The Guide to Getting More Out of Life
WALE – Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes Freestyle
New Freestyle from Wale:
WALE – Head, Shoulders, Knees & Toes Freestyle
And an older one he killed it on:
Wale – From MD Freestyle
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK
The Guide to Getting More Out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Sick Sample: Slum Village – Selfish, Aretha Franklin – Call Me
Aretha Franklin’s classic “Call Me”
Sampled on:
“Selfish” (Slum Village feat. John Legend & Kanye West)
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK
The Guide to Getting More Out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
City of God’s Son by Kenzo Digital
A few days ago, El Miz tipped me off on Kenzo Digital’s City of God’s Son (click to download the project for+ free).
Then my little brother, Nicholas Alfonso Mason, AKA The Jaguar, emails me telling me that his friend (and mine) worked on City of God’s Son.
I just checked out the trailer. Looks crazy. And dope. And crazy dope.
“City of God’s Son” Trailer – Kenzo Digital – www.CityofGodSon.com
Kenzo is the apprentice of world-renowned video artist Nam June Paik and has had films screened at both the TriBeCa and Mill Valley Film Festivals. He served as Director of COGS and co-wrote the project with Academy Award-nominated writer/director Victor Quinaz.
COGS (City of God’s Son) is quite unique. It can be described as an epic, a musical, a soundscape, a movie for the blind, an art installation and a coming-of-age story. Kenzo also refers to COGS as “viral musical sound art.” COGS is a blend of multiple media and art genres and it explores new grounds for unconventional storytelling and ultimately gives rise to what Kenzo terms the world’s first “Beat Cinematic”. Kenzo arrived at this term by combining various mediums including 3D audio, multiple musical genres, and sound bites. Using some of hip-hop’s and film’s greatest talents (including Jay-Z, Nas, Biggie Smalls, Samuel L. Jackson and Joe Bataan), his aim is to create his own cross-medium ensemble cast, and out of many mediums, to create something epic and new.
Hip-hop is the perfect choice for this because, just like COGS itself, hip-hop is a genre created using only the resources available, and re-contextualizing them to create something bold and innovative. In effect, Kenzo aims to redefine remix culture, through creating a Quentin Tarantino-esque piece of pop art that uses 90’s hip-hop culture as its palette. More than just a remix or mash-up, COGS comments on the icon of the gangster, the media obsession with this character, and its function within hip-hop culture. An homage to arguably hip-hop’s most culturally potent era, COGS explores the mythology behind both musical icons and gangster film icons alike, and creates a world in which the two co-exist. COGS is part Sin City, part Orson Welles’ War of the Worlds radio programming, and part Nas’ Illmatic. Essentially, COGS ties these works together by playing off of the listener’s familiarities with these genres and re-contextualizing them within a coming-of-age crime drama set in a mythical, jungle metropolis.
Set in a world of magical realism, the story explores the relationship between father and son and the struggle to define themselves in a world where their futures appear pre-ordained. COGS riffs on the icon and myth of the gangster used generously throughout the history of hip-hop and American pop culture. The story embraces both the dichotomy of such societal reverence and media obsession with the moral quandary such a lifestyle calls into question. By using the genre’s most influential artists and manipulating them into characters that humanize and, at times, contradict their media persona, COGS aims to dissect concepts of machismo and push the envelope for using music as a more directly narrative medium. It also interweaves many classic crime films into the sound design and score of the piece, melding together the world of film with music into a new format of super visceral soundscape and musical narrative. In all of this there is the unique invention of self-proclamation; artists labeling themselves, touting beefs with other artists, and challenging the status quo to a sort of existential shout-out session. By exploring these themes within a familiar story structure COGS hopes to dissect the phenomena and redefine remix culture.
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK
The Guide to Getting More Out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
Guest Manifesto: Call to Greatness
January 20th and the Inauguration of Barack Obama as the 44th President of the United States. In many respects, the world looked very different from two years ago when the idea of a black President seemed like a distant hope, when a nation was high on credit & flashing bling as if debt didn’t exist.
Back then, the Dow was at 12,580, on the way to 14,000 that summer. Bankers were “balling out”, lip sinking to “bringing sexy back” while bottle service was reaching the apex of America’s nightlife nightmare. General Motors was making money selling cars even while reporting some concerns about “nonprime mortgages” held by its financing division. 50 cent vs. Oprah. And the greatest worries about China and India were that their economies were growing so fast they could overheat.
Fast forward to present:
Our economy is badly weakened, a consequence of greed and irresponsibility on the part of some, but also our collective failure to make hard choices and prepare the nation for a new age. Homes have been lost; jobs shed; businesses shuttered. Our health care is too costly; our schools fail too many; and each day brings further evidence that the ways we use energy strengthen our adversaries and threaten our planet.
Less measurable but no less profound is a sapping of confidence across our land – a nagging fear that America’s decline is inevitable, and that the next generation must lower its sights.
Today I say to you that the challenges we face are real. They are serious and they are many.
(Obama, Inaugural Address)
“…greatness is never a given. It must be earned.” (Obama, Inaugural Address)
The challenges the G faces are somewhat different in this sobering new landscape, but the fundamentals of the Game still remain the same. The truth is, G’s work well in any given circumstance — Veins of Ice and a diverse skill set unique to upheaval & adversity: agility, adaptability, smarts, smoothness, and belief in greatness. Real Game floats above the fray, Buddhist monk mentals & clarity of focus. International bases of operation on tropical islands with sunshine 365 days a year also play a key part in the Game.
Over the past few years, the U.S. government, originally crafted as a system that would serve the interests of the People, has devolved into a system of plutocracy where corporations control both the government and the People. Our nation’s policies on health, finance, environment, national defense and even education are increasingly slanted towards enriching corporations, usually at the expense of the People.
The only difference between a G and a Wall St. broker is that the latter is Government assisted money laundering, while the former — which gives back to small business — is prosecuted as criminal.
“Capitalism is the legitimate racket of the ruling class.” (Al Capone)
But with Barack’s message of hope and with a willingness to find meaning in something greater than ourselves, it mandates a shift in the way we think about our goals, our range of action, and our commitment to values beyond self-enrichment. After all, our life on this small bubble is short… what kind of legacy are you going to leave behind?
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those that have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” FDR, Inaugural Address 1933
“A nation cannot prosper long when it favors only the prosperous.” Obama, Inaugural Address 2009
With this blessing from two great Presidents, I’m going to take Obama & FDR’s call to action and inject cash back into the economy and to the People who need it. To the struggling exotic dancer trying to make ends meet for college (education); to the Casino’s and Luxury sector hit by slow times (tourism & hospitality); perfect the ‘art of the grease‘ (arts); donate regularly to charity …and what more noble pursuit than that of robbing yuppie drug dealers like a modern day Robin Hood?
Welcome to the new Era of Responsibility, play your part.
I’m thinkin of a master plan
Cause ain’t nothin but sweat inside my hand
Cause everything’s possible, nothing’s impossible
Gotta keep ahead, gotta keep my head
– Tafari
aka By the People for the People
aka Putting the G in Gentlemen
Click Here for More by Tafari:
Guest Manifesto: Pick Up Artists vs. The G
Barack Obama Inaugural Address (Speech) (1/2)
Barack Obama Inaugural Address 1/20/09 pt. 2
Hane Sushi San Diego
Click Here to Buy Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life By Neil Strauss
Click Here to Buy Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life By Neil Strauss
Ota-San has finally opened a second location: Hane Sushi in San Diego. And it could arguably be the best sushi spot in California. (I have known about this development since the ideas inception, but because it is so dope, I didn’t want to publicize it. Plus, I was sworn to secrecy.)
Chef Yukito Ota is of course, the mastermind behind Sushi Ota, where the Japanese execs go. (And where your humble author has gone since he was a little pup, prototype G.)
Hane Sushi could be even doper than Sushi Ota. It certainly has doper decor with a lot of dark rich wood around the spot.
Legend has it, Ota-San and his crew went by all the other sushi restaurants in the hood and gave them fair warning they are moving in. Class all the way.
I have been a few times and gone Sashimi bonkers: lots of fresh lobster, toro, aji, kampachi, crazy uni and aoyagi. Washed down with mad Yebisu Beer (bottled in Tokyo).
Peeled some fly Asian girls out the spot already.
Package this place with a move over to hear my boy DJ Ratty (Southern California’s most underrated DJ along with DJ Greyboy) spin and you are in there like Eames lounge chairs.
Click Here for The G Manifesto’s The Del Mar Racetrack
Click Here to Buy Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life By Neil Strauss
Click Here to Buy Emergency: This Book Will Save Your Life By Neil Strauss
The Rest is Up to You…
Michael Porfirio Mason
AKA The Peoples Champ
AKA GFK
The Guide to Getting More Out of Life
http://www.thegmanifesto.com
DJ Ratty slaughtering the competition
DJ RatStar Spinning
DJ Ratty
RATSTAR @ THIN
