The Realest Ish I Ever Wrote (part un) Posted by Essence Renata , Friday, October 2, 2009 at 12:53 AM, in Labels: Random Rants of Essence

So I’m about to hit on a touchy subject. After spending two days completely immersed in learning about hip hop and it’s connections to the occult, I gained a plethora of knowledge I don’t think I wanted. I felt strange and very uneasy.. dismantled. I had to take a shower and cry. I cried when I read some of the stuff I found, I cried when the hot water hit then tension in my neck that for some reason hasn’t been able to release for the past three to four weeks or so.

I thought about my strong reaction to what I saw, how angry I was when I read the allegations of Jay-Z being an alleged devil worshiper and using his influence to secretly pedal a message of the New World Order out to his millions of adoring fans. Me being one of them. I remember the reasonable doubt poster I had hanging in my college dorm room, how every time I would purchase a new Jigga album, I would put my headphones on and bang it from front to back, the first time I heard “The Black Album”… etc. And don't even get me started on Kanye. Ego aside.. since "The College Dropout" his albums have been the virtual soundtrack to my journey of becoming a better me. See, most people would retort, why are you so upset? It’s just music. However for me, there is no such thing as JUST music… I feel as if music flows through my veins, gets inside me… I need it to live. I don’t need tv as long as I have access to my computer and my itunes… I could write for hours..music incites my muse. I digress.

I still don’t know why I cried, I don’t know what the truth is.. no one knows but him. But as I watched segments 1- 11 of the “Jay-Z Deception” on youtube.. the evidence seemed overwhelming. I found myself enraged, when the accused Beyonce (who there is no secret that I adore) of being involved of this nonsense. There were hundreds of videos breaking down each and every scene from their videos, and explaining the ties to the occult or some form of ritual or symbolism. Now, in many cases I feel as if some of this was just extremely right winged Christians, trying to scare people out of listening to secular music. Now I know that Jay’s music is not exactly clean, but come on now… Sasha Fierce is the demon possession on Beyonce? Excuse my language, but Get the Fuck out of here.

It bothered me that they singled out the most successful black musicians of today, Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye West, and Rihanna and nitpicked their every single move and gave everything a secret, hidden meaning. Maybe that’s why I cried I don’t know. Maybe it was the overwhelming amount of knowledge of evil in the world that I had been blissfully ignorant to up until that point and had been dumped upon me. I mean, I know the world is a bad, bad place, but I was really unaware of the depth of these rituals and secret societies went. Scary Stuff. Maybe it was because the videos of pastors playing a doctored version of Jay-Z’s “Lucifer” backwards in front of a congregation with stating that Jay was claiming that the message was “Murder murder, jesus” took me back to an incident that I had in church on Easter in 2006. I was sitting in a pew near the front, and the pastor felt the need to call my lifestyle out in front of the entire church. I will never forget that feeling. I haven’t been back to church since. Not saying that I’m perfect, but if you are going to call me out on loving someone who is like me… you should go down the row and hit up everyone else and their sins too. Church people are funny to me.

I know this was a very random and disjointed entry, but today my emotions were all over the place. I know you may read this and wonder why I should care and have such a strong reaction to it.. once again it’s just music, and once again I would have to rebuttal that to me it’s so much more than that. It’s what gets me through my tough work days, my workout, I make love to it, it makes me happy, makes me sad, incites tears of both joy and sorrows, can trigger memories that would other remain tucked away in the far corners of my brain, it’s the soundtrack to achieving my dreams and I associate none of that with darkness. I mean, it's not the most moral music but you get my point. I'm done talking about this now and I'm moving on to myself now. . .




Listening to "Made Up My Mind" by Lyfe Jennings as I write this, that song touches on a lot feelings and experiences that I try to tuck away and ignore. Eyes are burning with tears again... sheesh I hate emo days. I've talked to sig other about going back to church, but after that last horrific and humiliating experience I have very little tolerance for judgment and it makes me hesitant. And it's not even the life style judgment.. it's everything.. the tattoos, the fact that I have a very large ass with a large set of breasts to accompany it.. I know good and well how to cover myself up, but I can't help that I have a voluptuous figure. I used to have to deal with the looks about that too. Maybe things will be different this time. Maybe they won't. I know I shouldn't care...but the things that were said to me are imprinted on me forever like one of my tattoos.. and it's just been one of those things that are hard to shake. Always so quick to point the finger when you are not 100% right yourself. Church people are funny to me.