SpeaKs’ Spot: hip hop lyrics, articles and trivia

First let me begin by saying that i have always been a huge Canibus fan.  Ever since the first time i heard him i knew he was different, a breath of fresh air to a stagnant growing genre.  There has always been a controversy about whether Canibus is actually any good:  Is what he says accurate or merely just rhyming wordplay?  Many think that he is just rhyming without any understanding of what he is saying.  That’s a decision you must make on your own.  Of course it’s very convenient to just write him off like the music industry did instead of investigating for yourself.  Although I think some of it is just rhymes, Canibus’ approach to Hip Hop is to be respected none the less.  He is unique.  I feel he does know what hes talking about for the most part.  I’ve checked out certain bars of his.  It’s too bad we as a people would rather listen to the Lil Wayne’s, Cassidy’s and Young Jeezy’s of the Rap world instead of someone who is as thought provoking as Canibus.  After he fell out of the mainstream,  a rather short stay, back in the 90’s he decided to get away from music and join the US Army, but he didn’t stop rhyming.  Say what you will but in my opinion Canibus is one of the greatest mcee’s of our time.  Check him out:

~SpeaK no E.   a.k.a  Travis Dunaway~

Canibus in the US Army:

Canibus Army freestyle

Canibus being evaluated by Common, KRS 1 and the dude from Jurrasic 5:

Canibus being evaluated by Common, KRS1, and Jurrassic 5 member

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“If  I had known before that it’d be so hard to make it,
I’da done it anyway making minimal changes,
to the paths that I’ve took and the struggles we been through,
you grow to appreciate the hard times that you been through…”

~5th Letter~The Dark Ages album: “Blacksmith”

-need he say more?-

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After breezing though MySpace and Soundclick over the past few years, it seems as if the new rappers coming up are imitating virtually exactly what they see the mainstream artists doing.  I feel the mainstream is beyond stagnant creatively.  It all seems to sound the same, or very similar.  Uniqueness is not encouraged anymore.  When i go through Soundclick.com, and MySpace.com and listen to “what’s hot” and new, it’s basically a junior version of whats already on the radio.  How is that artistry?  Most underground rappers are merely re-iterating the same lyrical content as the mainstream artists.  Quite frankly, i think there is much more to this world than how much money you have, what brandname clothes you have on, how many women you degrade on a daily basis and how much drugs you move.  It’s like there’s a whole wide world out there to rap about but these clowns wanna revisit and rehash the same sh*t over and over again.  It used to be that the mainstream was what was popular and the underground was where a lot of undiscovered TALENT could be found.  Now, i’m not so sure there’s much more talent in underground rappers than in mainstream rappers.  What happened to creating something unique to you?  If you are an undiscovered, unsigned artist and your reading this……Ask yourself this:  If someone picks up my CD and gives it a listen, what about my music makes it stand out from whats already popular?  What makes me different?

You want so Hip Hop that is fresh and sounds DIFFERENT?  visit www.empiremusiq.com.  Go to the music page and give it a listen.  Tell them what you think on the Guestbook.

SpeaK no EviL a.k.a Travis Dunaway

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If your on MySpace or Twitter and can read this post, then my personal blog at www.myptsmail.com/travis/blog has successfully been linked to my MySpace and Twitter accounts!  This means i will only have to write a blog post once in my wordpress blog at the MyPTSMail address above, and all of my Twitter followers and my MySpace friends will be able to read it immediately!  If your a music artist like me, you cant afford not to have this!  To be able to reach so many people on the MySpace and Twitter networks while continuing to entertain my WordPress blog readers is awesome.  The Socialite plugin for WordPress is awesome!

~Travis Dunaway  a.k.a. SpeaK no EviL~

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I see no changes wake up in the morning and I ask myself
is life worth living should I blast myself?
I’m tired of bein’ poor & even worse I’m black
my stomach hurts so I’m lookin’ for a purse to snatch
Cops give a damn about a negro
pull the trigger kill a nigga he’s a hero
Give the crack to the kids who the hell cares
one less hungry mouth on the welfare
First ship ‘em dope & let ‘em deal the brothers
give ‘em guns step back watch ‘em kill each other
It’s time to fight back that’s what Huey said
2 shots in the dark now Huey’s dead
I got love for my brother but we can never go nowhere
unless we share with each other
We gotta start makin’ changes
learn to see me as a brother instead of 2 distant strangers
and that’s how it’s supposed to be
How can the Devil take a brother if he’s close to me?
I’d love to go back to when we played as kids
but things changed, and that’s the way it is…

Tupac Shakur ~ “Changes”

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I believe that good and evil lies within us all.  I think how much you feed and nurture them is what determines your alignment.

If you are a Hip Hop music artist, ask yourself which one you think you feed more.

~Travis Dunaway a.k.a.   SpeaK no EviL~

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Today, on the anniversary of his death,  I think it’s only right to pay tribute to the rapper who shifted the focus of a once West Coast dominated Hip Hop scene back to the East Coast.  “Biggie” also set the bar quite high by writing “paperless” albums, making them all up in his head and recording them without writing anything down.  This has now been made the feat rappers must accomplish in order to be considered “great”.  He is often referred to as the best rapper ever to live.  I’ll be honest, i like Biggie but i didn’t feel his lyrics were all that great, until i found out he put it all together in his head.  Christopher Wallace was killed March 9,1997 in a drive by shooting by an unknown assailant in retaliation for Tupac’s murder on September 7,1996 just 6 months earlier.  Biggie, once good friends with Tupac, vehemently denied any affiliation with Tupac’s murder up to the very end.  His double-disc set Life After Death, released fifteen days later, hit #1 on the U.S. album charts and was certified Diamond in 2000.

On September 7, 1996, Tupac Shakur was shot four times in a drive-by shooting in Las Vegas. He died six days later of respiratory failure and cardiac arrest at the University Medical Center.

These two great rappers, commedians and storytellers, once best of friends, turned into enemys and now both are dead.  Let us not forget the lesson the loss of these 2 brought.  No matter what, keep Hip Hop on wax or everybody loses in the end.  Everybody.

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So now after rapping for 13 years i finally have a group album and a solo album.  The group album has been protected through the efforts of Empire group member and NCC Records CEO Mr. Jay.  Now i wanna put my album out for people to buy but first i gotta protect it.  Cash is one thing ive always been lacking.  I can do the mail thing but i think that only goes so far.  Im just frustrated these days at all of the trouble you gotta go through to put something out.  Its already been 3 months since my album The Deens Office has been done, an i still haven’t put it out on a large scale yet.  I just want people to hear my work.  Guess i will just have to start saving up so i can afford the protection.

SpeaK no EviL~ Travis Dunaway

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I shoulda never left you without a dope rhyme to step to!  Whats up everybody.  Thank you for following my blog and checking out my posts even when i’m not consistently posting.

So some of you know that I have finished my first solo album called  “The Deens Office” on Halloween 2008, and that i have been “spot distributing it” ever since.  I haven’t put it out on the internet officially yet  because i still have some things to do with it first.  But the reason i’m writing is beacause yesterday, i was at a gathering where my album was being played and listened to by a good number of people.  Everything was going well up until one of my songs where i drew a “very clear” line against cocaine dealers.  I wasn’t in the immediate room at the time, but i noticed that right after the part played where i basically bashed coke dealers and told them to “stay from my zone”,  the record was stopped and changed.  At first i kinda chuckled to myself because the person responsible for changing out the CD was a suspected coke dealer himself.  But after thinking about it for awhile, i realized that noone else in the room opposed the CD change.  That bothered me.  It was then i realized that the concept of selling cocaine is so widespread and deeply rooted in Rap and even Hip Hop music that people have grown to be desensitized to it.  In fact they appear to be so desensitized to it that just to speak out against those who sell coke is considered taboo, lame and even laugh worthy.  This really upsets me.  I expect the coke dealers to be offended by the song.  What i didn’t expect is for non drug dealers to stop listening.  I knew that song would be a good one for stirring up trouble and bringing those i consider my enemies to the surface.  But i guess i thought i would have some support too.  Oh well.  Guess i’ll just have to step it up and strike harder.    Have a nice day.

~SpeaK no EviL~

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I always knew that dollars was proportional to knowledge,

and time is money i spent some of both of those in college,

followed lessons others modeled information that i swallowed,

had my mind blown but still prepared me for tomorrow, now im a cyclone….

~SpeaK no E.  a.k.a. Travis Dunaway

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