BoogeyMan
Full Disclosure: I wrote this on 5/6/24. Posting it now after seeing his family unit…unified…in the video for ‘Not Like Us’.
These thoughts were triggered by my admiration for authentic black masculinity…
I have to preface this by saying I don’t make it a habit of standing in awe of men who are spoken for…but an exception had to be made.
Dear Mr. Lamar,
Thank you. The assignment you’ve been given to expose well hidden lies within the environment God placed you in is being executed with the effortlessness of a true ‘chosen’ soul. You are using your voice to guide a generation of young men who may not have the fortune of hearing wise words imparted on them by their own fathers and you’re doing so while also ensuring your own children are raised with the kind of morality that God respects. I appreciate you for making room in your bars for the inclusion of our young women and by doing so you are virtue signaling to the manhood lying dormant in some of our men…challenging them to make the protection of our under-protected a priority. You embody all of the attributes of what a true gatekeeper should look like and you’re (re)setting the standard for what real masculinity is. Your impeccable wordplay, your ability to draw clear lines in the sandbox of principalities, and your supernatural ability to psychoanalyze your opponents while never forgetting to bring the focus back to God is praise worthy. And I wouldn’t feel right if I didn’t dedicate a moment to write my praises out in a post…that you may never read. Stranger things have happened though.
In order to possess the ability of masterful truth telling you have to have told a lot of lies…and had a lot of lies told to and on you. And your ability to transmute the kind of emotional pain those lies can birth, into the kind of art that provides guidance to the emotionally blind, means you have studied and dissected your ego in ways that can only be viewed as Divine. You’re able to hold men accountable because you started holding yourself accountable first. You’re able to speak life into the souls of the fatherless because you (re)fathered yourself first and can instinctively sense what is needed. You’re able to lay in the bed you made because you battled with your pride and won. You’re able to encourage soul searching because you have searched your own. And you’re able to lead by example because you are allowing God to make an example out of you. All these things require a quieting of your ego and when I listen to your words, I can feel the humility.
So when I hear ‘the boy’, allegedly, force feed more gang gang talk, drop more names, casually diminish our cultural history, continue whining about an ex that doesn’t want him, use money as a way to elevate the perception of his character, disregard the value of the family unit by bragging about his present ‘hoe’ downs, detach himself from reality by having the audacity to bring shame on Pac’s legacy, take shots at your distance from a ground you make shake when you ’step big’, and project issues of paternity because he skeeted in a ‘movie’ star…I’m brought back to my appreciation for your intentional decision to set the bar for true manhood. I watch the live reactions to your latest releases and revel at the sight of young black men piecing together your double…triple…quadruple entendres, euphemisms, analogies, and metaphors. You are giving our young men another reason to use their intellect and in a genre filled with those who attempt to do the same but bow out when their numbers don’t do numbers…I’m eternally grateful for your decision to push your pen in the direction that elevates the mind of the youth…irrespective of how it affects your bottom line. Thank You.
Your diligence wrote his eulogy…which is now preventing him from comfortably polluting the minds of another generation of lost souls.
Love,
Choosy
