My deep and passionate love of all things hip-hop & R&B prompted me to see the movie “NOTORIOUS” this weekend. I went with a friend and felt slightly bad that perhaps I was dragging her to all these hip-hop movies (the last time we saw a movie I had suggested “The Wackness”), recognizing that not everyone shares my musical preferences, or um, obsessions. However, during a scene where the Lil’ Kim character is performing, my friend surprised me by singing along to every single word, revealing her own hip-hop love.
At the end of the movie, Biggie is described a storyteller. I love the stories that music tells, and the ways in which it tells them; different than a book read or words spoken, how it reaches out in its own way and connects with people, weaving them into its beats and rhymes.
One of my favorite things to do is have dance parties for one in my apartment. I turn on R&B or hip-hop and turn it up, loud, and groove around the room. My Facebook status update is often something along the lines of: “Jennifer is rocking out to Girl Talk” or “Jennifer is basking in “The Light” by Common,” or “Jennifer is listening to Beyonce & ready to take on the day!” Dance parties for one are a surefire way to lift my mood and get my energy pumping.
And sometimes, I get so overwhelmed with my desire to MOVE, that I will take my dance party on the road, and bring it on the subway during my rush hour commute, or into the streets, in a contained way on the exterior, but in my mind, I am full-out rocking out. Since seeing “NOTORIOUS” on Sunday night, the song “Notorious B.I.G” feat. Puff Daddy and Lil’ Kim has been playing in my head on a continuous loop. I was walking/dancing-in-a-contained-way around my Brooklyn neighborhood singing it under my breath all day on Monday, and that afternoon, I had a lunch at a cafe, and then found myself mid-move, shakin’ it as I was drying my hands under the hand dryer in the bathroom, and I hadn’t totally realized that I had been dancing, nor had a made a conscious decision to start. I just could not help myself, what with No-No-No-Notorious playing in mind.
On Tuesday, I emailed some friends that if I did not go dancing soon I was going to explode, and we are now planning a Girls Night Out to take this dance party to the dance floor. I sent them YouTube links to Biggie videos while I danced in my chair and one of my friends wrote back, “I’m glad Biggie got you thinking Big…” I asked my nearby co-workers if it was OK with them if I played “Notorious B.I.G” out loud on my computer instead of with headphones on and they said yes, turns out they have their own love for hip-hop, too. You just cannot sit still, you cannot be in bad mood, when you listen to this song.
I looked up the word “notorious” on Dictionary.com and it is defined as “publicly or generally known, as for a particular trait.” And the chorus of the song goes: “No-No-No-Notorious, we are, we are, No-No-No-Notorious…” What if we could be notorious in our own lives, known by those near and maybe even those far, for…our creativity, our boldness, our chutzpah & courage, our thinking-outside-of-the-box-ness, our dancing-in-the-street-ness, our refusal to be confined, our rejection of limitation, our fierce determination to follow our bliss and live juicy & large and never settle for less, our extraordinary commitment to ourselves, our absolute dedication to living our lives, creating our existence, exactly in line with our pure pulsating spirits and our most authentic alive selves, designing our days to shimmer with excitement and glow with possibility, being the way we want to be, and not the way someone, or someones, or society says we should be, never defaulting exhaustedly on auto-pilot, but rather revving up our own engines to the tune of our blasting internal radios, moving our bodies energetically to the rhythm of the beats and the rhymes, telling our own stories, in our own voices, in our own ways, in our own sweet time? Why then, we truly would be, No-No-No-Notorious. We are. We are. No-No-No-Notorious.
Just press PLAY, and start to rock your life…
Copyright © 2009 by Jennifer Garam
One Writeous Chick 