What music inspires you creatively?

As well as being a Cubicle Crusader and degree waving indentured servant to the dept of education, I’m also an artist. We artists have a need, almost like breathing, to create, but sometimes we also need a little inspiration. For the kinds of art I do, I use music to get my juices flowing and put me in a place to create. What music inspires you to create?

Eysqueen’s (#0220) Music Roll Call:

Dwele- painting, landscapes of pretty places and of places I travel in my dreams and fantasies.



Jill Scott- burning incense, drinking, and losing myself in memories of past hurts and tougher times. This leads me to hash it out on canvas, drawing about memories from the heart.



Lupe- this brother makes me want to write. The way he puts together words to tell stories inspires me to dig deeper to write my own thoughts and stories.



Little Brother- These guys remind me to go for my dreams and never let them die. We went to school with these guys and who would have known back then that they would have made it. So when I have a creative block, I put on some LB and reminisce about undergrad and alumni parties during the summers in Durham and I keep pressing on. (yes I sweat LB hardcore)





"Music makes me high!!!" like for real, LB (Lost Boyz not Little Brother) were on to something.




Naturally Alise (Java-lin)chimes in:

***(Little Brother Stan moment: Tiha, myself and another friend got taken out to IHOP after a semi-wack house party (yes, IHOP, it was afterhours) by Big Pooh of Little Brother a few years ago and Tiha blasted their CD in her car, I am sure he thought we were lame as hell, or maybe appreciative that we were fans, either way we were trying way too hard, lol)***


I cosign like a million times over with miss lady's picks above, especially the sweating of Little Brother, but there is a song in particular by LB that really gets me in the zone and that is "Watch Me" on their album "The Minstrel Show"...... but below is a couple more to add to the list:


Nas - He is the self proclaimed "street poet, a thug certainly", his poetic flow is mind blowing, he reminds me that great art sometimes has to come from pain and true life personal situations, that even fiction has to be non-fiction (if that makes any sense)... Illmatic, Stillmatic, and the Nigger album and some jewels from some of the the other albums really speak to my creative process....

Erykah Badu - I love this woman, "Mama's Gun" speaks to me from so many angles, every song is a 5 - 8 minute double entendre of love and life (i.e. "Orange Moon"), listening to this CD gets my mind to working figuring out her metaphors and artsy logic.... LOVE IT!


So since it is Poetry Wednesday and we are talking about inspiration and such, here is an old Naturally Alise poem that seemed appropriate.....

“Inspire Me”
Faces ranging the spectrum..... all here for one common goal.
INSPIRATION.
Thirsting for it... hungry
And I truly understand each of you.
Because at one time I was famished.
Just needed a scrap thrown in my direction
To let me know what direction to go....
Left? Right? A push just to go.
I needed a catalyst . Something to make me react.
I needed a jolt of electricity
Just a spark so I could glow
Just shine and shed some light,
But first I had to shed my bullshit reality
I needed to grow
Sprout... so I could spout the truth.
Encourage those that endured my rain.
Others who too were soaked with doubt and uncertainty
Those who had swam the river of pain and adversity.
*deep breath* And just barely kept their head above water to breathe.
Back then I too needed to breathe.
But not the foul air of the world.
I needed the fresh air of poetry..
of deep thought...
soulful melodies....
Air brought in by winds of change,
I needed gusts of inspiration to blow,
.... to soften the blow of what life threw at me.