CHRIS CLARKE's Blog

We are MCs

We are the closest thing this day and age has to a samurai, griot or bard. I am part hypnotist and part rogue, the reluctant poet rough around the edges with endless charms....

I am a rapper...

Fools say our artform is dead, but we know better. Our craft is as dead as calligraphy, tantric sex, drumming, dancing or spirituality. Each of the previous has been exploited, marketed, sold and forgotten, mind you. This is a testament to our art being permanently embedded and etched into the history of humankind.... we are ancient now. The novelty of what we do is gone. When the dust settles, only the masters will remain.This is the beautiful thing...

I am an MC

I can smell one of my kindred from a mile a way. We are highlanders. Our eyes and senses have been trained to recognize the way of our walk. I can see that you too are a cult of personality and a servant to the imagination. I can tell by the way that you talk, words are playthings to you. I am amazed by my own skill, and not easily impressed by yours, BUT once you have my respect and admiration, my appreciation for your mastery is undying. I can see you struggling with the unreal task of being incredible and vulnerable at the same time, this is our curse. We are stuck with revealing humanity to itself by default. We are the only self-created heroes in all of music and art.... we give ourselves fantastic names and wear these names like shamans wear totems. We spend the rest of our young lives living out these heroics.... and it becomes easy

I am an MC

I am prone to fall into a trance at any given moment, staring off into space, combing through words, memories, conversations and daydreams looking for the perfect line...the Absurd Sentiment.... the Weighted Phrase.... the Most Ridiculous Notion that can only be finessed the way I can finesse it. Pardon me if I drift during conversation, this mind of mine is a roaming thing. Every moment is bringing me closer to my paranoia of perfection. And when I do find that Random Glitch of Reason, no one will be able spit it like I can, or fall onto the bar like this. This is my Style.... my one true companion in life is my Style. If words are my sword, my Style is the way I dance and weave with it. And I would rather use it FOR you than AGAINST you, but given certain circumstances, I'm capable of either.... do not cross me

I am an MC

I have poured over countless notebooks and scratch pieces of paper, I have lamented the loss of comrades, family and love in verses that could fit in a matchbook... I have ranted drunkenly and drug-induced about the pains of my people over a universe of beats, never at a loss for something to say but I love empty silence... I have torn rooms apart looking for something to write with, I have memorized my mentors' verses and incorporated their lessons into my very being unknowingly.... and I have become my mentors. The child in me that hungered for their greatness knows I will never be greater than them, but the Man I am recognizes that in some ways I have evolved past them....As the youth will one day evolve beyond me...

I am an MC

I defined how an entire generation wears its clothes... I was the first to praise the freshness of the shoes you walk in, the jacket you rock, how to tilt your hat and what it means to manifest spirit through style. I put that into words. I can make the shabbiest rags appealing and turn nothing into something before your eyes... what I do is way beyond piecing words together to make them rhyme... I am alchemy of the soul and pure magic... this is God's work and

I am an MC

There is nothing new, novel or even modern about my position. You will not find recent articles, studies or essays about the technical aspects of my craft. The romance of who we are is obscured by the Fog of Familiarity... you think you know us and are thus not intrigued by our majesty any longer. You may not understand that some are built for this and some aren't, because it looks so easy now. Our astounding lyricism has been taken for granted, imitated and regurgitated.... but deep inside you know when you are in the presence of an authentic wordsmith

a practiced craftsman

a lonely, wandering beast burdened with countless words, infinte imagination and an immortal swagger

the poet laureate of your generation

This is who I am, unapologetically

I am an MC

and for this i am grateful