Before I left the comfortably warm breeze of California for the bipolar weather system of New York almost three years ago, I expected what almost every other transplant anticipated once they exited that plane, vehicle, boat or other modes of transportation and stepped into a foreign land: a land of opportunity, a place to start fresh and a realm where your dreams will be a reality.

For a minute, however, I thought I had made the worst decision ever in life. And believe me, I’ve made awful decisions: it’s still a hassle to get my driver’s license to this day because of some dumb stick-up kid shit I did when I was 17.

Roughly three weeks after I moved, I was on the horn with one of my closest friends looking for reasons not to move back to Los Angeles. Coming from a place where the pace of the people rivaled the traffic on the 405 Freeway at 4:05pm, it was a bit of a rude awakening when I realized that the beloved city I dreamt of having a teenage love affair with was more The Wire than The Wizard Of Oz, glammed up by the Internets and its magical ability to portray everything as something it really is not.

It took a while to get adjusted over here, understandably. But with a little bit of persistence – and a whole heap of alcohol and weed – I eventually reached some sort of middle ground where while I am not necessarily in love with New York, I can’t really find a reason to live anywhere else. When things teeter toward the negative, though, I almost always reach for that bottle of Jack in my kitchen resort to the thing that has, for better or worse, kept me sane: music.

In that sense, I can see why there are so many aspiring artists out there. Sure, I know there are some that should not be within walking distance of any microphone at all, and of course with the power of technology it’s even easier to go from “most known unknown” to “the next big thing.” However, I know that there are many folks like you (the reader) that love the melody as much as they will love their first-born. While your musical ideas may not cross paths with my train of thought, that should never be considered a deterrence or an obstacle because at the end of the day I’m just some random-ass dude with a website that most of y’all haven’t met or even seen in person; what the fuck can I do for your life? Shake, Peas, Justice or myself may not always have the time to listen to virtually every single musician out there (which seems to increase by the day), but we will always invite those who sincerely feel that their path to greatness is through music to keep striving because at the very least it’ll keep you sane in this mad world.

Well, maybe not Shake. But we all know he hates everything under the sun.

Before I left the comfortably warm breeze of California for the bipolar weather system of New York almost three years ago, I expected what almost every other transplant anticipated once they exited that plane, vehicle, boat or other modes of transportation and stepped into a foreign land: a land of opportunity, a place to start fresh and a realm where your dreams will be a reality.

For a minute, however, I thought I had made the worst decision ever in life. And believe me, I’ve made awful decisions: it’s still a hassle to get my driver’s license to this day because of some dumb stick-up kid shit I did when I was 17.

Roughly three weeks after I moved, I was on the horn with one of my closest friends looking for reasons not to move back to Los Angeles. Coming from a place where the pace of the people rivaled the traffic on the 405 Freeway at 4:05pm, it was a bit of a rude awakening when I realized that the beloved city I dreamt of having a teenage love affair with was more The Wire than The Wizard Of Oz, glammed up by the Internets and its magical ability to portray everything as something it really is not.

It took a while to get adjusted over here, understandably. But with a little bit of persistence – and a whole heap of alcohol and weed – I eventually reached some sort of middle ground where while I am not necessarily in love with New York, I can’t really find a reason to live anywhere else. When things teeter toward the negative, though, I almost always reach for that bottle of Jack in my kitchen resort to the thing that has, for better or worse, kept me sane: music.

In that sense, I can see why there are so many aspiring artists out there. Sure, I know there are some that should not be within walking distance of any microphone at all, and of course with the power of technology it’s even easier to go from “most known unknown” to “the next big thing.” However, I know that there are many folks like you (the reader) that love the melody as much as they will love their first-born. While your musical ideas may not cross paths with my train of thought, that should never be considered a deterrence or an obstacle because at the end of the day I’m just some random-ass dude with a website that most of y’all haven’t met or even seen in person; what the fuck can I do for your life? Shake, Peas, Justice or myself may not always have the time to listen to virtually every single musician out there (which seems to increase by the day), but we will always invite those who sincerely feel that their path to greatness is through music to keep striving because at the very least it’ll keep you sane in this mad world.

Well, maybe not Shake. But we all know he hates everything under the sun.