#70: Take It or Leave It
A weekly drop of things I love
Take It or Leave It is a weekly highlight series for paid subscribers, but this installment is free for everyone. Pretty much every Friday, I share a quick hit of things I’m loving.
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If not, all good. Take it or leave it ✌️
Hi! Let’s start with a few ICYMIs:
For my latest newsletter, I interviewed senior social media manager Jenn Crim about writing her own cookbook to share with friends & family and carving a space for her life outside of work. While Jenn and I talk about our experiences as social media professionals, this is for anyone who’s struggled with making their job their identity.
In my debut for Refined, a print magazine from 614 Media Group, I interviewed drummer James Gaiters about his 3DEEP Jazz Trio and enjoyed one of their Sunday jazz nights at Columbus, Ohio’s Parable Cafe. Whenever you’re in Columbus, I would definitely recommend making a trip to go see them.
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Something from YouTube
10 years of Tyler, The Creator’s music festival, Camp Flog Gnaw. While I’ve never attended, I’ve been a fan of Tyler’s music for even longer, which means we’re both aging together. In that time, Tyler has been consistent in executing his vision.
From the albums to the worlds and characters he has crafted for those albums all the way to how he approaches his live shows, Tyler has expanded his artistry while never losing sight of the thing that made all of this possible: the music.
Tyler is a creator of many things, but it all begins with the music—and his latest album CHROMAKOPIA honors all the versions of him from the past decade. I feel lucky to have witnessed most of it.
Songs I played
Between traveling, drives to and from the office, and finding pockets of time to listen to music when I’m at the office, I’ve mostly tried to immerse myself in full albums lately. Less bouncing around. I can just stick with something and ride it out.
Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve made time for new projects from A$AP Ferg, Megan Thee Stallion, SahBabii, 070 Shake, FLO, El Cousteau, Ab-Soul, and Kalisway.
I could pause and spend time on any of these albums, but I gotta give a special shoutout to “Pool” featuring Elmiene on A$AP Ferg’s new record DAROLD and “9 Mile” from Ab-Soul’s latest album Soul Burger.
I’m not convinced they’re the best songs I listened to in the past few weeks, but they are the ones that have stuck with me the most.
“Pool” requires a content warning that Ferg does rap openly about being an SA victim, but it’s a point of view we don’t always get to hear from men, especially Black men, and especially in hip hop.
“9 Mile” is much lighter in terms of the subject matter, but I howled when the drums came in. A perfect sample.
I’m excited to spend more time with the FLO and Kalisway records. What have you been listening to this week?
A podcast I listened to
Jason Reynolds is special. While he’s authored several books, I’ve only read Ghost and All American Boys, and they’re both fantastic. I read Ghost in one sitting because I refused to leave Barnes & Noble until I was done.
From 2020-22, Reynolds served as the National Ambassador for Young People's Literature—and throughout this conversation, you can hear his love for young people, especially Black boys.
I appreciate Reynolds’ tenderness and plan to keep pondering on these quotes:
“What I want is for young men to know that they are also part of a love story.”
“Why can’t Black boys be late bloomers?”
“Sometimes, doing the right thing has consequences.”
“[Young people] are not a lost generation; they’re a different one.”
“It’s the insecurities of adults that get in the way of the growth of children.”
Something I read
Last Saturday, about a dozen masked Nazis waved Nazi flags and chanted racist slogans while marching through the Short North neighborhood of my city, Columbus, Ohio. I was out of town at the time, but the images brought me back to May 2023 when the Nazi group Blood Tribe demonstrated outside of a drag brunch at a local brewery in Columbus’ Franklinton neighborhood. “It’s not that Nazis stand on every corner of my city,” wrote author and poet Scott Woods for MSNBC. “The issue is… white supremacy is still comfortable here.” He referred to the instances as “our seasonal collection of white supremacists.”
The next day, a group of about 30 Black men joined together for a counterdemonstration and walked the same route the Nazis did the day before. As Andy Downing reported for Matter News, “In terms of the optics, the two demonstrations could not have diverged more.” He added, “While the Nazis wore masks and traveled to the Short North piled together in the back of a rented U-Haul cargo van, Sunday’s marchers arrived by car, bus and on foot, and then proceeded to walk with their faces purposely uncovered.”
Images of the Nazis marching through Short North have made plenty of national news headlines, supporting the fearmongering that the Nazis wanted to create in the first place. And while the images are dramatic, they are supposed to be. But I have more trust in the writers from my own city who don’t shy away from telling the truth about Columbus. I trust the people who have been here that know the white surpemacy isn’t new and neither is the resistance. I trust the Black people here who continue to show up for each other and, as a result, show up for this city, too.
Columbus isn’t just one thing because neither are its people. Nowhere is just one thing. The hoods we neglect and the rural communities liberal politicians love to ignore are also people’s homes. And the worst thing you see from a city doesn’t always account for the people who will fight to protect their homes and, at the end of the day, would prefer you leave them alone and let them tend to their own.
A TikTok video I watched
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GRANDMA WHAT ARE YOU DOING
Something I keep thinking about
Dorit with this cigarette on the season premiere of Real Housewives of Beverly Hills. Like, are we being for real right now? This is TV perfection. Separating from PK and christening her slightly single era with an American Spirit? Incredible. Iconic.
In the words of fellow housewife Heather Gay, we have RECEIPTS, PROOF, TIMELINE, SCREENSHOTS, f*cking EVERYTHING to prove Dorit Kemsley is the baddest of them all. Case in point. What more needs to be said?
P.S. Kendrick just dropped, so please don’t need anything from me for the rest of today 🫶
broooo the dog video got me sooooo weak haaahaaaa