Birthday Greetings

On September 14th, two of my favorite people celebrate their birthdays: Darien Brockington and V AKA Honey from HoneySoul.com. Just wanted to write a lil’ blurb on them in honor of their special day.
These 2 people are the epitome of what I say all the time: It’s funny how people from far seem to be there for me more so than the people that live close.
Wishing the two of you the best on your special day and always. Love you both soooo much! xo


It’s hard to believe that it’s been 3 years since D first dazzled me on stage when he was opening for Fort Minor with Little Brother back in Feb 2006. Who would’ve thought that the dude I saw singing his ass off that night would become one of my most dearest friends. In fact, that night I was too shy to even say hi to him (even despite him walking by me a few times! Lol) so we didn’t even meet then. We eventually hooked up on myspace and got to know each other real well that way (back when myspace was THE place to be!). Sometimes I think back and wonder if I did say hi to him that night, would we be as close as we are now? I really think that it made the difference cuz if I did, he probably would’ve been just some fine singer dude from North Carolina to me and that’s about it! LoL!
Pictures Of Darien & I Over The Last Few Years

Darien’s also been there for me a lot, through some of my lowest and toughest times so I will be forever grateful for that. I can only hope that I am as great a friend to him as he is to me.



I got to know V about the same time I knew Darien and in fact, it was D that indirectly brought us together! I discovered her site, HoneySoul.com and was a regular visitor. It was and still is a great source for the latest in good music PERIOD! She had an interview with Darien that she posted in promotion of his 1st album and I commented on it. That’s what pretty much started it all. V is just a beautiful person inside and out. We are crazy with the jokes especially on Twitter and also at Darien’s expense. She and I make up a duo we call Double V and our mission is to sing background for D-Brock! She left me a singing voice mail not long ago and I swear if I still had it, I’d post it! LOL!! My only regret is that we have not met in person…yet! Hopefully that will change sometime soon.

Spread Love

“There’s no good music out there anymore” is a complaint I’ve heard many times before by folks who are dying to hear some good R&B/Soul and Hip Hop music. I beg to differ...I feel that it’s out there if you look for it. One major problem is the complainer is looking on the radio or God forbid BET! STOP!! The best place to discover new music/artists is the World Wide Web and word of mouth…at least that’s how I see it.
Back in the day especially in high school, I was a radio junkie. I listened to it all the time and I even remember sitting there with my tape recorder waiting for my favorite song to come on so I can tape it. Then I would listen to it over and over again on my walkman. (Remember Walkmans? I had one of those yellow Sony sports walkmans! LOL!) Now, I hardly ever listen to the radio unless one of my boys is DJing.
Sometimes I wonder if it’s age that makes us think that most of the music out there especially in the mainstream is shit? Cuz I’m sure my parents certainly didn’t like all the hip hop I used to blast in my room growing up.
All I do know is that once I started looking into it, I found out about loads of great artists and music from the net and through word of mouth. Some of the stuff I’ve stumbled upon may have been released a year or more ago but who cares? It’s still new to me and besides, no matter when you discover them, the artists appreciate you listening. There are tons of websites and blogs nowadays to make discoveries. HoneySoul.com was and always will be one of my favorite music sites. It’s not as popular as it was before but myspace.com opened my eyes and ears to new music and artists. I found myself interacting with like minded people with similar music tastes and would often talk about who to check out etc..on places like facebook, twitter and other blogs/message boards. I’ve even been lucky enough to meet some of the artists and can call a few of them friends as well, all of whom I’ve mentioned here plenty of times before.
This also brings me to my other point or frustration as I like to call it. As I see my friends and other artists I listen to, share their talent via mixtapes, albums, live shows and videos, I often listen/watch in awe and get irritated as to why more people don’t know about them. It really hits me when I go to a concert or see a video of a live performance. So much talent is out there going unnoticed! How can you and I help in this respect? I’ve learned that simple word of mouth works. That’s why I started facebook groups for certain artists; Darien Brockington’s being my most popular one. Whenever I talk music with friends or just people in general, I not only speak about the artists I’ve met or know personally but folks that I generally listen to. Artists like D-Brock, Yahzarah, Daru & Rena, Reggie B, Foreign Exchange, Carlitta Durand, Choklate, Eric Roberson, Dwele and Peter Hadar to name a few. It’s not all just about R&B/Soul either, there’s plenty of dope hip hop out there too: Supastition, Little Brother, Tanya Morgan, Murs, Jay Electronica and Tona etc. (I plan to post cllickable links to all the artists mentioned soon, in the meantime, Google them!!)
Some folks say that I’ve come a long way from being just a fan and I’m getting noticed, respected etc. While all that is great, I feel all I’m doing is spreading love and just happened to make some great connections with certain artists and well known soul/hip hop bloggers.
I’ve got some tentative plans in the works….things that I hope to do with regard to this blog and my love for music. If it all works out, everything will come early next year. Until then, I’ll keep on spreading the love…I hope y’all will too!

Happy September!!

Okay so I yet again disappeared from the blog and for that I apologize. So much crap went on in the month of August that if I actually wrote all about it, you’d think I’m making it up! A quick summary of it all:

• Emergencies at work where in one situation, we actually had to call the cops! A patient actually lunged at me and managed to grab my shirt!
  
• Trouble with my Blackberry then no home phone, cable and internet service at home for 4 days. Needless to say, I’ve been utterly pissed with Rogers!
• I was also really upset because of a situation that included someone using me to get to Darien, claiming he was a friend of mine when he’s only an acquaintance at best! Just thinking about it still makes me upset but unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do. It seems like the dude may fall on his face anyway so I suppose it doesn’t really matter…only time will tell.
• In my years of driving, I had never ever been pulled over by police. Believe it or not, in one weekend, I got stopped twice, two days in a row and got two tickets as well. I won’t go into details but no, it wasn’t for speeding. The other thing that killed me is that one of the times I was on my street! In fact, I could see my building from where I was pulled over! I’m fighting both tickets and I’m confident that they’ll be resolved.
• There seems to be a lot of people I know passing away lately. There are also a few friends that are terribly ill and won’t recover. We’ve had a death in the family very recently. I’ve also lost a patient who I was very close to and I’m having a hard time dealing with that too. Right now, there are 3 patients who I’m close to as well that are in the last stages of cancer. I try not to be sad but I can’t help but break down sometimes. I wish there was a way for people not to suffer.

With all that being said, I’m glad that the new month is upon us. Here’s hoping for happier times and bigger and brighter things for all of us!