TAN Will Not Be In The Next Lupe Fiasco Video

(my homey in this video is the same homey I mention in this old post about bailing on a lupe fiasco video. now he's doing commercials, getting his hollywood hustle on. take note, couch surfers. stay on your grizzly, and things can happen! all of us, lupe, myself, calkutta (waddup, c!) have experienced some evolution. some love. some attention. some scrilla. but I bet we're all also in the boat of feeling like we're just getting started. funny how that works. anyBoost, cool story brah, seeing someone you met along the road doing their thing.)

ORIGINAL:

So I have this guy staying with me, and he works at Atlantic, record label for Lupe Fiasco, artist behind the song Kick, Push. If my caucasian peeps have been slow getting up to speed on that, you might also know Lupe from Kanye's Touch The Sky.

So he lets me know they're shooting Lupe's video yesterday, and I could come down. Maybe get in the piece. Talk to some people. Etc. Etc. Ultimately, if you're living on the margins in NYC, and you're in this sort of business, these are the sorts of opportunities you pay the premium price for. To be where things are happening. And then see what happens. If you're not taking advantage then paying the NYC cost-of-living is silly.

But I think if you're an artist, it's easy to shy away from the "fandom" in such scenarios. I'm a fan of a lot of things, but the phrase "art over artists" has been repeating in my head the last year or two (not repeatedly, just off-and-on) and it means that I really admire, worship, idolize the art, not the artist. The product/track, not the producer. I could care less about Apple, but I love my ibook. It's not the individual creator, because we're all the same. It's their particular creation. Meeting Lupe Fiasco is cool, but if he's not going to perform Kick, Push for me, it's kind of like whatever. Same odds of me getting along with him apply to anyone (those odds are reasonably good by the way).



I'm a fan of artists, but it's after they have built a track record. And in interviews I'm interested in what they have to say about their process, and how they do what they do, not their personal lives or tastes. Not that I denounce the fun in those things, but you know, it's whatever. Depends on the mood. But their work, their legacy, and how that translates in their head ... that's what moves me. Not standing around their video set, hoping someone that matters says waddup to me.

So it's tempting for me to condescend and say, "whatever. I'm an artist, not a fan. Fans go and jock at the video. Artists say f*ck that, and spend that time doing what they do. I'm being a lazy artist if I go down and hang out at the video and nothing happens, while I could have been home working on my opus."

That was my initial instinct, and so I bagged going to the video. But the second thought, and I think the wiser one, is that the lazy artist is the one who doesn't go down. Again, this is why you live in NYC. Or it should be. Sure you might waste your time, but you might also stumble upon an opportunity you could never have otherwise.

So now I'm annoyed at my laziness. I do this sort of thing all the time. I remember once, years back, my pops calling me and telling me about Naughty By Nature being in the studio. Not in their OPP heyday, but a little after. Anyways, he lets me know, it might be a chance to stop by and politic a little. And I was like, "LOOK, I'M THINKING POPS! You think connecting with some established music vets is worth the cost of MY THOUGHTS!!! Hello??!!?"

I'm just not into standing around waiting and hoping. I'm not into jocking people. I can do it in a quick burst at a cocktail party. Or in a creative context. But extended over the time of a video shoot. Bleh. But jocking's part of the package, I know this to be true. And now instead of this post being a report on the Lupe shoot, and how I made some more connects at Atlantic, and spread the Gospel of TAN, it's a meandering blahggity-blah post on the nature of artist laziness. Which is 47% less interesting.

It's not even doing justice to the artist laziness subject. I'm probably putting this up hoping for some trickle down vide-ho love. "Yeah, yeah mami. I could have been up in that Lupe video piece, but I got my own thing going on baby. No time for that. I had to be like whatevs. I thought you knew, I'm not in this for the love."

word.