The Reckless Hedonist

The Top One Percenters Playlist Volume 43

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 42 is here and Find all playlists here. It's been a while since I've done a playlist so this one is supersized - 33 tracks.

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 41 is here and Find all playlists here.

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 40 is here and Find all playlists here.

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 39 is here and Find all playlists here.

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 38 is here and Find all playlists here.

The Top One Percenters Playlist Vol 38

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 37 is here and Find all playlists here.

Questions No One Knows the Answers to [TED-Ed]

Remember "2 Girls, 1 Cup"? Not the video itself, just the immediate "WTF" feeling you had when the video started playing and you slowly began to realize it was real, and not a prank? It's WTF combined with a sense of dread and helplessness. For me, it was a bit mesmerizing. One of those once a year things you see that it's too hard to look away from. The idea that what you thought you knew didn't matter anymore because this new thing had been introduced that tore it all to shreds. Just me?

Anyways, that's how I felt when I first watched this TED-Ed video, "Questions No One Knows the Answers To". I thought, "surely, someone knows these answers," but I was wrong. Wrong, wrong, wrong. And to top it off, not only did this make me feel stupid, it made me feel like everything I thought I knew had been rendered irrelevant, inconsequential, and unimportant.

Good luck.

The Top One Percenters Playlist Volume 37

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Vol 36 is here and Find all playlists here.

You know what it is. Playlist below and tracklist after the jump. As always, new songs have been added to the top of the playlist. Scroll further down to find old playlists. Find all playlists here.

The Top One Percenters Playlist Volume 35

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The New York Times | The Truth Is Essential: Life Needs Truth

This is how you make an ad. Shouts to Droga5. The concept, the music (especially the music), the sounds effects, the impact — everything about this is an amazing accomplishment. The track is Makaya McCraven's "Request".

Migos - Need It ft. YoungBoy Never Broke Again [Music Video]

I somehow missed this track when it dropped back in May, but I'm so happy I rediscovered it and am in love with their Don't Be a Menace to South Central While Drinking Your Juice in the Hood, one of my favorite movies growing up.

Ben Shapiro Singing Cardi B's WAP

Fuck Ben Shapiro, but when Cardi B's "WAP" dropped, he read the lyrics aloud on his show. He was disgusted. He said his wife was disgusted and that any woman who had WAP probably had an infection.

Well, someone took Ben Shapiro's audio and made a song out of it. Now it's my ringtone

The Top One Percenters Playlist Vol 34

I took a break from creating and posting music playlists on IG for #BLM. Can't take away from what's important. But mental health is also important, and sometimes you need a distraction and time/space to get out of your own head. Escape life, so to say. So here we have a super-sized Top One Percenters Playlist Volume 34. As always, an eclectic mix of indie pop, dance, rap and r&b.

You may be tired of hearing "Savage" but Major Lazer did a dope fucking club remix that makes the record sound brand new. There's new records from The Neptunes and Deadmou5 ("Pomegranate"), Jamie XX-style tracks like The 1975's Shiny Collarbone (I swore it was Jamie XX when I first heard it), newer artists like Rina Sawayama ("Love Me 4 Me"), Sofia Hoss ("Where Did You Go"), Molly Moore ("Handsomer"), and the usual collective of banging fucking music.

Remember Baauer and "Harlem Shake"? He recently released a new album, and the standout track "REACHUPDONTSTOP" is included here. I bought some club speakers and I can't wait to bang that shit loud as fuck on em.

There's something for everyone, I promise. Playlist below, tracklist after the jump, and link here for Vol 33.

Black Lives Matter street mural in D.C. - visible from space

I've been having a rough couple of weeks. I've been as depressed and exhausted as I can remember. Physically, yes, but mostly emotionally. My Blackness is something I can never take off. I don't want to, but people (mostly white) provide uninvited comments, looks, and stares, microaggressions and ignorant comments at school, at work, on the go, and everywhere in between. That's on top of systems that were built specifically with the aim of Black disenfranchisement.

I breathe in racism like the body takes in air - automatically and without a second thought. A quick story:

This blog used to be called "Nig-Unit Nation". My creative moniker used to be Nig-Unit. I have a Nig-Unit tattoo. My freshman year of college, in an effort to promote myself and my music, I made everyone call me Nig-Unit. But can you guess how I got that name? I went to a nearly all-white private school from 7th-10th grade. Good kids who largely meant well. Freshman year, when G-Unit was first getting big, I used to write "G-Unit" on the chalk boards before class. Why? Idk, just something to do. But kids would come behind me and add "Ni" to the "G-Unit," creating "Nig-Unit".

I've always worn white uncomfortability with my Blackness as a badge of honor. Yes, I've altered the way I dressed, talked and carried myself around white spaces thousands of times. I hated doing it and would push back against it every chance I could. In the "Nig-Unit" moniker, I found the ultimate trump card, and so I embraced it with open arms. It was me at my most provocative and unapologetic. I almost lost my college scholarship over it. But that's okay because I loved and believed in myself every step of the way.

I'm sure whichever students spent 5 seconds thinking and repeating the above joke did it and moved on to the next thing, but the experience shaped who I am to my core. I love everything about the "Nig-Unit" brand, and so I've viewed it mostly as a positive, but what if it was a different Black kid, and it caused them to hate and doubt themselves? That's the thing about racist acts: the person giving them only thinks about it for a second (if that), and the person receiving them thinks about it for the entirety of their lives.

Moving on to the police, for as long as I can remember, I've always avoided police because I've never had a positive experience with them. I've had a neutral experiences a few times (e.g. police not breaking up a college house party), but my general experiences? When I was 16 or 17, I was pulled over 3 different times in a 7 day span by the police in a Columbus suburb just because I didn't "belong". My Blackness was an excuse to pull me over. They ran my plates and my license, and let me go. A few years ago, I got a open container ticket in Bushwick for standing outside of a house door with a Jamo bottle in my hand. I didn't even get questioned. But this isn't about my relationship with the police - it's about the seeming long-term indifference to the systematic suffering of people of color in America.

A lot of information and emotions have been shared over the past few weeks. I've compiled some articles, images, books, quotes, etc that I think are helpful for non-Black people to see, read, and understand.

If there's one positive of the environment covid has fostered, it's that people cannot turn away from this movement. They must pay attention. And since everyone is paying attention, everyone must act. Silence is no longer a serviceable option. For the majority of Americans, human rights is not a political topic anymore. Either you're for it or fuck you.

Thoughts:

Some things I've been seeing from people and brands that have been irritating me lately:

"I don't see race" - this has always been an asinine statement to me. I understand not wanting to make judgements or decisions about a person based on their skin color. But I've always felt that "not seeing" race is to ignore a person's racial experiences with larger culture. You have to "see race" to understand those struggles
"In these unprecedented times" - unprecedented for you, perhaps, but none of this is new to me or other POC communities. When I see someone, especially a brand, write "in these unprecedented times", what I hear is that you've never been forced to care about this until now
Companies have rightly been called out for paying lip service to social justice and anti-racism when they don't make any significant effort to recruit or promote racial and gender diversity within their director and executive ranks. Posting a #BLM black square on Instagram used to be the party line to show support. But the community has receipts now, and are calling out every company who isn't doing their part

I'm happy white people are pushing for these changes. But I firmly believe it is not within the realm of acceptability for white people, collectively, to be accepting brand apologies on BIPOC's behalf.
When a company acknowledges they fucked up, that is not something worthy of thanks
When a company says they'll do better, that is not something worthy of praise
Since there are more white people in this current movement than any other group, we cannot have white voices, and their "thank yous" for even the most basic sense of company responsibility, drown out the Black voices demanding that more work be done

Articles:

Shenequa Golding's "Maintaining Professionalism In The Age of Black Death Is….A Lot":
Keisha Lance Bottoms, Atlanta Mayor, on being a mother and the inability to protect her Black son during the protests [link here]
Scott Wood's 5 THINGS NO ONE IS ACTUALLY SAYING ABOUT ANI DIFRANCO OR PLANTATIONS [link here]
Scott Wood's Eleven Riots That Changed US History for the Better [link here]
Rachel Szabo, BTS Group Co-Founder & Solutions Architect, on specific action she plans to take to create a more just and equitable world [link here]
NYT's "Corporate America Has Failed Black America"
Ramesh Nagarajah's "Reflections from a Token Black Friend" about his experience with racism at a primarily white high school in Boston in the mid 2010s
Caroline Randall Williams' "You Want a Confederate Monument? My Body Is a Confederate Monument" [link here]
Matthew Fleischer's "Want to tear down insidious monuments to racism and segregation? Bulldoze L.A. freeways" [link here]
NYT's "How the Philadelphia Police Tear-Gassed a Group of Trapped Protesters" [link here]

Legislation / Change:

I believe the best way to channel this anger, pain and energy is to vote for representatives who will fight for strong legislative solutions to institutional and cultural racism. For those that think legislation is not the way, I ask you, what sort of progress would have been made if we left racism to a capitalist society? Where would we be without the force of the federal government enacting the following Civil Rights laws?

Civil Rights Act of 1957 - Created the Civil Rights Division in the U.S. Department of Justice
CRA of 1960 - Established further oversight and enforcement powers for CRA of 1957
CRA of 1964 - Prohibited discrimination in public accommodations, facilities, and schools. Outlawed discrimination in federally funded projects
1965 Voting Rights Act - Prohibited discrimination in the sale or rental of approximately 80 percent of US housing + prohibited state governments from violating constitutional rights of Native Americans
CRA of 1968 - Prohibited discrimination in voting and enacted penalties for obstructing voting rights

As such, we need strong state or federal laws on the following topics:

Passage of H.R.40 - Commission to Study and Develop Reparation Proposals for African-Americans Act (link here)

Whether there are financial reparations or not, we need congress to pass this bill so we can scientifically determine the effects of white supremacy and develop recommendations for how to rectify them

Passage of H.R.7120 - George Floyd Justice in Policing Act of 2020

This bill was drafted by the Congressional Black Caucus and passed by the House last week. The competing Senate bill, feels like an example of white supremacy because you have the white, republican Senate (save for Tim Scott) telling BIPOC that they know better what type of policing our communities need. It feels like they're refusing to listen

Use of Force Project analyzed 100 police departments to determine how use of force is detailed, authorized or restricted, and developed an easy-to-read chart. For example, New York City police department has no policy that (1) bans chokeholds, (2) requires a warning before shooting, (3) requires exhausting all other means before shooting or (4) requires comprehensive reporting whenever an officer uses force or threatens to use force. Studies have shown that more restrictive guidelines lead to a reduction in force used [link here].

Books/Videos:

At the Hands of Persons Unknown by Philip Dray

This extraordinary account of lynching in America, by acclaimed civil rights historian Philip Dray, shines a clear, bright light on American history's darkest stain—illuminating its causes, perpetrators, apologists, and victims.
Here is an excerpt from the NYT when the book was published in 2003. I cried reading it because of the graphic detail, but also just how ingrained it was in American life for white people to unjustly mutilate and murder innocent Black people with local governments and police departments tolerating or encouraging it

The New Jim Crow by Michelle Alexander discusses the transformation of slavery to Black Laws and Jim Crow, and finally to the modern prison system
Jane Elliot's Brown Eye/Blue Eye documentary, which shows white children how discrimination works by substituting skin color for eye color
Justice In America's is a criminal justice podcast, and the first episode is about the bail system and how it favors the rich and disproportionally affects POC and the poor
Ava Duvernay's 13, the Netflix documentary about the criminalization of being Black and rise of America's prison system. Did you know America has 4.4% of the world's population and 22% of the world's prison population? And Black males represent 33% of America's prison population despite being 6% of the general public?

Business:

Apply pressure in your workplace/industry to enact sizable, permanent change:

Additional Readings/Twitter threads:

CNN anchor Chris Cuomo discusses America as a tale of two cities on the death of George Floyd [link here]
Samuel Sinyangwe's twitter thread on research-based solutions to stop police violence [link here]
Samuel Sinyangwe's twitter thread on MEANINGFUL legislation that has been proposed and, in some cases, passed in cities and states to address police violence. Consider passing legislation like this in your community, too [link here]
Barack Obama's "How to Make this Moment the Turning Point for Real Change" [Link here]
There's a really excellent sociology paper by Yale professor Elijah Anderson on what that Central Park woman (Amy Cooper) tried to do by calling 911 on the Black birder. It's called "The White Space" [Link here]

Playlist

I made a playlist to accompany this article. At first it was sadness and solace, which gave way to anger. I was always more like Malcolm and Martin. As a result, the playlist is two parts: the first half is resilience and the second half is anger.

The Top One Percenters Playlist Volume 33

Fuck Covid, stay safe. That's the new "fuck bitches, get money." With the unofficial start of summer happening this weekend, it feels a little anticlimactic because I'm stuck in the house, so to make myself feel better, I created Vol 33. Check out the Spotify playlist below and the tracklist after the jump. Click here for Vol 32 and here for all playlists. As a reminder, the tracks for Vol 33 are added to the top of the spotify playlist, with vol 28-32 further below.

I was listening to Rick Ross' "Live Fast, Die Young" a few weeks ago and "I Don't Like" came on next. Then "Christian Dior Denim Flow." Then "Devil in a New Dress" and "Niggas in Paris." And I thought, damn, Kanye had a really crazy 2010 and 2011.

After discussing with a few friends and strengthening my argument, I landed here:

Kanye West's 2010 and 2011 is the greatest 2 year stretch by a music artist in history

I previously highlighted some of my favorite shows/movies from HBO [view that list here] and Netflix [view here]. This edition is a mixed bag across platforms, but primarily Hulu and Amazon. 🎶 Everybody get your motherfucking stream on🎶 [Big Tymers voice].

Contagion [HBO]
I rewatched this over the weekend, and let me tell you, it hits on literally every single aspect of COVID right now. Director Steven Soderbergh and writer Scott Burns strove of a hyper-realistic movie. It may be too realistic for some, but it's still a high-quality movie.

POWER [Starz]
Power is a TV show at the intersection of high class and drug money. One of my favorite shows from the past 10 years. Omari Hardwick and Joseph Sikora are amazing, the writing is strong and the story is engaging.

Killing Eve [Hulu]
A dark comedy (and I mean dark) about a cat and mouse dance between an America MI-6 agent and the deranged serial killer who falls in love with her. Sandra Oh won a Golden Globe for her work, and Jodie Comer won an Emmy the same year. The craziest thing? Phoebe Waller-Bridge, who created, wrote, and starred in Fleabag (below) was the showrunner for season 1!

American Crime Story: The People vs. OJ Simpson
American Crime Story is an anthology series from mega-producer Ryan Murphy. It chronicles the OJ Simpson murder trial and the entire vibe and race issues surrounding it. It's one season, so it's a quick watch. It has an all star cast and it's an all star show

Fleabag [Amazon]
Phoebe Waller-Bridge is amazing. She created Fleabag. She was the showrunner for Season 1 of Killing Eve. She wrote the newest James Bond movie. And Fleabag is all her comedic talents laid bare for everyone to see and enjoy. The good and bad thing about the show is that it's only 2 seasons/12 episodes total, so you can binge it in half a day. There's a great Obama joke in season 1 and Obama included Fleabag on his 2019 best of list.

Upload [Amazon]
Man, I ate an edible last week and binged this entire show. At first, I thought it was workplace comedy a la The Good Place, and the further into it I got, the more I realized this show was going some dark places. What happens when you go to digital heaven, but you don't want to be there? What happens when you have to pay for it, but someone else is controlling the purse strings? It's got some really interesting ideas and I can't wait for S2.

Love is Blind [Netflix]
My wife and I's guilty pleasure. Super bingable. I hear it's like Married at First Sight but I wouldn't know as I've never seen it. I will say, this show, more than any other reality show I've ever seen, actually has tension and drama and high stakes. You feel for the participants because so much of the interaction is one-on-one and relatable. This show also has one of the wildest proposals I've ever seen. Sooooooo extra.

LOST [Hulu/Amazon]
A classic. If you haven't seen it, I consider the first 3 seasons to be some of the best broadcast television ever produced. The ways they showcase each character - each episode focus' on a different person's backstory - was innovative at the time and the shows influence can be found in nearly every major high-end sci-fi series since.

Assassination Nation [Hulu]
A revenge thriller/satire of what happens when an entire community goes lynch mob against 4 high-school women who decide to fight back.

The Top One Percenters Playlist Volume 32

A weird thing about covid is the artist divide on whether they should be releasing music during this pandemic. My opinion is a resounding "YES" because it helps reinforce a bit of normalcy that everyone is craving. I get not wanting to release music/albums you can't promote, but with so many artist postponing releases, I've had to dig a little deeper into the crates for Vol 32. Check out the Spotify playlist below and the tracklist after the jump. Click here for Vol 31 and here for all playlists.

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The Top One Percenters Playlist Vol 44