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I have been working, sleeping, and trying my damnedest to continue to go forward with my life. As the dates pass and shit, I get more and more scared about doing my applications but also as I emailed my college professors about recommendations, I realize how fucking real this all is.

Which brings me to this post and my neglected blog. It’s been about two months and as I haven’t kept up with it as frequently as I have liked this is a project that I have actually kept going and I’m shocked because this year has been one of my hardest.

On Friday, I went to my friend’s birthday party and I had an amazing time. One of my best friends that doesn’t know her came with me and I saw my friends that I haven’t seen in a while and met some new people. Mostly stuck talking to the people I know but I missed that.

A friend that I’ve known for years, Zeba Blay, who is a film critic, a writer, and just one of the most amazing people I have had the pleasure of getting to know (who co-runs 2BROWNGIRLS) asked me what kind of films I wanted to make. It took me a while to formulate my response, not because I didn’t know, but because the feelings inside of me are so hard for me to get out.

I said a lot of what I have written in my essays, my personal statements but also things I feel are a bit too personal for them. Things I know my friends who know me would want to know. I answered with a what and a why.

Let me preface this by saying that this post is not about that really but a music video but how these two intertwine. Brevity is the soul of wit and well. I’ve never been that witty but here goes.

I love being entertained. I love movies that capture me. A lot of people have differing ideas of art and people say art is not about entertainment. I disagree. Nor do I care to have this discussion. I want to be engaged, I want to enjoy myself no matter what reaction, and I want to love it. For me, what I make doesn’t exist just to exist or to let people know that I can do it. Not everything has to have a hidden meaning so buried under metaphors–sometimes it does and I love that. But I want to be fully engaged. I want to enjoy my time.

I want people to enjoy their time. I said I want to make movies like Wong Kar Wai but in the way Amara Modu can. He came to mind because while his films evoke so much–and the first film I ever watched of his (Chungking Express in a film class) I thought was almost dreadful but when I came back to it I realized–they are so engaging, entertaining, beautiful. He’s not the only one but the non-western more popular filmmaker that I can think of. Maybe I can be like an Ava Duvernay too, who is closer to me. But, of course, first and foremost I want to be me, make the types of films and art that scream Amara.

Where am I going with this? Oh, right. So, I’m a black woman. I’m a womanist or an intersectional feminist (they’re not the same but I can’t quite decide which one suits me.) This means a lot to me because what I have faced as a black woman, as a fat black woman, as a queer fat black woman, as a queer fat black woman who has struggled with mental health issues has greatly affected my life.

You know the way we think that being sad makes us better artists, or being crazy is the base of being an artist–it’s untrue, it’s romanticizing, and it’s harmful but so much of what I have lived through has built a desire within me to put these stories out there. When I watch movies, when I look at art, they help me want to live another day. How can something so beautiful be evoked with words and movement and people? How can it crush me but make me feel valuable. I want that for me, I want that for my friends, for you, for anyone who wants to know what it’s like to have a piece of their lives reflected back at them, too. Since we often tend to miss those stories.

The movies I want to create are fun, they are heartbreaking–fucking crushing–but they are at the core about goodness. About the light at the end of the tunnel, all that bullshit that makes things worth it. They will be about moving on and staying in place. They will be about being true even if they were to be fantastical. They will be about death but mostly about life, celebrating the living even through the nastiness. Nothing is perfect, we don’t have to be. My films, my art will remind me, us, them.

I want to be proud of me. I want to be confident. I search for approval. This is a lot of why I chose a creative path. But I feel proud when I can make something on my own or with others and we can present it and people feel something, anything.

I am hurting but I am not the only one.

So on to the real winner of this post: I have been working a lot, I needed a break from constant internet because I have to work on my applications as well as no stop Starbucks customers so I missed Kendrick Lamar’s, “i” video dropping. And let me tell you–jesus CHRIST.

The things I feel for this song are immense. His personal trials through this song and the uplifting spirit is exactly why I know what I want to do. You see, Lamar dropped this in a time where black people are suffering from immense pain. We are being killed for no reason, we are grappling with the fatal reality of antiblackness, but we are living. Now, this song is (I think) not specifically about that but the candid way in which he speaks about his feelings and struggles is so refreshing to see from a black person, a black man.

The trope that we need to be strong always and don’t suffer the ways others do harms us immensely. But letting that out, letting that pain free, and showing it through music, through art is so valuable. This video represents how this song makes me feel, how proud I am of him to create this, of being black. The video is gorgeous. It represents all life but specifically black life as we see the black women and children, the dark skin black people and men. I can never take for granted when we are shown positively but also just living. The good, the bad, the easy, the sensuality, the sensitivity, oureveryday. We are not one thing, we contain multitudes and feel what others feel everyday. Live what you live, sometimes more but always assumed less. The lyrics hurt but they also help us continue on and the video expresses our ability to get free.

The song and the video are just so incredibly powerful and I am so glad to have watched this.

“Stop, stop! We talkin’ about peace. A peace of yours, a peace of mine. A piece of mind. One nation under a groove.”

everybody lookin’ at you crazy what you gon’ do? lift up your head and keep moving or let the paranoia haunt you? peace to fashion police, i wear my heart on my sleeve let the runway start you know the miserable do love company what do you want from me and my scars? everybody lack confidence, everybody lack confidence how many times my potential was anonymouse? how many times the city making me promises? so i promise this

i love myself

“I hit Top Dawg, I say ‘I wrote a record for the homies that’s in the penitentiary right now. I also wrote a record for these kids that come up to my show with these slashes on they wrist saying they don’t wanna live no more.’ If I say something this blatant, this bold, this simple, they can take reaction from that, they can lock your body, they can’t trap your mind for my homies that’s in the pen. For the people that’s outside they have something more to live for, it starts with yourself first, and you won’t be thinking all these negative things that’s completely corrupt in your brain.” (interview)

one day at a time, the sun gon’ shine

“Director Alexandre Moors stated in an interview withRevolt that the whole video was inspired by Ernie Barnes‘ Sugar Shack andthis scene was inspired by The Joker in The Dark Knight.”(rapgenius)

i went to war last night with an automatic weapon don’t nobody call a medic i’ma do it til’ i get it right i went to war last night, i’ve been dealing with depression ever since an adolescent duckin’ every other blessin’, i can never see the message, i could never take the lead, i could never bob and weave from a negative and letting them annilhate me and it’s evident i’m moving at a meteor speed finna run into a building, lay my body in the street keep my money in the ceiling, let my mama know i’m free give my story to the children and a lesson they can read and the glory to the feeling of the holy unseen seen enough make a motherfucker scream, “I LOVE MYSELF.”

i lost my head must have misread what the good book said oh woes be me, it’s a jungle inside give myself again til’ the well runs dry

Listen to the song, watch the video, read the lyrics.

First post on medium it’s really qt…also posted this on my wordpress.