Distractions are meant to push us off the road to our purpose and destiny, in which instead of moving us forward the smallest distraction can leave us stagnated (at a stand-still) or it can push us 10-50 feet backwards, it can be really hard to push ourselves UP again unless we really avoid distractions altogether. We live in a world where distractions are very common; as a matter of fact it’s so profound until we have actually grown immune to it. “It’s just a part of life,” we tell ourselves; not really giving attention to how disturbing a distraction can really be. A distraction is a silent killer that pops up unexpectedly in hopes to keep you from achieving the things you want and plan to do in your own life. What’s your destiny? What’s your dream? What’s keeping you from following your heart? While most distractions are things, don’t forget that a distraction can also come in the form of WORDS!

Has someone said anything to you lately that completely threw you off course? We have to be careful whom we share our dreams, hopes, ideas, goals and plans with. While people do mean well, they can also be the cause of a person not achieving their dreams, all because they didn’t get an opportunity to achieve theirs.

Distractions come in all forms, such as noise. You can never focus when you have too much noise around; you must get to a quiet place and make some time for yourself. If you don’t – then you’ll never be able to focus long enough to hear from God. Yes…God – he created you so therefore he knows the plans he has for you and the road in which he wants you to travel to get there, but you have to create a quiet place in order to hear directly from him. The phone is a major distraction. I never seen so many people on phones in church services; this could not have happened in my church back in the day. I also have never seen so many cases of phones causing accidents all because of distractions. Social media (while good), sometimes we can spend too much time on it. The 3 hours spent on social media liking friends pages and posting selfies could actually be time in which you could be finishing the next best book or movie that will take this nation by storm (Do you feel me?) Lastly, that brings me to time which is known to be the worlds greatest distraction because we misuse it the most.

I don’t know what your distractions may be today but figure out a way to find peace in the middle of it. Pray if you must and ask God to reveal what it is that is keeping you from focusing like you should or what’s keeping you from moving forward. Some of us should be miles ahead of ourselves by this point but distractions have made a home in our life and kept us from moving into our destiny. If you’re not where you want to be in life, look around you because it just might be a distraction that’s holding you back.

You’re so much better than a distraction…

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The post RESPECT. Inspires: It’s a Bird. It’s a Plane…No, It’s a Distraction appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.

The hip-hop community too often neglects and mistreats its woman; The relationship between the gender and the genre is one of a complex history and understanding. So, when tracks like “Black Girl Lost” or “Brown Skin Lady” come out and address women in a respectful manner, they’re always a diamond in the rough. Nas recently released a single from his upcoming album, Life Is Good, called “Daughters” where he delivers two and a half verses on the difficult relationship between him and his daughter, Destiny.

The soulful and earthy production is brought to us by none other than Chicago’s No I.D., but it’s the lyrics that make the song come alive. Controversy has boiled because of how Carmen Bryan (Nas’ daughter’s mother) reacted to the song on the Twittersphere. And Bryan does raise a valid point. “He had nothing positive to say about our daughter” and “Destiny is still a child … it was the wrong platform.” Bryan mentioned that Destiny was also not pleased with the track.

This is a case of “unattractive honesty.” There comes a point where hip-hop surpasses entertainment and happy endings (or gruesome ones, whichever entertains you more). And this point is exactly where “Daughters” lies. Both artists and listeners alike argue that hip-hop is an escape into an alternate body where the music is “just a story” or “just how the artist feels at the moment”  — the go-to excuse for a songs vulgarity or obscenity. When all that withers away and you’ve run out of imaginative or ignorant concepts to explore, songs like “Daughters” leave you with the honesty and reality of life behind hip-hop’s facades.

Nas’ “Daughters” is an illustration of what it means to be brutally honest with oneself. There are no sugarcoated lyrics or half-ass alibis in discussing his relationship with daughter. As a journalist, objectivity and honesty are the keys to staying true to any issue and it is for this reason that we should applaud “Daughters,” though its honesty may be “unattractive.”

In the first verse, Nas admits his mistakes as a father when he says that he failed to protect her from this “awful phase” where his daughter writes a letter to a boy her age who’s locked up. He mentions how he never tried to hide who he was and though she was raised like a princess, he still has more to teach her. He knows that his history, (“plus she see me switching women – pops was on some pimp shit”) might have influenced her in the wrong way.

Nas pours his heart out when he forewarns his daughter that her lover might not be interested in her, but how he might be drawn to the size of her mother’s home or her father’s status (“He seen your mama crib/Plus I’m sure he know who your father is”). Perhaps this is an ideology that us non-wealthy folks will not understand, but when a girl goes out, we first expect her suitor to be after the physical rather than their parents’ riches or fame.

At the end of the first verse, Nas ends with “she look at me like I’m not the cleanest father figure/ but she rockin’ with it,” a couplet that somewhat cushions the blow of Nas’ intentions with the track. He knows that he’s not the most ideal candidate for the father position, but at least he has a daughter that is willing to accept that and work with him in the process. It’s a complex relationship between father and daughter, but truthfully, most father-daughter relationships are. This one just happens to be expressed by a world famous rapper.

Nas, Destiny, Carmen Bryan & music video director Chris Robinson on the set of "Daughters" (Photo from AllHipHop)

The last semi-verse begins with, “Now, I ain’t tryna mess your thing up/ but I just wanna see you dream up/I finally understand it ain’t easy to raise a girl as a single man…” It seems that he knows that some of the lyrics is the previous verses might have cut deep, but he justifies it with his intention of wanting her to dream big. He doesn’t want to interfere too much in her life, but at the same time it is his job.

“When she date, we wait behind the door with a sawed-off/‘cause we think no one is good enough for our daughters,” is how the song ends, in seemingly-PSA-like fashion. Nonetheless, it gets the point across. Though it was somewhat clouded by controversy, we’re very fortunate to see that there was an effort to celebrate and share the complexities of raising a daughter in the hip-hop community.

Though this song might not be as effective as “Black Girl Lost” or “I Can,” it still has as much purpose. It’s too specific of a track to become an anthem, but it’s certainly a record that could wake up some sleeping fathers and help enlighten some mischievous daughters.

The post Opinion: Nas’ “Daughters” Is Honest Portrayal of Hip-Hop Fatherhood appeared first on RESPECT. | The Photo Journal of Hip-Hop Culture.