The mentally dead

Chico 24L
Originally uploaded by ALifeAllah.

Peace,

I saw my first zombie when I in my teens.

Not Hatian undead filled with puffer fish poison out of serpents and rainbows. My parents told me that there were zombies from earlier eras who fed their veins through silver slivered needles. When I was in Medina, traveling through its head and heart learning martial dances to the sound of breakbeats shouting from JVCs I heard whispers of zombies. The walking undead who roamed near temples with boarded up windows leaking spoiled smoke.

Yet I didn’t see my first crackhead until I was in my teens.

Scientists have all sorts of names for their collection of ages; the Stone Age, the Bronze Age, etc. Little did I know at that time that I had entered into the (crack) Rock Age. It was an interesting, dangerous and sorrowful age. As Jeru stated we were ‘Bopping through the valley of the shadow of death.’ Many were looking for a Musa to come and split the streets because they were running red with blood.

The crack heads were like ‘open sesame’ where you could get cheap vcrs, televisions, radios, etc. I learned the 8th degree of the 1-40 (‘What makes rain, hail, snow and earthquakes?) across from a crack house in Medina from Barkim Powerful Allah who was looking for an older brother who was a crack addict at the time. My right hand man who I grew up with since elementary, Jabril (J-Real), lost his life dealing on the corner in New Heaven with slugs to his gut. One of my cousins ‘lost his natural mind’, went a several day crack binge, held a woman hostage and violated her.

The strongest memory that I have of the era was my high school sweetheart. I broke up with her before I went to college. Lost touch with her. When I came back through during my Sophomore winter vacation I got word that she was addicted, her body was for sale, and her preference wasn’t for black or white d#ck it was for the glass kind. She died at 19 when her addiction became stronger then her young heart which exploded in a heart attack. I saw the princess turn into Cinderella.

It was only latter that I found out she had a daughter whom I occasionally hear from. She is a crack baby. Her mother’s addiction f%cked up her neurology. It messed with her bio-chemistry. Speaking with her grandmother (who is raising her) occasionally she drops words like ADHD on the regular. All in all though that girl is a survivor. See, no one realized that zombies would have babies. No one realized that they would live to see more than 5 summers.

Post the golden age of Hip Hop and into the modern era of Hip Hop it ‘appears’ as if every ‘pop’ MC dealt crack. If that was your reality so be it. Yet I would hazard to say that a lot of them weren’t major cause can’t everybody be ‘the man’ when dealing. Also, after the P.I.F. (Paid In Full) era ain’t money out there like it used to be in that occupation. My main frustration is the presentation of a monochromatic picture of ‘crack’ on wax. Where is the MC whose parents were addicted? Where is the MC who was addicted? Where are the songs about crack babies (not just a passing line) and HIV infected babies? Where are the stories about growing up in a crack infested neighborhood WITHOUT trying to play big willie on wax how you were the neighborhood supplier? Fcuk it, where are the dealers who got their johnson sucked by a MALE chicken head? Speak up. Where are the stories that speak to the crack baby of an ex high school sweetheart?

When getting Knowledge of Self as a youth I traveled from New Heaven (New Haven) to Mecca (Harlem) and Medina (Brooklyn). There wasn’t a nice little classroom that I got to learn in. I was taught to seek Knowledge from the cradle to the grave. I got this Knowledge many times amongst bombed out communities, lost children, chemical dependency, and the mentally blind, deaf and dumb. In simplest terms I got it from reality. What that age did to us a community needs to be respected and addressed TRUTHFULLY. The children of zombies are watching us. They want to know how we honor the dead.

Peace