So, just to begin, I finally got my thesis approved last weekend!  I was pretty thrilled about it considering how much I’d been stressing about it.  I have made it a point in life to not stress about things.  Anything at all.  I just REFUSE to do it and, I’ve gotten exceptionally amazing at it, so you can very well imagine the level of buffoonery that must have been going on for me to get so worked up over things.  And now that’s finally over (more or less), so celebrate!

Firstly, I’d like to thank everyone in my life who had been praying for me in this rough spot.  I have experienced the blessing of having such wonderful people in my life who have been lifting up struggles that are not their own to God.  To love someone like that; to share in my fretting and make active efforts (both spiritual and intellectual) to help me get through it, is so counter-cultural and I’m incredibly grateful for it.

This, however, is not to say that the “battle” is over just yet.  I still, now, have to get through 12 pieces over the course of the remainder of the school year and based on interactions with my thesis advisor, I can see that each one is going to be it’s own miniaturised version of my prior clash of interests.  I grow more and more frustrated as I continue to uncover the depths of obsession with “conceptual thinking” the illustration program here at OCADU has become.  And, I cannot stress how much my desire is not to diminish the value of developing the ability to be creative and metaphorical, but the fact that I’m LITERALLY being told that it doesn’t matter that I can draw well is both discouraging and contradictory to what my whole experience in the program for the past 3 years has been.  Seriously, why am I being forced to take 6 hours a week of observational drawing/painting, against my will, if I can get away with scribbling something together in crayon, with my left hand?

Regardless, I have an approved thesis topic that interests me and whatever I end up (being cornered into) drawing for each piece, I plan do do the most amazing job I possibly can.  Even if the subject bores me to tears, as I suspect it may end up doing, here and there.

Now, in my forays into the bureaucratic side of things, I have been rediscovering my love for beats.  And I know how superfluous this sounds, me being a rapper/DJ/producer and all, but it’s not quite like that.  I’ve had ZERO time to work on any new material of my own.  However, I’ve also been immersing myself in the quality work of others.  While wrestling over ideas, both amazing and crappy, I found it particularly helpful to listen to stuff with minimal lyrical content and more emphatic grooves and the kinds of tracks that were most suitable for that were beats.  Hip-hop beats, more electronic grooves, beat battles on YouTube, the transitions in DJ sets, etc.

Some standouts have included: TOKiMONSTA, Sunclef, Marc Mac, J. Dilla and Nujabes.  TOKiMONSTA, however, has had my heart a lot lately for a variety of reasons.  I watched a couple interviews with her on YouTube as well as copped a couple live sets and was absolutely floored.  I long for an excitement I felt as I listened to her describe her process.  Back before I started rapping, I used to make beats just for the purpose of being beats.  And even as I began to repurpose those beats for emceeing, I still get geeked out over laying down a groove.  And I miss that a lot.  I haven’t felt it as strongly in a while, since I’ve been getting closer to finishing my album (I assume because I’ve shifted into this mentality of having to work on the beat as a complementary piece to lyrics I’ve often yet to write/finish, instead of it’s own beast).

That said, I’ve decided that once I finish my thesis (or, because let’s be honest: I’m a total gun-jumper, before), I plan to work on a beat tape album.  I have no clue where this will fall in chronology and in reference to Age Of Atlas because that guy gets finished when he gets finished, but it’s going to happen.  I have a part time job on campus and my eye on a shiny new Native Instruments Maschine Mikro so this is something I’m officially adding to my to-do list.  So watch out for it.

So, in conclusion: thesis is still a pain, though less throbbing, and I’m starting planning on a beat tape.  Life after graduation looks brighter and brighter every day.