The MPHA and the Betterment of Our Future

I've been mediated for as long as I can remember- most of us have- and (whether I'd like to admit it or not) it has had a huge part in molding me into the woman I am today. I have come to understand and accept this but I'd like it to change, at least in terms of how it makes me feel about myself and other women- and men. You see, when I absorb three to five thousandadvertisements a day, all of which are telling me I need to be thin, tall, blonde-haired, blue-eyed, and covered in make-up- not to mention perfect- it makes me feel like something is wrong with me; this is because I am none of those things. Yet, I am encouraged- if not forced- to try to adhere to such an image in order to be happy; to be fulfilled.  This is why I'm so excited about the Media and Public Health Act (MPHA). It is important to me for a lot of reasons: it can dispel unrealistic goals of beauty, raise consciousness, allow media and pop culture to be truly reflective of our society, and it would greatly improve the future of our generations, including our self-esteem.

Most girls and women, myself included, look to the media and pop culture for instructions as to how to look, act, and feel- it has that much of an impact; it is a means of socialization. We turn to magazines, billboards, and television for guidance (even if it doesn’t seem that way). What we seldom remember is that these images are not real or accurate; they have been altered. Altered so precisely that not even pores are visible- blemishes and wrinkles are simply out of the question. This gives not only women but men as well, the idea that this image is attainable when the reality is that it is not. It makes us believe that if we keep changing, striving for such beauty, we can be fixed, valued and therefore accepted and desired. This gives to the notion that there is something wrong with us. There is nothing wrong with us.

The label on the image would only have to read: This Image Has Been Altered

The MPHA- although not looking to get rid of photo shopping altogether, the goal is simply to admit to doing it- is a huge step towards turning the detrimental effects around. It has the power to raise awareness about what exactly it is we’re consuming and it’s a perfect example of media literacy- something which we should all be familiar with; it allows us to not only analyze what we're absorbing, but it gives us the tools to communicate on what it is we're demanding as more than an alternative but as what should be part of our dominant culture. If girls and women knew that these images are altered, they’d understand that looking that way is unrealistic. If we began to see real women whom actually look like us we’d be more confident and happy with our bodies. In a country where 50% of 13 year olds are unhappy with their bodies, I’d say this is a huge issue and will only escalate if nothing changes; especially because as we age, this percentage rises.And if you think this issue on body image is exclusively for women and girls, you are mistaken. More and more it is affecting men and young boys as well- I’m sure you’re well aware of the hot, muscular guy that keeps re-appearing. No one is exempt from these extremely negative effects.

As a young woman and an older sister I truly believe that the media-as well as society-must take responsibility for its actions and perpetuation of such images and ideals in order to move forward, in a positive direction. If the Medias job really is to give us what we want, then it’s time to listen. It’s time to be truthful; otherwise we’re the ones who get hurt in the process. We’re the ones with our health at risk. We’re the ones who are losing. We can still do something about it, for ourselves and future generations. We can demand that the media and advertisements do something as simple as label their work as being altered. We can ask that celebrities change their contracts so that their images won’t be altered- this is possible. After all this country is said to be a democracy, governed by the people, for the people; it's time we start acting like it.

Written By: Zury C.

REVERIE-Her biggest competition

With a name like Reverie (rev·er·ie: a state of dreamy meditation or fanciful musing) her stage presence, beauty and rhymes are sure to put you into a daydream. She grew up writing poetry and at the age of 17 she wanted to switch things up with her form of expression by stepping into the booth. At that time she just wanted to get things off her chest, she had no idea so many people would gravitate to her words. Six years later she is wrapping up her Stepping Stones Tour and has had the chance to rock the stage at Paid Dues. She took some time out to chill with us and talk about graff, being a femcee and her newest track.


PM: How do you feel about other femcees and who are you feeling?

Reverie: I feel good about all the other femcee's that are coming up. I will embrace the word femcee. I don't understand why women get so mad when they say femcee. I think it's cute. I embrace all the women that are coming up. A couple of years ago I was the only one that's my age that was making noise so now, within the last year, all these girls are coming up and I like it a lot. I want more women to do it that way we can be out there like we should. I think women have a lot of soul and a lot to say. It's hard as a woman in the scene to say what I want to say and do what I want to do because everyone's pointing the finger.

PM: What negativity have you experienced because you're a femcee?

REVERIE: People always say 'you shouldn't say things like that because you're a girl' or 'women shouldn't say things like that, you have to represent all women , you have to be a certain way'. I'm not going to pretend to be someone that I'm not. I'm gonna represent what I am and what I went through regardless if it's going to impress somebody or offend somebody. They're always saying I'm not ladylike but I don't think any girl that's rapping is ladylike. You have to have an edge or you're going to get stepped on.

Guys hate on girls that are coming up; not all guys but a lot. Guys are intimidated by strong women. Anywhere in the world but especially in the rap field. If you don't like my music then cool but don't deny what I'm doing. Because I know what I'm doing. I know I'm making moves and no body's going to tell me that I'm not doing something. It's funny because on my Facebook like 1 out of 20 hate comments will be from a women but 99% of it is from men.


PM: What was it like playing at Paid Dues?

Reverie: It was a shock to be invited first of all. It was crazy. I was at Rock the Bells and I was talking to Murs. Murs was doing a live stream one day and people were asking when are you going to put Reverie on Paid Dues? He said when she makes an album. I had just been dropping mix tapes and shit. Then I finally made an album in 2011. My first album. Then I went to Rock the Bells and I saw Murs and he said you made your album. Alright you're ready I'm going to put you on Paid Dues. I was drunk and walked away with a big smile! The actual experience of being there was cool! I was the first act and I didn't think about doing a sound check because I thought oh it's Paid Dues it's going to sound good but the sound sucked. It didn't matter though we still rocked it. The crowed still felt the vibe, the energy, the rhythm and the performance. Louden was my hype man. He had never performed before and he just got up there and ripped it like he has been doing that shit for years!

PM: How has graff influenced your music?

REVERIE: It influenced my music a lot. One thing I would like to point out is it taught me to stay humble because when I was in high school a lot of people didn't like me. My first fight was for one of my best friends that I had. To make a long story short the bitch I fought was part of the group of girls that fought everybody. They would get in fights all the time. So I made enemies with the wrong person right off the bat. I was always getting picked on and getting in fights but then when I was in 10th grade I started bombing a lot all over L.A. All of a sudden everyone was on my nuts. All of the girls were cool with me everyone was giving me props oh I see your bomb everywhere! Then it got to my head. I was so conceded for a while. I was acting too cool for my friends that weren't writing. I didn't really notice it. I was reflecting on myself a few months after all that shit was getting to me I thought damn I'm acting like a bitch with all of my friends right now because all of this graff fame is getting to my head. Luckily I learned that when I was young not to let anything get to your head. One thing that I'm so grateful for is that graff taught me to stay humble and to always remember who you came up with. Never betray your friends. I'm very glad I experienced that. Graff has taught me so many things about rapping. How you gotta go hard or go home. About how you have to stay on top of beef. All my graff mindset I use in the rap game. If someone is talking shit about me then I'm gonna fuck them up when I see them. I'm not just gonna walk away and I'm not going to let someone shit on my name without there being some repercussions. I just carried it over.

PM:  Do you have any favorite writers?

REVERIE: I really like FAFI from France. I have tattoos of her shit all over my body. I also love PLANT TREES. He bombs Christmas trees. He's one of my favorite writers, he's from the bay. He's one of the people who made me really start doing graffiti. I used to see him up sometimes over here. I was so inspired by his stuff. I also really like REVOK.

PM: You just recently dropped a track with Atlast are there any plans in the future for an album?

REVERIE: With Atlast? No. Just collabs but no album. I'm not really looking to make a collaberation album with anybody right now. I just really don't have time for it.

PM: What about for yourself?

REVERIE: Yes. I just don't know when and I don't like saying dates because I'm so bad with dates.

                                  

PM: What kind of message do you want your music to convey?

REVERIE: I don't know. People ask me that a lot and I don't really know how to answer it. I think I'm so young and confused about a lot of things that I talk about. So a lot of my tracks I usually don't feel the same about that topic a year later. I guess it would be to be yourself and strive for happiness in life. I want everybody out there to understand that life has ups and downs regardless of who you are, where your from or what your going through and that everything will get better with time.

PM: What are some of the challenges you face being an independent artist?

REVERIE: The challenges are never ending. Finding a platform to promote yourself, maintaining your image, maintaining your audience.  It's hard also to be happy with my own music and what I'm talking about and at the same time impressing my fans and impressing new listeners. It's kind of hard to find a middle point. Sometimes I feel like my music suffers because I'm always worrying about what other people are going to think. Is this better than my last track? Is this better than my last album? Old listeners aren't going to like it because I'm not talking about this and my moms not going to like this and my dads not going to like that. It's just hard. I see myself as my biggest competition.

PM: How do you feel being this new generation at the forefront representing Hip Hop now?

REVERIE: It's a lot of pressure to me. I don't know how anyone else feels who has a big audience. I don't like being in the spot light. I don't like being on covers of shit. I don't like being the headliner. I don't like being the face. That's why I like graffiti so much because I got to tell everybody fuck you but nobody could see my face. I got to express  myself but without anyone knowing who I was. That's still how I feel about music. Like I said, everything carried over. When I started doing this I wasn't going to do it for a career. I didn't ever think I was going to get paid for it or have a bunch of people show up to a show for me. I like it but I'm not very comfortable with it yet. I actually want to be a ghost writer.

PM: Any last words or shout outs?

REVERIE: Just thank you guys for having me. Shout out to everyone that's been supporting me throughout the years. My PIN UP GIRLS and LA.

Interviewed by: Desmond
Writen by: Corrin

                                       CLICK HERE TO WATCH SCRIMAGE FT REVERIE

click to LIKE Reverie
http://www.reveriepug.com/
Booking/collab info LOUDENBEATS@YAHOO.COM

PAWZ ONE- New album, New Views

Born a Compton native Pawz One started to see the Hip Hop culture unfold right in his neighborhood. From break dancers in the street to graffiti on the walls at a young age he became influenced to write.  Tuning  into Hip Hop icons such as LL Cool J, Kool Moe D, Afrika Bambaataa and also to his hometown heroes NWA.  Wanting to be heard Pawz would attend local house parties to rap or battle on buses. Anywhere there was a cypher session he was there. Now with more than 10 years of being a Master of Ceremonies he has just released his Face the Facts album. With tracks on this release like "The Luv" and "Officer Down" this album is bound to stir up some emotion. We got a chance to sit down with Pawz to see what he had to say about his latest release.

PM: What was your inspiration for making this album?

PAWZ: Before this was verbal virus 2.5 and even that name has stuck with me since the graff days because my rap name is my graff name. You would catch fame. People would see you up and they would talk about you as if you were a mythological person. It was dope because you're standing right next to them and there talking "yo I seen this spot here". It carried over into rhyming because everybody would say yo you gotta get out there if your dope people will talk about you. So word of mouth. So then Ludacris came out with an album called Word of Mouth and then I had to think of something a little more clever. A virus is something that catches on and it evolves and the verbal is self explanatory. So people talk about you and it carries on. So I did a mixtape Volume 1.5 then I did 2.5 and the idea was to do volume 2. I kinda of scrapped it because I got out of that way of thinking. To me that was rappin' for props, I'm out of that stage. I don't really need to impress people anymore, my peers at least, because they're gonna keep me at that same level if they can. So I said 'fuck it, Face the Facts'. I teamed up with two producers that, along the way, have been giving me beats [and] kind of molding my shit. I think this is my college album, I'm not in the pro's yet. We're not recording in a multi-million dollar studio, you know what I mean? It's definitely a big, big step forward from the other shit; sound-quality wise, production wise, even songwriting. They wouldn't let me just rap. I use an analogy like boxing, when they found me I could punch, punch, punch and knock people out but I didn't give the people in the stands a show. I didn't have any footwork, I wasn't graceful, everything was just brute force. I could take a hit and hit back but there was no finesse. These guys brought me back in the gym and kind of changed it up. That's the leap forward.

PM: You have Raskass, 2 Mex, Termanology and Rakaa featured on Face the Facts, why them?

PAWZ: People have asked that before. Why don't you get MC so and so, he's down the block. It's no disrespect to my peers. A lot of them in the LA underground think they're bigger than what they are and carry themselves that way . I saw it as pointless. Why work with someone that thinks he's Rakaa when I can work with Rakaa? Somebody who feels like they've earned the props he's earned when I can just reach out to him and build with him. Like I said it's no diss to none of my peers, there's some dudes out there that are dope but because of the politics like he's from the valley and he's from IE and all that childish shit a lot of these dudes stay stuck performing at the same venue every Friday. For me, I had to grow & evolve. I had to fuck with the big boys. Dudes that I grew up listening to that I respect. Luckily these dudes respect me too for my craft and my hustle. Seeing these dudes on tour, being on the road, they know this is what I want to do and that my heart's in it. I've been blessed to have all of them be a part of it.

PM: Do you have a song on the album that is your favorite?

PAWZ: It's probably "What you make it" because I wrote that the fastest. It's more inspirational. You could deal with all kinds of shit. You can sit here and cry but we just passed a dude right now who's missing a leg, pushing a shopping cart with can's in it. How am I worse off then him? My stomach's full, I'm in clean clothes, all my limbs work. So taking the opportunities I have and making the most of it.Even from when you're a little kid a shopping cart isn't a shopping cart that could be a race car, it could be whatever you want it to be. I'm saying the same thing about life no matter what happens it's up to you to turn that shit into something good. And I wrote it really fast because it just poured out.

PM: Tells us about your upcoming tour.

PAWZ: Well, like I said the other day on Facebook, I wish I had famous rapper friends to take me on the road. It doesn't happen. There's some people for political reasons or whatever they get lucky. Somebody will reach out and put them on a tour. Nobody's done that for me. That's why I named my first tour on my own because I booked all my own dates, I took a bus , took a train, slept in a airport I did all that. I'm working on setting up another one it's called still on my own tour until the day somebody decides to put me up. I'm starting to see that's probably not going to happen because no body wants to take anybody on tour because they consider it a liability or another mouth to feed or somebody else to worry about when the plane is about to leave. I get that part.Plus we didn't grow up together type of shit. There's a lot of little things. I can't sit here and cry so I gotta do shit on my own. The dope part is to get in the car and driving to New Mexico and absolutely not a soul in that whole state knows you and then to leave and you sell out your merch, people want pictures, people want autographs, when are you coming back? That is amazing. It wasn't because I opened up for so and so. They respected what I did.

PM: You've come pretty far in your hip hop career  and like you said this is your college album. Do you have any advice for any up and coming MCs?

PAWZ: The one thing that  I am learning is I thought just coming in the game and speaking honestly. I thought that was what people wanted. I thought that's what they respected. But nobody wants that. People like being lied to. They like the bull shit. If they didn't we wouldn't have a Trinidad James, a Wakka flocka, we wouldn't have the hype, we wouldn't have that because they sell you an escape. My advice would be to hold your tongue. If your gonna get in the game and you don't like some shit don't say anything. I've been vocal about a lot of things I disagree with and people agree with me and give me their silent thumbs up but behind closed doors there plotting to push me out. How do you tell someone not to speak your mind and your a fucken artist? Unfortunately your only one artist and you can't change that system and I'm learning that. With out the help from the people you can't turn shit around. Look at Lennon or anyone that tried to do that they ended up getting smoked. So my advice is Hold your tongue, race plays a big issue in the game, invest in yourself or find an investor.

PM: What's the message you want Face the Facts to send out?

PAWZ: As much as you would like to hide the truth, cover the truth, put a piece of tape over it all that shit it's always gonna be there. It's gonna stare right back at you. You can break one mirror but then there's another one and then another one. Eventually you've got to face the truth. That's for every individual. Be realistic. it's ok to have dreams but be realistic. Face the Facts, you can't run from yourself.


PM: How has graffiti influenced you?

Art by Pawz One

PAWZ: In the beginning it was mostly just the idea I could write my name on a wall, a name that I made up and I could catch fame off of it. The fame was part of it but that was because I had no technique. I had no can control or none of that. I used to draw before I started painting, Once I learned how to hold a can and use different tips that's when everything opened up. I started getting into doing letters and throw ups but I wasn't dope at letters. I started drawing characters and my character's were dope. When I started  getting good at letters I started getting busted a lot. Shit that is expensive! So I did some jail time for writing so I pretty much just switched up elements.


PM: Do you have any last words?

PAWZ: It's easy to get frustrated when your trying to be an artist in the game. Weather it's production or your a DJ whatever it is you do. It's easy to get frustrated and look around and kind of blame circumstances and sometime that does create good art out of frustration that's how some of the best is made because it's a genuine expression but you can't let it eat away at you to were you don't produce anything positive. There's still a positive in there you just got to blow the dust off of it first. Don't get too frustrated. I learned my lesson coming out trying to change Hip Hop, trying to save Hip Hop. It's like a battered wife it get beat on , treated like shit and it just keeps coming back because it doesn't really want that change. It likes the abuse for some reason and it's a afraid to grown and evolve or at least go back to what it was and accept the good guys the motherfuckers who will do anything for you and genuinely love you. You would rather have a doush bag that put's hands on you. It's the same thing with Hip Hop now. I'm done trying to save it thumbs up everybody keep doing what you're doing.

Writen by: Corrin

CLICK HERE TO VIEW PAWZ ONES LATEST VIDEO "THE LUV" FT ARIANO

Pre order Face the Facts at http://facethefacts.bigcartel.com/. The pre order includes goodies!
For booking: Izzy 562 686 2056
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Update and Upcoming **International Women's Day** Event/Fundraiser at PYFC

In my previous blog about the Pico Youth and Family Center (PYFC), I mentioned that the center was in danger of being defunded by the City of Santa Monica and we organized a rally to protest at the City Town Hall meeting.

More than 200 people came through to support the PYFC, and more than 70 people gave testimonies.

Supporters stayed until 3 in the morning, which is when the city council members unanimously voted to continue funding the PYFC until June of this year.

Thank you to all who supported us and we hope to continue to have your support in the future!

Now, I want to invite you all to the International Women’s Day Event/Fundraiser that we in the Wombyn’s Group have organized.  Friday, March 8, we will be honoring women and featuring an all female lineup at the PYFC. Those interested in supporting female empowerment through art, music, culture, and in advancing social justice are invited to attend. This is a fundraiser for the young women of PYFC. We want to keep our program running and growing for future events and services. We are asking for a ($5-10) donation at the door, which will enter guests in a raffle.

international wombyn/women’s day will include live art by Sand One, performances by Hope, Jasmine Nicole Jamison, and K'la J (Krystal Jasmin), Azteca dancers (Majawil wq'ij), Grupo Folklórico de UCLA and Traditional Southern Cloth (Native American dance). Arrive early to be apart of a special ceremonial blessing of the center.  Support vendors, such as: Ilaments Jewelry, Checa Chic, Angelsity Banditz Klothing, Cha Cha Covers, Special Blends, Teocintli Shop, Piece Magazine and more! Homemade food (made with love by some of our mothers) will be for sale.  The evening will also include music by DJ Bella Foxx and Miss Sunny Z. Throughout the night, we will be paying homage to Rigoberta Menchú and other women leaders, including, honoree of the evening, Maria Loya. 

Everyone is welcome to attend! Please come and support! We hope to see you all there!