best album of 2019

Happy Birthday to the GOAT

Happy Birthday Solo. 🤍

The drought between true and asatt was grueling

hopefully this gap won't last too long

wish there was an hq version of this cover

in

😍

Images from Harper's BAZAAR (2020)

Poetry and Essays

Rice Water

we talked about rice for what felt like hours

grains and the sketches of faces that each one takes on

we see our mothers

we hear their voices and all the ways they speak to us

hug us

and yell at us to go to our rooms

we feel the bottomless and the otherness of being so full there is nothing left

there is no more room to eat

we see our land

we feel the warmth in our bellies

pass us more

pass us more

for once, we never say if it's brown or white

but there's a silence that says that it's ours

Today in therapy I continue to practice speaking to my inner child. That s*** is so f***ing hard!

She is deeply wounded by painful messages from the outside world. So deeply hurt and tired of "turning the other cheek" and being strong. Trying to reconcile that the judgements on her life are really a reflection of others' own internal judgements and don’t belong to her.

I send love to every child who so publicly has had to endure such painful criticism out in the world when they are already internalizing it amongst the spaces and people that should make them feel safe.

Something about your kindness, patience, and love for me makes me want to be a more kind, loving, and patient woman. Thank you. For the growth. For the stretching. For the remaining of the same. For the parts of me that were dormant that have now been awakened. For the joy. For the rain. For giving me seeds I want to water.

We planted the soil

the root and the pain

We lied in the bass of the earth

Went to the center

the core

like a pulp

Veena like a vein—I'll never forget locking hands and fingers and nails and the lines in our palms trying to touch all the feelings like show and tell

feel and say

Everything and nothing at all

drop a book already

More Poetry & Essays!

The hardest lessons to learn are the longest to learn

Are the ones that chew you up

Spit you out

Make you crawl

Eat you alive

Grit your teeth

Wrench your guts

And then make you repeat seven times for good luck and riddance.

Showed up to the Jill and Badu battle, red wine in hand

Friends on Zoom

Thinking 'bout the balm that is waking up in this Black woman body and clicking this Black woman's tongue on the roof of this Black woman's mouth

Wouldn't want it any other way.

Showed up to the Babyface joint

Thinking 'bout my mama's warm love and my mama's past pain, and all the ways I took both on, singing each one of those songs on car radios like they were my own stories to tell.

Showed up to the Brandy and Monica battle

Thinking 'bout what it means to sacrifice and devote so much of your life to your gifts and how much appreciation we pay forward to being on the receiving end.

i cry for our pain

for our protection

for every forgotten moment we feel robbed of in life

for the abuse we endure

for our sickness and loss of health

for the way the trauma kills us when our oppressors and our own men don't

for our healing journeys

for the way we rise for one another when we can't do the lifting on our own

Today

Today, I affirm, will be a beautiful day

I will look for the good in all things

I will look for the love in all corners of time

I will listen to myself and be okay with the discomfort, but never let fear lead me

I will be a loving and patient mom

I will replace feelings of doubt with feelings of love

I will breathe

Surprised Earl had a writing credit on beltway

dam didn't know he did

Solange kinda like the Janet of interludes now

every single one of them on WIGH and ASATT is perfectly placed

dreams

they come a long way

not today

not today

Oh yes Im in.
I know her next album will be influenced by her divorce. A masterpiece is on the way

Solo like to shop, Solo bought the mall (Yeah)
Solo brought the guap, Solo throwed it all (Woo)
Guwop not Polo (It's Gucci)

🔥🔥🔥