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[Music]
CHRISTOPHER EMDIN: My name is Christopher Emdin and this is what's trending in my world.
[Music]
Right now the big thing that's really bothering me is this crop of "hip hop educators" who
are using just rap so the idea of hip hop education is, hey kids, here's a rap, memorize
it. I mean, it just irks me because it's just like, it's like, we've had the commercialization
of hip hop and it's destroyed the culture almost but people are still surviving and
now when we move into the world of education that these folks are commercializing even
that and it's like, ugh, please stop! Nursery school raps get on my nerves, like I don't
want you to be like—uh—after every bar. That time is over with as far as I'm concerned.
Y'know, I love young people and I love their expressions of self in their varied ways,
but if you're gonna do skinny jeans, why are they sagging? I come from a generation where
we had the baggy jeans and they sagged a bit and the skinny jeans are slim jeans, so if
they're slim jeans it just shouldn't sag at the same time. So whenever I have young people
in front of me, I don't say, y'know, why you rocking your skinny jeans? But the fact that
your skinny jeans are completely hanging off, y'know, I just can't personally rock with
that. That's just my thing. I'm excited by NASA in 2013. These folks are like, we're
gonna go to the Red Planet, y'know, I mean that to me is just absolutely amazing. I'm
excited also now that y'know being a nerd is back. Y'know what I mean? I've always considered
myself a nerd a nerd with a certain je ne sais quoi. I wouldn't say swag. Like swag
is played out. Y'know, thick glasses and bow ties and suspenders and—and wingtips and
colorful socks. But y'know, being well-dressed is back and that's exciting for me because
I love dressing. NAZ's Illmatic will forever and ever and ever just be like—it's so beautiful.
The thing with me and hip hop is I actually where I am the first time I hear an album
or hear a song. It's like I remember the first time I heard Party & Bullish by Biggie. I
was in the cafeteria at Brooklyn Tech on the 7th floor and my friend walks over and he
has this little like tape player thing and he plays this song and the voice was just
so powerful and it just was like it was our life in Brooklyn at that moment captured.
The living person that I most admire is my mom. Lillith Emdin is a person who has overcome
such adversity and is still as strong as ever. She recently graduated with a divinity degree
a couple months ago. She was a nurse. It didn't work out, so she said, okay, that's fine.
I'll take another journey, so she became a naturopath. That didn't work out. So she found
divinity and she's never been scared to reinvent herself. I like Einstein swag. Like my rhyme
was like I left Newton, I was on the Einstein. I like Einstein cuz Einstein's mind is like
mine. His formula was E = MC squared, which is weird because me is your favorite emcee
squared. I just love the story of his life. The fact that he was in school and didn't
necessarily do well and he took all these odd jobs and he came to the United States
and he was an immigrant and he dealt with all these issues in his life where he was
torn with what his research became versus what he wanted it to be. He had commentary
on art and life and music and history as well as science. That's my dude. Einstein is my
dude. I'm Christopher Emdin. You need to subscribe to THNKR like yesterday.