouldn't be having them even make anyway. Like when you work on communication, your kids can set boundaries for themselves respectfully and they can create relationships with people and they can they know who to stay away from. I never understood when they said energy attracts energy. Like you can find people that have your same energy, but the problem is if you're in an environment where arguing is is okay, and if you fight, it is what it is, like that's dangerous. And I feel like as we grow older, we find ourselves in compromise situations because we're willing to fight when we shouldn't even have to. You know, and and you know the worst thing about a kid that knows how to fight, and I talked about it in my last episode. When you're not afraid, when you feel like you can fight, you'll walk toward danger because you're not no pump. And at the same time, you're not being smart. But it's almost like when you're scared, you'll try to get away from it so you don't have to react. But people that are not scared in situations, they find themselves in some tough situations because they make poor decisions, and that's the reason why I feel like communication is so important, because if we don't teach them how to communicate effectively, man, there are a lot of gaps in life that I didn't realize because I will say I'm I'm I'm blessed because I grew up very poor. Um, my father did give me things that I don't give him shout outs for because I was just immature along this journey. And, you know, he deserved a lot. I've seen a lot in that man, you know, he's no longer with us, but I have seen what he tried to do for me. And I'm just blessed to get here because I was messing up. And a lot of the messing up was coming from the behaviors he taught me, not knowing he taught me that. You know, and we have a total different relationship than me and my father had. And I'm hopefully, you know, I've impacted him enough where when he does become a father, you know, he continues to raise the bar where he can look at me and like, is that all you did? Like he can get an attitude, like, why didn't you do this? Because, you know, going through the communic uh the journey of communication, you'll uh learn a lot about yourself. And that's the reason why you don't even you don't even need help for to learn. You can do this by yourself. You can watch one video a day on communication. Just just it can it can be however long you want. If you you can watch, check this out. If you find all the shortest communication videos, at some point you're gonna run out or you won't, but they're gonna add that the time is going to add, and you know what? You're gonna start using some of these practices in your conversations, and you're gonna get a different result. And I think a lot of times uh people don't like when you're a poor communicator, you just assume other people know what you're talking about. And that is that's where the misunderstandings come. And I think uh it's the reason why a lot of our relationships are horrible because we don't ask the right questions, we don't ask enough questions, we don't ask the questions that matter, and we assume that somebody wants the same thing that they want without talking about it. And that is poor communicating at his findings. Um but I do believe if we work on communication as like like a people, like an entire people, like mankind. If mankind worked on this communication at all levels, no matter what, the earth would would change. But we have to believe that you know that our communication can improve. Like if you don't think it's important, you won't work on it. But I do believe that if mankind did this thing, just worked on communication every single day, it'll be less misunderstandings, less disagreements, less arguing, less fighting. I didn't say fighting would die, but all of these things would decrease drastically because when you're a I'm a better communicator than a lot of people that I speak to because I work with kids, right? So I can I can see where they are a lot of the times. When you're an adult, if you already know your audience, you know you have to use choice words to prevent any type of triggering unless you're really that good and you don't have to worry about that. And I know me, I'm still working on that because I know I have uh words that trigger people, but I don't know it unless people tell me. And I try to use a lot of safe words because I don't want any misunderstandings. But again, when you work on communication, you'll give your audience, your person that you're talking to, the person you're conversing with, you'll give them grace for whatever their habits are, unless you feel like they're disrespecting you. And this is another thing when you're working on your communication, if you ever feel disrespected, you should ask them, hey, and you should say it in a tone where it don't sound like you're trying to challenge them so that they can get defensive. And then if you see them get defensive, you're gonna get triggered. So you have to go in it with like, hey, when you said this, what did you mean by that? And when they say it, you're gonna see that it had nothing to do with you. And then you like, dang, that could have gone different. I could have got mad, but I'm telling you, a lot of times we just be talking past each other, and the disrespect comes from people not knowing boundaries. And I'm watching it uh being in education. Kids play so much that somebody crosses a boundary, the other person gets mad, they retaliate, now we're fighting. It all starts from playing, playing too much, and they know, but if we teach them how to communicate better, I think that learning could happen more. But we have not, I haven't found a way to decrease the horse playing because the horse playing is real, and it just comes from a lack of communicating. So what I need to do is somehow incorporate some type of communication practices with these kids so that they end up adopting practices of I'm working on communication. Because you imagine these kids worked on communication for the rest of their life by their early 20s, late teens, they're gonna be a problem. And when I say a problem, I mean like they'll have a different outlook on life. Um, people will be able to receive their message. Um, I wonder what I could do. That's what I need to figure out. How I can show them a process of working on their communication. Like that'll be my I guess my uh my little experiment because I do believe in communication and I work on it every day because I they're my subjects, right? So I'm trying to figure out how I can say the right thing to get the best out of them to get a different result, right? So I am actively doing that. Wonder how I could give them bite-sized bites of creating a routine every single day to become this person. And the problem is, and I talked about this a few episodes ago, and I say that a lot because I've been repeating some things, but the 717. So our teachers, they got them an hour a day. Their job is to change some behaviors and give them that information in just an hour. And then when they leave school, they go back into the environment where they're practicing the behaviors that are a lot easier, nobody's gonna correct, and that's a lot of stress on any adult. Like teaching's a real job, you know. Um, I know I said that I didn't think teachers deserve the money that people be talking about. Um I think combat pay is necessary because some of these kids say the meanest things, and I just don't understand how like kids are that mean. I like middle school is by far the meanest group of people. Like that subgroup, like in every place that I've been in middle school, I have seen, and you know what, the conversations are very similar with any of my colleagues in other places that teach in middle school. Kids are just mean during that period. And I think it's because they can't communicate well, and people, so when you can't communicate well, you say things that could be a bit um abrupt. Like it could, it's offensive, um, straight to the point. Uh well people, you know, like they they they say what they mean, they mean what they say type. But there's a way you can deliver information where people be like, hmm, I can do that, versus like, why you why you say it like that? And then if you look at my face, my face looks like like I want the smoke, like I ain't the one today. And then they see my face, right? They trigger, like, they gonna not gonna back down. Now we gotta fight. It's it's like a uh it's an unfortunate series of events that could have been de-escalated through effective communication. So as I continue on my journey to um move people like Martin Luther King, um and in the movement is not just communication, it's just self-improvement. I believe everybody should work on themselves, but if there's a specific area I want you to attack, as in mankind, it should be communication so that the person in front of you knows that you come in peace and they can believe it, and they can help you if they got it, and if not, you just keep it moving. Or you create relationships where they mean something to you and you you respect everything that it that it brings, and everybody knows their particular role, and there's a different type of vulnerability because you're building together as friends or relationships with your better partner, I mean your better half or your partner. So work on that, and I'm telling you, your life will change. Make today better than yesterday. Don't worry about anything you can't control. G A T A. Get after that action, or that action will get after you. Be great on purpose.