Yea, I’m not afraid to fly. Here we are, in the air, barely breathing and we’re not afraid to die.

Who do people really think they are? Who do I really think I am? How do we know? There’s been studies and focal points placed on this correlation between this generation growing up in this modern day in time, and their social interaction in comparison to the past and the way things used to be. I find that most of the older generation are disturbed by the results of how there has been a shift from direct social interaction to more of an expressive indirect association.

People have always built up a representation of themselves through a collage of brand loyalty, but we’re nearing the threshold where that is the norm of expressing who we are. I like to call it, “The Evolution of Expression”. If this is the case, looking slightly deeper past the cliche stereotypes with an open mind, we start to see the artwork of true character. We find a defiance in the brands that we associate our selves with, thus answering that question, “Who do we think we are?”.

Running with this concept, I thought it would be cool to intertwine it with a photo shoot of what we consider our essentials to see how it associated with defining our character. This is who I think I am…black leather boots, Macbook Pro, Beats headphones, notepad, ballpoint pen, Adobe Suite master collection, Nixon watch, Steve Jobs autobiography, my favorite pair of jeans, 9Five sunglasses, a bottle of Johnnie Walker, iPhone, and my Realeyez gear.

I started to wonder if there is a silver lining within the products that are shown above in relation to someone else. If so, what is it?. I was also very curious if people would be able to identify me by looking at the picture above. Most of all, I kept asking myself,

How can the Realeyez brand be molded to be used by others as a brand of defiance of themselves?

As I started to analyze the brands that I had chose, I was able to pinpoint the similarities of the brand morals inline with my own. Essentially, what they stand for is what I stand for. What is it that you stand for?

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I awoke, early morning, to the sound of my alarm. I knew it was the first of many late nights followed by early mornings to come, but with that thought came a refreshing sense of relief as the voice inside my head whispered, “I’m free”. I did one last walk through the house before closing the back of the Uhaul. As I padlocked the pull down my phone rang. I looked a the caller id and it read, Dcypher Sound, “You ready?”, I replied, “You already know.” He said, “Alright, let’s get it then.”, and we were off. Bumping Fresh Prince of Bel-Air as I waved farewell to the family and my hometown of Fort Mill, we hit the road due west.

Through the transformation of this long anticipated dream molding into a reality, much like a caterpillar to a butterfly, we were on our way. Hopped up on caffeine, and high expectations we decided to keep driving through the night. After a 36 hour stretch on the road, and officially getting the nod of approval from the average trucker, we decided it was best to turn in and get some sleep. Unfortunately at the time that we made this decision when we were in the middle of the desert between New Mexico and Phoenix. Like a mirage on the horizon of our delusional vision, there was a sign that read, “Sky City Casino & Hotel“. We checked in and clocked out for next 8 hours.

Waking up around 3:00am, somewhat refreshed, we checked out were on the road again by 4:00am. While breaking up the drive throughout the day, we realized that we weren’t going to make it to our destination in time to move in.  ”What to do?”, I asked myself as I closed my eyes. At that time, Kanye’s, “All Of The Lights” started to play and flashbacks of previous trips to Vegas exploded like firecrackers in my head, like flashbacks from the hangover. As it turns out, I was able to get a free room for the night because the previous investments that I had made out in Vegas on past trips. Right when we got there I pulled a scene from HBO’s Entourage, and threw down a black chip on red, leaving it to luck, or destiny, or fate, or whatever you want to call it to determine the outcome of this trip. It hit, and from that point on I decided that there was no looking back.

On the road again, but at this point with a sense of anxiety mixed with enlightenment and ambition to do better we rounded a corner and could see the city skyline in the distance.

I looked at my kingdom. I was finally there, the city of angels, with a dream and a prayer.

Our destination was on the horizon. This time we were anything but tired, and our delusions were that of dreams overflowing from our insights. I thought to myself as we pulled up to our new place, “This is my life, and I haven’t come this far to be anything less than something more, something great.” I looked at the team and in an instant, without saying a word, we realized what it would take to accomplish what we set out to do. All welcoming the idea of a simple realization (real-eyez-n-ation), our time is now.

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This Friday night has been quite an enlightening experience through my eyes man. After everything that I had planned building up to kick off this weekend I was pleasantly surprised by the turn of events. I had been juggling the previous commitments that I made , and prioritizing the sequence of what I should do in relation to who I am and who I want to be. That’s some pretty deep shit for a Friday night, right? Well luckily for me, what I had planned and what actually ended up doing fell on two extremes of the same spectrum. I kicked off the night pouring up a crisp hefeweizen local brew and cooking up some solid burgers with my dad and a good friend of mine. I had plans to go out, but ended up blowing them off to kick the shit with the old man. He was given a bottle of Makers Mart from our neighbor as a gift, so we mutually decided to crack the bottle shortly after dinner. We kicked back and turned on Shark Tank while engaging in some light business conversation, which quickly lead into discussion of investment strategies. After finishing my first drink, I got a return phone call from a long lost aquatiance, and street-wear connoisseur. After exchanging some brief formalities we got down to business and started talking about the industry and exchanging input on our own perceived business models. Suddenly, it clicked for the both of us, we can really help each other out. We left it with scheduling a follow up meeting to discuss details.

Picking back up with my dad, we started to discuss how and why things happen the way that they do, when the do. It progressed into a deeper discussion of the state of humanity of the world nowadays. At this point, we cracked that bottle of Makers a few hours back and were officially getting “turned up” sitting on the VIP couches in our living room. Around capping the 5th or 6th drink I acknowledged a self developmental realization. You ever heard the saying, “drink to your heart’s content.”? I do just that. I realized that I reep the remorse for others actions. I let it weigh on me like I was the one in their shoes, and drinking to my hearts content consists of temporarily letting that go and replacing it with a comforting buzz. I’m not talking about drinking in excess to escape. I’m talking about a no worries Jimmy Buffet kind of drunk. I figured acknowledging this was something worth sharing.

After a few more drinks our rebuddles turned into attempted one liners of comedic relief. Turns out, I got my sense of humor from my dad. We topped off the night with a handful of heavy laughs, and one final cheer. I was rejuvenated with a sense of enlightenment and headed to bed while checking off this night as a success in my book.

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It’s a fact that the most successful public schools are in the wealthier zip codes, and the worst public schools are in the poorest zip codes. I’ve heard these public school reformers complain about the effect of living in poverty on children, and how it shadows their academic achievement. I’ve heard the complaints for years from people who just like to make excuses for bad teachers and use them as an excuse from the learning of their own. There will always be bad teachers and poverty, but that doesn’t mean progress with public school reform can’t be made. We not only fail to hold individual students accountable for poor performance, we have also failed to hold the entire government-controlled school system accountable for its performance since at least World War II. Public education, itself, is a failure. Why should individual students follow its example?

Making teachers individually responsible for their student’s progress is counterproductive, and this seems to be the only focus when talking about improving public education or education as a whole. I have the feeling that it’s not who’s teaching the material, but the material that is being taught. As of now, public schools are falling into the non-competition trap where the average kid is the model student and the smarter kids are made to feel guilty and ostracized…Why?

I believe that the curriculum should be restructured and evolved from the current approach being used. The modern advances in technology should be utilized to eliminate costs of physical materials such as books and paper etc. Make it mandatory for each student to purchase an iPad. Create payment plans for the individuals that can’t afford them. The basic skills being taught (reading, writing, arithmetics etc.) should be incorporated into elective classes reflective of modern real world scenarios, and these elective classes should be offered as choices to the students and parents throughout. Funding should be determined by student body performance not intertwined social programs or even areas of poverty.

It doesn’t make sense to me that people are being taught in a reactive way where they react based off of what they are told to do. I feel like this cripples the development of imagination and innovation within the individual. Instead it falls into this idea of socialist conditioning by structuring a hierarchy of power. I remember always getting in trouble through school from asking questions. Sure, I would throw in a sprinkle of sarcasm from time to time to get the teachers to flex their authority to prove a point, but my opinion was rarely acknowledged much less understood through confrontation. For these reasons, I’ve taken it upon myself to add restructuring a curriculum for public schools to my to do list.

This conflict has inspired me to create a concept for a t-shirt titled “Daydreaming” that I will be releasing. Share your thoughts, you might get hooked up.!?R

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I really thought that, here at Realeyez Apparel, we have a nontraditional approach to a lot of the things we do, especially in our workflow. However, new experiences bring new inspiration. This weekend I received a heavy dose of inspiration after answering a 3:30am phone call. It was an interview call that I was actively trying to set up earlier in the week. After a short introduction and phoning in a third-party, I found myself talking with the voice that had been stuck in my head for the past couple weeks. He goes by his last name, Caskey, and is the newest member of Cash Money Records. There was an interesting correlation connecting the similarities in the concepts behind his music and his general perspective as an individual that was expressed through our conversation. I was instantly intrigued by the fact that he was on the come up in Orlando, FL and I was curious to talk with the man behind the mic.

“Man, it’s surreal. I still have the same mindset as it relates to me, but it’s crazy how other people view me. I’m having to respond to all these people on Facebook and Twitter. People really don’t know who I am, but they can relate to my music, so they kind of do.”

I knew that given such a short period of time I would only be able to scratch the surface of what I was looking to uncover through our conversation. We talked about influence, inspiration, experience, awareness, and other deep topics of consideration as it relates to his career and general perspective. Every answer was well-formed and articulated creating a constant anticipating that he might break into a freestyle at any point. I think this stemmed strongly from the similarities between the concepts behind his songs and the topics we discussed. He talked about his open-mindedness as an individual and how he likes to, ironically, go with the flow outside of the studio. He talked about breaking the mold of being a follower and finding himself as an artist, and the inspiration that signing with Cash Money has brought his way. I have always been curious and some might even say envious to wonder what it feels like to be in a position to have people anxiously awaiting to hear what you have to say. I explained to Caskey how I touch on this aspect indirectly with our audience through the visual representations of our concepts, but I wanted to know what it felt like to connect directly. He explained, “Man, it’s surreal. I still have the same mindset as it relates to me, but it’s crazy how other people view me. I’m having to respond to all these people on Facebook and Twitter. People really don’t know who I am, but they can relate to my music, so they kind of do.”

“It’s more than pushing what’s raw and getting fucked up, like what’s portrayed to be the lifestyle. It’s about always being conscious of the position that you’re in. It’s trying to be honest with music analyzation and the sense of creating a connection in the 3 or so minutes that I have when making a song.”

We went on to discuss how the lifestyle of an artist is portrayed, and the importance of collaborative cooperation between the artist and his/her production team. The one thing that Caskey said that stuck with me was, “It’s more than pushing what’s raw and getting fucked up, like what’s portrayed to be the lifestyle. It’s about always being conscious of the position that you’re in. It’s trying to be honest with music analyzation and the sense of creating a connection in the 3 or so minutes that I have when making a song.” He went on to explain that it’s essential to be able to work hand in hand with your production team because you have to be able to open yourself up and come to them with your concepts and ideas. He said, “There’s a level of vulnerability that’s reached when you open yourself to someone and share your ideas. There’s two parts to every song and there’s a shared responsibility between the artist and producer to make it complete.” He said that’s why he likes the way Cash Money approaches things with their artists because they’re essentially there as a powerhouse resource. He said, “They let you create on your own, and that was a big selling point for me to signing with Cash Money.”

To wrap things up, we changed to a more abstract focus. We talked about what we would change in the industries that we were in and the world around us. Both of our considerations revolved around good intentions and innovative aspirations. After shortly going back and forth and finding ourself agreeing with each other, I closed with asking him what he wanted people to realize… whether it be through his work, his life, his legacy.  What do you want people to realize? It seems like it’s such a simple question, yet it carries such a complex answer. After a few moments of silence on the other end of the phone, I thought I had finally got him. I was about to say something to break the silence when he replied…

“I want to portray an awareness for the better through what I do and what I represent. I want people to be able to relate through each other with a down to earth approach. Since music is undoubtably the rawest form of expression I think that it can be used as almost a movement to get those points across, and that’s what I’m going to try to get them to realize.”

I saw a tweet the other day that read, “Shouldn’t people be stoked about their homies coming up?”. I started to think about the way it was phrased and how it was intended. Although, I’m not affiliated or involved with Caskey’s progression, I’m proud of him as if I were celebrating the success of a good friend. At the end of the day, I think we can relate through a like-minded creative. Until next time, this has been Realeyez Apparel baking up a realization through the music and mind of Orlando, FL based Cash Money artist, Caskey.!?R

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Nothing pisses me off more than a tweet or a post from a company desperately asking for you to follow or like them, and I don’t think I’m alone on this one. Most of the time, they’ll even throw in a thank you at the end and pretend that makes everything alright. First of all, this approach is not creative, effective, or publicly accepted. Why do companies think it’s alright? It’s kind of the same reason that you see all these tech companies copying Apple’s innovation, but in this case it’s missing that innovation. It has created a waterfall effect of bad marketing and branding practices flooding the social realms of awareness. From my knowledge and experience as a potential follower, companies that ask me to follow or like their account instantly turn me away from the company/brand. Through my eyes it’s seen as social spam and depreciates my views of that brand or company. Here are my reasons why it’s a bad move.

1.) People don’t want to be told what to do.

They want to be the ones credited with the respect to make a decision, and in return will value what you have to say. Sure, it might cut down the amount of followers that you might have, but that brings up the age old choice of quality or quantity. The thing with social media is that you’re most effective through interaction. Therefore, having 100 followers that retweet or respond to the majority of your tweets is more effective than having 1,000 followers that don’t respond, but people get wrapped up thinking the number of followers directly dictates their credibility. These social platforms have created a digital form of the word of mouth approach, and that approach is and should always be indirect.

2.) It’ll depreciates your brand and generates negative word of mouth.

The idea of word of mouth is simple. It’s having people, ideally within your demographic, talk positively to their peers about your company. The opposite effect is indirectly generated when socially asking people to like or follow something. It’ll make people actively complain about your post or tweets to their friends, and that’s never a desirable outcome.

3.) Influence trumps ever other approach.

Take some of your favorite brands/companies for example. Why do you like those brands/companies? It’s because they’re an influential part of your life. You respect them and look to them as you would a mentor, and the big reason is that they don’t tell you what to do on a whim. Sure, they’ll have campaigns and events that they’ll promote, but they do it in a way that makes you want to be a part of it. That’s influence.

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INFLUENCERS is a short documentary that explores what it means to be an influencer and how trends and creativity become contagious today in music, fashion and entertainment.

The film attempts to understand the essence of influence, what makes a person influential without taking a statistical or metric approach.

Written and Directed by Paul Rojanathara and Davis Johnson, the film is a Polaroid snapshot of New York influential creatives (advertising, design, fashion and entertainment) who are shaping today’s pop culture.

This is by far one of the most inspiring short films that I’ve ever come across. I know this is an older film and some of you might have seen it before, but take a few minutes to watch it again.

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I wanted to write a blog addressing my viewpoints on this Nostradamus scare that’s quickly approaching with the predictions of the end of the world as we know it. Can you really believe it after the failed millennium blackout scare? Albeit, it’s easy to buy into if you watch a few weighted documentaries on the subject. Is it possible for us to artificially create the events predicted because of a subliminal spark from believing it’s going to happen?

It seems to me like the world is fighting for life, while we’re fighting for death.

There’s no doubt that the world and the people in it are slowly building up to an event or series of events that will result in a catastrophic shift in humanity. The first thing that we have to understand is that the Earth is proven to be an equilibrium, meaning it replenishes itself much like each of us as individuals. Yet, consider people cancer to the Earth that has slowly been growing over the years. You can correlate our major cities to tumors and roads to the Earths veins giving us access to travel and contaminate all over. Look at these significant natural disasters that have been on the rise in the past years as a dose of chemotherapy radiation. It seems to me like the world is fighting for life, while we’re fighting for death.

I had to get that thought across before expressing my views on the whole Nostradamus theory. Nostradamus was a prophet that made predictions about the future in a book with seven symbolic drawings and a book called The Prophecies which contains hundreds of quatrains. He was an occultist who was supposedly demon possessed and used divination to come up with his prophecies. The thought of his prediction often arises the discussion of the book of revelations, but what many people don’t realize is that the book of revelations is not about the end of the world. It was actually written by a “Christian” who was like an activist crusading for traditional values. He most likely wasn’t like what people viewed as a Christian today.

Nostradamus is a prediction of what’s going to happen. It’s like the weather, although we have the radar to detect and track it we can determine a prediction, but can’t guarantee anything. Look at what we as humans have been through, from cavemen to modern-day business men, we’re ever-changing. Some of those changes are monumentally good and some are monumentally bad, but change is the only constant. I believe the book of revelations is generational based focusing on an individual perspective. Wouldn’t you consider The Great Depression, World Wars, and 911 to all be catastrophic events that shifted humanity? It’s about you as a person overcoming the obstacles that life throws in front of you and evolving through it all. It’s about standing tall through the despair of the unknown by knowing yourself.

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I’ve been holding off to write a feature about the upcoming Orlando, FL artist Caskey. I was introduced to him through a friend and immediately after listening to his most recent mixtape, No Complaints, I tried to reach out. I got in touch with CSR Promotions and discussed sending down a package of product and setting up an interview. I send a package of t-shirts and the Combat Chains down. I wanted to show support to a fellow artist repping where we got our start. I knew he was going to hit the spotlight, but I didn’t realize it would be so fast. The interview was initially scheduled for the following Monday, but fell through upon Caskey officially signing with Cash Money Records…The outcome is to be determined, but in the mean time take a look at his most recent video release, Words. It’s a lyrical realization that pinpoints the everyday issues of conflict and confrontation.

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I’ve noticed that there’s a strong stereotype attached to organized religion. How is it that there are thousands of religions and religious beliefs out there but every one, individually, believe their religion is higher than others? How can people judge others based on their religion alone and not who they are as a person? There’s a moral base to every religion, from Muslim or Catholic. It’s that idea of doing the right thing for yourself and the others around you. The problem arrises when people cross the threshold of offering up blind faith because they are giving up their ability to question. I understand that the thought of this might offend some people, but I need those of you to understand that is not my intentions. I’m simply offering that idea of questioning to come to your own conclusion.

People ridicule me when it comes to my religious beliefs, or lack there of, but I see GOD as an acronym, Gaining Ones Definition. By finding yourself you define your judgment of character. Therefore, only GOD can judge me.

That statement above is the conclusion that I’ve come to in the consideration of what I believe. The thing that makes humans different from everything else is our self-awareness and the concept of self-consciousness. It’s the conscious of oneself as an individual, and the feeling that “everyone is looking” at oneself. Self-consciousness is what makes people followers where as self-awareness makes people leaders, but it all has to do with oneself. I simply can’t believe in the idea of organized religion because it all points back to the individual, and figuring out who you are as a person. I neither right nor wrong, just aware…

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