A couple days ago I found this comment on my YT channel, #basementfreestyles, which bothered me but also made me think enough to write a candid response to
@Welsed.
“Get off the drugs please. For your own safety dude. Seriously. As a viewer who was recommended this content, please, seek help, a support group, or family if you have it. This made me highly uncomfortable. Not gonna even talk about the skill level. Thats how concerned a stranger is for you.”
At first glance (pun for later) my ego kicked in with thoughts of attacking @Welsed but I wouldn’t be demonstrating the change in the world I seek, I would be giving in to pointing the finger and three back; something that often comes out in session. So I’ll examine it and ask why would some take a moment to type this?
This man, an artist, is concerned about my substance abuse and pleads for me to seek treatment. But in sentence five I believe his true motivation was shown, “This makes me highly uncomfortable” he said. Why? In the next sentence my talent comes under fire. I can say I don’t believe it to be a top tier track out 949 videos but my abilities have been proven in Atlanta and that’s all I need. @Welsed ends with, “That’s how concerned a stranger is for you.” But he doesn’t lend a hand to aid me but tells me that I’m wrong and he’s right.
Do I have a substance abuse issue, yes, but we’re all doing the best we can. I have a friend who needed help and I knew my advice wouldn’t be followed so I offered to check-in with them 2 days a week to go over their days of failures and successes but this was met with resistance because it got real. People I grew up with will inform me of the shortcomings of our mutual friends but when I ask are you doing anything to help, they aren’t but are happy to tell a fucked up a story about them. I suppose it gives them a sense of at least I didn’t do that.
This gentleman has 6 videos on his channel of beautiful paintings he has done and is in North Carolina, my home as well but does he realize I’m also an artist? I have five books, many articles, and over 60 paintings, a movie, and have built a park to teach yoga, meditation, resistance training, and feed 9 people lunch at no cost. I think he does not. If my songs were your only filter into my life, would he believe I made 8 chicken sandwiches, 10 wings, and went to feed my neighbors at the grocery store, speedway, and yes ABC because it made me happy 2 days ago? Or is he in the crowd that sees me as someone with an agenda to poison, a predator, or junkie?
“Creativity takes courage,” said Henri Matisse. “Art is a kind of innate drive that seizes a human being and makes him its instrument. To perform this difficult office it is sometimes necessary for him to sacrifice happiness and everything that makes life worth living for the ordinary human being.” -Carl Jung.
When I started rapping in the basement five years ago it wasn’t to be a rock star, it was for fun, I love hip-hop. When I went to do my first painting a friend said, “well don’t be disappointed” like I was trying to make a career out it. I began painting because I heard a soft voice say, “I bet you could do that if you didn’t try.” I’ve never been good at drawing and in fact I paid others to do my art projects as a kid. I wasn’t good at musical instruments either but these experiences don’t have to be my identity today. We never get worse at something we continue to do out of love, a passion that maybe they can’t see and so it must be the drugs. And sure I use shrooms when I paint but I create without my eyes, they help clear my connection to the other side. But I also have done without and it still works the same starting with meditation, the given playlist, a candle, no clothes, and the dark. Let us be the Light in the darkness.
Last year I lost a friend to gun violence and I decided to do a reading through the art, my 4th time doing a reading. It was one of the best pieces I believe and I spoke with my buddy. One of his asks was to tell his father who I never met, “make sure my dad knows he raised me right.” He said tell him and use the song A,B,C – 1,2,3. After the service I went up to him and delivered the message. I could see his father lighten up as the grief dissipated for a moment to let a smile emerge. I gave the 4×3 painting to his girlfriend and it also helped her cope with such a tragic loss. But if you think this was easy for me it was not.
I realize I’ve disconnected from what we’ve been taught but I’m sick of hiding. I think I’ve only received 3 negative comments over the 5 years on the songs but as an artist they really don’t like me. If they can’t see the faces and the story (3 out 10 can immediately) they will rationalize the work as substance abuse, straight partying like I’m going trip and watch the Brady Bunch Movie with Rob Lowe. The first time I posted a painting 150 comments, 2/3’s negative but some people stuck up for me and I didn’t feel the need to hit back. I’ve been told my job is to ‘present the work.’
If it makes you uncomfortable then don’t look and don’t comment, instead pray if you’re unwilling to balance out what you see as an imbalance with action. I was asked to leave the Food Lion because I scared people by offering them amazing eats I spent 3 hours on because they felt uncomfortable with kindness. Normally I would go on the offensive and persuade you to see my side but I’m done with that. I said, “man, that hurts my heart” and obliged. It was like when my sister finally saw the faces in the work and told me I should point it out to them but what if they still didn’t see it, would they feel inadequate and tell themselves well Stu is on drugs?
When the orbs started appearing in the videos even the hardest skeptics couldn’t explain it and they would rather not discuss it. If I can’t get through to you in the face of your own eyes then what can? The programming instilled on the human species is well engrained but sometimes music can say what words can’t. The last round in Atlanta yielded a track called ‘First Glance’ where Kim, the engineer and I had a mind meld finding the words she sang from my transmission as I danced; “the train is coming.” The track gained the attention of the Dungeon Family and I was asked to acquire a BMI #. It felt like when my aunt, an author, said, “Steven you did it. I read it in one night. You’re an author.” That only took 3 books and 3 years.
I spend time everyday giving off good vibrations to those in my life, those that have passed, those of other dimensions, and all those who find themselves hurting over the Earth. The latter always hits me the hardest and I get a smile strong of LSD with tears but I’m sober on these occasions and now they come over me daily without meditation. When I heard Ledisi’s track, ‘I blame you’ I thought she’s having the same experience.
“When they look at me, What they really see, Is the love you got me feeling has me like dancing on the ceiling. I can hardly breathe, cuz you’re all I need, so when they ask me why I smiling like a fool, I blame you.” Just listening to my laugh at the end of each freestyle signifies the pure heartiness of the expression. Beautiful.
A friend of mine came over a week ago and sang with me. Yesterday he told me how personal the song I failed to record was but that he felt a beautiful release. He killed it! Acceptance and understanding was attained; he looks forward to his next visit. That’s something amazing I was able to share and participate in! A moment of joy!
Without the aid of alcohol my MS will have me in pain and so I use it 5 out 7 nights. And I don’t have to be drunk to flow as 10 days of antibiotics earlier in the year showed. My best friend was surprised I didn’t have the shakes but my liver is tip top for 44 yr. old Lik. Must be all the nutrition, exercise, or the fact I’m Irish.
When I sing/flow it has become ‘channeled’ so to speak. I don’t ever think of what I’m going to say and this has made all the difference. Yoga refers to this as the yoking. The channel has become a diary of sorts and the amount that is coming out so quickly is inspiring. ‘Those who love to work never labor.’ And in a world where waves form particles vibration is key. Maybe you’d like to come over and try. Or we could have an art show at the park, ‘Pilot Landing’, next door. If you want to hang the email is at the top @Welsed.
Maybe you want to check out the books on Amazon or other YT channel Steven Koss because when you walk with an open heart you start to realize you’re running. Maybe friendship forms or you ignore me. Either way it’s out there Universe. Faster than light, thought; because
Thought Outlines the Vision
Emotion Colors It In
Love n Light
Steven ‘Stu’ Koss
