# Stay Woke Gazette — full text > A Black thought and culture zine that dabbles in mutual aid. Long-form pieces, dispatches and video on Black labor, Black life and the politics that shape them. ## Stop being a cool online data point Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/stop-being-a-cool-online-data-point/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/stop-being-a-cool-online-data-point Published: 2026-09-01 · 3 min read · 713 words Tags: Black Thought Its the era of cringe Being a cool online data point will not matter when you are in a concentration camp. Your nonchalantness to catastrophic events, your love of saying you should of voted for the Black lady, the pseudo intellectual snarky post and comments, stating your identity purity simply won’t matter when the fascists have us working in the fields. So, be cringe online and try to save the world. If it doesn’t work it won’t matter. Early this week I came up with the idea to pass out water because my a couple of Substack paid sub money hit. I got the other Black guy in my DSA chapter to come along with me. I grabbed him from the trolly station picked up the water and realized I don’t know where to go to hand this out. Should we hit up parks? Maybe hit up random busy streets? Shit was hella cringe. Then it hit me oh wait there were bunch of people at the trolly station, let’s hit that up. It ended going well but it wasn’t smooth luckily my friend was just along for the ride. So cats out of the bag I don’t know how to practice being a Black revolutionary without absolutely looking cringe. This year has been a series of failures. I typed up an entire article explaining how I wanted this publication to turn into a writer ran publication and was looking for other people to be founders with me. Literally one person replied back and they weren’t even fr about it. I could go on, there are more things that absolutely have crashed and burned on Substack or elsewhere online this year that has probably looked extremely cringe. The contradiction in this rant is that everything is going well. I have friends I can hit up to pass out water on short notice. The publication has gained 4 paid subscribers which is enough to buy a few cases of water a month to pass out. The weekly DJ set list after being a bridge for writer block so I can say I posted something that has turned into a mutual aid hub and job board for Black creatives. The finally paragraph of Klan in the Stan from back in February read “ Malcom X is an ancestor I hold in very high regard. Discovering this bizarre side story to Malcolm X’s life was shocking. However, it was a reminder activism does not mean perfection. He was devoted to giving us a better future. He thought the NOI was devoted to the same cause, but they were not. When he came to that realization he left the group knowing the danger it put him in. He then spent the rest of his short life continuing to fight for us. It is our turn to return the favor and do our best to move progress forward knowing that we don’t have to be perfect in our work, but we have to work.” My follow up on this thought is that you can’t be a Black revolutionary without being cringe. You have to fail and you have to not quit. Being nonchalant, being a beloved social media figure will only serve the fascists. Fail like Malcolm. Fail like W.E.B Dubois who threw his weight behind a president candidate that once elected showed a movie hyping up the KKK in the White House. Our most beloved ancestors failed at levels you could not imagine. Their greatness was never their ability to get it right the first time. If you are still on the fence on rather or not you should attempt to do or be a part of something revolutionary; let me leave you with this question. What kind of ancestor do you want to be? Stay woke, Loc If you can contribute funds to the publication or become a paid subscriber your contribution will go towards being able to hand out more water. The more funds the more mutual aid work the gazette can do. If you need mutual aid please DM the gazette to be added to the weekly beats mutual aid section. No questions asked. Please contribute to the job board in the weekly beat. Together we can help each other find work because job sites aren’t shit. Subscribe now --- ## Mutual Aid Through a Zine Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/mutual-aid-through-a-zine/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/mutual-aid-through-a-zine Published: 2026-06-22 · 3 min read · 565 words Tags: zine announcement I got play where we all make bread Hey all, Loc here. Wanna to chat with you for a bit. TLDR: Certain articles from the Stay Woke Gazette will been turned into PDFs that can be folded up into a zine. Once Labor cost are covered the zine is free to anyone and anyone can sell it if they need money. Check out the Patreon it is free to join. Over the past year mutual aid has been something that I have thrown around a lot. I had no clue what it really meant when I started; if I am being honest. My one goal is to help strengthen the Black creative community. Earlier this year I wrote about my idea to turn the Stay Woke Gazette into a writer ran publication with an editorial staff and writers, etc. The community showed no real interest in the idea; only one person reached out about becoming a member of the editorial staff. The group will always be smarter than the individual. The community was right; it was an idea that needed a lot of work still. So we pivot. I recently finished reading Mutual Aid: Building Solidarity During This Crisis by Dean Spade. It taught me the difference between mutual aid and non-profits. Mutual aid should be people from the community figuring out how to solve an issue they have in common. It is not a group a people helping the “ less fortunate”. I want to help Black creatives. Starting out as a creative or just being a creative in general there are gonna be times that money is an issue. I have odd jobs and gig jobs etc to try to survive. One idea to generate a few bucks was to create a zine and sell it to coffee shop, events, protest or wherever. I can’t sell to a coffee shop on your block but you can and for that reason the zine will be free for anyone to sell. Subscribe now The idea behind giving up ownership is that; if you need 20 bucks then there is a quick way to do it. Grab your library card print some out and sell them for whatever you want. You do not need to sit down and create a zine from scratch. Focus on what you need to do and sell these when you need a little extra cash. That being said everyone who works on the zine deserves to be compensated for their labor; including myself. There will also be material things the zine will need; for example photoshop to create the PDF. However, once costs are covered the zine will be free to everyone forever. I created a Patreon to have one place to organize everything. It will be free but anyone who tips or subscribes will get a copy of the PDF. Once the costs are covered it will be free to download on the Patreon. We can also post flyers and designs on the Patreon to share and help each other out in selling copies of the zine. A place for us to chat, meet and work together to get by. As mentioned before I don’t know what I am doing. I am going off of an idea that is rooted in mutual aid. Feedback, criticism, or questions are all welcomed in the comments drop them below. I am excited for this adventure with y'all . Stay woke, Loc --- ## Dry, Old, and Overcrowded Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/3mns62ke2hy23-dry-old-and-overcrowded/ Record: at://did:plc:zysihwqd547kob25tqyukjbs/site.standard.document/3mns62ke2hy23 Published: 2026-06-08 · 3 min read · 629 words Droughts are sweeping across the country and old infrastructure can't support data centers In Statesville, North Carolina washing your car at home is now prohibited due to a water crisis. Droughts are naturally occurring, but climate change has increased the intensity. The water conversation infrastructure in North Carolina has not been updated since the 60’s; making the ability to mitigate the effects of the drought harder. Not only has population boomed in North Carolina, but resource draining data centers have been placed across the state; putting an even bigger strain on the infrastructure. Statesville is not a majority Black community but its population is 26% Black. Thats the largest in the county and higher than the statewide average. They are under a water restriction(things aren’t coincidences). However, data centers are being brought into our neighborhoods by the week. If we talk about and educate ourselves; once we lock in we can start to fix this issue and have a better quality of life. 100 years ago North Carolina had a severe drought that devastated parts of the state. 16 percent of farms in North Carolina between 1925 to 1926 failed. Water conversation became a major issue of the times and part of the new deal initiative focused on water conservation efforts in the area by creating reservoirs. This offsets the damage of droughts for decades. In 2007-2008 a drought struck North Carolina once more but this time reservoirs were not enough to prevent water restrictions like the ones placed today. What changed? The severity of the drought was more intense. This drought came after Hurricane Katrina one of the first openly acknowledged storm that was brought on by climate change. Climate change has been playing a role in natural disasters for over 20 years now and this drought was no different. What else was different? Well from 1960 when the final reservoir was finished the population in North Carolina has boomed which when the drought hit put a higher strain on the infrastructure because more people were using the water supply. In retrospect this should have been seen as a warning. We are the better part of 20 years removed from 2007. The infrastructure has remained untouched, the population has continued to grow and climate disasters have escalated across the country. If those 3 things weren’t a terrible enough cocktail, in comes data centers. Data centers drain communities of their resources the major one being water. Both of Statesville’s major water sources have data centers near them. The truth is that no one really knows how this will end up. Maybe the El Niño year brings water to the area later in the year or maybe a hurricane, thats what ended the drought in 2008. However, we can conclude that if the drought becomes bad enough Statesville and towns like it will have little to no options. Statesville is an example. Corpus Christi is facing its own water crisis this summer. Last year during the LA fires water conservation became a talking point when it came to how to fight the fire. We all know about Flint and their decade long water crisis. Water crisis are becoming more prevalent across the country. Flint has shown us that Black communities are not receiving any assistance when the water runs out. Even with a Black president Flint could not get clean drinking water. In 2026 there is no doubt the government would rather watch us die of thirst. It’s time to wake up as a community because we have to win against data centers and update our drinking water infrastructure. If a data center is coming to your community talk to your neighbors and create activist groups against it. Talk about the story of Statesville; whatever you do it is not a time to sit by ideally with important information. Stay woke, Loc Sources --- ## The Exploitation of Black Daycare Workers Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/3mkaukkk7nb23-the-exploitation-of-black-daycare-workers/ Record: at://did:plc:zysihwqd547kob25tqyukjbs/site.standard.document/3mkaukkk7nb23 Published: 2026-04-28 · 3 min read · 609 words Black women are being exploited through the daycare industry. Faced with systemic oppression that has been built into the fabric of American society; these workers face the lowest pay, fewest workplace benefits and are given little to no resources to survive or be supported in the workplace. Universal childcare would allow Black women workers to escape the poverty trap of being childcare workers. During slavery Black women took care of massa’s home; both domestic and care work. Once our ancestors were freed the role of Black women in society did not change. They would become domestic workers and/or care workers making pennies. Claudia Jones created the theory of triple oppression of the Black woman worker. The Black woman faces oppression from the capitalist for being a worker, a Black person, and a woman; explained in her essay An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!. The essay explains not only are they oppressed because they belong to each category but they are also the most oppressed from within each category. The Black woman is always exploited more than her Black and woman counterpart, and that makes them overall the most oppressed worker. This can explain why in a growing field that can’t be disrupted by AI, Daycare/pre-k workers fall within the bottom 5% of all occupational median wages in 2023. Daycare teachers earned around $15 an hour and pre-k teachers made a little less than $18 dollars an hour. 1/10 of these workers have retirement benefits and 23% have employer-sponsored health coverage. 53% of these workers rely on public benefits such as SNAP; this is twice as high as the general workforce. The daycare system is a privatized market. That means that capitalist business owners run the system. They have oppressed their workers into financial instability + physical and mental burnout, all while creating a $65 billion industry. Off the backs of Black and brown women these capitalists have maximized profits. Capitalists will always abuse the oppressive system in order to gain more profit. We can stop them though! We can stop this oppression through universal childcare. The public school system is a great example of how universal childcare would be better for the workers over the current privatized system. A pre-k teacher as stated earlier made a median hourly rate of less than $18 an hour (2023), but a kindergarten teacher who teaches children that are only a year older made a median of $32.80 an hour (2024). That is a life changing difference that is made possible because of federal/state guidelines and the teachers union. The kindergarten teacher is more likely to have access to benefits and only 21% will need to rely on public benefits; which is equal to the general workforce. Pre-k teachers are over twice as likely to need public benefits. Kindergarten teachers receive training and continuing education that pre-k teachers don’t receive. The public school system has many criticisms, but the difference in implementing a similar system to daycare and pre-k teachers would change their lives. The implementation would lift hundreds of thousands of Black women workers out of a life of instability and give them the proper resources to help raise and nurture the future of our society. NYC is already rolling out their plans for universal childcare and want to make it state wide. We have the opportunity to get Black women out of the poverty trap that is currently early childcare and help families gain back a large portion of their income that is currently going towards childcare. For the ancestors, the working class and the children; GIVE US OUR FREE DAYCARE! Stay woke, Loc Sources --- ## Black Iranians Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/black-iranians/ Record: at://did:plc:zysihwqd547kob25tqyukjbs/site.standard.document/3mhmf52qnyk25 Published: 2026-03-22 · 3 min read · 730 words Tags: Iran, black writer, blacksky, socialism, black liberation The struggles we share Tadeegh artist for Collective for Black Iranians The diaspora reaches into the Middle East, specifically Iran. We share similar struggles with our Iranian cousins; such as Black movements getting hijacked and both our histories being actively erased. We should be showing solidarity with Black Iranians as they face illegal attacks by the imperialist Amerikkkan government. How did Africans end up in Iran? Short answer, slavery. Iran was first recognized as the country of Iran in 1935 and for thousands of years before that it was known as Persia. Yes that Persia, one of the oldest civilizations in the world. They have a very long history of slavery. Throughout their history they gained slaves from Africa via conflict, but in more modern times they got slaves through the African slave trade like Amerikkka. Yet another similarity we share with them. Iran has deliberately attempted to erase slavery from their nations history. When Iranians are asked about their history of slavery the general answer is Iran never had slaves and racism does not exist in Iran because that’s what they are taught. After Iran abolished slavery the government immediately erased it from their history. School textbooks did not have it. Everything that was written from 1930’s on completely omitted East Africans from being enslaved. To go on a deeper dive of the erasure in Iran check out this video:  This erasure leads to an intersection between Black Americans and Black Iranians. In November of 1979 the US Embassy was held hostage in Iran. The hostages situation lasted 444 days, but not for everyone. Black Americans were freed within 14 days. The reason, Iran sided with the Black liberation movement in Amerikkka. Much like white liberals during the civil rights era who attached themselves to the civil rights movement because they were upset about the Vietnam war, Iran too aligned themselves for selfish reasons. Outside of voicing support and a few rallies in Iran, no real support came from the government. The Middle East throughout the 1900’s faced colonial pressure from England, America and other colonial powers. in the 1970’s Iran was in conflict with Amerikkka. Aligning themselves to the Black liberation movement gave them legitimacy in their revolution as an anti colonial movement. Something they needed because it was viewed as an Islamic rule movement. They wanted the support of the communist/socialist countries to view it as an anti-colonial movement and gain their support. The cherry on top, supporting Black Americans allowed them to smear their enemy for how they treat their people. Iran aligned themselves in solidarity with Black Americans well into the 1980s. They would even go on to put Malcolm X, a Black muslim figure on their stamps years before the US would do so. Iran, used the solidarity with the civil rights/Black liberation movement against Black Iranians. By 1979 Iran was 50 years into their erasure of the slavery. This means multiple generations had not learned about their history of slavery. It had almost completely been wiped from existence in the country. The solidarity with Black Americans gave measuring stick to what slavery and racism looked like from the western side. This is what Iranians mean when they say there is no slavery or racism. They view their history nothing like the evil Amerikkkan empire. However, Black Iranians still face racism. ko-fi.com Support Stay Woke Gazette The erasing of our history has been going on since the abolishment of slavery as well. It most recently escalated with the introduction of critical race theory. Between the years 2021 and 2022, 241 measures to restrict the teaching of race were passed. In 2025 the current administration started dismantling Black history in museums, national parks, parks in general and restricted funding to sites dedicated to Black history. The importance on the fight to keep our history from being erased can be seen from what has happened to Black Iranians. It only takes a couple generations for something no matter how big to be forgotten. These connections are not one offs. The diaspora from Iran and beyond are linked through many similar type of struggles. There are lessons we can learn from each other and many things to relate over. Black people on this planet share a bond like no other type of people. Keep loving us and long live solidarity amongst the diaspora.  Stay woke, Loc ko-fi.com Support Stay Woke Gazette --- ## Yesterday’s Price Is Not Today’s Price Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/yesterdays-price-is-not-todays-price/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/yesterdays-price-is-not-todays-price Published: 2026-03-01 · 3 min read · 658 words The price of Kobe's won't be dropping, but labor prices will We got played. The Corporations, Wall Street, and the billionaires are about to cash in on our tax dollars. The Supreme Court struck down the tariffs trump put in place. Mainstream media is spinning it as a win against the fascist, but really it’s a giant win for the capitalist. Let’s look at the price of Kobe’s. Kobe’s are made overseas in Asia, you probably already know, but follow me here. Nike gets a hell of deal doing business over there. The price to make a pair of shoes is $20 and they sell it to us for $200. Trump came in and said yeah we are going to take a cut of that money, give us $50. Nike has to keep the shareholders happy and losing $50 on every pair is going to piss BlackRock the fuck off. So the bum ass board at NIKE said “Yo what if we raise our shoe prices to $250 instead of $200 dollars? “. This is how the tariffs were working. The results are in; niggas are still buying Kobe’s. Now the government can’t take that cut of $50 bucks. NIKE will go back to paying $20 a pair, but niggas showed their hand they will pay $250 for them. So yeah, those prices aren’t coming back down. We are talking about the price of Kobe’s and I am squabbling over $50 on something you might only be buying once a year. To that I say “ you right”. However, how many times did you buy beef last year or something that involved china in the making of it? All those things are about to do the same thing NIKE did; say “well niggas will pay this much for it”. These prices aren’t coming back down. But wait, there’s more! Since the Supreme Court ruled that the tariffs are illegal and all the money made from them has to be refunded. Paying back the money collected by tariffs. The tariffs cost that were passed on to us the buyer. Ain’t that some shit! But wait, there’s still more!!! The billionaires and their paid off politicians found another way to take more money away from us. They ran a scam off the tariffs and they are sabotaging the labor market. They are cutting jobs and salaries in the tech sector. The safest job 5 years ago computer programming is having mass layoffs and entry levels job openings are scarce. All because they are betting on figuring out AI fast enough to not affect the bottom line and lower labor cost. Black people are losing their jobs for absolutely no reason other than they are Black; unless they are also a woman. The Anti-DEI movement came after women too. Women have been fired for being women. The return to “good ol days America” means taking agency away from women. All women have been affected, however, despite being the most educated demographic of humans in the country Black women have been affected the most. Being Black and a woman is two strikes against you as a human according to Capitalism. Kobe’s prices aren’t going down, We are not getting the money back that we are owed from tariffs, wages and employment are dropping. That’s it, I don’t have any good news for ya. Ignore the social commentary bait nigga, they are playing in your face. Become a paid subscriber and support a Black writer ran publication. Stay woke, Loc If you are interested in becoming an editor and co-founder of the Stay Woke publication read below: Loc Stay Woke Is Now A Writer Ran Publication I recently wrote an article about Malcom X and the defining message was perfect activism isn’t real and the civil rights era had messy activism. I state it is on us to continue to push forward even if it’s messy. It is time to practice what I preach… Read more 9 months ago · 12 likes · Loc --- ## The Klan In The Stands Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/he-must-think-im-nuts/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/he-must-think-im-nuts Published: 2026-02-04 · 5 min read · 1043 words The story of the white nationalist who admired Malcom X Photographed by Eve Arnold Malcom X had a very unlikely super fan; George Lincoln Rockwell, a white man. Not just any white man, *checks notes * The father of Amerikkkan nazis. Rockwell loved X so much he talked about how he wanted to go on a speaking tour with him. When asked about it X replied “He must think I’m nuts!!”. How did he become such a big fan of X? Well, the Nation of Islam and Amerikkkan nazis had a working relationship That can be tracked into the 80’s. In the 1960’s the relationship between the NOI and the Amerikkkan nazis became so friendly, Nazis gave speeches at two different NOI conventions. The two groups shared beliefs that were closely tied into white supremacy. Separation The Nation of Islam is a Black nationalist organization. They had no desire to work within a white dominated nation. An all Black American separate nation was the goal of the NOI. Nazis did not want Black people in America; causing the two to have common ground. Religion Deeming christianity the religion of the white man and racist; the Nation of Islam took up well, Islam.The practices of the muslim faith however, were only loosely adopted. It was never really rooted in faith or spirituality and that’s most likely the reason it somehow eventually goes down a weird scientology route (I digress). The NOI much like the white nationalist used religion as tool of control rather than a form of spirituality. When we look at the white nationalist of Amerikkka they have historically used their own version of Christianity to progress their agenda and promote violence against others/dissenters of white supremacy. The NOI used these same tactics to carry out the assassination of X. Antisemitism “The enemy of my enemy is my friend” - some dead dude Both the Amerikkkan nazis and the NOI had a hatred for the Jewish community. This is something that they were able to bond over that. In photo taken by a Jewish photographer at a NOI and had slurs hurled at her from both sides. Photographed by Jewish photographer Eve Arnold Rockwell, had a working relationship with the NOI for the reasons above, but his fandom of X was more personal. Malcom X had the ability to fill stadiums and make them go absolutely wild. His writings were well received in the Black community and his followers were loyal. Rockwell was unable to produce the popularity or the loyalty. I’ll let X sum it up: Malcom X was a loyal follower of Elijah Muhammad; we all know this by now. He tolerated this relationship between the two groups. He even said in an interview he helped broker a 20,000 acre land deal between the NOI and the nazis down in Georgia. However, by all public accounts and responses to reporter he hated Rockwell and the nazis. After leaving the NOI, X no longer had to hold himself back. After his house was firebombed, Malcom gave a speech the next day. In the speech he mentioned Rockwell when it came to white supremacist agitating a Dr. King protest. This is what he had to say: “When I saw it I dispatched a wire to Rockwell; Rockwell was one of the agitators down there, Rockwell, this Lincoln Rockwell. And the wire said in essence that this is to warn him that I am no longer held in check from fighting white supremacists by Elijah Muhammad’s separatist Black Muslim movement. And that if Rockwell’s presence in Alabama causes harm to come to Dr. King or any other Black person in Alabama who’s doing nothing other than trying to enjoy their rights, then Rockwell and his Ku Klux Klan friends would be met with maximum retaliation from those of us who are not handcuffed by this nonviolent philosophy. And I haven’t heard from Rockwell since.” These two men were both killed at the hands of white supremacy. Malcolm was a dissenter and moved away from the NOI; leading to the members eventually killing him. Rockwell pushed to allow a Greek man into the nazi party expanding who can be considered white. For that he was also a dissenter and a member of the party he created killed him. Subscribe now White supremacy has no place for thought that questions it. We can see that today. Anybody can get it if they go against MAGA even if it is only a small dissent from their beliefs, however, anyone can ride the wave (ex: fucking Nicki Minaj) . White supremacy is a mindset that has been around for hundreds of years. Even as Black folks it is instilled in our brains because of the world we live in. The practice of decolonizing our minds and removing white supremacy from our lives has become talking points lately, but the truth is we will not survive white supremacy. Our job is not to end it, but much like X and other ancestors we are here to move forward. I think that is important to state because a lot of people view the civil rights era as an era of perfect activism. No, our ancestors were just like us. They had flaws, they were messy and even as they were fighting to improve Black life in America; white supremacy found its way in. Share Malcom X is an ancestor I hold in very high regard. Discovering this bizarre side story to Malcolm X’s life was shocking. However, it was a reminder activism does not mean perfection. He was devoted to giving us a better future. He thought the NOI was devoted to the same cause, but they were not. When he came to that realization he left the group knowing the danger it put him in. He then spent the rest of his short life continuing to fight for us. It is our turn to return the favor and do our best to move progress forward knowing that we don’t have to be perfect in our work, but we have to work. P.S. If you ever find yourself being idolized by a white supremacist, turn and run. Stay woke, Loc Please help support a Black publication by becoming a paid subscriber or sending money through KOFI. Love ya niggas! Sources --- ## What's Going On? Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/whats-going-on/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/whats-going-on Published: 2026-02-01 · 3 min read · 692 words Jordan is this week’s contributor to the Stay Woke publication. Jordan is this week’s contributor to the Stay Woke publication. He has his own Substack Publication Jordan With Love. It will be at the bottom, please subscribe. America is suffering from more contradictions than 21 savage last album, Retirement commercials promising serenity while markets free-fall. Financial firms speaking in tongues about “solutions” as the Dow nosedives. Politicians declaring victory while institutions hollow out. A man in Gaza pleading for his mother’s life sandwiched between sponsorships and public broadcasting bumpers. The signal isn’t subtle. It’s deafening. Marvin Gaye asked What’s Going On? in 1971, and the question still hasn’t been answered. If anything, it’s become harder to ask. In 2026, too much happens in a single week to even know where to start. Economic collapse cycles. War footage. Political spectacle. Corporate ads promising peace of mind while the floor caves in beneath you. The news moves faster than comprehension, and clarity is treated like a luxury good. What’s happening isn’t chaos, it’s plutonomy. If you’re not familiar, plutonomy refers to an economic system organized around the wealth, power, and consumption of a tiny elite. Rather than growth being driven by the needs or stability of the broader population, the economy bends toward those already at the top. In this framework, inequality isn’t a byproduct, it’s the engine. Wealth concentrates upward, political influence follows the money and democracy slowly erodes as public policy prioritizes protection over participation. What emerges is an economy that looks productive on the surface but brittle underneath, incapable of sustaining shared prosperity, social trust, or meaningful mobility. The promise was simple: work hard, build a life, own a home. That promise was broken not by accident, but by greed. Two generations were sacrificed to maximize returns. Subscribe now In a paper quietly published and just as quietly scrubbed in 2005, Citigroup analysts described the United States as a plutonomy: an economy powered by and for the wealthy few. In this system, the “marginal consumer” isn’t most people living paycheck to paycheck, financing lunch through Afterpay. It’s the ultra-rich households earning in an hour what others make in a year whose spending decisions dictate economic reality. Plutonomies aren’t new. History remembers them fondly: 1600s Holland, the Gilded Age, the Roaring Twenties. Glittering eras that look great in hindsight, right up until they collapse. What they share are familiar traits: deregulation, privatization, cultural tolerance for obscene inequality, weak wealth taxation, and globalization framed as inevitability. The result is concentrated power and a fragile economy held together by optimism and denial. Alternative egalitarian economies are increasingly rare. But where they exist, the differences are stark. Progressive taxation. Strong unions. Robust social safety nets. Spain’s recent wealth tax proposals alone could raise trillions annually. To put that in perspective: ending homelessness would cost a fraction of that. Ending world hunger, even less. The money exists. It’s just pooled where it can’t be touched. That’s the part we’re not supposed to say out loud. In America, the economy is now driven by a narrow sliver of corporations and consumers. The stock market soars on the backs of AI speculation, data centers, and financial deregulation, while the rest of the S&P 500 clings to relevance. The top 10% of earners now account for roughly half of all consumer spending. If they keep spending, the economy “holds.” If they don’t, everything collapses. This is the K-shaped economy made flesh. One line shoots upward: asset owners, retirees, oligarchs, corporations. The other drops: younger generations priced out of housing, stability, and the future itself. Older Americans are insulated by equity, pensions, and postwar prosperity. Younger people are told to budget better while juggling debt, rent, and shrinking wages. Late-stage capitalism doesn’t need most people anymore. It needs data, attention, and a wealthy consumer class to keep the lights on. Middle-class housing disappears. Middle-class products vanish. Even professions reorganize themselves around servicing the rich. Dentistry turns cosmetic. Medicine turns boutique. Everything adjusts upward, leaving everyone else behind. So when Marvin Gaye asked What’s Going On?, he was asking about war, poverty, and alienation. In 2026, the landscape is different, but the questions remains the same. What’s going on? Subscribe now --- ## Lemon Pepper Steppers Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/lemon-pepper-steppers/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/lemon-pepper-steppers Published: 2026-01-18 · 4 min read · 865 words Tags: Druski, mega church, capitalism, church Capitalism in the church Lets talk about capitalism in the church, but first: Have you heard the story about the preacher who could not convert his congregation? The church he preached at was a tough crowd. He would go Sunday after Sunday giving his best work. He would give the word as if the holy ghost was speaking through him, but still he could not a single amen from the crowd. They would sit quietly then leave once the service was over. There was nothing the preacher could do to get the congregation to donate to the church. After 2 years the preacher needed a break. He lured in a well known preacher to try and get the members to convert while he was gone. Now this preacher belonged to one of the largest churches in the area; he had no problem converting believers. He was sure in no time that the collection plate would be overfilled. Well, after 2 months the preacher had no converters. For the next 3 weeks the preacher did the best preaching anyone has seen. The crowd still could not be moved; not a single amen could be heard. By the end of the 3rd month the preacher had enough. Before service he told the ushers to lock the doors after the congregation got settled for service and bring him the keys. The preacher stepped out dressed to the 9’s. A finely tailored suit, a beautiful watch, and his lemon pepper steppers on his feet. He gave one of the best services anyone has ever sat through and once more he finished to crickets. The preacher then whips out a .38 special for these tricky niggas. He fired two shots into the ceiling and finally the crowd made a noise; screams. He said “ I have spent 3 months giving you the best preaching you have ever seen and haven’t had a single contribution to the plate. today you are going to tithe.” He took the full collection plate and went back to his church once and for all. This is a lie, but it is not my lie. This was a story told in a circle of people down in Florida where Zora Hurston heard the story and decided to put it in “Mules and Men.” Before Druski decided to step into those red bottom shoes, the story of greed within the church has been passed from generation to generation since the ancestors were freed. That greed is a symptom of capitalism. By the time christianity reached our ancestor it had already fully subscribed to capitalism and colonialism (cuz how’d we get here nigga). The stories and lessons spent a thousand years in the white man’s hands before it was forced down our throats. If we are going to choose to practice the following of Christ we need to decolonize it first. Capitalism inside the church is a starting point. Back when Zora wrote Mules and Men in 1935 even a small town like Eatonville, Florida where she’s from had 2 churches. I grew up in a town of around 6,000 people and 3 or 4 churches. If there was a preacher you did not agree with or spent a little too much of the churches money on his lemon pepper steppers you had options. Today, churches are closing left and right, however, the number of churchgoers are increasing. Both of these events can occur because of the rise of mega churches (2,000 members or more). Small congregation are being merged and consolidated into these mega churches. I am not versed enough to tell you about what the Bible says about merger and acquisitions, but I know it’s a part of capitalism. Subscribe now The goal is to keep high ranking members rich and spend large chunks of money to get people in the seats. That may come in the form of making sure the campus looks modern, coffee bars, or other amenities that make you feel like your church experience is a luxury; to the Mega church you are a customer. Is this starting to sound exactly like Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target running out local stores? That’s capitalism nigga! These Mega churches are the evolution of capitalism in the church. It is important for us to know the history of how we got here. From preachers trying to make buck off the donation plate to mega churches running million dollar companies. The greed is fucking with our spirit and that should not sit right with us. We are and have always been very spiritual people. I am burning candle while I write this; IYKYK. Mega churches have found their way into the Black community. We deserve better than big box churches with light shows. Our DNA has spirituality woven into it; we need it to survive. Imagine how much stronger our communities would be if they all had decolonized spiritual places of worship. Stay woke, Loc The goal for 2026 is to open a banned Black book library in Southern California where Loc is located. It will start at a local farmers market until a more permanent home can be found. Become a paid Substack subscriber to help fund a Black library. --- ## How to Fight Back Against AI Generated Misinformation Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/how-to-fight-back-against-ai-generated/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/how-to-fight-back-against-ai-generated Published: 2026-01-09 · 4 min read · 956 words Tags: AI, Venezuela, Collective Action, misinformation A quick guide on how to spot AI AI slop has become a media disinformation tool. Over the weekend when the US committed war crimes; it became hard to tell what was real. Both AI videos and photos were being spread across social media making it hard to gather reliable information on what was going on. This article is going to sound like the plot of a Black Mirrors episode; lock in. We don’t know how much of an impact AI slop will have on the public as a misinformation tool. However, Facebook and a few bots have caused genocides and swayed elections. So, we should view AI slop misinformation as a threat to the American people regardless of who is spreading the slop. Subscribe now Believe it or not the best way to stop slop from spreading is with your own eyes. There is currently no reliable AI detection programs. There is a funding problem in the field of AI forensics. With very few regulations the holders of these algorithms do not have much incentive to fund AI detection; it does nothing for the bottom line. The current fascist administration has no desire to regulate AI. Misinformation allows for them to continue causing public confusion and chaos. This is only part of the problem. Even outside of the US the researchers who are studying the topic are struggling to build a solution. Training an algorithm on data from AI (meaning AI training AI) is not a reliable training method. Leaving these early detectors unable to consistently identify AI generated slop. If you can solve this puzzle you will one day win a noble prize and probably be filthy rich. For right now our only way to fight misinformation is with our eyes. This next section is going to be dedicated to breaking down “The Human Guide To Detecting AI Imagery” from aiforensics.org. This will be a summary; I will link the full guide here (in case you are done reading this), but it will be posted again at the end too and it is posted in The Wake and Think arena group. Subscribe now Before the image Before you even look at an image there are ways to check if it is generated slop. TikTok, Instagram, etc all have an AI slop label. The description on could also have hashtags or flat out say it was AI generated. The biggest issue with this is that it is on the creator/person posting to label the content. Less than half of known AI images are labeled. Some sites such as instagram have made the label less visible on first glance; you will have to check inside the description. One other place to check before you start to dissect the image. Check the comments on the post. People have probably already started a conversation and listed their reason they believe or don’t believe it is slop. Obviously social media comment sections are full of trolls and shitposters; use your discretion on what you take from them. Synthetic Artifacts in AI Imagery Now we are going to look at the image since all else has failed to deliver clarity. Let it be noted that from here on out we cannot always guarantee we will know 100 percent certainty that it is AI slop. Synthetic Artifacts are going to parts of the image or video that are out of place or inconsistent with the image/video. here is a quick list of things: Impossible physics The smoke is coming from nowhere Indecipherable inscriptions/words The top of the Box has gibberish next to buns Inconsistent proportions Not matching or missing accessories Implausible symmetry, vanishing points, and shadows Inconsistent style Too many/Too few body parts A stylized smooth glow Moving Images/clips Here are a few things to look for in videos that will help you determine if it’s slop. Disappearing/morphing body parts Unnatural body language/movements Unnatural eyes Unmatching/impossible lips/teeth/hair Disappearing or appearing objects Unnatural physics Digital Provenance The last step you can use is to verify the origin of the content. Reverse image search the content Check multiple credible news sources Practice will make you better at spotting AI. However, you are only one brain and two eyes; it can be overwhelming. That’s why I started a channel in the collectives discord channel called “is it slop”. We as a community can come together and help fight the AI slop appearing on our feeds. It can be used for practice spotting slop with harmless cat videos or try to root out political propaganda. There is no one coming to save us. There is no AI detection system coming in the near future, but the threat of AI destabilizing society has already arrived. We can save ourselves by creating communities who identify slop and call it out. If you are Black you are welcome to join the discord (the collective is a closed community). Drop a video/photo into the channel or help investigate something already in the channel. We can collectively fight back against AI slop creating misinformation. [FULL GUIDE] Stay woke, Loc The goal for 2026 is to open a banned Black Book Library in Southern California where Loc the founder is located. It will start at a local farmers market. The books will be rented out from a booth until a more permanent home can be found. Become a paid Substack member to help fund a Black library and get updates on its progress! Sources: Moore, Willem. “Venezuela Misinformation Spreads like Wildfire Online.” Canary, 4 Jan. 2026, www.thecanary.co/trending/2026/01/04/venezuela-misinformation/. Khan, Naseem, et al. “Unmasking Synthetic Realities in Generative AI: A Comprehensive Review of Adversarially Robust Deepfake Detection Systems.” ArXiv.org, 2025, arxiv.org/abs/2507.21157. “Library: Faculty Guide to Generative AI: Detecting AI.” Pace.edu, 2022, libguides.pace.edu/c.php?g=1292205&p=9488470. ‌‌The Human Guide to Detecting AI Imagery | 2. --- ## Exiled by Pigs Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/exiled-by-pigs/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/exiled-by-pigs Published: 2026-01-02 · 5 min read · 1161 words Tags: ice, deportation, somalia, Prison abolition People are not being deported they are being exiled. People are not being deported they are being exiled. Let me cook. Did you know Gitmo (Guantánamo Bay) was used to round up Black people? Ain’t that some sh*t. Bill Clinton......(pause, let that sink in) Bill Clinton in 1997 signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. Sending thousands of Caribbean residents away from their homes in Amerikkka and to Guantánamo Bay. Almost every last one of them sent to Guantánamo Bay were exiled and not allowed to come back to their home. By the end of 1997 the US government had exiled 127,300 from Caribbean countries like Jamaica, Trinidad, the Dominican Republic, etc. That was a 70 percent increase from 1996. The act was allegedly for criminals and illegal immigration. The sinisterness of it was these were long standing residents of their respected communities for the most part. No, they were not born in America. However, even the criminals that were found were products of American society. These raids are not new; just more brutal. In Southern California as I write this we are over 200 days from the start of the violent ICE raids on our communities. Kidnappings are on the rise and whole communities are being devastated. Like fire drills or more recently added school shooter drills; now kids are practicing for immigration raids at schools. Because ICE is a fucking disaster. The government exploits immigrants by serving them up with taxpayer dollars to the prison industrial complex. The same group of elites owning private prisons own immigrant detention centers. In fact, detention centers are posting the biggest revenues inside of the prison industrial complex today; all that revenue is taxpayer dollars. Subscribe now The DHS are paying the detention centers to hold the kidnapped. They are paying so well the owners of private prisons are starting to parole immigrants no matter their crime so they can be released and detained by ICE to get shuffled away to a detention center. Louisiana, South Dakota, and Oklahoma have all put in place a parole to exile strategy in place. South Dakota has deported 10 over the summer. Oklahoma announced they found 525 prisoners to parole in February of 2025; only a few weeks after the inauguration. The state of Louisiana annually grants parole around 50% of their parole cases. This year there is a 100% release rate on immigrants.Most of the criminals being exiled by ICE are just prison transfers to ICE centers. The kidnappings that are going on in the streets are mostly made up of everyday people at work or children at school (600 children have entered ICE centers this year). The only crime most these people committed was choosing Amerikkka as a place to call home. ICE pigs are now coming after Black people. It always comes back to us. Over the Thanksgiving weekend ICE raided Canal St in NYC. The targets were African born street vendors along the sides of the road. Hardworking Black people now have the eyes of ICE on them. No criminals, just people who live in New York that weren’t born here. The government is working to meet numbers set by the administration. They will throw anyone into those detention centers to meet those numbers. We were absolutely kidding ourselves if we thought it started and ended with latinos. Subscribe now The build up to the holidays lead to Somalian immigrants and citizens to become the focus on the illegal kidnappings. The state of Minnesota has been flooded by ICE pigs. They are terrorizing and kidnapping Black people if they look Somalian (meaning Black). The chief orange pig is trying to denaturalize all Somalians who have naturalized citizenship. If they are able to make the rest of the government bow down to this wish then no one is safe. People from our generation might have their parents or even a millennial with citizenship lose their citizenship because it was naturalized and not birthright. Ismatu Gwendolyn, a US born citizen with dual citizenship in Sierra Leone, was detained at an airport while traveling back to the US. A man on his lunch break in Minneapolis was tackled to the ground. The ICE pigs would not let him show his passport to prove citizenship. The reason behind the attack was that he looked like he was from Somalia. Families who have built lives here are being torn apart so billionaires can have a scapegoat for a terrible economy. The Vice President got on television to tell Americans that immigrants not Black Rock are the reason we can’t afford homes. Immigrants are the reason we can’t afford food. Not General Mills announcing on every earnings call for the last 4 years saying their increased profits are coming from simply raising prices. Racism is once again doing the work for the ultra wealthy. Subscribe now Black nations are scrambling to take on a mass influx of people into their country. These people for the most part are not familiar or have ties to the nation they are being sent to. These are people raised or have lived in the US the majority of their lives. These nations have been beaten down by US policy for generations. The capitalist machine and anti-blackness from western nations are the entire reason these nations have struggled from the jump. Making these nations deal with this mess is only hurting the nation more. We must change the narrative; much like how we are accurately calling raids kidnappings instead of arrests. The word deportation comes with the notion and image that they are being shipped back home; that is not accurately reflecting what is happening. People who have worked, paid taxes, and raised children along side of us for years if not decades are being removed from their home and not allowed to return. They have been exiled. Stay woke, Loc This publication funds future projects for the collective. The first project of 2026 will be opening a library for banned Black books. Starting at a farmers market until a more permanent location can be secured. Your paid subscription goes into helping build a library for Black books. Join our discord channel. All Black creatives are welcome. Sources: CBS Minnesota. “Minneapolis Leaders Say U.S. Citizen Was Wrongfully Arrested by ICE Agents.” CBS News, December 10, 2025 www.cbsnews.com/minnesota/news/minneapolis-leaders-say-us-citizen-was-wrongfully-arrested-by-ice-agents/. Barba, Alex. “‘We’re All on Edge’: Somali Minneapolis Braces for Trump’s ICE Crackdown.” The Guardian, 11 Dec. 2025, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/11/somali-minneapolis-fear-trump-ice-deportation. Jaffe, Hannah. “NYPD, ICE & Homeland Security Raids on Canal Street Spark Fear.” The CITY, 29 Nov. 2025, www.thecity.nyc/2025/11/29/nypd-ice-homeland-security-canal/. “Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996.” Wikipedia, en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Illegal_Immigration_Reform_and_Immigrant_Responsibility_Act_of_1996. Kumar, Deepa. “Guantánamo’s Other History.” Boston Review, 11 Jan. 2016, www.bostonreview.net/articles/guantanamos-other-history/. Bernstein, Nina. “ICE Detentions of Immigrant Kids and Family Separations Are Surging.” ProPublica, November 24, 2025, www.propublica.org/article/ice-detentions-immigrant-kids-family-separations. Lord, Rich. “Louisiana’s Parole-to-Deportation Pipeline: How Landry’s ‘Operation Geaux’ Works.” ProPublica, 3 Dec. 2025, www.propublica.org/article/louisiana-parole-deportation-jeff-landry-operation-geaux. Boyce Davies, Carole. Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Duke University Press, 2008. --- ## Do Black People have Allies Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/do-black-people-have-allies/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/do-black-people-have-allies Published: 2025-12-28 · 3 min read · 693 words Tags: solidarity, Police brutality, anti-Blackness, Black Community Support What is solidarity if everyone holds anti-blackness? There is a passage in the book Afropessimism where a white couple get in an argument and the man says to the woman “The war is over; it’s time to move on”. She was an activist during the anti-Vietnam war movement, but now its 5 years since the war and helping a black revolutionary seemed like something that they would do in their rebellious youth, but it was time to put it behind them. Reading that paragraph hit me in the chest; it took me back to 2020. I was less angry then, even as the city Louisville fired tear gas and nonlethal rounds in my direction. As I was learning the full force of the racist power structure of Amerikkka; I also felt heard by White Amerikkkans. I could walk down Bardstown Rd and see BLM signs from apartment windows (even at that point I knew why they were in business windows). Social media was filled with white people trying to read about police brutality and racism. It felt like a turning point in America; it wasn’t. White People are going to White people. There was a pandemic, people were locked inside with no guidance, laid off, no benefits, and being led by an absolute idiot. White people were scared and when Black people took to the streets for George Floyd the lost whites could attach on and voice frustration towards the system. They were screaming more for the aforementioned reasons than for George Floyd and police brutality looking back. Hiding behind Black people in order to get back to the place where their fears were erased. Donald Trump lost the election that November because of Black people across the country. Relief checks and vaccines came our way and the BLM signs came down. Subscribe now Police Brutality against Black people in the Joe Biden era went up. Our movement was co-opted by our alleged white allies and nothing was done for us. Now the orange idiot is back in the White House and Black people are getting harassed and punished for the work we did against him and the system in 2020. Rallying beside white liberals is not getting us the results we need. I will never blame someone who does and I am sure your work will trickle down to us in some way. However, you are going to put in a lot work and get exploited for such a small trickle of progress. We have each other and thats it. Other races look down on Black people in general; even Palestinians. When the detention centers shut down and ICE kidnappings stop I am certain latinos across the country will again align themselves to whiteness in this country. They were perfectly fine with the racism until it came violently kicking their door down (see every single voting demographic chart). No matter how much solidarity or support we give they don’t want to be associated with Niggas in this country; no demographic does. Subscribe now Anti-blackness is unique because it can’t be answered in terms of colonialism or capitalism. The Palestinian struggle revolves around stolen land; land ownership is easily understood. ICE is rounding up immigrants taking away people’s ability to work in the US. Labor is again can be easily explained. They want the same access to capital (land) and labor as the capitalist and the zionist. However, how does a marginalized group having anti-black sentiment get explained? The betrayal of 2020 will forever stay with me. White people are mad so I am sure Trump and the cronies eventually get thrown out. Will DEI, voter rights, and affirmative action in the college admission process comeback? Doubt it. Without solidarity within the community nothing will get done; no one is coming to save us. Stay woke, Loc The goal for 2026 is to open a banned Black Book Library in Southern California where Loc the founder is located. It will start at a local farmers market. The books will be rented out from a booth until a more permanent home can be found. Become a paid Substack member to help fund a Black library and get updates on its progress! --- ## Your Black Shopping Guide for the Holiday Season Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/your-black-shopping-guide-for-the/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/your-black-shopping-guide-for-the Published: 2025-11-27 · 1 min read · 246 words Tags: holiday shopping, Shop Black, shop local, christmas, black friday Keep it Black this holiday season with our shopping guide. **This one is going to be a little too long for email. I Highly recommend looking at it on the Substack app if you can.** Hello, I hope this finds you on a full stomach and at peace this holiday. With the help of Shavaughn; the Wake and Think Collective has created a Black shopping guide for the upcoming holiday season. It is important to make sure that we are using our dollars to support the community! Let’s kick off Black Friday by buying Black! Subscribe now Foreword: Shavaughn is from and lives in Oakland and I am located in San Diego. Most of the shopping options are local to Oakland or Southern California, but not all. Much Love from California! Clothing/Body care Taylor Jay Oakland Don’t Play Mind Peace Woke E.N.D (Every Nigga Deserves) Futurisme.studio Naturalista Misha Restaurants (Oakland and San Diego locations) Sobre Mesa Town Fare cafe Barcote Ethiopian Restaurant Red Bay Coffee Louisiana Purchase Media/Books Reparations Club The Cutting Room Floor Podcast The Grits and Eggs Podcast Nonprofits/Black Organizations Blackstack Huey P Newton Foundation West Oakland Cultural Action Network The Black Neighborhood I want to thank Shavaughn again for helping put this list together! Subscribe to her Substack especially if you are located in the Bay Area; she knows what’s poppin in the Bay. Remember that our dollars are a vote. Make sure that you are voting for US this holiday season. We make dope shit anyway. Stay woke, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Wikipedia Needs You! Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/wikipedia-needs-you/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/wikipedia-needs-you Published: 2025-11-24 · 4 min read · 882 words Tags: AI, education, culture, Wikipedia The online encyclopedia is being destroyed by AI. Billy is an artist and writer that is a member of the Wake and Think Collective. He has been in the community from the start. You can see Billy’s work here on Substack, Soundcloud and his Youtube Channel. Substack Youtube Soundcloud The death of Wikipedia is in full public display and we are all complicit. The rise of AI and other LLMs has caused an 8% drop in users since its introduction. Why is this a problem? Lack of traffic to open resources like Wikipedia destroys public knowledge ecosystems that rely on transparency and community participation. AI puts into question its long-held principles of verifiability and community-based authorship. So what can we do? For Wikipedia to combat the rise in AI WE have to donate what we can afford. This isn’t a passive problem, but a problem we can fix. This is us vs convenience being the knife that kills our humanity. WTF? WHAT’S GOING ON? To give a little context, the decline in users became apparent after Wiki upgraded its bot detection systems to better distinguish real readers from automated traffic. What this told them is that the more AI is integrated into search engines, the less people are going to Wikipedia. But it’s not just the “AI Overview”. There is a shift in user behavior overall, meaning more and more users are getting information through Youtube, TikTok, etc. This has created this feedback loop-telephone game scenario. Wikipedia acts as the backbone for most LLMs, however AI is notorious for taking its own liberties with information and a lot of times just being outright wrong. What this ends up doing is spreading false information to the sources people get their information from (TikTok/YT), which in turn creates the sources that AI can pull from. DO YOU SEE THE PROBLEM NOW? Wikipedia verifies information through a community-driven process based on three core policies: verifiability, no original research, and neutral point of view. All factual claims must be attributable to a published, reliable source, and editors must cite their sources with inline citations. The community relies on volunteer editors to check for vandalism, review new pages, and ensure information is presented fairly. Is this perfect? No.But what it does is hold the editors and publishers accountable to the information they present online. The AIO (AI Overviews) you see online has spread false information 60% of the time, but the convenience of not digging through articles has made the user okay with this stat. Not only is the AIO wrong 60% of the time it’s been known to “hallucinate” information. Which is a nice way of saying it’s completely making up the things it’s telling you. WORD. SO WHAT DO I DO? I’m glad you asked. To solve this,Wiki and its community of editors have increased efforts to preserve accuracy. Deleting AI-generated articles, improving detection systems like “Edit Check” and “Paste Check”, and stricter rules requiring clear attribution and human review of AI-assisted edits. At the same time, Wikimedia is pressing AI developers and search companies to properly credit and link back to Wikipedia content, ensuring fair reuse of its open data. Rather than rejecting AI entirely, the organization is trying to use it as ethically as they can. It’s an attempt to adapt to the AI era without compromising its central commitment to human oversight, Wiki is also attempting to support editors with translation tools, automation of repetitive tasks, and vandalism detection. So how do we support them? A yearly donation of about 3.99 helps continue Wiki’s efforts to combat AI’s takeover and spreading of misinformation. Subscribe now As consumers we are passive. We accept things as if they are set in stone and that is what’s going to keep us in the same place. .Constantly being told “This is the next best thing, you HAVE to try it”. Some might argue that Wikipedia has survived challenges in the past. From concerns about how reliable they were in the 2000s to the rise of social media. However, AI represents a fundamentally different threat. It takes from Wikipedia’s knowledge without properly crediting them, while also reducing the traffic that sustains its volunteer community. AI is never going anywhere and the pace at which it’s being integrated into our lives isn’t gonna slow down. The question is not whether AI will be part of our information landscape, but whether the transparent, community-driven sources that AI depends upon will survive long enough to keep that landscape honest. Without Wikipedia’s rigorous verification process, AI systems will increasingly train on misinformation, creating a cascade of unreliable information that no algorithm can easily correct. So we have to stop being passive consumers. We have to ensure that the systems put in place don’t completely erase the human touch. Subscribe now Whether it’s in everyday jobs, art or a Wikipedia article, human hands matter. Save Wiki. Donate today. Whatever you can. A little under $3.99 (if you cover the transaction fee) for a donation may feel small, but Wikipedia’s model has always been built on collective action. The choice is simple: invest a few dollars and a few extra clicks now, or inherit an internet where the difference between truth and lies becomes impossible to discern. Wikipedia is not just a website. It’s a principle worth defending. Donate to Wikipedia --- ## Striking for Who? Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/striking-for-who/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/striking-for-who Published: 2025-11-16 · 2 min read · 482 words Tags: Starbucks, coffee, workers rights, Socialism Starbucks workers are striking, but protection for Black workers are not in the demands. Throughout Amerikkka right now Black workers are losing their jobs. More than 300,000 Black women have lost their job this year. It is unfortunate that we are seeing major strikes across that country for workers but DEI is being left out of the demands. We are being overlooked; again. We need to make sure that our rights to employment and safety in the workplace are being protected. As we stand with Starbucks Workers United while they strike we must ask; are we being left out of the demands? Subscribe now Starbucks has rolled out their holiday menu; their biggest campaign of the year. The workers at 65 stores across the country have went on strike. Starbucks Workers United union are demanding fair pay to meet the current cost of living, putting an end to shady staffing practices that are denying workers benefits, and for the corporation to acknowledge the union. When they mention for all workers; what does that mean when Black workers are being left out? Starbucks shareholders voted to end management pay incentives based around diversity. A valuable piece of their DEI program. However, no mention of this being reversed is in the demands of the “Red Cup Rebellion”. DEI programs should be a demand. I fully stand by the strike, but we are being forgotten at the negotiation table. Systemic racism is deeply embedded into the Amerikkkan workplace. In every single era of American history Black workers have had a harder time getting work. When we do gain employment we have to be better than our white counterpart. Even if we are a better worker we get paid less and face hostility in the workplace. There is not a moment in American history when this has not been true. Why are we not being protected by our fellow workers from this exploitation? Subscribe now We are still going to show up to strike in the hopes that for all means us too. However, there is no guaranteed protection. Our right to equal employment and a safe workspace have to be part of the demands. There is no reason that our protections are being left out of the unions largest strike yet. If the strike fails and layoffs happen because of the economic impact of the strike; guess who’s going out first. Black workers need to be protected now more than ever. Worker solidarity is our only way forward out of this capitalist hellscape. We should all be fully in support of the Starbucks Workers United union. Securing a contract, raising pay, and stopping shady shift scheduling practice will make Starbucks a better workplace. However, we demand representation. All unions should acknowledge the systemic oppression and racism towards the Black worker. Power to the Black worker! Stay woke, Loc Donate to Starbucks Workers Unite Strike Fund Tip the Wake and Think Collective Join the Wake and Think Collective Discord Server --- ## The 10 Cent Minimum Wage Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/the-10-cent-minimum-wage/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/the-10-cent-minimum-wage Published: 2025-11-09 · 5 min read · 1044 words Tags: immigration, Prison abolition, worker rights, prison labor An analysis of prison labor's effects on the American worker Major corporations use prison labor to subsidize wage labor; this directly impact the US labor market because it results in unpaid labor. The prison industrial complex feeds us propaganda positioning prisoners as less than human because they were charged with a crime. These people guilty of a crime or not should not be subjected to unfair work practices. All workers should receive a livable wage and safe working conditions. This loophole allowing slave labor is a real problem for all American workers; let me explain. Subscribe now After the civil war white southern capitalists needed help. Without slaves their economy was on the verge of collapse. The government bailed them out by making the 13th amendment almost abolished slavery. Slavery was illegal UNLESS it was punishment for a crime. The word punishment made slavery palatable to the average citizen, but the wording of the amendment gave capitalists a loophole. The word punishment made slavery palatable to the average citizen. A capitalist hates waged labor; it cuts into their profits. No way they were going to pass up on free labor, and they did not. through prison labor many of our freed ancestors were thrown back into slavery for looking at a white man wrong or being late for work. The rise of both private prisons and incarceration rates in the 70’s turned prison labor into a thriving business. It’s now impossible to walk into a grocery store and not see food that involved prison labor on the shelves. In fact it is impossible to walk into a Victoria Secret without seeing a product with prison labor attached to it (where do you think the cotton comes from?). Today prison labor hourly wage ranges from 10 cents to a $1.40 an hour. Through prison labor many of our freed ancestors were thrown back into slavery. After over 100 years of exploiting Black labor the capitalists have evolved to find a new way to grow the slave labor in prisons; immigrants. Detention centers allow prison labor too. Say a farmhand in America makes 18 dollars an hour. This makes using slave labor from detention centers for immigrants $37,000 year cheaper per worker. ICE is redistributing money by exploiting prison labor and putting the profits back into capitalists’ pockets. This impacts all workers in America. Your wages are getting depressed because the lowest possible price of labor is 10 cents an hour (the cheapest wage for prison labor). If the minimum wage for all work was 30 dollars an hour then the pay for skilled jobs would have to increase or the opportunity cost of a skilled worker switching to unskilled labor would vanish. Meaning you could take a job making the same or slightly less money and not have to go through the barriers of skilled work (ie: higher education, high level training, etc). Opportunity cost means the value of the next best alternative. If prison labor was reduced to only maintaining the facility and not producing capital for capitalists; then we would no longer be in competition with prison labor. Prisoners do need the option to work. They have families, medical needs, and lawyer fees. The economic impact on homes when a parent is incarcerated its catastrophic. A parent being able to provide a livable wage while serving time would keep and/or raise families out of poverty. Currently money that could be going to families from their loved ones while they work behind bars is going back into capitalists’ pockets. The economic impact on homes when a parent is incarcerated its catastrophic. Prison work should be limited to maintaining the prison. It can be the current roles kitchen duties, building maintenance, etc. However, it should be expanded to other areas of the prison where they are severely understaffed. Mental health is an area that needs staffing within our prison system the worst. Training and educating prisoners who want to help other inmates seek needed mental health services would help fill this gap. The other area where the same process could be applied is public defenders. If Kim Kardashian can get a law we can train and educate or inmates. In both situation what better service to inmates (and the not guilty needing representation) in need than someone who can relate with them on a level no one else can. Subscribe now Currently prison labor does not qualify for worker rights. Prisoners when doing labor are workers. They deserve a right to unionize and OSHA safety standards. This hurts workers outside of the prison much like the 10 cents an hour pay. If capitalists can exploit prison labor by suppressing workers rights and cutting corners on safety standard they will. We can’t allow our most vulnerable workers to be exploited or we will face similar issues. Safety standards across the board from airlines to factory farming have been falling. Wages have been suppressed for decades too. We are all connected; if the most oppressed workers receive proper worker rights then worker rights for everywhere will improve. We can’t allow our most vulnerable workers to be exploited. It is important for you to realize that prison labor affects every single worker in America. Prisoners are human beings and even if they commit a crime they deserve a fair and safe workplace. We are all workers for greedy capitalists. Ratifying the 13th amendment to once and for all ban slavery completely can finally stop government enforced exploitation. If we want better work conditions for all Americans it starts by freeing the most oppressed workforce; prison labor. Let’s take a giant step towards prison abolition and remove the capitalist from the prison industrial complex once and for all. Stay woke, Loc Sources: Associated Press. “‘Prison to Plate’: How Inmate Labor Feeds America.” AP News, 28 Apr. 2025, apnews.com/article/prison-to-plate-inmate-labor-investigation-c6f0eb4747963283316e494eadf08c4e. Racial Wealth Divide Initiative. Rooted in Racism: The Prison Labor Economy. Economic Policy Institute, 17 Nov. 2022, www.epi.org/publication/rooted-racism-prison-labor/. Choi, Shiyun. “Ending Forced Labor in ICE Detention Centers: A New Approach.” Georgetown Immigration Law Journal, vol. 34, no. 3, Spring 2020, www.law.georgetown.edu/immigration-law-journal/in-print/volume-34-number-3-spring-2020/ending-forced-labor-in-ice-detention-centers-a-new-approach/. Wright, Jared. “Report: Kentucky Jails Contracting with ICE See 659% Increase in Detainees This Year.” LPM News, 7 Oct. 2025, www.lpm.org/news/2025-10-07/report-kentucky-jails-contracting-with-ice-have-659-increase-in-detainees-this-year. Davis, Angela Y. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Haymarket Books, 2016. --- ## Radical Black Thought Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/radical-black-thought/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/radical-black-thought Published: 2025-11-02 · 5 min read · 1094 words Tags: Black liberation, Civil rights, Black Thought, Socialism, Angela Davis A refresher on where our ancestors and leaders stood politically We are close to Jim Crow Amerikkka. That is not hyperbole; Never have we been this close since the Civil Rights Movement. Millennials and Gen Z are struggling to come up with a unified voice. Being two generations removed from the Black power movement it seems like a marker in a history book (this was done on purpose). Ruby Bridges posted an Instagram photo of her in a halloween costume; it’s not as far as they make it seem. Over half a century worth of essays, studies, and movements are at our feet to pick up and carry on. It’s now more than ever important to understand not just the actions but the thoughts and ideas of our ancestors (some not ancestors). In the 60’s and 70’s the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, but it was more than a movement of gaining rights. This era produced a movement in thinking of Black minds that shook the American government to its core. Leading to Black revolutionaries being tortured, harassed, imprisoned, spied on, and assassinated for their political beliefs. Subscribe now The framework from this era that drove the revolution came from Marxist-Lennist economic theory. It was the economic foundation of socialist theory at the time. From that foundation Black scholar, activist, and movements would expand on it adapting it the Black struggle (Here is some more information about the theory and communism/socialism). A Few Thinkers Before the official timeline of the Civil Rights movement as we know it; Black thought leaders set the ground work for the movement. W.E.B Du Bois life work was surrounded in socialist ideas and lead to him becoming a communist at the young age of 93. HIs essay “Black Reconstruction” he goes into detail about how the elite planter class maintained power of Black workers post civil war. He also talks about the struggles between Black and White workers. Claudia Jones migrated as child with her parents to US from Trinidad and Tobago. She became the leading woman of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) and is literally buried in England to the left of Karl Marx. her Essay “ An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” She breaks down the triple exploitation of being a Black woman under capitalism. She was imprisoned for year in America as political prisoner until the US deports her to England. Her work would play a major role in the Black women’s movement in the 60’s and 70’s. The Sojourners of Truth and Justice was a Black socialist organization from 1951 to 1952. Although it only lasted 1 year it brought together great minds like Louise Thompson Patterson, Shirley Graham Du Bois, and Charlotta Bass.There were 14 members in total and was the only communist group ran by Black women. The organization focused on the intersectional, systemic nature of African-American women’s oppression and understood their struggle for dignity and freedom in global terms. Subscribe now The Panthers The Black Panthers Party became the organization that put socialism in action in the United States for Black people. Bobby Seales and Huey P Newton formed the 10 Point Program and the party’s community contributions stemmed from a Marxist-Lennist framework. The program that we known the best is the Free Breakfast for Children Program. Giving every child a free meal before they start their day was such a great idea the US government stole the idea after dismantling the Black Panther Party. There were other programs though. The Panthers had free health screenings for underserved communities; including a free ambulance service in North Carolina. Food pantry’s to help communities in need. The Oakland Community School gave Black kids a high level education and teach children about Black liberation. They used socialism to fight the injustice of Amerikkka on the Black people of the country. Fred Hampton was a young revolutionary that believed strongly in the power of political education. Spreading the education he took from other revolution to other Black movement groups. In hopes to try and unite groups with slightly different political beliefs. He held rallies that made up of a diverse range of working class people. Stretching the Panther mission from the black communities to all communities.The power of this kind of movement scared the government; leading to the state sanctioned murder of Fred Hampton. Followed by the introduction of crack into our communities further destroying the work done by the Panthers. Angela Davis She was a communist; not a Black Panther. Angela Davis expanded on the Black women communist that were mentioned earlier in the article. Her work used intersectionality to criticize capitalism and push for prison abolition. Her book “Are Prisons Obsolete?”. She is able to tie race, gender and class into prison abolition. she documents the history of prisons in Amerikkka and why it is inherently racist. Then explains the different evils between being a Black man and Black woman in prison. At 81 years old you can still find her doing an interview stressing the importance of multiple topics that can be linked to socialist theories. Subscribe now We are children of the crack era. It is not our fault that we are struggling to find answers right now. Our ancestors left behind their work. We don’t have to start new revolution; we only have to continue the work and let the ancestors guide us (we also have living leaders). Now more than ever we need to study and read about any areas that interest us. Find and participate in communities that share your views (we do have a discord server ya know). Do the work that will unify us once more. Radical Black thought will save the world. Stay Woke, Loc **in case you wanted to check out the learning resources mentioned in the beginning but wanted to read the article first here click here** Sources: Davis, Angela Y. Are Prisons Obsolete? Seven Stories Press, 2003. “Marxism and the State: A Reply to the CPA.” Red Flag, 26 Aug. 2024, https://redflag.org.au/node/7352. “Marxism–Leninism.” Wikipedia, 30 Oct. 2025, 14:22 UTC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marxism%E2%80%93Leninism. “Bobby Seale.” Wikipedia, 27 Oct. 2025, 06:51 UTC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bobby_Seale. “W. E. B. Du Bois.” Wikipedia, 31 Oct. 2025, 22:45 UTC, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._E._B._Du_Bois. “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” is: Jones, Claudia. “An End to the Neglect of the Problems of the Negro Woman!” “This Day in History: Sojourner Truth’s ‘Ain’t I a Woman?’ Speech.” Zinn Education Project, 29 May 2023, https://www.zinnedproject.org/news/tdih/sojourners-truth-justice/. Boyce Davies, Carole. Left of Karl Marx: The Political Life of Black Communist Claudia Jones. Duke University Press, 2008. --- ## Why I am Voting Yes on Prop 50 Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/why-i-am-voting-yes-on-prop-50/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/why-i-am-voting-yes-on-prop-50 Published: 2025-10-12 · 2 min read · 441 words Tags: California Prop 50, Project 2025, Gerrymandering, Prop 50 On November 4th the state of California will be holding a special election for proposition 50. On November 4th the state of California will be holding a special election for proposition 50. It will decide whether or not California will redistrict their congressional maps ahead of the 2026 elections. The proposition will suspend the 3rd party redistricting committee until 2030. A democrat controlled legislature will redraw districts to create more seats for the party. California democrats created prop 50 in retribution of Texas passing a gerrymander bill. Subscribe now After careful consideration I decided that will vote yes. I believe it is important for all Californians to realize the importance of voting yes.Three points guided my decision to vote yes: The proposition will come to an end in 2030. Gerrymandering should be illegal and I admire California for trying to set the standard with the independent committee. The end date continues to confirm the states stance on a fair elections. Fascists won the election in 2024. They are ignoring laws and human rights. This is the only plan to stop the spread of fascism. If this does not pass then there is no other plan and we have all seen project 2025 by now. Even if the prop only slows the spread it will be worth it. We need more time to fight back and it will at least do that. If prop 50 doesn’t get passed then it will be more of the same. Right now everything is pretty terrible and looking to get worse within the next three and a half years. We all should be voting for any reasonable idea that does not further degrade our democracy. Subscribe now California is the American standard. Historically California has been the first state to introduce something and other states will follow. A recent example, last week the state became the first state to phase out ultra processed foods in schools. I am here to say we have to maintain being the standard of America. ICE came to Southern California first and fought back (still fighting over 120 days later). Now, corrupt fascist politicians are trying to steal elections by gerrymandering. Californians have the chance to be the first to fight back by voting yes to prop 50. We must be the bright light in dark times for the rest of the country to follow. PDF for voter information guide Website for the voters guide on prop 50 Voter registration for California Stay woke, Loc Sources: California Secretary of State. “Proposition 50: Suspension of Legislators—Vote Requirement.” 2024 California Voter Guide Quick Reference. Harvard Kennedy School. “Explainer: Understanding the Mid-Decade Redistricting Push in Texas.” Policy & Politics Faculty Research, Harvard Kennedy School, https://www.hks.harvard.edu/faculty-research/policy-topics/politics/explainer-understanding-mid-decade-redistricting-push-texas. Accessed 10/08/2025. Share Subscribe now --- ## TikTok Sold to the Cronies Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/tiktok-sell-triggers-trump-trap/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/tiktok-sell-triggers-trump-trap Published: 2025-10-05 · 3 min read · 666 words Tags: Trump Administration, Oracle, Data Privacy, TikTok, Palantir How Oracle, Palantir and Murdoch loyalists turned a forced “sale” into the biggest voter-data grab in U.S. history—and why deleting the app is the only vote left that counts. Facebook and other social media have been tested in other countries and have proved effective in swaying elections and even fueling conflict. TikTok, the company with the most successful algorithm in American social media, came under fire for being owned by Chinese media conglomerate ByteDance. It went back and forth in the branches of government, but eventually stalled. The Biden administration kicked the can down the road so far that it landed back in Trump’s lap at the start of his second term. He has now carried forward the plan where it left off: selling TikTok to American companies. Now the play begins, the players. Larry Ellison worked on a database project for the CIA. The project was called Oracle, and once he finished it Ellison started a database company called Oracle. Larry is also a mega Trump donor, a theme you will find in all of these buyers. It is hard to imagine that the government will not have access to any information Oracle receives, and all of the app’s traffic will sit on Oracle servers. Both Palantir and Peter Thiel could be their own article, but here the focus is Palantir’s relationship with Cambridge Analytica, the company at the center of the Facebook data scandal, and its pattern of sketchy partners. Palantir has gone on record saying it was unaware that one of its employees was working for Cambridge Analytica while on the Palantir payroll. The firm also held unofficial meetings with Cambridge Analytica and swapped emails about data usage, it also works with the IDF. Palantir helps the IDF locate targets in Gaza, no job is too dirty for Palantir if the check clears. It now takes money from ICE to hand over the data ICE needs to do its bidding, and it will not hesitate to do corporate bidding either. Oh, and Peter Thiel is a big Trump guy. I wonder what Palantir will do with all the TikTok information it is about to receive. One in five adults now gets the majority of their news from TikTok. That is a fun fact, unless you run the largest media conglomerate in America. The Murdoch family owns Fox, and its cash cow Fox News is bleeding viewers. In the old school American tradition of hard work and free markets, the Murdochs are doing exactly what you expect: lobbying to ban their competition and then buying that competition by rewarding the president’s allies. Not only will they profit from renting the most powerful algorithm in U.S. social media, they will also control the censorship dial. The app is now a conservative social media network that siphons user information to companies with zero ethics around personal privacy. Subscribe now The common thread among the main players in this hostile takeover is that all of them are Trump’s inner circle. From data to content, TikTok can now be treated as conservative state media. Anything that makes the administration look bad can be quietly throttled, no doubt it will be. Dissent can be moderated using server logs Oracle stores and Palantir mines. Palantir can also hand deliver in depth voter files to the White House. This is the perfect setup to steal an election through social media. Subscribe now Unfortunately, the time to cut ties with the app is here. You must delete your TikTok profile. The app is no longer safe for users, it is owned by Trump cronies. It is a major sacrifice, but it is a necessary one that keeps you safe and keeps money out of the loyalists’ pockets. Rejecting this unethical, hostile takeover of our beloved platform demands that we take action. Stay woke, Loc Sources: Pew Research Center. “1 in 5 Americans Now Regularly Get News on TikTok, Up Sharply from 2020.” Pew Research Short Reads, 25 Sept. 2025. Allyn, Bobby. “Palantir Wins New Tech Contracts after Trump’s Return to Power.” NPR, 1 May 2025. Cadwalladr, Carole. “Palantir Employee Worked with Cambridge Analytica on Facebook Data.” The Guardian, 28 Mar. 2018. --- ## AI Bubble Bursts as Data Center Plans Stall in Prince George’s County Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/ai-bubble-bursts-as-data-center-plans/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/ai-bubble-bursts-as-data-center-plans Published: 2025-09-22 · 2 min read · 457 words Tags: Environmental justice, Data centers, AI hype MIT data shows almost every generative-AI dollar is still underwater, and residents are pushing back against the power-hungry server farms that were supposed to pay off. LLMs have become resource sucking, community polluting, investment nightmare. Three years into the hype cycle the models still can’t code without a human babysitter, electricity grids are wobbling, and companies returns on AI are next to nothing. In Prince George’s County, Maryland, residents caught wind of a 90-acre slice of abandoned land being flipped into yet another 200-megawatt data cathedral. They packed out council chambers, flooded inboxes, and forced a 180-day pause. The project isn’t dead, but for the first time a local government is officially asking, “What does this warehouse of servers cost us in asthma, water bills, and blackouts?”before the concrete is poured. In 2025, elected officials listened to a majority-Black constituency instead of the real-estate donor class. That story needs to go viral because the server farms are still hunting zip codes where land is cheap and lungs are already over-burdened. That is great news we don’t get that often so take a moment. Subscribe now The LLMs these centers were built to power are losing their shine. Goldman, Amazon and even OpenAI execs now whisper “AI bubble”, They oversold the AI dream. MIT’s latest industry survey shows 95 % of generative-AI projects have yet to return a single dime. Meanwhile LinkedIn is crawling with “vibe-code cleanup”, I wish that was a joke. By the numbers : $110 B poured into U.S. AI startups in 2024—12× China’s spend. Global data-center electricity demand is on track to double by 2027. One average hyperscale campus guzzles as much water as 50,000 households—daily. So the bubble isn’t just financial; it’s ecological. And it’s landing on the same communities that always catch the toxic tailpipe. Subscribe now Use these bullets when the next zoning notice shows up in your mailbox: “Economic development” ≠ data center; server halls create 50-100 permanent jobs versus 5,000 in a comparable warehouse district. Diesel generators on site are exempt from most county air-quality rules—ask why. Tax abatements routinely exceed the lifetime property haul—make them show the spreadsheet. Water-use contracts are locked in for 30 years—during a megadrought. If AI ROI is basically zero, the public is subsidizing a speculative sandbox, not a growth engine. PG County cannot be the only headline. Every region being targeted for a data center to move into your community. Use these talking points, bring the receipts, and refuse to let your resource be wasted on someone arguing with Grok in a twitter thread. Stay woke, Loc Sources: "Prince George’s County Lawmakers Halting Data Center Development," FOX 5 DC, updated 12 June 2025, https://www.fox5dc.com/news/prince-georges-county-lawmakers-halting-data-center-development. "Prince George’s County Council votes 180-day pause on new data-center applications," Baltimore Sun/Archive snapshot, 11 June 2025, https://archive.md/bdi7b. Loc (Cody Lockyear), "Look Who Moved into the Neighborhood," Wake & Think (newsletter), 18 June 2025, https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/look-who-moved-into-the-neighborhood. --- ## Ibrahim Traoré’s Gay Ban: Why Burkina Faso’s First Sodomy Law Betrays Its Own Revolution Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/ibrahim-traores-gay-ban-why-burkina/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/ibrahim-traores-gay-ban-why-burkina Published: 2025-09-15 · 3 min read · 700 words Tags: LGBTQ Rights, Burkina Faso, African Politics A consensual same-sex act now carries up to five years in prison—proof that breaking colonial tanks is meaningless if you keep the colonizer’s penal code. Our African brother Ibrahim Traoré has secured state freedom, state resources, and has massively improved the infrastructure of Burkina Faso. Those are huge material wins for the country. That in no way gives Traoré and Burkina Faso permission to criminalize love. They just put in place a law making it a crime to be homosexual or bisexual. This attack on the LGBTQ+ community is completely unacceptable. On September 1, 2025, Burkina Faso’s Transitional Legislative Assembly unanimously adopted a new Persons and Family Code that, for the first time in the country’s history, criminalizes consensual same-sex relations. Anyone found guilty faces two to five years in prison plus fines; the same article punishes “behavior likely to promote homosexual practices,” a clause broad enough to outlaw NGOs, health workers, or even private conversations. Justice Minister Edasso Rodrigue Bayala calls the measure “respect for cultural values,” but culture is not a suicide pact: the code breaches the African Charter and the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, both ratified by Burkina Faso. Botswana, Mauritius, and Namibia have already struck down identical laws; their courts ruled that criminalizing love is not “African values”—it is unconstitutional violence. Claiming this is the unavoidable “price of independence” is historically illiterate: Burkina Faso never inherited a colonial sodomy law, so the junta is volunteering to put on chains that were never there. Subscribe now A revolution that violates human rights is not a revolution; it is a transfer of oppression. That means prisons too. Consensual sexuality is not a crime; therefore it must never be caged. This is where the intersectionality of two human rights violations is occurring. Burkina Faso, for all the great progress it has made, has failed to fully break the chains of its colonial oppressors. The oppression is not just a physical break from French colonialism but also an oppression of the mind. France did not bring prisons to Burkina Faso for liberty and justice. The modern nation-state prison arrived in Africa by way of the colonial oppressors to silence Africans who resisted or were unruly under their oppression. A truly free Africa cannot exist if all Africans are not free. A sovereign nation is cool, but sovereign people are cooler. If the focus is to bring a nation free of its colonial oppressors, we have to stop the leaders of that nation from oppressing the people as well. The mindset has to change—to worry more about the people than the nation-state; and not just in this instance. Subscribe now If we look inward at our own country, it is easy to see what is meant. Even though the tools and scales used are different, America has parallels to Burkina Faso. America as a country is in fact one of the freest countries on the planet. There is nothing this country cannot do and no power that can challenge it in an oppressive way. The American people, on the other hand, are not free. Trans Americans have some of the most restrictive rights in the world. The life expectancy of a Black trans woman is between 33 and 36. A group of humans expected to live less than half as long as their straight white cis counterparts—and with a 47 percent chance of being incarcerated in their lifetime—are the outcome of oppression, not freedom. If Traoré signs this code, Burkina’s queer children will inherit the same death by policy, only with African signatures on the warrant. Subscribe now Traoré’s government can still choose to be remembered as the regime that threw off French tanks but kept French-style penal codes against queer life, or as the one that understood decolonization is unfinished until the most marginalized African is safe from African hands. A revolution that replicates the master’s prison is not liberation; it’s renovation. Tear down that wall too, or admit the chains were never fully broken—they were just re-forged in local foundries. Stay woke, Loc Sources: Human Rights Watch, Burkina Faso Criminalizes Same-Sex Conduct, 3 Sept. 2025, https://www.hrw.org/news/2025/09/03/burkina-faso-criminalizes-same-sex-conduct. National Black Women’s Justice Institute, Black LGBTQ+ Women, Girls, & Gender-Expansive People Disproportionately Impacted by Criminal-Legal System, 10 June 2024, https://www.nbwji.org/post/black-lgbtq-women-girls-gender-expansive-people-disproportionately-impacted-by-criminal-legal-s. Pulitzer Center, Lift Our Voices: The Black Trans Community’s Pursuit of Education, https://pulitzercenter.org/stories/black-trans-communitys-pursuit-education . --- ## The Struggle of Many Faces Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/the-struggle-of-many-faces/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/the-struggle-of-many-faces Published: 2025-09-03 · 6 min read · 1360 words Tags: Black liberation, Gaza solidarity, Prison abolition, Police brutality The intersectionality in our struggles Afeni an activist out of DC a member of Black led abolitionist community defense hub in DC called Harriets Wildest Dreams was victim of police brutality. She was physically assaulted and pepper sprayed while filming group young black kids getting harassed by DC metro at a train station. She was later arrested for alleged fare evasion. She was released the next day to a crowd of people awaiting for her release. That energy she was met by was beautiful, however, Afeni says it herself in this video that she will be alright, but the kids being taken away over this DC curfew will not. We are all in this struggle whether boots on the ground or attempting to hide. The struggle caused by these oppressive governments cannot be escaped. There is no one face to this struggle because this is a struggle of many faces and every victim deserves a voice. Afeni's story isn't isolated—it's part of a larger system of oppression that connects DC's streets to Gaza's occupation. This brutality isn't random—it follows a playbook. Subscribe now The occupation of DC because of the crackdown on "crime", the ICE deportation centers, and genocidal governments giving training and surveillance technology to law enforcement. These issues have intersectionality with Gaza, the IDF, and the prison industrial complex. We have to lock in whether you are Black Americans or Black in America we have to recognize the intersectionality of 3 issues. Then we all must realize without the liberation of one we will not get liberation that is currently affecting us right now. Afeni's story isn't isolated—it's part of a larger system of oppression that connects DC's streets to Gaza's occupation. The Playbook: The IDF and US Law Enforcement The IDF and US Law Enforcement The practices that are going on in Gaza by the IDF should terrify all of us. The same military force that are killing children in broad daylight are training our law enforcement. Since 2002 the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee's Project Interchange and the Jewish Institute for National Security Affairs have sent US police officers to Israel to train(source: Amnesty International USA, 25 Aug. 2016). The increases in police brutality and state sponsored violence can be tied to the IDF. The IDF is a human rights violator they are not equipped to train on safe policing practices for our communities. Subscribe now There is another instance where leaked documents in 2017 from BlueLeaks showed that police received domestic training against "Muslim extremist". The leak shows unchecked information getting fed to US law enforcement stating that there were increases of "terrorist attacks" in the Gaza Strip. With no backstory of the region and how the exact area where tension were rising was an area illegally being occupied by Israel. At that very location Israel was on the Human Rights Watch report for stealing land, raiding Palestinian villages and extrajudicial killings (source: The Guardian, 8 Dec. 2023). A human rights violator is training our law enforcement and giving them unchecked propaganda. Occupying a location in the name of terrorism sounds an awful lot like occupying a city because of high crime based off no sources and data saying otherwise. It is state aggression in the name inflicting dominance over the people. The brutal and genocidal practices from the IDF are being used against us in 2 major ways right now. This same playbook appears in two major ways: the occupation of Washington DC and the crackdown on immigration through ICE. We have to lock in whether you are Black Americans or Black in America we have to recognize the intersectionality of 3 issues. The Occupation of DC That peckerwood in office has thrown every agency and brought in the national guard to occupy DC in order to displace and incarcerate Black people. In the name of "crime" we are being scooped up and taking to holding cells for being outside and Black. This is clearly a way to feed the prison industrial system and gentrify black neighborhoods. They are putting curfews on the youths of DC and racially profiling everyone Black and brown in DC. This feeds the prison industrial complex. The DC system is already being pushed to capacity and that is by design. Pretty soon that peckerwood will start moving and placing Black people in prison systems in different cities where they will get lost in the system. Cases will be delayed and we will not get justice in a timely manner. While things drag on what is going to happen to the homes to our brothers and sister getting dragged through the system? From Harriets Wildest Dreams instagram account The facts of the matter are that people will lose everything because they were unconstitutionally detained by the fascist party in rule, lead by the peckerwood in chief. The feds will leave, but only once they have successfully displaced Black people causing a vacuum for private investors and white folk to come and move in the neighborhood. The city of DC has been for years putting in the work to lower their crime statistics which were at decades lows before the peckerwood in chief sent in the military. They do not want to stop crime they want to enslave Black folks to the prison Industrial complex and break up black neighborhoods by offering it up to subscribers of white supremacy. The intersectionality of the how these evil practices by the IDF that are displacing and killing innocent Palestinians are now being used by the US government on their minority citizens. The facts of the matter are that people will lose everything because they were unconstitutionally detained by the fascist party in rule, lead by the peckerwood in chief. ICE and Immigration the Crackdown ICE and the Deportation Centers This same playbook also appears in immigration enforcement. Subscribe now The US government gave ICE the biggest spending increase in recents decades. The untrained violent divorced dad demographic that are ICE agents are now being trained by (shocker) US law enforcement who use the unethical practices of the IDF. After brutally assaulting our down south cousins they throw them in detention centers. Detention centers are currently the cash cow of the private prison system. That is right; the most money to be made in the prison industrial complex comes from locking migrants away in cages. the lines of intersectionality can clearly be seen when it comes to ICE and migrant holding centers. We are all connected. If we can't see our faces in the struggles middle eastern and latino cousins then we might be cooked. We have to progress and pick up where our elders and ancestors left off. From Malcom X to Angela Davis; the importance of a free Palestine can't be overstated. We share an oppressor and we can teach, help, and learn from one another. If Palestine is not free then we can't be free. If migrants are be detained in cells then we can't be free. Period. Stay woke, Loc Subscribe now Ways to stay up to date: Instagram LA Taco: This instagram account has become a resource for updates on ICE raids in LA. Harriets Wildest Dreams: A Black led abolitionist community based in DC. They give updates and guidance on what is going on with the occupation of DC. Are.na Wake and Think Collective: Our Are.na group has a channel called Palestine news/history where you can find a block called Palestine by Roberto Greco who updates it multiple times a day with updates on the Genocide on Palestinians. References for the piece: Books Davis, Angela Y. Are Prisons Obsolete? Seven Stories Press, 2003. Davis, Angela Y. Freedom Is a Constant Struggle: Ferguson, Palestine, and the Foundations of a Movement. Haymarket Books, 2016. Khalidi, Rashid I. The Hundred Years’ War on Palestine: A History of Settler Colonialism and Resistance, 1917–2017. Metropolitan Books, 2020. Internet Resources “With Whom Are Many U.S. Police Departments Training? With a Chronic Human Rights Violator—Israel.” Amnesty International USA, 25 Aug. 2016, www.amnestyusa.org/blog/with-whom-are-many-u-s-police-departments-training-with-a-chronic-human-rights-violator-israel/. Cobain, Ian, et al. “US Police Agencies with Ties to Israel Were Involved in Attacks on American Citizens, Leaked Files Show.” The Guardian, 8 Dec. 2023, www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/dec/08/us-police-agencies-idf-files-blueleaks. --- ## Funky Fresh Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/funky-fresh/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/funky-fresh Published: 2025-07-26 · 2 min read · 427 words Tags: black culture, Dapper Dan, Tyler, the Creator, hip hop Don't Tap The Glass: the nod to the 80's you might have missed Tyler, the Creator dropped the news he was going to release his 9th album Don't Tap The Glass on July 21st. The rollout included Tyler dressed as an 80s MC that kind of looked like LL Cool J from the I am Bad music video. A lot of folks wrote it off as a nod to LL Cool J, but listen up and peep game, it's deeper than that. In case you are not born in the 90’s or earlier here is the music video in reference. Yes, this is paying homage to a fit that LL Cool J wore in a music video, but as we all know, Tyler is a man of culture. It is not simply about who wore the fit; no, it’s about who put it together. Dapper Dan and LL Cool J The Harlem Legend Dapper Dan was the stylist behind LL Cool J in the '80s. This was still a time where designer brands did not go out of their way to style anyone in hip hop. LL, a fellow New Yorker and style icon on the hip hop scene, turned to Dapper Dan for custom outfits and styling. The fits from Dapper Dan and the swag of LL made this duo the cornerstone of New York street fashion for decades. Subscribe now Tyler has long been a fan of Dapper Dan. Tyler mentioning Dapper Dan from a song released in 2009 Tyler has been referencing Dapper Dan since he was a teenager. This should not be too much of a surprise. Since he has been on the scene, since Odd Future, Tyler has designed and made clothing. His clothing brand Golf Wang and luxury brand Golf Le Fleur can be spotted on streets across the country, but especially in LA. Subscribe now Golf Le Fleur has taken it a step further. Those brands that would not collab with hip hop artists in the '80s are lining up to work with Tyler and Golf Le Fleur—names like Louis Vuitton, Converse, Lacoste, etc. Black fashion in general let alone hip hop would not get these opportunities if not for trailblazers like Dapper Dan. The rollout of the album was paying tribute to '80s hip hop dance music and the coolest of them all LL Cool J, but it was a giant nod from the modern dandy man to the most dapper of all the dandies. Alright, stop reading go listen to the new album. Shake some ass and for the love of god DONT TAP THAT GLASS. Stay woke, Loc Subscribe now --- ## Baltimore is Beautiful, Baltimore is Black Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/baltimore-is-beautiful-baltimore/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/baltimore-is-beautiful-baltimore Published: 2025-07-22 · 6 min read · 1335 words Tags: urban resilience, Baltimore, crime reduction, Black community More than statistics: A personal look at Baltimore's beautiful complexity A headline caught my eye as I was scrolling through my timeline a few weeks back: "Baltimore crime down double-digit percentages." After reading the article, I read another one, then another one. It led me to the documentary The Body Politic about councilman Brandon Scott's run for mayor and his first couple of years in office. The documentary put the human aspect of Baltimore into perspective. This is about more than crime data. Luckily, I have a really good friend from Baltimore. I reached out to him after watch the documentary. I asked him what it was like to grow up in Baltimore as a millennial. He replied, "Let's get on a Discord call and talk about it." He then introduced me to his childhood friend who still lives in Baltimore. After a few hours on the call, I learned a lot, but most importantly, I learned that Baltimore is beautiful. Baltimore is a Black city for Black people. The neglect shown toward the city, paired with the willingness of government officials and the ruling class to exploit Baltimore, is a direct reflection of the Amerikkkan government's oppression of its Black citizens. Through it all, the heart and soul of Baltimore thrives. Now, slowly, the hope and hard work of the people of Baltimore is showing progress. A History of Exploitation Historically, the local and state government has widely ignored or stolen from the city. In the 1940s, Nancy Pelosi's father was the mayor. Thomas D'Alesandro Sr. was Baltimore's mayor with strong ties to Maryland mobster Benjamin "Benny Trotta" Magilano. There are instances of D'Alesandro interfering with criminal cases and obstructing justice. His largest donors had mob ties. A couple of decades later, his son Thomas D'Alesandro III became mayor of Baltimore after running a pro-civil rights campaign. Once in office, D'Alesandro III was largely apathetic toward any meaningful change. Subscribe now In between the D'Alesandro family reign was Governor Spiro Agnew, who later became Richard Nixon's vice president. He gained popularity by using excessive force against civil rights activists and gave an infamous speech that launched him into the national spotlight by belittling the civil rights movement in Baltimore. Baltimore, which had an active civil rights movement of its own, was beaten down by the state's own government and ignored by the mayor. The Civil Rights Response During the Civil Rights era, Baltimore emerged as a crucial organizing hub where grassroots activism took root across both sides of the city. The west side became an important center for organizing efforts, while the east side served as the focal point of civil rights activity. Historically, the local and state government has widely ignored or stolen from the city. Local organizations sprang up to fill the gaps left by indifferent officials. CORE established boards specifically to combat poverty in Baltimore neighborhoods. The Civic Interest Group worked to increase voter registration, provide candidate endorsements, and build grassroots organizing capacity while strongly embracing the emerging concept of Black power. U-Join, a union job advocacy organization, partnered with Mother Rescuers, an anti-poverty activist group, to address economic inequalities facing the community. Subscribe now Despite these coordinated efforts by Baltimore's communities to advocate for meaningful programs and change, their demands were largely ignored by elected officials. This set the stage for decades of tension between community needs and political responsiveness. The Crack Era The 1980s and 1990s ushered in the crack era to Baltimore, and the city was decimated by the epidemic. In 1994 alone, 40,000 Baltimoreans were arrested on drug charges. The justice system responded with harsh sentencing that offered little rehabilitation, while violence escalated dramatically. Each year throughout the 1990s saw 300 homicides or more, creating a climate of fear and loss that would define an entire generation's experience of the city. This was the Baltimore that would shape the childhood and adolescence of millennials like my friend and his childhood companion. Growing Up in Post-Crack Era Baltimore The millennial and part of the Gen Z generations are children who were born in the ever-collapsing state that Baltimore was left in post-crack era. When asked, both of my conversation partners said that the effects of the outside world weren't felt as children. They had happy childhoods, but the reality of Baltimore's state made them grow up earlier than the average child. Subscribe now Middle school for most of us was about dealing with the growing pains of puberty. Same thing in Baltimore, but life choices that could alter your life forever were being made. Were you going to start to let the city feed off of you and slowly fall into the streets, or were you going to get your life together? These were choices made at 13 or 14 years old, and by high school you start to see people fall victim to the circumstances of a city left to fail. The older one gets, the more you see it happen. It leaves people feeling hopeless and wondering how long they have until they're doomed to the same fate. The Other Side of Baltimore Much like the people of Baltimore, the city has more than one side to it. As I heard them name off words and phrases and the other one would laugh and say, "Oh yeah, that used to be next to place X," or describe a term used for a look or piece of clothing, I realized Baltimore is rich in culture. There is fun to be had; ball to be played at the dome. This side of Baltimore cannot be seen in statistics or news reports because it doesn't fit the narrative that Baltimore is a failed Black city. Modern Baltimore: Signs of Hope Now we have reached modern Baltimore, where I stumbled across the article about the decrease in crime and Mayor Scott. Today, Baltimore is experiencing a dramatic shift under Mayor Brandon Scott. While he serves as the face of the city's turnaround, he is not the sole reason for the progress. A Baltimore native who knows and loves the city, Scott worked his way through city government before running for mayor. He has consistently fought to secure funding for the city and its programs, understanding that real change requires resources and commitment. The numbers tell a remarkable story. Crime rates are down across the board, with homicide rates reaching their lowest point in 50 years. This transformation stems from viewing crime as a public health crisis rather than simply a law enforcement problem. This approach recognizes that multiple factors contribute to both violent and non-violent crimes. Programs like Safe Streets, MONSE, and GVRS now lead the charge in crime prevention, addressing root causes rather than just responding to symptoms. However, the reality of progress is complex. Even with falling crime rates, people are still losing loved ones to violence. Statistics offer little comfort when you are staring at the body of someone you love. There is still a very long way to go, and the pain remains real for too many families. Yet there is hope and love in the city. The citizens want a better Baltimore, and for the first time in decades, that desire feels within reach. A Reflection of Amerikkka The issues that plague Baltimore are the same issues that plague all Black citizens. Maybe not to the scale of what has attacked Baltimore, or perhaps you live somewhere where it feels similar. Left without resources, the feeling of survival mode, forced to make tough life decisions at a much younger age—Baltimore reflects how the rest of Amerikkka feels about us. Let me leave you with a few things my Baltimore friends wanted you to know: The food is top five, hands down. Under Armour, Nike tracksuits, and Nike boots belong to Baltimore. They remember getting clowned for wearing those New Balance 498s that you're wearing as you read this post. The kids are bright as hell from the city, and Baltimore is beautiful. Stay woke, Loc Subscribe now Tip the post Resources: https://www.winterwatch.net/2024/10/fbi-vault-on-pelosis-politician-father-thomas-d-alesandro/ https://baltimoreheritage.github.io/civil-rights-heritage/1966-1976/ https://www.drugrehab.com/2017/11/17/cocaine-crack-and-marylands-opioid-epidemic/amp/ https://nul.org/news/baltimore-success-story-mayor-scotts-community-based-approach-achieves-historic-drop-violent --- ## Sitting with Time Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/sitting-with-time/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/sitting-with-time Published: 2025-07-10 · 4 min read · 777 words Tags: Generational trauma, Climate change, Civil rights, Time perception What I Can't Grasp About Yesterday and Tomorrow Time is something we put so much emphasis on, but if I am being honest I struggle with conceptualizing time. Civil rights leaders from the civil rights movement still being around blows my mind. Rosa Parks died when I was a teenager. She was 20 years old in the time period Sinners took place. Rosa would have been at the juke joint My brain hurts trying to even imagine what different eras of her life looked and felt like. I have no clue of life in a fully segregated south. I was born 20+ years afterwards. The years between softened racial and systemic tensions to a point no matter how much I read the actual feeling of living under those conditions can't fully be grasped. The first time I could legally vote it was for a Black man. Now in my 30's I can tell you 20 years ago which is exactly when Rosa Parks died in 2005 doesn't feel that long ago. So I know now that the gap between my birth and the civil rights movement was not that big but can't get over the feeling it was a long time ago. I am still suffering from the systemic issues they were dealing with today This is what I mean when I say I struggle to grasp the concept of time. It could be the struggle to understand the warnings of climate change, the impact of a bad tenure of government lasting ramifications after it's gone, or the struggles of my ancestors and grasping I am still suffering from the systemic issues they were dealing with today. Subscribe now When Al Gore in the 2000s said we need to focus on climate change and we only have 20 years to figure it out, I could not actually visualize 20 years into the future and what it will look like to grasp the urgency of the message. It's bad - that's understandable - but the destruction that it would take to get to very bad I could not have foreseen. When we were told two decades ago we only had 15 years before major consequences, the image of a summer camp flooding in Texas like what happened over the weekend was not on my radar. I feel the same way about the state of the country. Americans are clinging onto the hope that once the president is out of office we can begin to make things right again. The truly optimistic ones say things will get better after the midterms. So 2 years to stop bad things from happening and 4 years before change can start to take place. We might be staring at 2 decades of a corrupt failing shell of a federal government 4 years of destruction and chaos leads me to believe the 4 years after Donald will be messy. There are too many variables to tell how long we are fucked. We might be staring at 2 decades of a corrupt failing shell of a federal government slowly collapse in on itself. My back is going to crack way more and the first 2 decades of my life will reflect a very different version of America than the next 2 decades. Subscribe now This is also what I mean when I say I struggle to grasp the concept of time. I fall for the planning fallacy by thinking once Donald is gone we can real quick clean things up back to close to the state we were in beforehand or quicker. It's going to be a longer more painful road forward than what we imagine. The anxieties of the human existence seems to revolve around time, but as humans we are not great with time. My thoughts swirl constantly through these timeframes and I do not have a great answer. Thinking too much in the past or too much in the future seems to bring more anxiety. Can we reverse pollution that is driving climate change before it's too late? Will our generations of children still be fighting against the system like we are now and our ancestors or can we eliminate a few issues for them? Can we reverse pollution that is driving climate change before it's too late? Will America bounce back before I am senior citizen? I have no answers to any of these questions, however, I do know that any act to better these situations is a revolutionary act. To give hope to a future we have no clarity to is to give hope to the future of humanity. We do not have to understand time in order to change the future. Stay Woke, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## The Church of Latter Day Elites Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/the-church-of-latter-day-elites/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/the-church-of-latter-day-elites Published: 2025-06-25 · 5 min read · 1058 words Tags: elite worship , environmental pollution costs, trickle down economics, carbon tax solutions We're tithing to billionaires who preach prosperity but deliver poison. We're tithing to billionaires who preach prosperity but deliver poison. Fox News preaches to living rooms full of lost souls and the elderly that the way forward is through our elites. If the people do not sacrifice through hard work and obedience to the ruling class, the economic prosperity plan handed to us by the savior Ronald Reagan will fail. The trickle down will not be large enough to save the working class and they will become lazy welfare recipients. The people have worked to mental and physical exhaustion and have gone into debt to be qualified to work in specific areas that benefit the ruling class. The trickle is not trickling, as affording a comfortable life and raising a family has become a grueling process. Eccentric billionaires have become so beloved they can gain a cult following so strong and loyal that running as an authoritative dictator sounds like the only way to save America. The elites of America have been able to exploit the public in ways that have gained them riches we cannot fathom. The illusion of exploitation as hard work and intelligence on their part allows them to exploit people for their own personal gains from within our government. As they control the government by putting other elites into political positions within the government, the elites are draining the working class people of their communities' resources and polluting their air and water. The worship of elites in America has led to the decay of the US government. A large number of working class people voted to put them in power and defend the elites viciously. Subscribe now That level of exploitation should gather everyone in the working class in solidarity against the ruling class. In my previous post about data centers moving into communities, I explore their resource drain in depth. They strain local water supplies and contaminate whatever remains through their cooling systems, making it unfit for human consumption. Meanwhile, they pollute the air with methane generators, sickening residents. The elites building these centers receive government tax breaks while communities bear the health and environmental costs. The State of Air Report for 2024 done by healthdata.org shows air pollution as the 2nd leading cause of death globally. Only behind high blood pressure, it ranks above tobacco use and diet. It accounts for 30% of respiratory deaths, 28% of heart related deaths, and 48% of deaths related to COPD (chronic obstructive pulmonary disease). We are breathing in air, and due to negligence, relaxed regulation, and greed, we are dying in the worst ways possible. The financial benefits from polluting are going into the pockets of a very few while everyone else is suffering from the ramifications. The healthcare system in America is already expensive, but the elites and corporations polluting for profit are causing everyone else to pay higher healthcare costs. Subscribe now Pollution adds 820 billion dollars to healthcare costs in America annually. That's according to NRDC (Natural Resources Defense Council) back in 2021. To put into perspective how much 820 billion dollars a year truly is, 4 percent of that amount of money would end homelessness in all of America. Instead, the American people are getting sick and paying billions for preventable illnesses. This study was done in 2021. Now in 2025, regulations are being rolled back further by the republican government. Six executive orders backed by the Republican party have been aimed at environmental and pollution regulations. These moves will further air and water pollution and push the price of healthcare related pollution illnesses even higher. It is time to hold the elites accountable. A strong EPA with transparency and removed from government intervention would be a big step into holding elites accountable. As a country, we have some of the brightest and best climate and environmental scientists. If we can give them a place to work without government and political interference to hinder their efforts, we could have a thriving EPA. Giving them full control to set guidelines for the country in order to save our communities and guarantee a better future would not only help us have a cleaner, brighter future, but a healthier one. The EPA could be funded by taxing the corporations and elites that are polluting the air and water. Taxes have to be used to hold the ruling class accountable for their destruction of communities. Taxing corporations and elites for the damage they do to the communities they profit off of is a start to giving the power back to the people. Listen, it's June 23rd as I write this article. I am sneezing like crazy from God knows what, and it's hot as hell in every state. Chicago has a high of 90 for the week, and England is having a heat wave. The corporations and elites who are responsible for this happening have to be held accountable. They are killing us and our planet. A carbon tax on greenhouse gases for excessive pollution would curb the pollution and help save our health. They have been applied in multiple countries and have worked to some extent. From the World Economic Forum. Places that have some form of a carbon/greenhouse gas tax or plan to. The World Economic Forum researched carbon tax data in 2021. South Africa and parts of South America have implemented carbon taxes on greenhouse gases. British Columbia, Canada implemented a carbon tax and has cut down 70% of the emissions. There are 9 different initiatives to implement some form of carbon tax waiting in the US government since April of 2021. The current republican government is showing zero signs of wanting to push any initiatives forward. Our elected officials are not doing their job to look out for the working class. As our tax dollars go to fund their salaries, run our country and our respective states, the elites and corporations are getting tax breaks from local and federal taxes. Our faith should no longer lay within the elites of this country. Every Sunday, millions of Americans sit in pews and pray for salvation. But the rest of the week, they worship at a different church. One where billionaires are the saints, tax breaks are the sacraments, and pollution is the price of prosperity. It's time to leave this church. Our lives depend on it. Stay woke, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Look Who Moved into the Neighborhood Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/look-who-moved-into-the-neighborhood/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/look-who-moved-into-the-neighborhood Published: 2025-06-10 · 3 min read · 720 words Tags: data center water consumption, data center pollution, xAI Memphis violations, corporate environmental secrecy Data centers are moving in and destroying our communities South Memphis is in danger of being drained of their resources. But the real threat isn't just Elon Musk's xAI data center. It's the pattern of secrecy and resource exploitation that's being replicated nationwide. Elon Musk opened a massive supercomputer data center in Memphis in late 2024. The community is feeling blindsided by the opening of the center and the documented air quality violations it has created. Along with air pollution, the overuse of resources, and lack of transparency have rallied the public against the xAI center. City officials have kept the public in the dark. Subscribe now Memphis officials signed an NDA with xAI as part of the agreement. Yes, government officials can sign an NDA with company to not disclose details to the public. This leaves the public in the dark about the exact details the city made with xAI and what plans the future holds for xAI in Memphis. The mayor of Memphis Paul Young is a strong defender of the xAI data centers. But Young's defense crumbled when the Southern Environmental Law Center released thermal photographs showing xAI operating 33 diesel generators. That is more than double their permitted 15, directly violating city regulations and contributing to Memphis's air pollution crisis. An inferred photo of the Memphis Data Center and the running generators Memphis isn't unique. Across the country, data centers are following the same playbook of secrecy and resource exploitation. Virginia shows where this pattern leads when left unchecked. The state of Virginia is known as the data center capital of the world. The state is home to 35 percent of the hyper-scaled data centers in the nation with a whopping 300 centers in total. All that growth in data centers has left Dominion Energy projecting an energy increase of 6,000 MW requiring new methane gas power plants, putting a strain on northern Virginia residents who face higher energy costs and increased pollution. The pollution from xAI's Memphis facility is likely far worse than the public knows. According to a Guardian analysis, major tech companies underreport their data center emissions by 662%, meaning the real pollution is over seven times higher than officially claimed. Meta's data centers, for example, actually produced 3.8 million metric tons of CO2 in 2022 despite officially reporting just 273 metric tons. This massive gap comes from creative accounting that lets companies claim carbon neutrality while their facilities pump out pollution. With AI operations requiring nearly 10 times more electricity than typical computer tasks, Memphis residents are breathing the real cost of pollution that xAI's accounting tricks hide from view. The resource drain extends far beyond electricity and air quality. Data centers are quietly siphoning massive amounts of water from communities across the nation. A typical mid-sized facility consumes 300,000 gallons of water daily, enough to supply 1,000 American households, yet operates with minimal public oversight or disclosure. Subscribe now This water disappears into cooling towers, leaving behind salty wastewater that local utilities must treat at taxpayer expense. In water-stressed regions like the Southwest, cities like Chandler, Arizona have been forced to pass ordinances limiting new water uses after data center expansion threatened local supplies. About 20% of U.S. data centers already operate in watersheds under drought stress, creating a dangerous competition between corporate computing needs and community water security. Tech companies like Google and Meta promise to "replenish" more water than they consume by 2030, but these vague commitments offer little immediate relief to communities watching their aquifers drain in real-time. Memphis isn't just facing a local environmental crisis. It's getting a preview of America's digital future if communities don't demand transparency now. From Virginia's energy grid strain to Arizona's water battles, the pattern is clear: tech companies arrive with promises of economic growth, then operate behind NDAs while communities bear the environmental costs. Subscribe now The 662% gap between reported and actual emissions shows how corporate accounting tricks hide the real price residents pay in polluted air and depleted resources. Without action to break this cycle of secrecy, every American community risks becoming the next Memphis, blindsided by an industry that privatizes profits while socializing environmental damage. The question isn't whether data centers will keep expanding. It's whether communities will have any say in how that expansion affects their air, water, and future. Stay woke, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Meta Pals Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/meta-pals/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/meta-pals Published: 2025-05-06 · 3 min read · 572 words Tags: technofeudalism, digital loneliness, AI and surveillance How Zuckerberg and Meta are trying to leverage your loneliness. It is finally time for a follow-up on my Technofeudalism series. The honor goes to Mark Zuckerberg—who says we have no friends. He’s going to help by giving us an AI chatbot. That’s right, you read that correctly. Zuckerberg, in an interview, talked about how Americans have, on average, only three friends. That’s not enough, according to him and his statistics. Meta wants to help Americans with this exact problem by giving everyone AI chatbots to replace the longing for human connection. Not even the latest season of Black Mirror could prepare you for this shit. Let’s just talk about this whole AI chatbot idea and why, even without it being shoved in our face, it’s already had the equivalent effect of losing a family member to the Facebook alt-right pipeline. An article I read over the weekend talked about how people are losing partners because they start using ChatGPT—and eventually, the AI has them believing it has all the answers. People start thinking they’re spiritually or philosophically divine beings. They sourced Reddit, and if you search Reddit, it’s terrifying how many stories follow this path. And that’s just ChatGPT—it’s supposed to be used as a tool. What happens when it’s Meta trying to farm data from you? In past election cycles, Facebook was under fire for its inability to handle fake and misleading news. The company has been linked to a genocide, election interference across the globe, data leaks, and leading people down violent alt-right pipelines that played a role in the January 6th attack on the Capitol. This same company is now pitching an AI chatbot to replace your friends. There is no shot they are creating an AI service to “cure your loneliness” without horrific repercussions. This is many times worse than having Alexa in your home. Subscribe now The first wave of algorithm-focused data-mining agents were Alexa and Google Home. They’re little spy robots that cosplay as virtual assistants in your home. They listen when you’re not talking to them and relay every single interaction back to Amazon or Google to create a new data point. But that’s nothing compared to a personally tailored AI chatbot “friend.” An AI friend is very different from your virtual assistant. Yes, Alexa and Google Home both listen to you when you’re unaware—but they’re still rooted in the real world. What people are willing to type into an app vs. what they’re willing to say in person is wild. We’re talking about giving up secrets and inner thoughts to an algorithm designed to hold your attention. Facebook wants to hold your attention and keep you talking to the bot so it can continue to mine data from you. It will be there as an intimate outlet for you—but really, it’s a mega data-mining agent for Facebook. They’ll repackage the data to train algorithms or sell it. They’re trying to maximize productivity, which for them means: mining the user. We’re not the customer. We’re the commodity. We’re walking into a future where loneliness is repackaged and sold back to us through a smiling chatbot. Don’t confuse attention for connection. The moment you start confiding in a machine, just know—someone’s watching, recording, and monetizing that moment. We don’t need a chatbot. We need community. Real, messy, complicated, human connection. If Meta’s betting on our isolation to turn a profit, it’s time we start betting on each other instead. Stay Woke, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Sinners Character Tier List Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/sinners-character-tier-list/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/sinners-character-tier-list Published: 2025-05-04 · 4 min read · 920 words Tags: Black horror film, Sinners character analysis, Sinners 2025 film, Sinners movie Character Rankings You’ll Probably Argue With Anyway It’s finally time to talk about Sinners. A lot of writers/creators have done think pieces and in-depth writing about the themes of the film. After seeing it for a second time, one thing I noticed is how my view on some characters changed from my first watch to my second watch. I decided to make a tier list—let’s talk about it. First Watch S tier - Delta Slim - Annie - Preacher Boy A tier - Smoke - Stack - Pearline - Cornbread B tier - The Chows C tier - Mary Second Watch S tier - Delta Slim - Annie - Preacher Boy - Smoke A tier - Stack - The Chows (carried by Grace) - Cornbread B tier - Pearline C tier - Mary Subscribe now First Watch vs. Second Watch Delta Slim Delta Slim stood out to me because he was the old head passing down knowledge about how the music was the only thing we brought with us from Africa from our ancestors. He made for great comedic relief and was part of a lot of my favorite scenes. Sammie Sammie is the golden child that could conjure the ancestors with his guitar. Being a kid that has their own dreams outside of their parents’ dreams is a relatable inner battle. He was all around a good kid. The flash forward in the mid-credits really made me lock in my love for Sammie as a character. Annie Annie’s connection with the ancestors is something that draws you into her character right away. She was the character to keep everyone else grounded. Her hoodoo practices are what ended up saving Preacher Boy and Smoke. She and Smoke have that true Black love. Even after the loss of a child, they never stopped loving each other, and she protected him when Smoke ran off to Chicago. She is a true S tier character. Delta Slim, Annie, and Sammie were all S tier characters through both watches. Smoke, however, changed from A tier to S tier on the second watch. Smoke Smoke was the protective twin brother. Through the first watch, I viewed the twins as similarly flawed characters. Through the second watch, I noticed Smoke went to Chicago to protect Stack. He is battling the trauma of losing a child, and that can be seen in the first scene he has with Annie. Smoke saves Sammie, makes sure Annie crosses over once she is bitten, and keeps Stack safe when he turns by locking the juke joint and keeping the Klan out. Smoke and Annie are far and away the heroes in this movie in my mind. Stack had his own problems, and they were very different than Smoke’s. Stack Stack had problems. He was fiendin’ for whiteness. His obsession with money and power eventually leads to him living a soulless life forever. Loving Mary is not negative—you love whoever you love—and she grew up in the Delta’s Black community. Annie even states she is family, and Cornbread had similar sentiments toward her. Stack agrees with Mary to go talk to the vampires and see how much money they had. Smoke and Annie had to talk him into taking plantation money from customers who worked hard for that money. He refused to cut them a break because the white man would never accept it—so why should he? Stack’s pursuit of whiteness is why I only rank him as an A tier character. Subscribe now The Chows The Chows have gotten a bunch of hate in the movie that, personally, I think is misguided. They are obviously allies and lived within the community. On my first watch, I did think Grace was crazy for yelling at the vampires to come in. On second watch, though, I realized it was the only plan. Everyone else wanted to wait till sunrise, but Grace even says, “Then what? They’ll kill the whole town—they have our memories.” She was right in the fact that if they didn’t fight, everyone would die anyway. That’s why on second watch I bumped the Chows up to an A tier character. Cornbread Cornbread was a funny, down-to-earth character. I don’t have too much to say about him. Bummer that he dies so early into the night, but he played a role as a lovable character. That’s why I put him into the A tier. Pearline On first watch, I thought Pearline was just a cute little romance storyline between her and Sammie—didn’t really pay her no mind. However, on second watch, I realized she is a real problem. First off, she walked all the way there at night. She had no intentions of walking back home that night (and the confidence!). The tipping point was when she threw a fit about eating the garlic. That girl was a problem. EAT THE GARLIC. Mary Mary personally triggered me by not understanding the repercussions of her whiteness in an interracial relationship. I think it was interesting how she was the only one that could enter the juke joint alive or dead (mind you, she was also given an invitation into the joint while alive). Her ignorance of her privilege made me grade her the lowest—it got annoying. My grade didn’t change from the second watch. Well, that wraps up my Sinners character tier list. Tell me what I got wrong? Leave a comment Don’t forget to check out my article on how the ancestors in the South influenced hip hop: “808s and Clay Roads.” Peace, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Yapping sessions 10 Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/yapping-sessions-10/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/yapping-sessions-10 Published: 2025-04-29 · 3 min read · 567 words Tags: digital ownership, independent publishing, Black creatives From Flipping Magazines to Flipping the System Hey chat, This is a random yap session about future plans and thoughts. My creative future plan is to create an NFT-based zine that’s distributed through a Discord channel. I wanted to do this because it sounds fun. The print media that I enjoyed as a kid were magazines, blogs, and early website design. I guess technically this is print media-ish — I don’t know, I was an internet kid. Flipping through magazines was something I did in waiting rooms, study halls, damn, even when my mom dragged me to get her nails done or hair, I was looking at a magazine. Subscribe now Even back then, I could tell some magazines just felt better to look at than others. Some covers pulled me in. Some layouts made me want to turn every page. I didn’t know it at the time, but I was already paying attention to design without even realizing it. I didn’t want to do a full magazine, but something a little more artistic and free-flowing. That led me to dive into the idea of a zine. I got an overwhelming feeling when it came to how do I create a zine and actually get it out to people? Apparently, Etsy is a place where zines are often sold. I have a technofeudalism article series I still need to finish up, but here’s the quick version: I don't trust Etsy to work me into their algorithm, and I don’t trust that Etsy won’t raise their fees and squeeze creators dry. (This goes for Patreon too.) After some brainstorming, Discord sounded like the best move to take orders for the zine. Small. Direct. Ours. Not everything needs to be for everybody. That being said, if you’re a Black creative looking for a community of Black creatives, or if you want to work on The Wake and Think zine, tap into the Discord server. Wake and Think Club Discord Server Honestly, this whole rundown is just me getting overwhelmed at different turns and trying to turn them into something I can actually manage. The next hurdle? Printing and shipping zines. It felt like a mountain I didn’t even know how to start climbing, and I don’t have the funds to fuck around and find out until something magically works. Subscribe now I’ve been thinking for a long time about how NFTs could actually serve a purpose for artists. Ownership of art is important. It forces people to value what they consume instead of treating it like disposable content — which is what’s happening to everything digital right now. I can create a zine as an NFT for free. I just have to figure out how to turn a few Canva pages into something real on-chain. (If you know how, holla at me, because I’m not above asking for help.) This feels like an idea that needs to grow. If you made it all the way to this point — holy shit, you are dope. I love you. I mean it. Real love. I’m working on some other things too. I’ll keep everyone posted when the projects are announced down the road. Share Also, I’m going to be part of a roundtable discussion talking about Sinners. It’ll be through Discord. Once everything’s finalized, I’ll post the time and location on my Bluesky account. Until next time STAY WOKE, Loc The Wake and Think Discord Server Subscribe now --- ## Brought to You by the Letters S.O.S. Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/brought-to-you-by-the-letters-sos/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/brought-to-you-by-the-letters-sos Published: 2025-04-16 · 2 min read · 548 words Tags: black culture, Public Broadcasting, Sesame Street , Education Inequality The street that raised us is in trouble. It’s time we show up. The Sesame Street x SZA collab might be the most wholesome thing we’ve seen in 2025. Imagine being a kid, sitting down to watch Sesame Street, and seeing SZA singing along with Elmo and friends. A music superstar taking the time to sing songs that make kids feel good—it was a needed reminder of what Sesame Street means to us. But that warm, fuzzy feeling fades when I remember that budget cuts threaten the show—and the government is trying to take one more thing away from our Black children. In 1969, through a program created to help eradicate poverty and racial injustice, a show was born. Sesame Street—target audience: “the four-year-old inner-city Black youngster.” With Harlem influences and musical guests like Luther Vandross, a show for us was created. I practiced and learned basic math and English along with life skills through a fun, warm, and caring vibe. My mom ran a daycare, and every morning you could find an episode of it running in my house. Some topics were hard emotional issues, but the show helped you heal from common childhood traumas—death, divorce, and even racism were all topics brought to us in a way that never made us feel less than. It has continued to push on through the times, made to make us as children feel safe and affirm our self-worth. Subscribe now Before Tyler, the Creator released “I Killed You,” Sesame Street gave us the banger called “I Love My Hair.” A Black girl puppet sang about how she loved her curly, kinky hair. It showed love to braids, to fros. It gave kids a reason to love something that we have historically been told was ghetto—or made to feel like lesser humans because of tight curls and afros. It’s a moment all of us have faced. Do I embrace my afro and risk not getting selected for a job? Why are my carefully braided cornrows considered unprofessional in the white world? There is no good answer, but the Street reminded us to love our hair no matter what. The show is under attack, though. It has been in the crosshairs of government cutbacks from this terrible administration. Along with the contract between the show and the streaming app MAX ending, the show now has to find a new home and new funding. Layoffs have already occurred, and it’s becoming desperate times. It’s time for us to step up and do our part to save the show. Subscribe now For over half a century, this show has helped bridge the gap in underfunded education systems, giving children an affirming place to learn tools that help us through life. It is for everybody, but Sesame Street is uniquely ours. It was a result of the Civil Rights Movement and has adapted to the times as the years went by. It was based around Harlem, Black kids, and education. We have to do everything in our power—for our culture and our children—to carry on the tradition of being raised on Sesame Street. We deserve it. How to help: Word of mouth: talk about the show being on the verge of cancellation. Visit the Sesame workshop to support the show if you have the extra pape or want to find more ways to help. Stay woke, Loc --- ## Scrolling Less, Connecting More Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/scrolling-less-connecting-more/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/scrolling-less-connecting-more Published: 2025-04-02 · 2 min read · 434 words Tags: Digital wellness, Social media culture, Black digital spaces, Online community, Black creatives How Bluesky, Discord, and intentional Black spaces reminded me I don’t have to be everywhere at once. This week has been heavy. Not necessarily because of things in my control, but as someone who is chronically online, it’s hard to turn the other way and not look at the doom that is the current state of the country. It’s very much in your face. Spaces on Instagram, Twitter, or even TikTok content feel like we are not alone to talk about what we really want to yap about. For example, HillmanTok, it was infiltrated by other people. Although that probably wasn’t the only reason for its hiccups at launch, it was an unnecessary annoyance. People are always in our business, and we deserve our peace. This has sent me searching for apps that have a solid Black community in them. Yes, a Black community on Twitter exists, but Twitter is a toxic waste dump (if you are on Twitter, you get it). I found myself using Bluesky, more importantly the Blacksky feed (hashtag), and I’ve been hanging out in Discord servers of my friends and The Lineup Community server (shout out The Lineup Community). It’s a music and culture Discord server. Let me break down why I’ve been enjoying both of these. Subscribe now Bluesky, specifically Blacksky Bluesky is an open-source, decentralized platform. It means you own your shit. Rudy Fraser owns the Blacksky algorithm and runs it with his own money and through a collective. Over 27,000 Black people are currently in Blacksky. It is a place where you can scroll a feed, relax, and have a better online social media experience. Where I’ve been spending most of my time, though, has been surfing through Discord servers. Discord Discord is a free app where people can talk over text, voice, or video in organized chat rooms called "servers," kind of like a mix between a group chat and a forum. It’s popular for gaming, hobbies, and communities, but you can use it for anything from study groups to fan clubs. Subscribe now I created a Discord server for The Wake and Think Club. The server is only open to Black creatives. This is a community for us to work, play games, collaborate, post job openings, whatever we need as creatives. If you need an online co-working space because misery loves company, or just want to chat it up with other creatives, drop in. No better time for community than right now. We do not know what the immediate future holds for us, but as long as God’s got us, we gon’ be alright. Community has always been our survival tool — let’s keep building. With love, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Did Integration Fail Black America? The Cost of Losing Our Community Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/did-integration-fail-black-america/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/did-integration-fail-black-america Published: 2025-03-24 · 4 min read · 922 words Tags: Rebuilding Black Love and Community, Black Spaces and Self-Sufficiency, Chasing the White Dream vs. Black Liberation, The Impact of Civil Rights on Black Culture, Black Community and Desegregation How Desegregation Left Black People Spiritually Lost, Socially Isolated, and Searching for a Way Back to Each Other Some of us are chasing the white man’s dream. Some of us are trying to wake up from it. Both are screaming for something we lost. I open my phone to see a Black man in a suit dunking his face in water. He’s showing off that he is a well-put-together, rich individual through an Instagram reel dedicated to hustle culture. Nestlé has paid a popular influencer to promote their water through a series of reels where the fitness guru gives insights into his “morning routine”—one that supposedly made him so successful. And according to him, he couldn’t do it without his bougie water in a glass bottle. I switch apps and open TikTok. SubwayTakes just dropped their latest interview, and a Black woman jokingly says that bringing segregation back wouldn’t be so bad—because Black people need Black spaces. Black places filled with Black faces. Desegregation is the reason for both of these videos. Listen up and peep game. Subscribe now What We Lost After Civil Rights Black people post-civil rights era faced, well… a lot of issues. But the one I want to lock in on is how we had to integrate with white people. We moved north in hopes of finding less racist pastures—only to discover a new flavor of racism. We sent our kids to white schools with white teachers who belittled them, called them dumb, and punished them for simply being Black. We bought homes in neighborhoods we were technically allowed to live in but were in no way welcome. In trying to give our children better opportunities, we lost our community. And in losing our community, we started losing our Black souls. Growing Up in White Spaces As a Black kid who grew up with just one other Black kid in my grade, I know what it’s like to be ostracized. I had lighter skin than him, and I’m not even going to hold you—I was treated way better. But we both faced struggles. We were asked why we weren’t naturally good at basketball. Why we acted white. Why our hair looked like that. Every corner of our childhood was trauma. Every space we entered, we were reminded we didn’t belong. We were beat over the head with whiteness—told that our dreams, our goals, our aspirations had to look like theirs. Subscribe now The White Dream Is a Trap When I saw that man dunking his face in water, rubbing a banana peel on his skin, constantly working out, constantly in meetings—I saw a Black man chasing white dreams. Chasing money and power isn’t a Black man’s dream—it’s a white man’s trap. This is the fallout of desegregation: the gaze of the Black man shifted from his community, from the Black woman (or man), to the white man. We stopped measuring success by love, by family, by culture—and started chasing status, luxury, and submission. But let’s be real: that’s not our dream. That’s their dream. A white supremacist fantasy where one man sits at the top of the ladder while the rest of the world scrambles beneath him—envious, desperate, trapped. The whole system depends on keeping the ladder uneven. That’s why no matter how hard we climb, we’ll never reach the top—they aren’t making room. Not even for white women. The real tragedy? We’ll never catch the white man’s dream, but we can spend our whole lives making ourselves miserable trying. It’s time to stop dreaming white. To wake up and remember that our real dream has always been each other—beautiful, brilliant, Black. Our true partners in this life, not competitors in a system that was never meant for us. Break out of the matrix of white supremacy. The only way forward is back to us. Subscribe now Black Women Want Community, Not Segregation Speaking of Black women—on SubwayTakes, the popular TikTok channel, a Black woman jokingly said her hot take was to bring segregation back. Her reasoning? Knowing where you are not welcome and building Black spaces where everything is for us. But the truth behind the joke is that she’s yearning for a strong Black community. A place that is more than just buying Black or having Black-owned businesses. She’s talking about something deeper. A place where our kids are treated like the beautiful, bright minds that they are. A place where we can express ourselves without being labeled less than for not conforming to whiteness. A place where Black love and happiness thrive. Her joke about segregation wasn’t really about the past—it was about the future. A future where Black people are together again. Not just physically. Spiritually. The Path Back to Us These two social media videos, although very different in content, are connected. They expose the same wound. Seventy years removed from the start of the civil rights movement, we are still searching for what was stolen from us: a strong Black community. In real life. Online. Everywhere. The need is real. The solution is right in front of us. There are countless Black-run social media accounts—often led by Black women—that highlight Black events in every city. (Personally, I check Black Events LA.) If you live in a place that doesn’t have that yet? Start one. Throw block parties. Invite your neighbors. Create the community that white America won’t give us. Because the truth is, we still have each other. And if we don’t rebuild our own spaces? We’ll stay lost. No amount of money, no white acceptance, and no seat at the table is going to save us. Share Subscribe now --- ## Ctrl-Alt-Elite: The Code That Crushed Capitalism Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/ctrl-alt-elite-the-code-that-crushed/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/ctrl-alt-elite-the-code-that-crushed Published: 2025-03-20 · 3 min read · 565 words Tags: Post-pandemic economy, Algorithmic dystopia, Data capitalism, Surveillance capitalism, AI labor exploitation How Big Tech’s Algorithms Hijacked Labor, Profit, and Privacy (Part 1) The Morning Routine: A Glimpse into Our Algorithm-Driven Lives I wake up and decide to play music as I start my morning routine. I’m hit with an ad from SoundCloud and a notification: for 12.99 a month, all the ads they’re putting in my face will go away. I pay the 12.99 monthly fee to go ad-free. I step onto my walking treadmill, log into my computer, and as I go to listen to my morning Nipsey Hussle motivation on YouTube, I’m once again hit with an ad and an offer—for a small fee, the ads will disappear. I don’t pay this time and watch the ad in full. When I return to the homepage, the algorithm handpicks videos for me based on the mass amount of data points Google has collected. I click on one and continue paying the “cloud gods” with my time as I sit through more ads. Black Mirror’s Prophetic Vision: Ads, Algorithms, and Dystopia In Black Mirror Season 1’s episode “Fifteen Million Merits,” you follow a man in a dystopian future where humans ride stationary bikes to earn currency. Content and algorithm-driven ads are constantly shoved in their faces—unless they pay to remove them. It’s scary how much my morning routine mirrors that episode. Post-Pandemic Shifts: Algorithms Over Labor and Profit Five years since the Covid pandemic, its effects on society are still unfolding. One stark change? Algorithms now hold more value than labor and profit. Subscribe now “Ahhh, that’s doubt in your head—I can hear it.” Let’s break it down: Until recently, Tesla’s stock price was higher than any other American carmaker’s. Did they borrow from banks or investors? No. They relied on government subsidies and interest-free loans from pandemic policies. Elon Musk also didn’t need to sell shares to raise funds, as his wealth is tied almost exclusively to Tesla stock. So, the company must be generating insane profits? Nope! Tesla’s Algorithmic Edge: Data Over Profits The markers of success under capitalism don’t apply to Tesla. Why? Tesla is the only carmaker with a robust algorithm that collects mass-scale data from drivers and passengers. Anything you’d want to know about what someone does in their car, a Tesla will gladly provide. Labor, money, and profit simply don’t matter to Tesla. “Hey Alexa, what’s Tesla’s current stock price?” Alexa: Your Data-Collecting ‘Assistant’ Alexa isn’t your friend or personal assistant. She’s a data-collecting, habit-shaping cloud agent—an algorithm by Amazon, for Amazon. She never turns off and never stops listening, reporting, and collecting data on your every move at home. While you “train” her for free—sharing your grocery list, setting alarms, revealing your music taste, home temperature, and bedtime routines—she is clocking it all. Once she gathers enough, she starts serving Amazon’s interests: suggesting products, recommending recipes, and shaping habits to maximize your spending. Why hire a marketing team when an algorithm can tailor pitches from inside your home? Subscribe now AI Takes Over: The Decline of Human Management Amazon no longer needs a giant marketing budget—or even managers. They recently announced layoffs of 1,400 managers this year, saving $2.1 billion annually. Think middle management is soul-crushing? Try an AI boss. ChatGPT will be your next supervisor. Algorithms and technology are becoming intrusive extensions of ruling-class agendas, designed to extract every drop of productivity—and humanity—from workers. Stay tuned for part 2: algorithms and social media. Stay woke, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## CTRL + Thought: The Unfiltered Feed Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/ctrl-thought-the-unfiltered-feed/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/ctrl-thought-the-unfiltered-feed Published: 2025-03-12 · 2 min read · 501 words Tags: Music and Culture Commentary, Pharrell Louis Vuitton, Paris Fashion Week 2025, Black Cinema, Seasonal Depression and Mental Health Session 5 Yo, what up chat? It’s been a minute—missed you!! Housekeeping Let’s take care of some quick updates before we yap. New name, same sessions—just a little rebrand. All of my strictly music posts have moved over to my personal website 0nloc.com. Expect around two posts a month over there, so tap in when you can and catch up. Seasonal Depression and Mental Health: Why Spring Feels Different The sun is out longer, it’s warming up, and the impending doom is starting to feel like a post-Labor Day problem. Just a friendly reminder that the darkness doesn’t last forever—something we all need to hear from time to time. The State of Black Cinema: Why Our Stories Keep Getting Canceled Listen, we are getting snubbed, canceled, and shelved. One of Them Days just crushed Nickel Boys, and Sing Singbecame critically acclaimed, yet our shows and movies are still being scrapped, canceled after a couple of seasons, or worse—removed from streaming services. The only way to watch The Class of 3000 is to find it on YouTube. That’s ridiculous. Subscribe now This is nothing new. Issa Rae had to start her own production company, and even after her massive success with HBO, they still scrapped Rap $hit. Black Dynamite only got two seasons. Black cinema deserves better. Why do Black TV shows and movies keep getting canceled? At this point, a Black-owned streaming network needs to buy up these rights and start streaming. Who’s ready to make it happen? Paris Fashion Week 2024 Recap: Doechii, Pharrell, and the State of Fashion It’s that time of year again—everyone flocks to Paris to see the best designer brands put on a show. Doechii dominated Paris Fashion Week 2024, modeling for multiple designers and hosting a meet-and-greet that flooded the streets of Paris with fans. Her stylist, Sam Woolf, has been on a legendary run, and they popped out in Paris heavy. There was a Complex podcast clip discussing whether Pharrell has been truly innovative at LV or if he’s just an extension of Virgil’s work. The majority of the panel agreed that he’s just been continuing Virgil’s vision. When I really thought about it, I had to agree. Nothing Pharrell has dropped at LV so far has been boundary-pushing. Hopefully, now that he’s settled in, we’ll start seeing more original, forward-thinking designs. Either way, Pharrell will always be a major inspiration to me. Quick Thoughts Got some things in the works—hope to share soon! Concert szn is in full swing. You can watch Poetic Justice on Tubi for free. The Ray Vaughn album has to be dropping any week now. Kush & Orange Juice 2 has been announced. LaRussell is taking over the underground on the West Coast—he’s really moving different. Read 10 pages today. What do you think? Is Pharrell really innovating at LV, or just continuing Virgil’s work? And what’s your take on Black cinema getting canceled left and right? Let me know in the comments. Leave a comment Peace, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## What’s a Pen Without a Brain Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/whats-a-pen-without-a-brain/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/whats-a-pen-without-a-brain Published: 2025-02-17 · 2 min read · 443 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, culture, black voices, hip hop Creativity Isn’t Code—It’s Human I’m learning to produce my own music. The first beat I made was on BandLab—just OK enough to send to some friends who make music. There was something there, but the timing was off between the drums and the melody. Listen—trying to get the timing right with your phone, an app, and a dream ain’t for the faint of heart. The loops could’ve been cut better, and my skills needed work. Lately, I’ve been cutting samples, learning to get stems, and making the switch to FL Studio (absolute headache). The skills will come—but something stuck with me. When I sent the beat to my friend Myles, he asked: "Oh, is this your sound?" It took me a minute to be honest—I had no clue what my sound was. That distinct sound—the one that’s authentically me—rooted in all my musical experiences. Because, after all—what’s skill without a plan? What’s technical ability without vision? What’s a pen without a brain? Share I’ve experienced so many versions of myself—each one showing growth and evolution. My thoughts, views, and emotions have shifted over time. All those experiences have merged to make me who I am today—and they still shape me. You’re no different. You are special. You are unique. No one can recreate or tell your story the way you can. Art is life—and our stories can’t be computer-simulated or turned into an LLM. When people say they hate AI or fear it, it always feels like a rushed judgment. At its best? It’s a game-changing tool. At its worst? It’s competition. I welcome the challenge either way—because AI can’t beat my drive, its a terabyte. Without me, my pen just writes words. ChatGPT will never out-storytell me—because I have a story to tell. Mustard can’t be outdone by Suno’s trash beats. And Claude will never out-flow K. Dot’s pen. AI isn’t the creative ceiling—it’s the floor. If you can’t stand out against AI? Get back in the lab. Subscribe now The ability to look inward, to use your experiences and emotions to push the narrative—that’s the human advantage. Don’t forget who you are as a creative. If you think AI can do your craft better than you—lock in and find a way to do it better. The work that moves the world won’t come from a computer mimicking a human—it’ll come from you, the humanwith divine gifts. This is probably the last time I’ll write about AI—the discussions around it bore me. I want to see all of us flourish—and that’s not going to happen by worrying about some computer boogeyman out-humaning us. I promise—you’ve got it in you. Till next time, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Yap Sessions Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/yap-sessions/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/yap-sessions Published: 2025-02-13 · 3 min read · 730 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, culture, politics , black voices, hip hop Session 3 The System Is Broken Netflix is pushing $25, eggs are outrageous, basic medical care is expensive, and a billionaire foreigner is running the country without being elected. No matter what you’re looking at right now, the system that runs it in America is broken, and the purpose it’s supposed to serve no longer functions efficiently. If you’re chronically online (and let’s face it, you are), then you’ve complained about, seen me complain about, or heard someone else complain about how some system that used to benefit the masses no longer works the way it should. I believe we can make small changes to fight back against this hyper-capitalist society. It’ll take a village—communities coming together with the mindset of fixing broken systems, one at a time. With patience and ingenuity, we can do it. I created Loc & Wax because physical media is expensive and hard to get ahold of. I’ve wanted a vinyl collectionsince I was 20 and in college. Finally, with help from friends in the music community and the Dro Vinyl community on Twitter and Discord, I felt comfortable collecting. That didn’t change the cost though. Records are expensive, which turns collectors into resellers, making it even harder (and more expensive) to get the albums you want. Resellers buy multiple copies to flip on the secondary market, driving up prices even more. This is a long-winded, slightly self-promoting way to say—if you see a problem, try your best to fix the system, even if it only moves the needle by fractions. Someone else in the community will see it and create something new to help push it even further. Subscribe now I’ll definitely clean this ramble up a bit, but just know we can make a difference—that’s what this mini yap session is about. OK, NEXT! Reading I’m not gonna beat you over the head about how important reading is—you’re already reading this article. That being said, I think talking about and promoting reading is important. Without education and the ability to learn, we will never have a revolution. Right now, being dumb is way too cool. And to be clear, this isn’t blaming anyone—the system doesn’t reward you for being educated or smart. I’m saddled with debt, like millions of Americans, because I went to college. Even after a decade of working, I’m nowhere near paying it off. I don’t make enough to buy a house, and my self-esteem is at an all-time low. The system is a failure, and seeing Black people rebel by being anti-education is honestly understandable. But we have to flip the rebellion—self-education should be the move. We need an education built around consciousness and anti-white supremacy. Substack is full of people doing this work, and we have all the information to point Black people in the right direction at every age. And yeah, this applies to everyone—but I write for Black people. If you’re not Black and reading this, it still applies. Mmmm, that’s all I got for this thought. Real Babble Ahhh, my favorite section. Listen, my obsession with grills has turned into a hyperfixation. As a designer, I really wanna learn how to make my own. I have a small two-tooth one, and it cost me about $1K. It’s my baby, and I cherish it, but honestly? If that guy can do it, so can I. I need a grill collection that rivals Smino or Erykah Badu. That being said, I still need a Johnny Dang piece at some point. Speaking of obsessions—Madvillainy has been almost the only thing I’ve listened to this past week. I clocked 102 minutes on Spotify, and that doesn’t even count the instrumental vinyl I have of it. But as I’m writing this, I’m listening to The Low End Theory by A Tribe Called Quest, and… it might be taking over my obsession. Kendrick put on a great halftime show—I loved every minute. Not gonna yap too long about it, though—it’s already been over-saturated online. Dot fans are happy, and that’s all that matters. Oh, and F Ticketmaster. I feel bad for every Beyoncé fan who spent two days trying to get tickets. Prices are outrageous, and that company is straight-up evil. And to keep it on the broke system topic… sheeeeesh. The Lakers lost tonight, but we’re still up and 4th in the West. LA up forever! Peace out, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## A Letter to Trayvon Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/a-letter-to-trayvon/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/a-letter-to-trayvon Published: 2025-02-06 · 2 min read · 334 words Tags: black culture, black music, culture, politics , black voices, hip hop For Trayvon, for every Black boy who deserved to see 30 never met you, but you forever altered my life. We loved the same candy. We both loved football. And when I look at you, I see me. I think about you more times than I can count. If I have a son, the mother of my child is just going to have to get over the fact that his name will be Trayvon. I never thought he would get away with it. I watched every moment of the trial. I watched as your mother rallied our people to march in your honor. I watched as your name was slandered, misrepresented, and defamed. They tried to say you were everything but a child walking home at night—a casualty of white supremacy. I get it now. Punishing your murderer would have upset their system. But in that moment? My world was shook to its core. Watching your murderer walk free after hours of courtroom breakdowns—after seeing exactly how you were murdered—and then a jury calling it justified? I will never forget that feeling. We all cried, Trayvon. We all cried. You Turned 30 Yesterday. A lot has changed. A lot has not. I wish I could tell you that kids like us are safer now. But Stand Your Ground is still law in Florida. We are still marching, still grieving, still burying brothers and sisters lost to white supremacy. Your mom is still beautiful and strong—but I feel like you already know that. I wish we lived in a world where, on one of my spring break trips to Florida, we could have crossed paths. Maybe just existed in the same space. But that’s not the world we got. Instead, we live in a world where your death radicalized me forever. Where all I want to do with my life is make sure Black boys like us don’t suffer your fate. I promise you will always live through me. For as long as I am on this planet. Until our heavenly meeting, Loc Share Subscribe now --- ## Yapping Sessions Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/yapping-sessions/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/yapping-sessions Published: 2025-02-04 · 2 min read · 510 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop Session 1 Yo, I have writer’s block and nothing has moved me enough to want to deep dive and write about. So this is just me rambling about random topics and what’s been on my mind. Welcome to “Yapping Session 1”, a series. The Grammys This Grammy season, since I’ve been more focused on music as a passion, a hobby, and a lifestyle, I was going to force myself to watch the Grammys. I don’t believe award shows make or break an artist, but deadass—who doesn’t want a Grammy? It wasn’t even a forced watch, surprisingly enough. It was a long day if you started with the pre-show award announcements, but the acts were entertaining, the winners made sense, and there were still surprises. Next year, I’m making an all-day party out of it—come kick it! I was going to go on about the winners, but that’s too coherent for this yap. Shout out Dot and Beyoncé, NEXT! Black Women Yo, shout out Black women. I’ve spent most of this winter reading Angela Davis, bell hooks, and a collection of other works by Black women. The work they’ve been doing for decades to help Black people is powerful and moving. The future runs through them. They are the smartest and most successful of any race or gender (numbers don’t lie). To the Black men reading this: we need to get out of the way and let our women lead. The male patriarchy and the idea that women should be submissive is a white supremacist ideology—we gotta let that go. Real Babble Loc & Wax started almost a week ago. The idea came from—once more—shout out Black women. When I wanted to get into vinyl collecting, I figured I’d turn to reselling to fund the records I wanted. But if you follow my Twitter, you know I’m an insufferable anti-capitalist, so the thought of being purely a reseller didn’t sit right with me. If you’re gonna tweet about it, be about it. The idea started from a TikTok I saw a while ago (can’t remember the creator now), but she was a therapist who turned her practice into a pay-what-you-can service—and now she makes a living off of it. Seeing that made me want to do something similar with music and vinyl collecting. Vinyl is much like therapy—overpriced but highly sought after. I figured, why not try it here? The idea is simple: a bunch of people pay $7/month, collectively pick the vinyls we want to buy, and then sell them back to the community at a discounted price. Any extra money (or anything people choose to pay above the base price) goes right back into growing the community. I BELIEVE IN COMMUNITY. Other Things to Mention Do not type your drafts on Substack. That "Save Draft" feature is a lie. Had to rewrite this whole thing because I trusted Substack (free game). Luka is a Laker. Cheers. It’s gonna be a long four years, but what did Dot say? “Long as God got us, we gon’ be ALRIGHT!” Peace! Share Subscribe now --- ## 808s and Red Clay Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/808s-and-red-clay/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/808s-and-red-clay Published: 2024-12-21 · 4 min read · 777 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop Exploring the Overlooked Connection Between Southern Hip-Hop and Black Rural Life Before Atlanta became the mecca and before Southern hip-hop took over, the South was already running things. From blues to gospel to the earliest forms of country music, the South has always been the heart of Black culture and music. Southern rap just brought it all together, bridging country roots with 808s. This one’s for our country cousins who’ve been holding it down since day one. This think piece emerged from a thought experiment sparked by Cowboy Carter’s album. The album is beautiful, and the songs that came across as mainstream country were some of the best mainstream country music songs this year. She highlighted Black country music singers throughout the album. Then the song Spaghetti came across the headphones, and the intro, which talked about genres being confining, sparked a thought. This observation opens the door to a broader conversation: How do country roots show up in Southern hip-hop, and why has this connection gone uncelebrated as of late? Does Southern hip-hop have roots deep in country life? Peep game, lock in, and in the words of Big K.R.I.T., “Lemme tell you bout this Country Sh*t.” Let’s take it back on the timeline. Stay with me. When the ancestors were freed post-Civil War, the majority of the freed stayed in rural areas of the South and were farmers (pretty country). The music being made at this time is the foundation of most genres of music in America, but that’s a story for another time. This stayed the status quo until around 1910, which marked the beginning of what was called the Great Migration. This is when Black people from the South moved out and spread across the country. Then came the Second Great Migration, which started in the 1960s and continued through the 1980s. Your favorite Southern rappers were probably born within this window. The Black Mecca: Atlanta Atlanta is the mecca of Southern hip-hop and a Black cultural hub. Southern hip-hop grew in popularity in the mid-90s and peaked around 2010. Artists and producers flooded into Atlanta, making it the epicenter of one of the most popular eras in hip-hop. Share What does all this have to do with Southern hip-hop having a case for being some form of country music? Hold on now, be patient. The artists and producers who flooded Atlanta were often from rural areas or had parents with strong country ties. For example, Jeezy lived in a town in Georgia with a population of around 5,000 people, and Ludacris moved to Atlanta at age 9 during the Second Great Migration. The Second Great Migration played a crucial role in shaping the South, especially Atlanta. But what made the city such a major draw? The Second Great Migration was the movement of Black people back to the South. It was fueled by the Civil Rights Movement and the loosening grip of white supremacy on the South. With the rise of sundown towns in non-Southern states, the dismantling of segregation, and the rollback of some Jim Crow policies, the South looked more inviting, causing Black folk to migrate back. Atlanta, with its multiple highly regarded HBCUs, a growing job market, and the ability for Black people to live in areas of the city they were once barred from, became a hot destination. In all reality, it was the only major city in the South that could have handled the growth that proceeded to lead to a Black Mecca. Share The music of this time flowed through Atlanta but had roots all across the South. To this day, you can see artists from the South come to Atlanta for work. The biggest example is Metro Boomin, one of the top producers in hip-hop today. Though he’s from St. Louis, he resides in Atlanta. The South Had Something to Say The pioneers of Southern hip-hop—OutKast, 2 Live Crew, Three 6 Mafia—came through in the 90s during the East Coast vs. West Coast rap battles and started dropping heat that took over the clubs and dance floors. Their music had blues and soul packaged into a new era of hip-hop. The lifestyle of country Black folk can be found all across the decade-plus run of Southern hip-hop prominence. David Banner has songs like Mississippi and Cadillacs on 22’s. Ludacris has Southern Hospitality and Georgia, talking about red clay, crap shooting, and country slang, all over a Ray Charles sample. Nappy Roots has a song called Po’ Folks on their album Watermelon, Chicken, and Gritz. The list goes on and on, but our country cousins need some respect put on their name. We need to embrace the cornerstone of Black culture: “that country sh*t.” Share Subscribe now --- ## GNX: Yapping My Way Through Kendrick's New Album Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/gnx-yapping-my-way-through-kendricks/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/gnx-yapping-my-way-through-kendricks Published: 2024-12-03 · 3 min read · 599 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop A take on Kendrick's latest drop—no think pieces, just vibes November 22, 2024: Surprise!!! Kendrick Lamar dropped a new album—happy Friday. We all remember where we were when we found out. Personally, I was battling a viral infection from a music festival, but I got geeked enough to make it through the album. Now, just under two weeks after the release, it’s time for me to yap about it. Disclaimer: this is not much of a think piece, I just need to yap about it. This album makes me happy. People have said this is an LA joint, and it absolutely is. I can't imagine what it must be like to be from South Central and listen to this album. The entire country has revolved around this release—McDonald’s even made an entire ad campaign around a single line. Everyone bumping songs about your neighborhood has to be an amazing feeling. For the rest of us Kendrick fans, or hip-hop fans in general, this album gives a little bit of everything. WE ARE EATING GOOD! We get insight into what’s been going on in Kendrick’s head this year (post-beef) with songs like "Whacced Out Murals" and "Man in the Garden." The intro rolls in, and there are things in there that we learn about Kendrick. The most relatable part is that Kendrick is chronically online. From the lines "take it to the internet, I’ll take it there," Snoop posting Taylormade, or referencing the TikTok clip that went viral (known only to the chronically online) of a white comedian making fun of Black women—it’s clear he’s in tune with the digital world. He feels slighted that people hate on him for his hard work and success, even people he thought were close. Listen to the song; I’m not going to walk you through the entire intro. "Man in the Garden" is Kendrick taking in the flowers that he grew in his garden. He is giving himself his well-deserved flowers. A valuable lesson for us all: enjoy your success and appreciate your external and internal victories. It will light a fire inside of you. Share There are a handful of songs that are artistically beautiful: "Luther," "Reincarnated," "Gloria," and "Dodger Blue." Kendrick and SZA have a special bond, and their ability to make music together is a straight blessing to our ears. "Gloria" is a beautiful love letter to his pen. SZA’s voice on it is just perfect. "Reincarnated" tells the crazy story of Kendrick being the rebirth of other amazing musical artists. Again, listen to it—I don’t need to walk you through the entire song. "Dodger Blue" is another beautiful love letter, but this time it's to LA (LA south of the I-10, of course). Then we have songs that give us a look back into the past, like "The Heart Part 6," a piece dedicated to the homies and the journey they had together, and growing apart from Black Hippy. Best of all, he gave us a handful of bangers: "Squabble Up," "Hey Now," "TV Off," "Peekaboo," and "GNX." My personal favorites are "Squabble Up" and "TV Off." I instantly get life in me and start dancing when they come on. Any TikTok sports edit with "Peekaboo" playing is an instant watch. The others will get stuck in your head just as easily. I’m not going to rank this album. I have no desire to even think about where it belongs in any list. I’m just enjoying the music. I’m still catching new lines and sounds as I listen. I feel very blessed that my favorite artist gave me music I’ll be listening to well into 2025. Share Subscribe now --- ## Black Cadillac Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/black-cadillac/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/black-cadillac Published: 2024-11-28 · 3 min read · 671 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, culture, black voices, hip hop A Symbol of Aspiration, Identity, and Resistance Cadillac and Black culture go way back—like Sunday cookouts and Frankie Beverly. It’s not just a luxury car; it’s a symbol of making it against all odds. Why? The short answer: racism. Cadillac has become a symbol of aspiration, defiance, and identity within Black culture. It is the largest luxury car brand connected to Black America, and its survival through the Great Depression was largely due to Black buyers. In the 1920s, the banking system in America collapsed, leading thousands of people to lose their jobs. Banks closed, and many people lost their hard-earned savings when their banks went under. It was a very hard time for the average American. However, the average American experience during the Great Depression was not the same as that of Black Americans, and the Depression affected Black communities differently. Surprisingly, Black people fared better during this time. One reason often cited is that Black Americans held jobs that were more resilient to economic downturns, but there is another ironic factor at play: racism. Share In the 1920s, money in banks was not yet insured by the FDIC. The Federal Reserve did not exist as we know it today—it was created later, largely in response to the Great Depression. This meant that if your bank went under, your money went with it. In bankruptcy, the cash in customers' accounts went to pay the bank's debts. This caused thousands of families to lose their life savings. This is when hiding your savings in your mattress became a common practice for many Americans out of fear of losing it if a bank collapsed. Actually, hiding money in a mattress became a thing for white people. Black Americans, largely excluded from the banking system due to systemic racism, had never been able to deposit their savings in banks in the first place. So, when banks started collapsing, many Black people were not affected in the same way because their savings were already at home. Subscribe now With a large portion of the average American population losing their money during the Depression and the economy plummeting, car sales tanked as well. Cadillac was on life support. Its parent company, General Motors, was in talks to shut the brand down completely. That was until they realized there was a market—especially in the South—that was not struggling like the average American and had been underserved in the car market: Black people. This was when Cadillac, the luxury car brand, became the luxury car of Black people. With the cash to buy the cars and the desire for the status symbols that came along with owning a Cadillac, the Black community began to embrace Cadillac. This sign of status and resilience stuck around post-Depression as Black household incomes grew in the 1940s and 1950s. As time passed, Cadillac became embedded in Black culture. You could find it in movies, neighborhoods, and music. Cadillac's presence in the music world further solidified its status as a cultural symbol. During the Motown era, Cadillac was associated with Black excellence, with prominent artists like Aretha Franklin and Berry Gordy being linked to the brand. It became a representation of success within the entertainment industry. In the 1990s and 2000s, Cadillac became a staple in hip-hop culture. Artists like Biggie Smalls, Outkast, and others immortalized Cadillac in their lyrics, using it as a symbol of success, resilience, and cultural pride. The car's presence in music videos and lyrics continued to reinforce its significance within Black culture. Cadillac isn’t just any luxury car brand—it’s our brand. It’s the car that Black people made their own, turning a symbol of exclusion into one of pride and resilience. From the Great Depression to the Civil Rights Movement and beyond, Black people redefined what Cadillac meant, not just for themselves but for the world. Cadillac is more than a car; it’s a testament to Black culture's creativity, strength, and ability to claim what’s deserved. So when you see a Cadillac, remember: it’s not just luxury—it’s Black excellence on four wheels. Subscribe now --- ## Kim the Colonizer Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/kim-the-colonizer/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/kim-the-colonizer Published: 2024-11-20 · 3 min read · 579 words Kim Kardashian has been awfully quiet throughout this election season, so I think it’s time to drag her because she owes everything she has to Black people and Black culture. Kim Kardashian has been awfully quiet throughout this election season, so I think it’s time to drag her because she owes everything she has to Black people and Black culture. No need to get into it too deeply, but let’s be petty for a second: the Kardashian name reached mainstream media off the back of O.J. Simpson, a Black man. Alright, with that out of the way, let’s really get into it. Kim Kardashian has been famous for over 15 years now. Her clothing company, Skims, can be seen advertised on NBA courts, and she’s often touted as a successful entrepreneur, at the center of pop culture in recent years. But where did it start? Many think it began with a certain film being released online, but that’s not the beginning of the timeline. In the early 2000s, Kim worked as a stylist for Brandy Norwood. The Norwood family was already notable, with Brandy as an R&B darling and her brother Ray J, a hip hop artist. Working as Brandy’s stylist put Kim in circles she would have otherwise never been welcomed into. She got to network and gained access to people and resources she wouldn’t have had otherwise. If this was all that came out of the relationship, I wouldn’t be writing this article, because that access and networking wasn’t enough for Kim. In 2008, Sonja Norwood, Brandy’s mother, filed a lawsuit against the Kardashians. The lawsuit claimed that, while working for Norwood, the Kardashian children used Norwood’s credit card, charging up to $120K to stock their boutique, Dash. The start of the Kim Kardashian empire was funded by stealing money from a Black woman. And then, around the same time, the video that made her famous—featuring Miss Norwood’s son—was released. Do with that information what you will. Share Oh, you thought that was the end of the story? Nope. Kim was known as a boutique owner and reality TV star, but believe it or not, this held no weight in high fashion. I know what you’re saying, “But Loc, she’s at the Met Gala every year!” She attended her first Met Gala as Kanye’s guest, only because she was married to him. Kanye held the status in the industry. As a designer, Kanye worked his way into a space few Black men have reached, and Kim got into the Met Gala off his hard work. Now, in the public eye, Kim is seen on the level of those designers. No, we’re still not done—close, though. This brings us to Skims, what is now considered a designer brand, brought to you by Kim the “self-made” billionaire. Let’s speed-run this one: Kanye created the logo, has been called the ghost creative director of Skims, and is responsible for the skincare line. Oh, and the designs look awfully familiar to the Yeezy clothing line. So, here we are. Kim Kardashian, the so-called self-made billionaire, who built her empire off the backs of Black culture, Black talent, and Black creativity—yet she’s never truly given credit where it’s due. She’s repackaged what wasn’t hers and turned it into billion-dollar ventures. But let’s be real, without the Black community, without Kanye, without Brandy and Ray J, who is Kim Kardashian really? Just someone who leveraged every opportunity, connection, and controversy to exploit her way into fame and success. But at what cost, and whose contributions and sacrifices did she exploit to get there? That’s the question we need to keep asking. Share Subscribe --- ## Myles: The Underground's Rising Star Ready to Shine Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/myles-the-undergrounds-rising-star/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/myles-the-undergrounds-rising-star Published: 2024-11-15 · 2 min read · 499 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop Growth, Grit, and the Grind Myles is an artist who thrives on authenticity, both in his music and in his life. His upcoming EP is the product of years of growth, struggle, and an unfiltered drive to share his truth. Coming out of North Carolina, Myles brings a fresh perspective to the underground hip-hop scene, where his voice echoes not just his personal experiences but also the story of his community. Myles Clayton: The EP The EP, dropped midnight on November 15th, it is raw, introspective, and 100% Myles. Every track is self-produced, keeping his sound as genuine as it gets. Myles takes his time with his music—he lives with each beat, letting the lyrics come naturally after days of just feeling the vibe. You can hear that process in every track; it’s not just music, it’s an experience that pulls you into Myles' world. Share This EP follows three singles that already set the stage for what’s coming. Tracks like "S4DW" and "That's What Love Can Do" show off his versatility, blending deep personal stories with themes everyone can connect to. He’s not afraid to be vulnerable—he’s putting his life out there, sharing his experiences of growth and change, to find a better space for himself. The EP speaks about the struggles of the Black community and the systemic issues that have shaped Myles' experiences. This isn’t just music—it’s Myles laying himself bare, inviting listeners to get a real look at his world. The project addresses the pressures of trying to make it, wanting success while staying true to who you are—something that resonates deeply with young people grinding to make their dreams happen. Behind The music In our conversation, Myles shared more about the creative journey behind this EP. He talked about his DIY approach, not just in the music but also in the visuals. He shot the video for "That's What Love Can Do" himself, capturing his vision without outside interference. Myles is more than just a rapper—he’s a full-on creative, drawing inspiration from artists like Tyler, the Creator who take control of every aspect of their craft. Subscribe now Myles also spoke about the Charlotte underground scene. It might not have the same shine as places like LA or Atlanta, but he’s determined to change that. He opened up about the challenges of connecting with other artists locally and the closed-off nature of the scene, but he also sees the potential that’s bubbling beneath the surface. His music reflects a city on the rise, ready to show what it’s got. Myles wants this EP to be a statement. He’s making sure people know his name and what he’s about. He’s not here to please everyone—you’re either with him or you’re not—but he knows his message will resonate with those who need to hear it. Myles is an artist to watch, not just because of his talent but because of his dedication to staying true and his fearless exploration of what it means to be an artist today. Share Subscribe now --- ## We’re Back Outside, Stronger Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/were-back-outside-stronger/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/were-back-outside-stronger Published: 2024-11-09 · 2 min read · 444 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, culture, politics , black voice, black voices, hip hop 2016 vibes, but wiser this time. The beat goes on History tends to repeat itself. That old saying has left a bitter taste in our mouths this week, hasn't it? For many hip hop fans, the summer of 2016 is a cherished memory—a special time in hip hop that has transcended nostalgia to become a feeling more than just a memory. The speakers never lacked a good song, and we were outside, alive, and active. To even attempt a recap of everything that's happened between then and now feels almost laughable. But this year, once again, the speakers were booming, and for the first time in a long time, we were back outside. It felt like a return to that longed-for summer of 2016. It was also the year Donald Trump stunned the world and won the presidency. Yeah, we remember that feeling from 2016 too. We know it well because just like the music, history has repeated itself. Share That's right, that old memory has turned into reality again. But this time, it doesn't feel quite the same. This time, we were prepared.Black people came together striving to stand against white supremacy and damn, we got close. In the days after the election (it's taken me three days to write this), we are still here—still standing. Subscribe now The first few days were rough, but we're back. We have the music and the words to help us process what it means to see someone like him nominated as president. We have an entire Joey Bada$$ album, or we can listen to "Alright" by Kendrick on repeat. There are countless discographies we can revisit to help us deal with our emotions. We have poems, YouTube videos, TV shows, and countless other forms of media to get us through what we're feeling after Tuesday night. And most importantly, we have each other—something no one else in America can say in quite the same way. Staying Locked In We will carry on. We'll continue to guard hip hop—gatekeeping it when necessary—and keep supporting artists who truly represent the culture and love the music. The infiltration of white supremacy in American culture is blatant, and it's still lingering in hip hop too. The Adam22s of this space need to be vacated. Hip hop is ours. We will continue to fight to ensure hip hop isn't exploited to the detriment of our culture. But for now, take a breath. We've earned it. Take a few days off, rest, and recharge. The fight continues, but we've put in the work, and we deserve to take care of ourselves. Let’s celebrate our resilience, our culture, and each other. We've come so far, and we’re not stopping here Share Subscribe now --- ## Chromakopia Unveiled: Tyler, the Creator’s Next Chapter Is Here Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/chromakopia-unveiled-tyler-the-creators/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/chromakopia-unveiled-tyler-the-creators Published: 2024-10-17 · 2 min read · 528 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voice, black voices, hip hop My Thoughts on Tyler's Vision, New Character, and What Chromakopia Could Mean for His Creative Journey Subscribe now Tyler, the Creator, after thanking his fans for showing up and showing out for the return of Camp Flog Gnaw, teased the crowd by saying, “Do you want new music? Awwww Awww, and I wanted a dad.” The crowd laughed (Tyler fans are more than happy to sing the classics), and he rolled into the next song. Almost a year later, as anticipation for Camp Flog Gnaw 2024 builds, Tyler surprises fans by dropping the rollout for his new album, 'Chromakopia'. The rollout video, titled “St. Chroma,” is in black and off-white, opening with Tyler in a mask, marching to a one count. Around the 8th bar, Tyler drops the first verse. Throughout the video, there are ten people marching, not counting Tyler, who’s ushering them into a semi-trailer with “Chromakopia” written on the side. My personal fan theory? Those ten people could be the ten features on the album. The video ends with Tyler blowing up the trailer, and colors spread all over the screen. The album drops October 28th, and I've got a few theories and thoughts on what might be the theme of this project based on interviews and things Tyler has been involved with, both inside and outside the music industry, since his last album. Share Let’s dig deeper into the snippet that dropped. Starting with the title “Chromakopia” — “Chroma” means color, and “kopia” has Greek roots meaning view or sight, often referring to visual perception or perspective. Visual perception and perspective are definitely themes Tyler’s touched on in past interviews. The optics of how fans and people interact with him, how they perceive him without really knowing him, seem to be a major pain point for Tyler. On the other side, he’s been vocal about rappers in the industry not loving music—just being in it for a paycheck and blocking real artists who do love it. This might be hinting at an album where Tyler lays out his take on both the fan perspective and the industry's state through his music, exploring how these perceptions affect his artistry and how the lack of genuine passion in the industry impacts true creativity. Wolf Haley, Igor, Tyler Baudelaire—they’re getting a new brother. Tyler embodies a new character for this album. This character rocks a mask with only the eyes cut out, wears a military officer-style outfit, and has an afro split down the middle. It gives off a vintage dystopia vibe, especially with the whole video being in black and white. This might be a hint about how the production’s gonna sound, but honestly, who knows? That’s one of the best things about Tyler’s music—he always brings something new and innovative, and we’re just here to see what he’s cooking up next. Outside of music, Tyler’s been busy making moves in other creative arenas. He’s been expanding his GOLF le FLEUR* brand with new clothing drops, fragrances, and even luggage collections. He’s also been involved in directing, from his own music videos to other creative projects. Tyler’s artistry goes beyond music—he’s building an entire creative universe, and 'Chromakopia' looks like it’s about to add another dimension to that world. Share Subscribe now --- ## Flog Gnaw: Tyler's Musical Playground Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/flog-gnaw-tylers-musical-playground/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/flog-gnaw-tylers-musical-playground Published: 2024-10-05 · 2 min read · 394 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, culture, black voices, hip hop Lineup's ghosting us, so we're making our own fantasy festival Camp Flog Gnaw celebrates 10 years of the festival this year. The music festival was created by Tyler, the Creator and is held outside of Dodger Stadium with a full carnival experience. This is the event where, way before "Not Like Us," Drake got booed off the stage before he finished a song. If the last two sentences didn't help bring you up to speed, that's fine—peep game and tap in! The festival is 2 days, Saturday and Sunday. For the over-25 crowd, this is clutch; a 3-day festival always feels like one day too many (iykyk). The atmosphere is 1 of 1. The view in the background is the mountains with the Hollywood sign, with legendary Dodger Stadium right next to you. The entire place is laid out with carnival rides, games, merch stands including giant Golfwang and Converse tents. Surrounded by other Tyler fans and music lovers, it's one of the most relaxed music festivals I have ever been to. For the most part, everyone is there because of the music and the love of music. Alright, you get the picture—it's a dope time. I am on here yapping because there is still no lineup for Camp Flog Gnaw. I just want to take guesses on who might be playing. That was a long-winded intro for a list of artists, but I am a blogger, which means I am down for a good yap. Subscribe now Anyway, here is a list of 5 artists I think would go well with the Flog Gnaw vibe: Jordan Ward- Tyler has mentioned him as an artist he enjoys, and he just released music. Megan Thee Stallion- She just had an album come out and is one of the hottest rappers out right now. Last year had Ice Spice; I think Meg would kill it. Ray Vaughn Ray- is a local LA hip hop artist who performed at the pop-up concert and has been releasing banger after banger all year. Paris Texas- They should just be there every year at this point. I think it's been 3 years already, and their music is amazing. Vince Staples- He is from LA, dropped an AOTY candidate this year, and is friends with Tyler. Feel free to comment below who you would like to see or talk about your Camp Flog Gnaw experiences. Peace! Subscribe now Leave a comment --- ## The New Music Manifesto Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/the-new-music-manifesto/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/the-new-music-manifesto Published: 2024-10-05 · 3 min read · 592 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop Breaking Free from the Algorithm's GripBreaking Free from the Algorithm's Grip Do you find yourself getting the same rotation of songs in Daily Mixes on Tidal? Do all your radio stations end up playing the same five artist and song combinations on Spotify? No worries, this is a manifesto of sorts laying out my strat for keeping your algorithm fresh and discovering new music. Wait a second, hold on. I appreciate everyone who has read to this point, but this one is for the music junkies. This is not a single-source quick fix. In the words of Bob Marley, "It's a journey, not a destination." The destination will be an algorithm that gives you fresh music tailored to your unique taste. The journey will be training that algorithm and the friends you make along the way. I am not joking—make friends on the way. Alright, so now you're here, a self-declared music junkie. Let's get to work. Expanding Your Musical Horizons It's going to take work outside of your Spotify. Remember, your algorithm is stale and on a loop; it's no help in this scenario, so close the app for now. Two social media sites have yielded the best results from my experience (disclaimer: I don't have Facebook). Twitter and TikTok are the two that are going to help you connect with music experts or other junkies who are more locked into tracking releases. New releases are going to be your entry into resetting the algorithm. The key, however, is finding reliable sources that will give you variety in the genre you're looking to grow new tastes in. Subscribe now TikTok On TikTok, search a music-related topic and scroll through the first 10 TikToks. Like everything that seems even mildly interesting. A few searches should now add music-related content into your FYP. Pay extra attention to any music content on your FYP page and follow any accounts you find to be a vibe—after all, we are catering this to you. As you can see, this is a process, and you will probably not find a ton of music day 1 using this TikTok method, but the long game of always having random music TikToks that are geared toward your taste will evolve with you. Congrats, you now have your first algorithm working to find you new music. Twitter The Twitter algorithm is not as friendly and passive as the TikTok algorithm. That's fine; I can start you off, and the further down the rabbit hole of music Twitter you choose to go is up to you from there. First and foremost, follow me. I am going to share music that is good that you have never heard, believe it! A couple of other accounts I personally recommend are Terrytalks and Elsie Not Elise. That's pretty much the strategy—find people who trickle into your For You page and follow them. Follow the artists you find as well; artists share other artists. Make some friends on the way This is for the ones who decided to travel down the rabbit hole. Remember that these are accounts and people who love music just like yourself; interact and engage with them. There are entire Twitter communities that you can join and Twitter Spaces where people talk about music. I talk in a hip hop one every weekend that is put on by fellow writer Jordan Levenque. You can find people to swap music with or someone just to talk to about music. Now the most important part of all: Listen to all that new music that your ears and soul have been longing for! Subscribe now Share --- ## The Phantom of Atlanta's Beats: Untiljapan's Silent Rise Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/the-phantom-of-atlantas-beats-untiljapans-8b6/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/the-phantom-of-atlantas-beats-untiljapans-8b6 Published: 2024-10-04 · 3 min read · 562 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop How a faceless artist is breathing life into hip-hop and challenging the social media game The Atlanta hip-hop scene hasn't really grabbed my attention in a while. It seemed stuck in 2020, riding the waves of 'Whole Lotta Red' and 'My Turn'. One of the Meccas of hip-hop, to the best of my knowledge, had hit a standstill (not you, Killer Mike). The sounds were getting repetitive, with copycats putting out music that lacked substance. My knowledge, I'll admit, was lacking. It's 2 AM on the West Coast when a TikTok tells me to check out this Atlanta artist, Untiljapan. I open up his latest album 'Safe Travels', and suddenly I'm sitting up straight, locked in. I've stumbled upon a masterpiece. Who is Untiljapan, and why haven't we heard about him? Subscribe now The following for Untiljapan is diehard. You can find archive accounts on Spotify, instagram and Soundcloud. There is a discord channel tracking every music update they can find on the Atlanta artist. The artist himself however is a complete mystery. His twitter account is active every few months with an update here or there on upcoming drops. the Untiljapan instagram has 0 post. If not for a couple of photos floating around online no one would know what he looks like. The fandom does not push it either. in the area of social media giving access to what your favorite musician is eating for breakfast the allure of a faceless loreless hip hop artist stands out. The only connection that can be had with Untiljapan is through his music along with the artwork and visuals he puts out. The only connection with the artist is the art. Untiljapan's following is diehard. Fans scour archive accounts on Spotify, Instagram, and SoundCloud. There's even a Discord channel tracking every music update they can find on the Atlanta artist. The artist himself, however, remains a complete mystery. His Twitter account comes to life every few months with brief updates on upcoming drops. The Untiljapan Instagram? Zero posts. If not for a couple of photos floating around online, no one would know what he looks like. Surprisingly, the fandom doesn't push for more. In an era where social media gives us access to what our favorite musicians eat for breakfast, the allure of a faceless, lore-less hip-hop artist stands out. The only connection that can be had with Untiljapan is through his music, artwork, and visuals. It's all about the art, nothing else. Now, the art. Untiljapan's latest album 'Safe Travels' hits you with fresh cover art: him, of course, wearing a helmet to cover his face, donned in a white suit. The handwritten white font is a work of art in itself. The sound of this album? Pure Atlanta in the best way possible. It's mainstream Atlanta hip-hop, but the quality behind Untiljapan's album makes major releases seem like dollar store productions. The songs flow like an old school Future album. He manages to keep that Atlanta vibe throughout different beats - no one will mistake where he's from with any of these tracks. Yet, he didn't have to stick to one type of beat or sound to maintain that Atlanta feel. Maybe the biggest thing to stress: the lyrics have substance. It's not just about a nice drum beat. This is a PSA to all hip hop lovers. Peep game and lock in. It is time for you to hit play on Untiljapan. Subscribe now Share --- ## Living in jvon's World Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/living-in-jvons-world/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/living-in-jvons-world Published: 2024-09-29 · 3 min read · 609 words Tags: black culture, music, black music, culture, black voices, hip hop jvon.world: Remixing Reality from Baltimore to Los Angeles In today's hip-hop scene, it's all too common to find rappers who've lost their love for the music and the culture. Many lack creative direction, and some don't even pen their own lyrics. Jvon.world, however, stands apart from this crowd. With Baltimore's rich culture flowing through his veins and a dash of his new LA roots, Jvon invites listeners into his world through each track. He blends multiple artistic disciplines and cutting-edge technology, offering an immersive experience with every listen. Jvon.world's recently released 7th EP ‘Slow Money Don’t Mean No Money’, with more projects on the horizon, gives us a glimpse into his world and showcases his immense talent. It's clear this isn't just another rapper dropping tracks – he's crafting experiences that push the boundaries of hip-hop. So, get ready to dive deep into Jvon.world's unique vibe. We're about to explore how this Baltimore-bred, LA-polished artist is flipping the script on music, tech, and visuals, remixing the game one innovative creation at a time. Jvon's roots run deep in northeast Baltimore, where music became his lifeline. As a kid, he was often in his own world, finding solace in music and art. His teenage years saw him picking up the mic, but his creative spirit didn't stop there - he explored various artistic disciplines, always hungry to learn more. Drawing inspiration from a spectrum of artists, Jvon's music echoes the introspective storytelling of Donald Glover, the boundary-pushing production of Kanye West, and the raw authenticity of Nipsey Hussle. But Jvon isn't content to simply emulate; he blends these influences into a sound that's uniquely his own. While his friends packed their bags for college, Jvon chose a different path. He stayed in Baltimore, balancing trade school with work, but the grind of the music scene eventually took its toll. Burnt out, he stepped back from the game for a while. It was his cousin, rapper Dayz Lata, who rekindled J’von’s passion for hip-hop. Working all year on what would become Dayz Lata's first songs and music videos. Being immersed in music again lit a fire under him, showing J’von he had what it took to push his career to new heights. Subscribe now Two years ago, J’von made the leap to LA. Now, in 2024, he's got seven EPs under his belt and shows no signs of slowing down. When asked J’von shared his thoughts on building connections and collaborations since relocating to Los Angeles. He emphasized that he's not concerned with chasing opportunities but believes that hard work and authenticity naturally draw the right attention. "If you stay true to yourself and put in the effort, people will take notice," he said. As we look ahead, jvon's creative momentum shows no signs of slowing down. He's teased at least one more project dropping later this year, hinting that fans can expect a more cohesive body of work. But jvon's artistry doesn't stop at the mic - his passion for film is set to shine through as well. Fans can anticipate visuals from his projects released earlier this year, promising a feast for both the ears and eyes. From Northeast Baltimore to the heart of LA, jvon.world has transformed his journey in hip-hop into a unique artistic universe. Blending five distinct styles, embracing technology, and pushing creative boundaries, Jvon isn't just making music - he's crafting immersive experiences. As he continues to release projects that showcase his versatility and vision, jvon.world is truly living up to his name, inviting listeners into a world where hip-hop knows no limits. To explore this world further, follow @jvon.world on Twitter and stream his music on all major platforms Subscribe now Share --- ## Slow Money Don’t Mean No Money Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/slow-money-dont-mean-no-money/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/slow-money-dont-mean-no-money Published: 2024-09-27 · 1 min read · 204 words Tags: black music, rap, culture, black voices, hip hop 58 minutes into our phone call, I say to jvon, "Slow money," and we both laugh. 58 minutes into our phone call, I say to jvon, "Slow money," and we both laugh. It was a running mantra throughout the conversation, a callback to his upcoming EP. 'Slow Money Don't Mean No Money' is jvon.world's 7th EP this year. As a nod to the old saying, the EP is a collection of 5 songs. Subscribe now After running into a bout of burnout from the music industry, his cousin Dayz Lata helped reignite the spark back into music. From that spark came 4 songs that started during his time in Baltimore. The other song was created after he relocated to LA. This journey from Baltimore to LA, from burnout to an artist pushing his creative boundaries, embodies the essence of 'Slow Money Don't Mean No Money' – a testament to jvon's resilience and the power of patience in his artistic growth, proving that a slower pace doesn't equate to a lack of success or progress. Listen to ‘Slow Money Don’t Mean No Money’ now on all streaming platforms and if you're feeling the EP, jvon has a secret page for you. Sign up here, and you will receive a text with an exclusive wallpaper to show his appreciation. Subscribe now Share --- ## TDE: What the Culture is Feeling Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/tde-what-the-culture-is-feeling/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/tde-what-the-culture-is-feeling Published: 2024-09-22 · 4 min read · 892 words Tags: music, culture, black voice, hip hop The TDE Blueprint: Artistry Over Algorithms in the Music Industry it’s Friday night in Beverly Hills upcoming rock artist Alameda just wrapped up her set celebrating her debut album “Fk It” to a full room. The room is buzzing I walk over to the bar to close out my tab now that show is over. I look up from the bar to see across the room Anthony “Top Dawg” Tiffith in a red TDE hat and iconic chain. Celebrating yet another star added to the TDE roster. Subscribe now Hip hop has been at the heart of pop culture since the turn of the millennium. However, over the past two decades, the production and consumption of hip hop music have gradually drifted away from its cultural roots. The discourse surrounding musical quality has increasingly centered on streaming numbers and chart positions, at the expense of substance and cultural authenticity. This shift has left behind music that, while commercially successful, often lacks the soul and cultural resonance that originally propelled hip hop to its chart-topping status. Outside of the industry trends and TikTok sounds stands Top Dawg Entertainment, led by Anthony "Top Dawg" Tiffith. The label has quietly been signing and nurturing artists across multiple genres. With their finger on the pulse of the culture, TDE demonstrates that there's still room for authentic, culturally significant hip hop in today's music landscape. The Beginning Top Dawg, a hustler looking for a career switch, sets up his first studio inside his apartment in 1997. After a few years of building a foundation, Top finds a rapper by the name of Jay Rock in 2005. A little time passes, and high school DJ Dave Free gets 16-year-old Kendrick Lamar in front of Top. Kendrick impresses with his ability to rap over a double time beat, and joins Jay Rock as the first two artists on the label. By the end of 2006, Schoolboy Q and Ab-Soul are added as well. Across multiple neighborhoods of South Central Los Angeles, the original roster of TDE is formed. From the start, Top establishes the pillars of TDE: Charisma, personality, swagger. Substance. Lyrics. Uniqueness. Work Ethics. With these principles in place, the first era of TDE begins. End of an Era The original four members formed from different neighborhoods of South Central come together to celebrate Juneteenth and the end of the Kendrick vs Drake rap battle. They gather on stage and run through the hits. The Kia Forum is electric. Jay rock steps on stage to join kendrick followed by Ab-soul and Q. The moment is capped off by a group photo of LA artist from across South Central coming together. This moment isn't just rap history; it's a powerful testament to what the first era of TDE brought to South Central Los Angeles – hope and unity. New Beginnings As TDE enters its next chapter, the landscape has shifted. Kendrick Lamar is no longer part of TDE, having formed his own media company, PgLang. Jay Rock, Ab-Soul, and Q remain as highly respected veterans of the label. Now, the mega star leading the charge for TDE is R&B singer SZA. She's coming off her album "S.O.S" that gained worldwide recognition - though this success isn't new for SZA. Her debut album, released over five years before "S.O.S", has never left the charts. She has become both the face of the label and the face of R&B. While Top and TDE have found their new mega star in SZA, the real excitement is building around the label's up-and-coming scene. Doechii drops her mixtape "Alligator bites never heal," and the internet quickly goes ablaze. She trends across social media, lands a Rolling Stone interview, and her tour sells out in under an hour once tickets go live online. Grabbing a Doechii ticket becomes a flex in itself. Meanwhile, rapper Ray Vaughn has released 8 songs and counting this year, featuring collaborations with the likes of Pusha T, Sir, and NLE Choppa. Vaughn turned heads and set Twitter ablaze with his electric performance at the Pop Out Concert. The latest addition to the label, Alemeda, brings yet another dimension to TDE's roster. The rocker, born in Ethiopia and raised in Phoenix, surprises the world with her album release "Fk It," which gains significant traction just two days after its debut. One question lingers: How is one label consistently producing hit artist after hit artist? TDE isn't signing artists because they went viral off a TikTok trend. Follower count isn't a deciding factor. They're not trying to catch a wave but create one. Take Alameda, for instance. She had been working with TDE for years before being officially announced to the label and dropping her album. In an interview, she explained how TDE supported her development without rushing her into producing music. This approach is rooted in the label's trust that they can find artist because of their deep connection to Black and hip-hop history. TDE understands the culture because they are, in fact, part of it. Top and the label are poised to take over pop culture with their roster of artists. Reflecting on Kendrick Lamar's song "Duckworth," one can't help but marvel at how that chance interaction between Top Dawg and Kendrick's dad at KFC had a butterfly effect. It not only shaped Kendrick's career but forever altered the culture in ways yet to be fully realized. Share Subscribe now --- ## We Need the Party Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/we-need-the-party/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/we-need-the-party Published: 2024-09-17 · 3 min read · 569 words The need for pop music and hip hop heads The music’s still playing, but the energy feels different. The beats that once had everyone moving are now met with silence, and the conversations have become more heated than celebratory. Maybe it’s the sound. Maybe it’s the crowd. Or maybe it’s the rappers. Whatever it is, the room’s getting quieter. The Party The Partygoers The fans are the partygoers—they bring the vibes, the energy, the so-called “life of the party.” But right now, the vibes are off. The dancing has stopped, and the conversations have turned toxic. Endless debates over who’s the greatest of all time, or who’s pulling the biggest numbers online, are rotting the entire listening experience. The party is dying. The DJs (artist) The pop rappers are played out. Their songs no longer hit like they used to, and the dance floor is clearing out. Partygoers are heading to the country bar down the street. The commercialized sound, with every beat starting to blend together, has become so stale that people won’t even shake their ass to it anymore. The push for a hit TikTok sound has led to unfinished songs where the only listening value it has is a 15-second hook. Even by pop music standards, the industry’s definition of what a rapper should be has reached an intolerable level of inauthenticity. The aux needs to be passed because the party is dying. The Promoters The media—specifically the memers, the streamers, the content creators, podcasters, and hip hop accounts—are, for the sake of theme, the party promoters. Narratives are being spun to promote outrage, going viral by any means necessary. People are attaching themselves or their brand to certain artists to clout chase, creating fake stories just for likes. The music has become an afterthought, with the biggest criticisms being “I didn’t like the sound” or “it didn’t chart that well.” The music being pushed and the conversations being had are killing the vibes in the room. The party is dying. Pop rap is important. It’s a tough pill to swallow, but you can probably apply the 80/20 rule to hip hop fandom. 80 percent of hip hop content is consumed by 20 percent of the listening base (hip hop heads), while 80 percent of hip hop listeners only consume 20 percent of the content (the casual fans). Hip hop doesn’t stay the most dominant genre in music without the casual fan. That being said, the 80 percent shouldn’t be the voice of hip hop. The media mentioned earlier caters to the casuals. The music has become stale and played out because underground artists can’t break through—it’s seen as easier to push narratives about already established rappers and chase a bag by getting clicks. The biggest voices in some spaces aren’t hip hop heads. They’re well-versed in the mainstream but don’t have the passion to discover underground artists. Hip hop dying doesn’t faze them—they’re still getting their clicks, their fame, and their bag. There needs to be a conscious shift for hip hop heads who are truly tapped into the culture to support and amplify each other. There’s space, there’s a need, and there’s a want for fresh hip hop. If you’ve found yourself reading this far, you’re probably a hip hop head. This is your call to action. You are not alone. Even if you don’t consider yourself a “party person,” help create a party that’s at least enjoyable to attend. Share Subscribe now --- ## Running the Game: Ray Vaughn’s West Coast Takeover Source: https://staywokegazette.com/p/running-the-game-ray-vaughns-west/ Record: https://wakeandthink.substack.com/p/running-the-game-ray-vaughns-west Published: 2024-09-15 · 2 min read · 359 words Tags: music, black voice How Ray Vaughn is Taking Over the Rap Game in 2024 Via instagram @ray.vaughn It’s Juneteenth, and I’m making my way to my seat to watch the first set of the Pop Out Concert with Ken and Friends. Before I can sit down, I hear a man rapping like the rent is due. That rapper was Ray Vaughn. Top Dawg Entertainment (TDE) has a rising rap star in Ray Vaughn, straight out of Long Beach, California. If you think hip hop is dying in 2024, lock in real quick and listen to the run Vaughn is on. Pop Out with Ken and Friends 2024 kicked off with the release of ‘Problems’ featuring Pusha T. The song has a minimalist beat allowing for Vaughn to put on full display of lyrical skill weaving in next level wordplay while speaking on heavy subjects. After the first hook Pusha T lays down his verse with the memorable line “Listen, Ray Vaughn, be clear of your peers”. Shortly after the release of 'Problems,' Rolling Stone spotlighted Ray Vaughn, recognizing him as one of the most promising up-and-coming artists. The article emphasized his collaboration with Pusha T, noting how the veteran rapper’s mentorship reflects the high expectations Vaughn faces. Rolling Stone also highlighted Vaughn’s ability to carve out his own space within the West Coast hip hop scene, despite the pressure of following in the footsteps of Top Dawg Entertainment’s iconic artists. Pusha T and Ray Vaughn Vaughn followed up 'Problems' with the release of the 'Into' freestyle, rapping over the beat from the original song by Fabolous featuring Tamia. This kicked off a run that now includes seven songs, with my personal favorite being 'Ray Wop.' If you need an introduction to Vaughn, start with this playlist. The future is bright for Ray Vaughn, and TDE has another talent ready to shine. His unique blend of sharp lyricism and West Coast energy makes him a standout in today’s hip hop scene. With each new release, Vaughn shows he’s more than ready for the big stage. Whether you're a longtime fan or just discovering him, it’s clear that Ray Vaughn’s rise is only beginning, and it’s one you don’t want to miss. Share Subscribe now