So, grad school isn't just sitting in one's room doing work 24/7 and it's definitely not writing everyday, so whoever believes that real writers have to write everyday, I send you to Not Writing by Anne Boyer who perfectly explains the writer's lifestyle.
In my time of not writing, I found out that Ja Rule would be in Chicago. That's correct: Ja Rule, Mr. What's My Mother****ing Name? R U L E, Mr. Murder Inc., Mr. My career was destroyed by Eminem during its peak and I haven't been able to bounce back since and also brought down Ashanti with me. Yes. Him. So of course, I must go see the man whose CD Pain Is Love played in my mother's 2003 Trailblazer on my way to the bus stop. The man who got me through late nights in college by making appearances on my 90s/2000s Pandora station with rare versions of some of those songs I listened to as a child. And when I found out it was $3, I went to workshop and told my entire class about the concert and RSVP'd.
I took a train and a bus to get to the venue at 6:45 for an 8 o clock show. I had 2 Dirty Shirley's (an alcoholic Shirley Temple) and a pretzel with beer cheese (if you haven't had beer cheese - NC has the best beer cheese). Two people from my cohort came to enjoy Ja Rule with me and while we spent hours standing in the the "third/fourth row" of the club, listening to suburban Chicago rappers, followed by Texan rappers, and in between all of that we had DJ Oreo and DJ Elz killing the turn-up game (usually I hate DJs because I don't anything they played, but they included a nice mix of 90s/2000s music so I was in my zone) and we waited for Ja.
Something random, but this night reaffirmed once again that Chicago is the place for me because CHICAGO LOVES KANYE and I LOVE KANYE and so we can be just one big YEEZUS loving family.
Anyways, at 11 o clock, after a shot of tequila that quickly wore off with the playing of DMX and Back That Ass Up and This Is How We Do It and Back to Back, on and on, and while falling asleep on my feet and not trying to hide my yawns, Ja Rule finally comes out on stage. At this point I have lost both members of my cohort, having been separated by grinding couples, too young to actually know Ja, but I'm enjoying the show because this is Ja Rule and he looks exactly the same. I'm videotaping this entire show, screaming the lyrics with all of these people, holding my camera up in one very tired arm while the men surrounding me are all sharing the smallest roach I've ever seen and thinking they're being discreet - just FYI smoking marijuana in public is not discreet, it has a very distinct smell, so... - and I'm falling in love with Ja all over again. I leave after Ja performed all of my favorites (40 minutes in, Jah Bless), pushing my way out of the hottest crowd I've ever found myself in, and I grab a water while I request an Uber.
The Uber guy and I talk about rap (he was a 50 Cent fan, and of course in 2001 a Dre fan) and we talk about rap battles, so Ether, Jay-Z and Nas, Meek Mill and Drake, and all the while home I am distracted from the overwhelming amounts of homework that I put off for Ja. I slink up to my apartment, exhausted and ready to get out my little ratchet-basic outfit, and prepare myself to wake up in 7 hours to do 4 dense readings and a reading response before my noon class.
But it was all worth it. Sometimes you just have to do it for Ja. (If you don't know what "Where is Ja?" means here.)
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