“Coming through with Bun..”
What?
You heard me, I’m jamming- “this is as hard as it go, this is as trill as it gets.. I’m coming through with Bun.” – Track #2 ‘Bun’ on Bun B’s new Trill album.
Uhhh..who’s Bun B and what does trill mean?
You listen to rap at all?
Naww..not really. I mean, I know a few Jay Z songs, Eminem,Dre..but I don’t really keep up with it on the underground level. I only know the superstars.
Well you should know Bun B then, he’s from this duo out of Port Arthur, Texas called UGK- Underground Kings
Port Arthur, Texas??
Yeah, Port Arthur is about 90 miles east of Houston. Janis Joplin is from there, Jimmie Johnson is from there, and my uncle Rev. Lloyd Scott, Sr. pastors a church there. Bun B and Pimp C are from there. Bun lives in the greater Houston area now, but he came up in the music game selling mixed tapes at a booth at King’s Flea Market in South Park. Southside.
Oh. I don’t think I heard of them.
No? They did a song with Jay Z a few years back, ‘Big Pimpin’??
Oh yeah! I know that song! “Big pimping spending G’s!!”
Riight!! See, you have heard that short Texas sound. What about the UGK classics like ‘Diamonds and Wood’ or ‘Pocket Full of Stones’?
Pocket Full of Stones??
Yeah..it’s an old school dope hustler’s anthem, “I bought my first ki, from my baby mama brother..” Bun B and Pimp C get down for theirs.
Bun B and Pimp C huh? I guess they must be a Texas thang.
Nawww, not just Texas, they’ve been in the game for a good minute..Pimp C is locked up in jail right now, but Bun B is on the street grinding. You can hear that n’ga on almost everybody who’s anybody album these days. Bun ain’t beefing with nobody, he all about that candy paint. He has his own album out now called Trill, and with his surging nationwide and worldwide popularity, Bun’s been getting his 2Pac hustle on on the cool.
2Pac hustle?
Yeah. In the last days of 2Pac’s life Pac had to hustle for cash. Laying guest tracks with other artist for cash money. What Jay Z calls out in 16 Bars. Pac brought a crowd wherever he went, he had Juice, people had to pay to get on with him. Pac was dealing with a lot of legal issues. Lawsuits. Paternity suits. Civil suits. Felony trials. Pac was going through. Them white folks were tying up his money. Even though he was the king of the street when it came to the rap game, all of his royalty checks for his albums and even a lot of the money he made doing shows was being spent on legal fees. Most of the cash walking around money he had, he made by getting into the studio with other artists and being a guest featured rapper on their track for cash under the table. Pac was shaking what his mama gave him, as we all should do. Somehow the game got twisted and all that East Coast, West Coast feuding started popping off and Pac got rubbed out in Vegas. It amazes me sometimes how so many people are so ready to believe that Pac is alive somewhere, that he ain’t REALLY dead, but yet when you tell them that Jesus rose up out that grave early one Sunday morning, they’re the first one’s to say,
“Mane, don’t NOBODY really know if that’s true!! Cuz wasn’t nobody here alive to SEE it when it happened!!”
I smile and make sure not to assume a non-threatening demeanor when I hear this common lament of all the doubting Thomases. I smile first because I know that I used to be one of these agnostics. One of these skeptics. I was one of those ‘intellectuals’ who wasn’t about to be enslaved by a religion that was passed along via a white slave master.
I was enlightened, I knew about Kemet and the ancient civilizations of Africa, I had studied metaphysics, “the science of life, how to live, free from strife, walk with ease and no dis-ease” – KRS-1, and how to open my 3rd eye.
When I read the Autobiography of Malcolm X, I believed what Malcolm Little believed about Jesus before he converted. Even though I was raised and surrounded by the Christian faith, I just went through the motions of going to church because my family required it, but yet I didn’t believe myself. I usually didn’t even talk or discuss my religious beliefs because I never felt the need.
Religion was everybody’s own personal thing, so let’s just leave it at that, personal. Don’t wear it on your sleeve, don’t be a creepy Jesus freak getting on people’s nerves because all you can talk about is how everybody is going to hell if they don’t repent. That wasn’t me. I was too cool for that.
Jesus Christ was a blonde haired, blue eyed white man that’s supposed to be God incarnate?? That white man that they say is God don’t look nothing like me, but rather He’s supposed to look just like this white man who’s got his boot on my neck?? This is the God you’re forcing me to believe in??
Oh, I see why the white man wants n’gaz to believe in Jesus., because..this Jesus dude is kinda laid back, passive. Slaves obey your masters and be diligent workers. Praise Jesus and obey the white man..hallelluia. Nawww. My blood wouldn’t let me fall for that okey doke. I couldn’t take Christ without questioning Him. I was born free and I couldn’t be a slave to the same white man that mistreated people of my color so many times. Over and over. Oppression. How could I bow down and worship a God that looks just like the oppressor of my people?
White folks have done black folks REAL bad throughout the history of America. From the Middle Passage, Slavery, Tuskegee Project, New Orleans. Some folks trip off of animals, and I do have a sensitive side for animals, but I don’t place ANYTHING over the expense of the human soul. If you have breath in your body, then you have a soul as well as your own free will.. It’s God’s gift to man. We weren’t made to be mindless zombies, we can think and rationalize, man can feel. Man can meditate on his Creator. But the fact that a person can look at another human being as being worth less than a human, sub-human, closer to a horse.
Some folks trip that I haven’t expounded a more political voice. “How come you ain’t said nothing about that sh’t that white man said about how crime would go down if we got rid of all the black babies??”
We all have our own prejudices. Some folks may claim to be ‘politically correct’ in deed and thought, but I firmly believe we all have our own dispositions to prejudices of race, age, religion, sexual persuasion, darkness of skin, wealth standing, intellectual ability, there are different areas that we all lean toward bigotry. Some just more than others and some folk’s prejudices only come out in the most exclusive company. Bennett just happened to let his remark slip around mixed company and it got out to the media. But I’m from the South and I LIKE when haters show their hand, it makes for a more real relationship.
And at the core of this prejudice is hatred. When you hate on a person that you have never even met before, just because of what the media depicts ‘these people’ to be like or what somebody else warned you about ‘these people’..you’re hating.
Trick Daddy defines hating as this: “Hating is when you see something fresh, but yet you refuse to acknowledge it.”
Councils, leaders and zealots hated on Jesus constantly. They hung on His every word just trying to catch Him slipping. Waiting for Him to say something, ANYthing, that they could use to bring charges against Him. Jesus already knew what they were about, and played them off for awhile, but when His time came, He stopped playing with them and opened their ears and let them hear what they were waiting to hear. They even made up some more stuff up (lies) just to trump up the charges with some paid off liars on the stand, so Jesus definitely paved the way for us when it comes to peeping the haters.
You may think it’s a joke, but everybody who has gone out there into this world and lifted up the name of Jesus can feel me, when you start professing that name, the haters get restless. They ain’t trying to hear it..AT ALL. They will try to silence your voice or discredit your name, it’s real ya’ll. That’s why it’s IMPERATIVE that you get suited up in that full armor of God.
Like Lil Keke’s hook on the Trill Track #4 'Draped Up' rings clear, you’ve got to get draped up and dripped out (know what um tawkin bout?) for Jesus. Draped is being suited up. Looking supertight. But more so than looking tight, you’ve got to be fully equipped if you’re going to step out there. There is no room for half stepping. You can’t be lukewarm about it. You can’t ‘kinda’ believe in Jesus, ‘kinda’ won’t make it through the fire.
Ya’ll know about those Soldiers in the Hood (click to read)..right?
You’ve got to start with that belt of truth. You can’t be an ambassador for Christ (That’s what being a Believer is all about) and be out there lying all the time. If you want to stand on the Word, then you have to speak the truth. And that applies all the way to telling those bill collectors,“He’s not home” when you know good and well that it’s you they’re looking for. (I’m still working on that one myself)
You put that breastplate of righteousness on your chest. Wear it proud like a soldier. Keep in mind, that’s the breastplate of righteousness, not the breastplate of jankiness. There is a difference. A lot of Christians get a bit puffed up and start strutting around like they’re the boss of everybody else. Love is meek. Love is kind. Love is longsuffering. Don’t get the big head and go ‘Esther’ from Sanford and Son on me. You so quick to tell the heathens about themselves, but yet there is no fruit of the spirit evident in you, all we see is your own self-righteousness.
Then you gotta slide on those kicks of peace on your feet. Southside riders be ready to put there fighting boots on and go whup somebody’s az. You gotta put your agg to the side once you get on the battlefield. Back in the day, girls would always come out their shoes and fight barefooted, for better balance. You can’t take off these shoes of peace whenever you’re ready to put some ‘act right’ upside somebody head. You gotta put that appetite for destruction to the side. Peace with 2 fingers and all that.
Above all, take that shield of faith with you. Because it’s with that shield that you will be able to deflect all those fiery darts that the wicked one will throw your way. All with the purpose of denying the deity of Christ. Satan was a liar from the beginning and the truth is not in him. You gotta protect your dome with the helmet of salvation. Because if you gotta take a bullet to the head, you better feel good about being present with the LORD once you’re absent from the body.
None of us know when our last breath will be breathed, but I have a shell that I ‘jacked’ from Stephen when he was being stoned to death for proclaiming the gospel of Christ. If I’m going through a curve about to go off the edge of a cliff, or falling down in an impending plane crash, or being strangled to death as they burned me at the stake, I have my ‘ready to go’ verse stashed safely at hand:
“ And they stoned Stephen, and as he was calling upon God, and saying, LORD Jesus, receive my spirit.” – Acts 7:59
Stephen was blessed to have a little bit more time to pray for his murderers before he fell asleep into the presence of the LORD. That’s what the Bible says happens to Believers upon that last mortal breath. (I Thessalonians 4:13-18) That I can just have my LORD’s name in my heart and on my lips when I make my pass to the other side is what I live for.
And finally God charges us to load up our gat, the sword of the Spirit, which is the Word of God. Your Bible. You’re not just supposed to read it when you’re at church. When you find time in your day, sharpen yourself by reading a Proverb or two. Meditate on the Law and the Prophets, train with the gospels and the epistles. It’s all good for you. The Bible is described as a two edged sword, the most advanced weapon of combat in Paul’s day. This was their Uzi or Tech 9, maybe M-16.. It cut going in and coming out. That’s what that Word does. It’ll get you the first time you hear it in a whole different place than it gets you the next time you read it.
Once you get suited up, the LORD gives you some instructions to take with ya everyday. It’s some verses you gotta keep on your lips if you want to be real in this game. You DO keep your sword nearby you at all times..dontcha? don’t be that n’ga that ain’t got his heat close at hand when the battle gets crunk off.
Ya’ll know how it goes down here in Texas, we’ve got shotguns, rifle racks, concealed handgun licenses and we can keep protection on us if we’re a proprietor carrying a large amount of cash. The Bible REALLY begins to strengthen you once you start memorizing verses. When that battlefield looks dark and grim and you find your soul growing hesitant to re-join the fray on the frontlines, cuz you know people are getting BROKE UP in the war, there’s blood being shed on the ground on the frontlines, that’s when you need to getchu a bump of that
II Timothy 1:7, “For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.”
I gotta recite that one to myself a lot, especially the part about the sound mind, cuz sometimes I think I’m going crazy. But that’s just something that I’m dealing with, I’m just weird like that I guess.
We’re not supposed to have open alcoholic beverages in our vehicles in Texas, but yet when you go into any gas station on the Southside, you see a big barrel of iced down brews..singles. Ya’ll know when Bubba gets that $20 on pump #6 in his pickup and a couple of 16 Oz tall boys wrapped in their individual brown bags, that those brews aren’t going to make it to the house. Pssssht!!! Bubba is go be popping tops and guzzling that cold one as soon as he turns that corner.
Welcome to Texas, everybody around here is loaded with something. Guns. Bible. Booze. BS. We got it all down here. So if my grasp of the Christian message is too trill for your palate, then please excuse my fellowship. I know what the Scripture says, and it is my charge to not offend the weaker brothers. But now that we know that you’re a weaker brother, please excuse my tongue, I feel that I’m amongst family here and I talk real with my kinfolk. True and real. Trill. Maybe it should be Treal? Nawwww..I’m tripping.
Do you have a Bible nearby? You should keep one as close as possible, you never know when you might need a bump. Like a dope fiend sneaking away at break time to get a hit, I find myself needing to meditate on a verse or two throughout my workday. I’m gone mane and I ain’t even tripping about it. I’ve never been a dope fiend, and I’ve only done a lil bit of crack (on accident) but I know I am ‘out there’ on that Jesus. I love Him mane. He’s very strengthening to me. I’ve been fiending on Jesus for over 4 years now. More so than anything, I’m questioned by people who want to know EXACTLY how did I go from being an aforementioned agnostic into a raging Southern Baptist zealot??
“What happened to you D?? I didn’t even know you was all religious like this???”
I actually would describe myself as a Protestant more than anything, for there are tenets of the Baptist churchwhich I don’t feel are mandated by Scripture, but yet I can see the value in them. For those who knew me from back in the day, or for some even yesterday, I appreciate the fact that you can see the change in D. I know it’s for the better, because the change that you see in me is not because of anything that I’ve done, it’s all because of Christ.
And until you can come to that point in your life, where you realize that you don’t control sh’t and that God’s ways are on a whole different level that man could never EVA (EVA EVA..BE ON HIS LEVEL!! BE ON HIS LEVEL!!), then you won’t be able to feel me.
No matter how much I yearned to reach for Him, I couldn’t grab onto Him, nothing was fulfilling me. I dabbled in Islam. Buddhism. Transcendentalism. I read up on the Mormons, the Jehovah Witness, New Agers, Kabala, Scientology, I was searching like a perusing shopper at the mall. I wasn’t intent on buying something, but if I came across something I REALLY liked? I’d check it out closer. But it wasn’t until I took the task of reading and studying the most widely read, quoted, copied, discussed and debated book in the world for myself, the Bible, that I really had that ‘click’ go on for me to allow me to make that jump of faith and come on over to the other side.
Neo’s first initiation with the red pill of truth and the ‘jump program’ from the Matrix had strong inclinations of the leap that is required for the Christian faith. I’ve read the Bible in it’s entirety, but that doesn’t mean I understand all of it. Understanding the who, why, what, how of God’s plan is not a requirement for my faith. I believe the report and that’s all that matters to me. I feel incomplete if I don’t read something from the Bible everyday. I’m striving to become a better disciple. I’m studying to show myself approved. I’m working on my walk. I’m tending to my garden, I want to be a fruitful servant. I want to hear Him say ‘Well done, my good and faithful servant.” Actually, our modern translations say ‘servant’, but in the original Greek text, that word was closer to ‘slave’.
That’s where a lot of black folks, especially the young, intellectual black men with the air for militancy and freedom will start balking at the bit. “I ain’t NOBODY mf slave!!” Most of them don’t know the way the world goes. You’re going to be a slave to SOMETHING in this world. Whether it be a person, a place or a thing. Slaves to sin. Slaves to money. Slaves to personal gratification. Hedonist. You gotta believe in SOMEthing mane!!
So no, when it comes to being considered a slave for Christ, my spirit is humbled and I take my cross willingly and eager to serve. We all have wounds that need to be healed. We all have taken stripes from the taskmaster. But like my Biblical namesake David, I would rather take the LORD’s chastising over any other’s. So yeah..I’m rolling with the Christian soldiers. Isaiah called me to accept my invitation to discipleship. And this is from a skeptic that picked up the Bible with all kinda doubts and questions of ‘why?’ and ‘is this REALLY what God said??’
A lot of people start doubting the Bible when they get to the 4th chapter of Genesis, when you get to the part about Cain and Abel and when Cain had to get marked so no one else would kill him and he went off and got married around some ‘other’ people. “Where did these ‘other’ people come from if ALL people came from Adam and Eve???” It’s a good question and a question that is answered when you read further into the 5th chapter. Assuming that Adam and Eve were created full grown, that means Cain, when he killed Abel, must have been about 129 years old; for Seth was born soon after (Gen 4:25) at which time Adam was 130 (5:3) Cain’s wife (4:17) was more than likely one of his sisters or nieces, for Eve was the mother of all living (3:20) In the 130 years from Adam’s creation, to Abel’s murder it’s safe to say a good many generations had arisen. (Halley’s Bible Handbook, p.69)
I can understand that question, because when I first started reading the Bible, I started tripping even before that in the Garden of Eden. I couldn’t (and a part of me still can’t, but I don’t trip on it anymore) understand how Adam and Eve could be in that garden together butt naked all day and wasn’t NUTHIN popping off.??? Was Adam a punk or what?? Cuz I know the Garden was over in Mesopatamia..Eve had to be one of those fine Selma Hayek looking chicks..what was up with Adam?? But it was round about that 55th chapter of Isaiah that it really ‘hit’ me. I was hungry, thirsty and broke, and when the LORD beckoned D.Washington to drink from His fountains, I drank deeply. And all my doubts I had about the Bible being God’s Word, went away by a few strokes of Isaiah’s pen:
“For as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven, and do not return there, but water the earth, and make it bring forth and bud, that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater. So shall My word be that goes forth from my mouth; It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please, and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it.” – Isaiah 55:10-11 NKJV
Hmmm. That made a lot of sense to me. I mean, think about it. If God WAS to write a Book, because He’s God, wouldn’t He make sure that it was preserved for His children to study and learn from? God’s Word can’t be faded, it shall not return void. The Bible is the worldwide #1 book in the history of mankind. It’s hit for centuries and centuries. Some people don’t believe that Jesus was resurrected and that’s where the importance of testimony comes into the picture. From this one Jewish man of the tribe of Judah (Southside of Israel) who lived over 2000 years ago, the faith is still standing. People have been tortured and died horrible deaths because they refused to deny the deity of Christ.
He is the LORD and Savior of us all.
You can’t get to God without Jesus. He is the last high priest. Because of Him, the veil is torn, we all have access to the Holy of Holies. Hmph. Now how trill is that?
You better get draped up in your whole armor of God and dripped out on that blood of the Lamb. He will sanctify you. He will give you atonement. The spirit that is within you is something that no taskmaster can ever take away from you. No matter how poor and downtrodden you may be, if you have breath in your lungs, you have a soul and the free will to make the choice. Accept Him, the promised Messiah, the final Prophet that Moses spoke of (Duet 18:15) , the suffering servant that Isaiah wrote of (Is 53), the time is near.
Of course, I know people have been forecasting the end of the world since the beginning of the world, and the Bible tells us that NO MAN knows the day. But when you look at the things that are going on in our world, when you examine what the Book says about Israel and Babylon (Iraq) in the last days? When you consider the tsunamis, earthquakes, global warming, hurricanes, floods and disasters that are seemingly becoming more and more frequent? It snowed on the Southside on Christmas Eve AND the Astros made it to the World Series?? It’s some WILD stuff going on ya’ll!! It’ll make you think about some thangs. Tomorrow is promised to no man. You better get your relationship together with your Creator while you still have time. That’s as trill as it gets.
