Morning Dew
drippy lip
bomb
lip balm
psalms, songs and alms and all.
Hip Hop Pops: Macho Ortega
Recently, researchers at Harvard discovered the gene that codes for Hip Hop. The breakthrough confirms what many heads have long suspected: if your mom and dad have swag, this greatly increases your chance of inheriting it.
And such is the case with today’s Hip Hop Pops, a Tunnel Rat cat– Rosario Macho Ortega, whose love for the outdoors and work with his prodigous son, Nahoa, proves that the rap apple doesn’t fall far from the rap tree.
We’re under quarantine, so I emailed Macho a few questions. Yes, I was wearing a mask when I sent it. No, I wasn’t wearing any pants. Yes, I was wearing shorts. No, they weren’t Dockers.
1. What’s your first hip hop memory?
I grew up in Boston in a neighborhood called Mission Park. It was essentially a nicer version of the projects because although it was subsidized housing / Section 8 it was a townhome community. (In Boston, when a hospital or university wants to develop land the city requires them to also create affordable housing… just an interesting fact).
In our neighborhood we had an annual block party, and people of all ages would go up and perform. When I was about 6 or 7 years old I heard a guy named “Ant” get on the microphone and just totally murder it. That was the first time I had really seen Hip Hop live and in-person in a way that really made a lasting impression on me.
2. Why did you decide to rhyme?
Those block parties had lots of memorable moments and I remember also hearing La Di Da Di for the first time when I was about 9 years old.
I had the song in my head and just memorized it from the live show. I couldn’t stop repeating the lyrics. It felt so comfortable and natural to me.
Somewhere around that same time, like 1985-1986, I also remember visiting my cousin and seeing some break dancers dance to “Jam On It.” The first time I heard that and saw them spinning on the cardboard boxes I was buggin.
Those were just 2 elements of Hip Hop culture but I wasn’t aware it was even a culture, it was just there all around me. Within at least one year I submitted my name for that local block party and did my first performance.
After that man the rest is history. I formed a group with my sister Elsie and we became New Breed. This is us in the mid 90’s
We later moved to Los Angeles to join the Tunnel Rats and created some pretty cool music for the next 10-12 years individually and collectively.
Here are a couple of classic moments rocking live
I made my last record called “Remember” in 2011 then started my business shortly thereafter and really focused on entrepreneurship and family.
3. Who’s your favorite TV dad?
It’s been a while since I’ve watched any TV shows with a traditional dad… and the most common choice has been eliminated from the running so if I have to think of another one I guess it would be Uncle Phil from The Fresh Prince. Off screen I had tons of great fatherly examples in my real life. That’s one of the reasons why I always loved the idea of marriage and family. Of course I saw my share of broken families but I had great mentors who had healthy relationships and I aspired to have that in my life as well.
4. What’s your favorite family memory as a kid?
I used to love when my dad would take us all to the lake. We lived in the city and we didn’t really get a chance to be around nature too much. We would spend the whole day out there playing frisbee, jumping in the water and just hanging out. It was a very rare occasion but a very unique environment compared to where I grew up. We had a lot of challenges growing up but I always remember those specific days just being a ton of fun.
5. Tell us about your family: names, ages, interests.
I’m Macho ( real name Rosario)
I’m 43 years old.
I own a cleaning agency. And in my free time I like to go camping, hiking, bike riding, I also like to catch a good matinee and watch live music preferably straight-ahead jazz or Latin jazz if possible.
My wife is Jamie. She has a PhD in natural medicine. She owns Oasis Healing Arts in Whittier.
She’s been practicing for about 17 years and she was my original inspiration for starting my own business and being an entrepreneur. She grew up in Hawaii so naturally she loves the beach but she likes to head out to the trails and go camping with us as well. We have been married 18 years. She also homeschools our boys since she’s the smart one 🙂
My oldest son is Nahoa.
He’s 12 years old. He’s a natural talent. Singer-songwriter emcee, piano player, actor.
But when he’s not performing he’s truly a bookworm and a research nerd. The kind of kid that starts every sentence with “Did you know…” He reads anything and everything from apologetics to comics.
My youngest is Keoni. He’s 8 years old. He is a fun-loving, happy-go-lucky kid full of joy and passion. We call him “Tank” sometimes because he’s tough and unstoppable lol. He’s got a talent for cooking and hospitality, which is such a cool expression of his fiery energy. Both of my boys are having a great time with our beagle puppy, Zoe, that we just brought into the family in June. They are really raising and training her. They take that responsibility seriously and they do a great job.
Keoni is also taking up the drums.
6. What’s a movie or TV series you guys like watching together?
We like to do a lot of superhero movies. We’ve gone through the whole Marvel universe and all the DC movies as well. Jamie and I also loved the series “Homeland” and “Alone.”
7.Tell us about your passion for the outdoors. Where did it come from? Why lean into it with the family?
Well I guess based on my previous answer I got a tiny glimpse of it as a kid when my dad would take us to the lake. But for the most part I’m a city boy all the way. My brother-in-law invited us out to a camping trip about 6 years ago. It was your typical car camping but once I was out there in the woods something just clicked and as I explored all of the possibilities and talked to my brother-in-law about some of his other trips I really caught the bug. Soon thereafter we went on a backpacking trip and from that point on it was almost always wilderness camping far removed from civilization. We took the kids with us all the time, we did lots of hikes in between for conditioning and preparation and my boys have gone on 3-8 mile backpacking wilderness camping trips. You know the kind of camping where there’s no toilets, no running water, everything you pack in you have to pack out and leave no trace behind. There’s something really dope about being 10,000 ft above sea level in the middle of the forest with nobody around and as long as you come prepared it can be a great experience. Recently me and a couple of friends hiked the San Gorgonio mountains. It’s the highest peak in southern California at 11,500 ft.
We probably go on maybe six camping trips a year sometimes more and it’s a special time I get to spend with the family. Once this puppy grows up we can add her to the trail with us and she can really become part of the crew.
8. What’s a favorite camping destination?
So far San Gorgonio has been the best for me as far as personal accomplishment. But in terms of family destinations I love going to Big Bear with family. We have a cabin there but we also go camping and it’s literally a second home.
9. Tell us about your son’s music.
Yea man… Nahoa Life (his real middle name) Nahoa means “bold & brave” in Hawaiian.
Like I said before he is a natural talent. We’ve always had a piano in the house and from the time he could sit on the bench he would sit down at the piano and just start playing melodies and singing and creating since he was probably 3 years old. He watched me rap and write when he was younger and he used to spit some funnystyles freestyles as a kid (before he became self aware)
Obviously it wasn’t genius prodigy musicianship but I could tell that it was in his blood. You know I learned there’s a scripture that says “train up a child in the way that he should go and when he is old he will not depart from it.” To me this means that it’s my job to observe my children’s inclinations and the things that they lean into naturally. As a father I’m supposed to nurture, guide, teach and encourage those things… so that’s what I’ve been working on with him.
He is so comfortable and natural and professional in the studio it’s pretty crazy people trip out when they’re working with him. I am constantly getting feedback and comments that there’s no way he could write his own stuff just based on his age, but Nahoa is an exceptionally gifted writer. Of course as his father and someone who has written music all my life I’m involved in the process and I write with him but he’s got a lot to say and he’s only getting started.
Being a musician I honestly had mixed feelings about him aspiring to become a professional musician simply because I personally knew the cost and the challenge associated with that. We have lots of good honest discussions within our family and he’s a very smart boy. He’s able to make his own wise decisions so as his talent grew and as his love for music and performance grew, one day when he was just about to be 11 he told me that he wanted to really start pursuing music more seriously and entering contests and that whole world. So within a few months we entered a national singing competition and he won. He was offered a horrible six year 360 deal much like the ones people would get if they win The Voice so I straight-up had to turn it down. We decided from that point that I would personally produce and develop him and that’s when we started writing and recording music.
A little less than a year later in April of 2020 we released his first 3 singles along with music videos and will be releasing new music all throughout the rest of this year and next year on a very regular basis along with music videos.
He’s got an extremely bright future ahead of him. I can very clearly envision him as a mega super star. I really think that he has the potential to affect change in the world by way of people’s hearts and minds through his music. The readers can check him out for themselves and see whether or not they agree.
All of his videos are on the website
10. What advice do you have for parents looking to nurture their kids artistic pursuits?
Open honest loving conversation is key. Teaching your children who have musical or entertainment-related aspirations to think for themselves and set their own goals. I think creating their own metrics for success is in my opinion very important. Of course if you’re like me and you have experience with the industry then you should help to set realistic expectations and time frames, but as a parent I try to simply remind Nahoa of his own goals and desires and say if you want to reach this goal within this timeframe then this is what is required… so you decide if you want to watch that next TV show or if you want to go upstairs and practice the piano or write a new song or whatever.
When they see what they can accomplish with your help then they will start to take on more independent responsibility. If you are doing everything for them then I don’t see how it can be a sustainable path to success.
All that being said however, learning an instrument in our house is a non-negotiable. Becoming a mega Superstar is not the goal. Discipline, focus, creativity and expression can all be developed as one learns an instrument. So even when they are being kids and they don’t want to practice… that’s when I will step in and say there’s no choice in the matter. But in our house we don’t force classical music or even traditional theory. During their lessons they can learn to play the music they love. If they’re doing that consistently throughout their entire childhood then they will learn how to read and write music in the process even if it takes longer.
11. Where can we stay plugged into the fam?
Our IGs are
Peep our Hip Hop Pops interviews with Apakalips, Propaganda, Judah 1, Red Cloud, Elias, Shames Worthy, Bess Kepp, Legal Alien and Triune.
Blow The Whistle: Picking Up After Students at Brandeis U
I washed dishes w/ Hugo Asamoah (Kif) during our first year at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts.
We were students in the Brandeis Transitional Year Program (TYP). Me, one of 4 Mexican-Americans on campus and Kif from Cambridge’s Malden Sqaure, alumnus of Ringe & Latin and a smack talking, hood genius.
For the unawares, Brandeis is was and forever will be predominately Jewish. The college was started in the late 40’s as a response to rampant anti-semitism in the Ivy League. The student body in the early 90s was 80%+ white (this is anecdotal but I did search for exact numbers and nada).
After MLK Jr was assassinated in ’68, black students on campus demanded the administration address inequities on campus. The TYP program was created as a concession.
Then, in ’69, a black TYP student was shot in the cheek with a BB gun while on campus. The black students weren’t having it. They took over an administrative building for 11 days, presented a list of demands and renamed the campus Malcolm X University. You can read more about the ordeal here.
Both Kif and I had jobs on campus. We worked in the dining hall. Now, dining Services was a good look for us for the obvious reasons. But it was a terrible look for equally obvious reasons. You see, part of my job included picking up trays students had lazily left behind.
So, after about a week of this denigrating dumb shit, I bought a whistle. Then, when students left a tray on the table, I’d blow a whistle on their asses.
That’s on mommas.
Low Budget Rap Act Tour Story 113: Los Banos, CA
Sometime around 2005, me and the longtime homies and apostate Christian rappers, Free Agent (Mike Parham) & Budzo Supreme (Isaac Forsman) formed The Space Cadets.
I’d some limited success in Latin rap circles the year prior, performing at quinceneras, liquor store ribbon cutting ceremonies and a car wash to raise money for a DUI bail (Frankie, I hope your tia’ Lencha learned her fucking lesson).
That summer, I’d been invited to perform in Central California by a Chicano rap promoter.
Now, as a non-gang member esoteric Latino rapper with white and black group members, I thought we were safe to travel up north, where the long-standing deadly conflict between northern and southern Mexican-American youth had killed many a folk.
After the 5 hour drive to Los Banos, we landed in the two bit tavern where we were scheduled to perform.
Half the crowd loved us. The other 5 people looked like they wanted to shoot us. They were waving red rags as if auditioning for a Lil Wayne video.
After our song about traveling to Mars on an intergalactic blunt and our ditty about being caged inside a beat machine, we packed our shit up and hightailed to the Hotel 7.9 where we stood vigil till daylight broke, at which point we peeled out, leaving only the dust that greeted us behind.
That One Time Daytime Emmy Tux Faux Pas
One of the high points of my career was writing and producing on the Daytime Emmys for several years.
It’s a black tie affair, a veritable who’s who of whodafukisthat?
One year, to ensure that the production team was outfitted properly, Ron Braverman (our marketing whiz) secured complimentary tuxedos for the fellas on the team. I went in and got sized, came back a few days later, put the tux in a bag and then on a plane and was gala ready in no time.
Except for the part where they fucked up my measurements.
You see, it was the night of the big show and lo and behold the sleeves were too fucking short.
“Damn it. I’m supposed to meet Susan Lucci tonite!”
So, I reached out to wifey back home in LA with this photo and told her I’d decided to ditch the collared shirt and go with Crocket & Tubbs, 90s R&B, T shirt and Tux steelo. This is that photo.
Thankfully, she talked me out of the style sin. Instead, I went to wardrobe and some angel on the team fixed my hem.
And I met Susan Lucci.
And yes she smells like a Macy’s perfume counter.
An Interview w/ Mexico City Music Maker floresflores
Have you ever met someone and was like, “Damn, if I was a Jewish hip hop lover from California, that’ s some shit I would’ve done?“
That’s what I said to myself some 10 years ago after meeting the homie Josh Heller, who I learned spent time in Mexico City teaching hip hop and English or some such cool shit. Josh does a bunch of dope media stuffs, including his most recent venture, an international record label, Viajes.Cosmicos launched w/ a buddy during quarantine. That buddy is floresflores.
The first release is from FLORES FLORES and I had a chance to send FLORES some questions in between doing dad shit like pulling weeds, pulling teeth and pulling a hamstring.
How much money have you blown last year on your music hobby?
I don’t have a music hobby. I reject the notion that this economic system puts forth, that if you don’t monetize on things they are supposed to be hobbies or luxuries. I have been preparing all of my life for this album. Being present and focused on doing things and bringing them to completion is something invaluable. And it’s way more uncomfortable and frustrating than not doing them, but is fulfilling. For me, at least.
Trying to be a better musician/producer has made me want to read more, listen to more records, learn different software, and taught me to stay curious, really. That permeates through all aspects of my life.
What level of hell do you think Mexican Americans who can’t speak Spanish occupy?
None. It’s ok if you don’t know spanish, culture and heritage go way beyond language. I mean, if you want to learn it, that’s fantastic but don’t do it out of guilt.
What’s the first album you played on repeat until your mom told you to turn that shit off because it will make you crazy?
Probably the Space Jam Soundtrack. I don’t remember driving my mother crazy by repetition, she is very musical but I do remember one day that she picked me up from high school and I put Sonic Youth’s Sister album on and she just turned the radio off and said “No.”
But I do get stuck on repetitive listens with some songs from time to time that just hit something in me – I remember the first time that happened was listening to the Miguel Bosé song Como un Lobo, I would rewind that song forever on the cassette, I must have been like 5 years old. Right now I have David Bowie’s Up the Hill Backwards on repeat for some reason. I almost exclusively listen to albums, not singles, not playlists, but some songs just stay in my brain for weeks and I need to feed it constantly and I’ll keep singing them. It can be a pain for people around me to hear me sing the same part of a song forever.
Why did your parents name you Flores twice?
My mother is the biggest José José fan in the world. She could’ve named me José but the 80s were a tricky decade for a lot of people.
If you could move to one city in Mexico, where would it be? One city in the US?
I’ve been living in Huasca the last couple of months with my wife. It’s this beautiful town in Hidalgo, close to where we grew up (Pachuca, capital of the state) and I’d love to move there indefinitely, but it’s hard letting go of commodities of big cities.
In the states, I really like San Diego, and it’s close to TJ, so you can get legit mariscos and tacos al pastor. But I don’t know, maybe a small town in California would be great.
Tell us about your album. How many blunts long is it? That’s to say, how many blunts can you smoke before the run time is through, using the International Metric of 5 minutes and 17 seconds per blunt?
I think it’s like half an hour long so you can squeeze maybe a 6th blunt if you really focus, and break some records/rules.
The album is called Uno, I recorded it in my studio in Mexico City called Números Rojos.
It has nine songs, one of which is Placed, the first single that you can check out right now on all streaming platforms.
If someone broke into your house and threatened you at gunpoint but gave you the chance to play one song off your album to convince them to leave in peace, what song would it be?
Probably Outline, cuz it’s the shortest. You don’t wanna be for too long with a psychopath.
What song should I play with my first cup of coffee? Why?
I’d do Caliber. It has a nice call of the wild/contemplative vibe. Gives room for introspection, even if the lyrics are about being wasted.
Tell us about your transnational label launched during quarantine.
When I was about to finish the album I hit Josh up because he is like the only friend I could think of that would be up to putting a record out with me. He liked the record and he had the idea of Cosmic Journeys for a while and this was a perfect way of taking step one.
I think music has been the driving force for both of us in our lives so this is us riding that wave to something bigger and better, we hope. We are still figuring things out but up until now it has been very fun. We are trying to have a very elastic vision of what an indie label can do or be in 2020. Aside from floresflores there’s also gonna be radio shows, more music projects from different genres, merch, videos.
Big Brown Mind Trick: How To Know What You Don’t Know
Words are magic. Watch.
Abracadabra.
My favorite example, tho, has to do with how re-framing a question can break through the noise and allow for helpful, even insightful, responses.
There’s one particular trick that’s always a hoot to deploy. I first learned it as a Literature Instructor at Harvey Mudd College’s Upward Bound program.
Often, students respond to teacher questions in class with a reluctant, “I don’t know.”
The typical teacher reaction is to move on to the next student. But, I learned, if the teacher instead responds with: “What would you say if you did know the answer?” sometimes surprising and true answers follow, almost as if out of nowhere.
What does this demonstrate?
On the teaching side, there’s more than one way to ask a question in order to get a desired response. If your questions aren’t getting the types of responses you want, re-examine the question. There’s likely a better way to ask it.
On the student side, we sometimes close ourselves to the prospect of internal discovery…out of fear of being wrong or seen as wrong or ignorant or deficient. But what if you did know the answer but simply didn’t give yourself the mental time and space to articulate it? This is one reason good teachers are important. We facilitate discovery.
I’m thinking about this today because I recently used this big brown mind trick on a CVS cashier to remarkable success. I rushed into the store, headed straight to the cashier and asked if they carried paper name tag stickers thingies (I was sure to include every seo term). To my chagrin and befuddlement, she said, “No.”
No? OK. But if you did carry them, which aisle would they be on?
“6.”
Raise the Sword, Praise the Lord
I wield my religion as a weapon.
For example, in 2013 I was at Memphis in May International Festival with my friend Brad Orrison and the crew from The Shed BBQ and Blues Joint, you know…out there winning World Championships and shit.
On Day 3, big ol’ bad security wouldn’t let me into the fairgrounds because my pass was this or that and red and circular when it was supposed to be blue and square or whatever.
I urgently plead my case through a chain linked fence.
Nothing.
I desperately made some calls from the other side of a chain linked fence.
Nothing.
That’s when I lifted my hands, faced down security and prayed OUT LOUD that “…the Lord would lift the veil from these rent-a-cops eyes and allow them to see the good work that is being done in here on the grill in your blessed name.”
Nothing.
Mornin’ Metaphor: Java Joe Flow
Drink it in all ye thirsty for that river of life.
Mornin’ Metaphor: Transplanting
Our greatest religious traditions draw heavily on agricultural metaphors, which is cool and all but considering we don’t grow or farm anything, this puts us at a disadvantage.
Mornin’ Metaphor: Amplification
ON BLAST
Turn up
LOUD
These three slang words are similar insofar as they all relate to amplification but they have different meanings and are deployed in divergent contexts. What’s with amplification?
brain drain, a poem
soak in one thousand memories.
a flood in a flutter.
wet brain
drain.
water stain
fade.