Y'ALL (NOT) GON' MAKE ME LOSE MY MIND: Notes from a Hip-Hop Unicorn & Suicide Survivor

By Emilia A Ottoo

Embark on a transformative journey with Emma Lee M.C. as she weaves a narrative rich in challenges, triumphs, intelligent analysis, and profound introspection. Set against the striking backdrops of Uganda and Harlem, New York City, Emilia's tale unfolds as one of unyielding tenacity. From her early days as a high school dropout to standing proud

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wahida Clark Presents Publishing, LLC
• Release date: May 7, 2024
• ISBN: 9781957954516

Book preview

INTRODUCTION

CHAPTER 1

I PUT MY LIFETIME IN BETWEEN THE PAPER’S LINES

Aight so, BOOM.

I had no idea rapping along to the original Quiet Storm was saving my life. (The classic 1999 cut from The Infamous Hip-Hop duo of Mobb Deep, not the Smokey Robinson masterpiece of 1975, which helped create an entire subgenre of R&B-soul radio programming and the modern slow jams algorithm.) Of course, numerous examples of music literally saving a life exist, but I didn’t think this would count.

Many know music can help create meditative states or consciousness in the body. Rhythms that can keep you alert while studying, traveling, or operating machinery; compositions that can inspire new ways to live; songwriting that can induce better decision-making; voices that can enable spiritual breakthroughs; ambient frequencies which can break up diseases; and energy that can balance or replenish almost any mood. I didn’t think deeply about how much I liked Quiet Storm. I just thought it was a great song. My engagement with the track was as mindful as it was mindless. Still, even though I knew every lyric, I was often engaged beyond them.

It was a covert and gradual affair. I noticed a feeling of home when I’d put it on, though I didn’t know why. The music took me places further than my mind. The lyrics cleverly and repeatedly unfastened themselves without force. It brought me inside its choices and instruments. I was walking through it in a raincoat, sitting by a fire in its cave, gazing at the fight scenes of its wildly drawn anime, caught comfortably in the pupils of its predator animal. There was a spirit of a thing there that I couldn’t explain. A persistence in darkness that tapped at my nature and reminded me of something secure yet still wild. The testimony of young veterans who were supposed to die but didn’t. A sermon for those who had to become warriors quickly.

The moody, anthemic, relentlessly confessional Quiet Storm by Prodigy and Havoc of Queensbridge, New York City, became a go-to for my vocal practice and performance-ready artist training. Initially, I chose it because I had all the lyrics memorized and, thus, could use it to enhance other exercises without the need to read off something. I’d jump rope, do jumping jacks, hold planks, run, or do cardiovascular movements alongside it. Other fully memorized or lyric-heavy songs requiring strategic breathwork joined this directive, including the Wu-Tang Clan’s Triumph, Queen Latifah and Monie Love’s Ladies First, Big Pun and Fat Joe’s Twinz (Deep Cover ’98), Lauryn Hill’s Everything Is Everything, and Anita Baker’s Fairy Tales.

Legendary writer Arthur Miller once said, I guess we’re all, every artist, has a tendency to throw himself into the world to see if he floats. There’s something profoundly thoughtful about the recklessness of throwing yourself into something in life. This is something I’ve done almost stubbornly since I was a baby. I love seeing what I’m made of. Maybe because I truly believe I’m something greater than anyone has ever seen in me. This profound recklessness to dive in feels to me like humanity that will not be conquered. The evidence of a soul living, bucking the truth of being smaller than a grain of sand in the physical universe. Maximizing the gift of life, answering its call with action, and making something out of something. Creating what’s already possible.

Nobody told me to practice like this, and nobody had to. These songs transformed into physical challenges which required me to work with my body as it was. To learn it, cooperate with it, and master its command. To not just release tension to make movement possible but to open my heart, to believe in what I was doing for myself. No one taught me this at home, school, or otherwise.

In college, I always kept two sets of notes, one for what was said and the other for what I noticed or questioned. I’ve likewise always kept a private space for exploration in music and performance. The likes of high-intensity physicality to Quiet Storm put me in tune with something fundamental I needed to feel. Emotional connections and aspirational images met the vulnerability of simply relearning how to breathe. Meanwhile, riding the secure tone of Prodigy’s vocal delivery was like reciting a soldier’s prayer. It was a therapy discovered unintentionally between counselors who are also counseled.

Each time I was in the act of performance training, monitoring my respiratory system, coordinating my movement, reminding my body parts to maintain good form, and doing my best to focus away from the temporary agony—I’d also put myself in the mastery, playfulness, mystery, and imagination of the accompanying lyrics and sounds. I imagined how the artists might’ve felt as they recorded these songs. What it felt like to write such words, to swiftly illustrate details of life with acute wit and flow. To be doing what they love. To be present in the freedom of a gift. To go from being a relative unknown just creating in a room to a headlining, global, public figure. To come through a culture dismissed as a passing trend that became a billion-dollar industry, and unlike anything in human history, significantly shifted the world in less than fifty years. To be part of a meaningful blueprint, an original within a unique energy duplicated to death, sometimes even beyond recognition.

Inhales and exhales would dance across thin lines inside my Quiet Storm aerobic body, daring me to hang on. Under the physical stress of performing, each breath suddenly had an assigned or improvised purpose. They carried voice, sustained silence, or gave the body fuel, which meant any waste or misuse would be felt immediately on the next breath. As discomfort and fatigue grew, and my brain would start fight-or-flight negotiations, I’d will my heart rate to beat toward a higher power. I’d also use my third mind to pray, as legendary jazz-pianist Herbie Hancock’s twenty-seventh album said, Feets, Don’t Fail Me Now.

I’m more than familiar with the iconic Quiet Storm remix featuring Lil’ Kim too, for the record. I usually can’t resist performing along with her monstrously secure energy, especially on this track, which may be one of her tightest verses and most extraordinary vocal deliveries of all time. The mix of her unabashed grit, decisiveness, richly colored vocal tones, sexual freedom, audaciously divine feminine, and visual decadence make rapping along to any classic Lil’ Kim song an energy-raising, transformative, and, in some cases, therapeutic experience. But where her outstanding presentation on this remix moved me with its stylishly declarative I Am energy and outward performance, the original Quiet Storm moved me from the inside. A delivery of thoughts more concerned with the processes of being than the act of stating or presenting. An inward exploration that gave I Am an armored and attractive soul.

Prodigy and Havoc seemed to employ a different care on the original. The usually acceptable bravado of street lore seemed stripped of its need to perform for a sensationalized or identity-hungry audience. Instead, subtleties, soft thoughts, and small exchanges were given the limelight. Success was significant because it represented personal power, access to expansion, untouchable spiritual promotion, and the ability to uniquely survive, ascend, and choose to have something more to offer. Motivations felt less overtly Money, Power, Respect and more love, redemption, and fulfillment. Growth signifying details like the banging of jewelry on glass tables or childhood memories of an influential loved one were immersive yet whipped by in seconds, prompting more listening. I listened . . . and indeed became addicted to this diction. These were not rhymes. These were prescriptions.

This book is about intentional living, suicide prevention and awareness, and my journey with Hip-Hop, always with me through multiple fields and industries. I am a suicide attempt survivor. I’ll do my best to describe a series of events surrounding my death after life and Life After Death. I’ve called myself a unicorn because I’ve (finally) embraced being different, and there seems to be magic everywhere I go. They say children always find magic because they look for it, and all withstanding, I’ve found some in nearly every part of my life. A heightened level of passion in all my relationships, drive in all my goals, revelation in all my loneliness, resonance in all my adventures. I like to believe this is also because I’d have it no other way. Though I wasn’t always accepting or listening to them, every experience has also been met with messages, symbols, downloads, and reflections brought through nonphysical, highly coincidental, or mystical means. I’ve found synchronicity often tells me what time it is.

Simply listening and accepting these many times gave me the courage and clarity to live through a difficult day, night, or moment. They helped me respect my inner voice, open my mind, grow tired of repeating lessons, learn from others’ mistakes, and discern the wonder which still exists in people, places, and things. Though many know me as a rapper, poet, vocalist, or someone who’s generally positively spoken and outwardly encouraging, there was a period in my life when I was almost entirely mute, as well as those in which I didn’t smile. I constantly swam in my inner conflicts and disappointments, pondering, as in the Mary J. Blige My Life album, whether I’d genuinely ever Be Happy. I’m relieved to be more so on the other side, where it does get better, where there are many meaningful things to say, smile about, and enjoy observing, doing, and being . . . where silence is about peace, not punishment or precaution.

I wrote this book because I believe light is more powerful than darkness. I believe the heart could use another advocate, intelligence could use more promotion and bravery, and love could use more visibility. I believe natural sensitivity can be a superpower. I believe you can grow beyond your circumstance. Possibly, my life has been preserved through death and trials so others can be inspired back into themselves or preserved for the better. Often, people who can’t see the value or beauty in themselves can’t see what is in others, making vision very important.

I believe in the power of uniqueness, my own visions, and the visions of greatness in others. I believe in human warmth and how stories connect us. I believe few are truly living but could be. I believe the COVID-19 pandemic skewed and drained a lot of energy that can be reclaimed, transformed, or clarified at will. I believe the biggest lies are about who we are, where we are, and what we can do. I believe many of us are ready for better. I believe I must tell truths.

This is the kind of book I once needed but couldn’t find, so the feeling is amplified that I simply can’t or don’t want to hold these thoughts exclusively inside me anymore. I believe the called are qualified. I believe in imagination and creating into existence. I believe in the good work and good thinking of those who came before me. I believe better living comes from better thinking and better feeling. I believe there’s better to experience here and now, which makes unlearning necessary for most. I believe in a power within us more than any power over us.

It seems everything positioned to kill, minimize, or enslave me to the point of no return hasn’t, and this is, first and foremost, for my understanding. I believe this writing is a match for my readiness to be happier, more alive, more fulfilled, and more bada**. I believe we’re being shown something with every example, interaction, and experience, first and foremost, about ourselves. I know I’m one of infinite examples of possibility, as are you.

Throughout this book are examples of humanity, creativity, and ideas that have inspired me to feel something, keep going, embrace my uniqueness, develop my self-care, and see much more life to live. I graciously introduced some meaningful people who directly shaped my evolution. Many people, places, and things are not named because this is not a linear story of my life, and perhaps some are better in a different book or project. There are details of traumatic events in numerous sections surrounding my suicide attempt, medical emergencies, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, imprisonment, substance abuse, and sexual violence. If you’re susceptible to triggers, please be aware. Again, please also see the back of this book for more resources, support organizations, and help.

I reference cultural icons, other unicorns, and survivors throughout whose uncommon existences make me want to, as legendary musician Jimi Hendrix said, wave my freak flag higher. True to his inspiration and being somewhat of an oddball for most of my life, I’ve been encouraged to learn that some of the most outstanding examples of truly living come from unpopular places, unpredictable sources, and the unlikeliest packages.

CHAPTER 2

INCARCERATED BOOK NERDS, KARATE MONKS, AND HUE(MAN) NATURE

From a California prison cell in the 1970s, Black nationalist revolutionary icon George L. Jackson said, It’s not revolutionary to disconnect things. He’d been in prison for eleven years, mostly in solitary confinement, on a one-year-to-life sentence (now illegal) for a $70 robbery as a minor. On his journey into adulthood and becoming an acclaimed author, organizer, cofounder of the Black Guerrilla Family prison gang, and leading theoretician of the Prison Rights movement, he brought greater awareness of social politics, prison labor, inhumane treatment, and basic self-determination to the world. He did this, most notably, by reading books.

In fact, according to From Freedom Summer to Black August by Dan Berger of Dissent magazine, George and others read many books as part of a California state prison program that made numerous titles available. Unfortunately, as they read, the seeds of the world’s biggest prison boom were also being planted throughout the United States. George’s writings from this period reveal intense studies which clearly opened his mind. He was exposed to different ideas of living, making new connections, and becoming more in tune with his own intelligence and ability to observe, think critically, and discern.

Registering these psychological changes in George and other inmates, authorities made certain this program was systematically shut down. Books became less widely available, and some were even banned or provoked consequences (to this day). This class of incarcerated individuals was notoriously dubbed hyperliterate inmates. According to the National Academies Press, the incarcerated population of the United States increased sixty percent from there, doubled in the following decade, and by 1990, grew four times its 1972 size across all facility levels.

A little over twenty years later stood a stark cultural parallel in Hip-Hop. From one of his last recorded media interviews with Rob Marriott in 1996, bestselling global music icon Tupac Shakur described a rejuvenated mind-set since being released from prison and gaining chart-topping success with the legendary collective of Death Row Records.

He was a superstar at the time who may not have needed to do much else beyond making chart-topping music, yet he had expanded his consciousness about nearly everything. Doing better business in the entertainment industry, venturing into new industries, giving more artists equitable opportunities, investing in more community wellness, organizing better leadership in the Hip-Hop community, and even American politics were all discussed with the same passion as his most signature rap lyrics, if not more.

It’s not the money that I’m bragging about, when people see me with the jewels it’s not that, it’s [manifestation] to show that the last time you seen me I was in cuffs, shot up, in a wheelchair with my head wrapped up. And you see me less than a year later . . . I got this whole s*** shook up. The day I stepped out, that’s power. I didn’t get this power from guns because there’s no guns in jail. I got that power from books, and from thinking, and by strategizing. That’s what I want little n***** to see.

The June 1975 issue of martial arts-, boxing-, and wrestling-focused Black Belt magazine featured an article titled From Monastery to Tournament Floor by Jon E. Topham. In it, a young Filipino yoga monk named Dada Jii Shishir described what shaped his persuasion to join a karate tournament he came to watch in Canada at nineteen years of age. It was his first time out of the monastery in over five years. Though he entered the tournament as a startling unknown, weighing just over one hundred pounds, he reached the final rounds of both the lightweight and heavyweight divisions. By the end, he was regarded as a legend, achieving this feat despite never being in a tournament nor training in karate in over four years. He graciously spoke with interviewers:

What is your official title?

I am an acharya, which is teacher by example. It is like a priest or minister in this country.

Why would you come to Canada or the United States if your duty in life is to serve and help the suffering and starving?

Well, the way I see it, there are many people here that are suffering and starving mentally for some way to gain peace and contentment. This is why I am here.

What made you become a monk and dedicate yourself to the Brotherhood?

When I started in the monkhood, I don’t think I really wanted to become a monk. I didn’t even know what is a monkhood. I just got fed up and frustrated by all the things in society, like money, cars, dress. You have to have money all the time and be looking good all the time, being with the ladies all the time. I got into some really deep thinking, and I got to know myself a little more. You know, why am I doing something, why am I eating, why am I doing karate. I was a black belt already at this time. But it seemed to just make me too proud and very emotional. I guess I just couldn’t control my emotions. It was also too violent for me. It got to a point where I reacted with violence.

What finally allowed you to leave the monastery?

Well, every three months or so there are these examinations. The exams are different because the higher monk will just look at you and maybe ask you a question. I knew everything, and I said I was going to pass this time because I had already failed six times. He would never call me. He would call others but for six times he would not call me, and I was crying and saying he was unfair. Finally, I got more mature, and he called me. The exam was more intuition. He just looks at you and knows if you’re ready to go. He just asked me one question. He asked me, what is man’s nature? This is a very fundamental thing that every monk should know.

What is man’s nature?

Man’s nature is to realize his potential.

Lupe Fiasco opened his masterful 2015 Hip-Hop fusion album Tetsuo & Youth with a nine-minute, no-hook magnum opus titled Mural. In it, he brilliantly proposed, life is not a dictionary; it’s a thesaurus. He’d go on to make lyrical synonyms out of an abundance of provocative and sensual images. Legendary hoofer Bill Robinson tapping in Morse code for generations of barrier-breaking Black entertainers who’d follow him, apparitions using apps, suggestive parallels of the art of Stevie Wonder and Salvador Dalí. It’s one of the most relentlessly vivid paintings of pictures in word form I’ve ever heard. More than impressed at the lyrical accomplishment and bold choice to start the album this way, I admired the imagination, vision, and literacy that put everything together. I too believe in the power of synonyms, associations, and relationships. Making connections with an open mind fuels imagination, which is often necessary to eclipse suppression or limitation of any kind.

I remember reading the word hyperliterate regarding George L. Jackson and immediately relating it to all the psychological battling I did in formal education. I was often angry at the audacity to seemingly try to control, corrupt, or demean rightfully growing minds. How unlike the United Negro College Fund adage, good minds often do go to waste due to poor educational vision, execution, administration, or curriculum, even at the wealthiest institutions.

CHAPTER 3

GIRLS GO TO COLLEGE TO GET MORE KNOWLEDGE, THEY SAID

I was always a love to learn, hate school person. So, I can relate to the frustrations of Dada Jii Shishir in Black Belt magazine regarding his readiness to leave the monkhood as much as he was ready to join it. The monastery was important in affirming his direction and steering him away from the temptation to use his karate power violently. He’d come from significant achievement at a young age and gained mastery in this craft he loved. Yet, with all the discipline and focus this took, he still found himself unhappy, uninspired, unfulfilled, and even unhinged.

It took the combination of physical, mental, energetic, and spiritual training to equip Shishir with the knowledge that not only made him balanced and matchless but also fulfilled him and made him feel good about himself. I took from this a concept of dynamically bespoke education: creating a multidimensional knowledge base that suits your strengths, visions, and desires.

Thanks to intellectual breadcrumbs left by the likes of the Wu-Tang Clan, my sincere love of kung fu movies, and two semesters of Chen-style Taiji with award-winning martial arts master José Manuel Figueroa, I too was intrigued by the likes of the Shaolin Temple as a learning institution. Joining a monastery for at least a year and eventually becoming a Shaolin nun was something I briefly considered. (Women can’t become Shaolin monks in certain countries but can usually receive kung fu training.) Regarding education, I was looking for a change of pace, scenery, and approach to life which also had my mental and physical health in mind. This was part of my endless search for a knowledge base related to my skill set, who I really am, how I want to live, and what I want to do.

I remember hearing about prolific women of the Black Panther Party, who, while running most of their community and national programming in the 1960s and 1970s, would form their own schools and often restructure traditional learning approaches. Sometimes, they’d do away with the grade-level system in favor of more intuitive, communal, and ability-based methods. I always thought this was incredibly bold and out-of-the-box thinking. I never heard of anyone challenging the grade-level system used by Western education since Jimmy Crack Corn. But there’s a lot of sense in such thinking.

Education is no small thing, whether from solitude, public school, private for-profit settings, ruthless competition, or wise, loving elders. The connections or disconnections of the mind create powerful molds. What people teach themselves or are being taught is how they’re being conditioned to think. This will shape their lives and ability not just to exist or follow but create reality.

In the third grade, my parents were approached about skipping me ahead or sending me to a gifted school. They declined both. Had I gone, I wouldn’t have met my artist community like I did. Also, major news outlets, national institutions, and educational nonprofits have reported controversies about gifted programs, especially for Black children, so I’m not mad at their decision. However, there wasn’t much for me academically from then on. I wasn’t told of this decision until much later, but the effects showed themselves almost immediately. I was routinely bored and felt I was being given busy work, which didn’t have me or my gift in mind at all.

Left to my own devices, I had the most stimulating adventures, conversations, and independent studies, which continued to be the case. In contrast, stock, pipeline, or brand-name education seemed inconsistent, limited, and impersonal despite the social passes it offered. As a result, I became suspicious about how the world treated intelligence regardless of gift.

The singing chant of a children’s handclapping and jump rope game I played on many playgrounds provocatively suggested that girls go to college to get more knowledge. By nine years of age, I decided the real knowledge was being hidden, and I needed to find it for myself. I just knew this knowledge had to be somewhere; I just knew it. Somewhere were special books, special facilities, special lessons, or special teachers eager to share with someone like me.

I know some soldiers in here. Where they at, where they at?

—Destiny’s Child, Soldier

I didn’t trust the college hunch per se, but from being on college campuses where my parents worked, I noticed they felt different and had more extensive libraries. It stood to reason that maybe real brain-power training was going down in the hallowed halls of university.

Counterintuitive to some underprivileged narratives, there was a lot of insistence from the so-called urban community to go to college. By my midteens, however, I felt I’d found gold in entrepreneurship, music, writing, training, coaching, performing, understanding concepts, being a cultural bridge, and having people skills which would surpass the classroom. Now in high school, I went from a straight-A honors student to a straight-F student. I dropped out, dropped out again (this time from trade school), got a GED, took a semester of community college, and transferred to a four-year university, eventually graduating with honors, academic awards, a hard-fought major and two minor degrees.

I was already unimpressed with the prospect of having a degree by then. Common sense, vision, and practical wisdom seemed understated, and the high costs of education made no sense to me. However, I understood it meant a lot to people socially, was an easy signifier of competence, and a method of mobility. My father worked full-time as a college professor and was in education most of his life. It was why he could leave our birthplace of Uganda and move me and my mother to the United States. Imagine telling an immigrant educator you don’t value traditional education . . . How much audacity you got? A lot. *21 Savage voice* We had a handful of vigorous debates about this. I eventually decided, as my inner child had years before, maybe I’d find what I was looking for in college. It also seemed smart