Today was one of those days to say the least.... Decided to give you guys another track sitting in the hard drive. I've been really praying a lot for perseverance in the offering of my daily crosses.  It is really what this song is about... Fernando once said to keep a picture of your first Holy Communion in order to remember that first innocence when you first received Christ in the Blessed Sacrament. The picture is me with the Priest and my grandmother.... A big Symbol herself in my life. This song is an offering as I get back to that moment.... It's been a long time, with a lot of efforts where some are seemingly unsuccessful. No matter what I'm working for it all to serve you Lord. This is not for me, this life is completely yours.

No lyrics posted this time... Just enjoy the music if you'd like. God knows my heart.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

I wrote this a while back, and had asked my brother Alex Gotay to do some preaching on it.... And honestly, I was going to hold this for a little longer, but because of Pope Francis' trip to the U.S. I've been fired up and think this song represents the challenge we are faced with to truly go out and live the message of the Gospel. Not talk about it. Be about it... Being living and active symbols of Christ before all men.  

To read the full set of lyrics and words preached, click HERE

- The Symbol
- All is Love

Its been amazing helping out my brother Sammy and the team at Exodus to get the mission of this brand moving.  Christ is moving, and one by one we will transform this culture.

This was aired this past Thursday evening, and the full post on the Net TV site is HERE.


Be sure to also check out Exodus Forty's website and cop some gear. (I've been blessed to be a part of quite a bit of it behind the scenes.) Pray for us as we move forward.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

A few months ago, someone told me I should apply to get my degree online at this Seminary up in Connecticut and now we are going up there to perform at Catholic Underground in their space.

Wrote these "barz" on a train ride to work, and thought I would share... I write even some more free-verses or freestyles every day that never make it to the public.  This one did. I pray it speaks for itself.

For years I have worked with education, especially as it deals with using the arts as a medium to teach peace.  In theater, and especially with Kids Creative we had a tool we used called "Yes and..." which also came along with "No no's".  These two worked along to fully establish the "All Ideas are good" rule the program operated on. Because the programs operate so much on community and collaboration, these 2 rules helped everyone to be open and feel welcomed with the fullness of who they were.

The way it worked would be something like this... Lets say we were making up a story about dinosaurs.  One child may raise their hand and say "Yes and... The dinosaurs were really just gummy candies in a gummy world." And another child may then say "Yes and... In this gummy world everything was sweet." Then yet another may say "Yes and... No one wanted Gummy world to get hot because then the gummies would get to sticky and some would melt."  Eventually you might then get to one child who said "Yes and... A little girl named 'Meteora' came and ate all the gummy dinosaurs until they became extinct."  One child who was very attached to the idea of their gummy dinosaurs may respond in an upset way to this last child "No!!! That's stupid!" which would be something myself or a staff would have to correct and direct, allowing all of the children's ideas to be input, perhaps even adding our own ideas where this took place in an alternate universe that existed only in that little girls mind as she saw the gummy dinosaurs on display at the Museum of Natural History.(Yes... sometimes stories did get that elaborate. lol)

I learned a lot from the culture established here, and saw how effective it was in creating classrooms of joy and unity but I also see its flaws because as it does apply to art and theater, it doesn't 100% always apply in the real world.  It is clear that in society, "ALL IDEAS" cannot be welcomed, especially if they were immoral and/or harmful to other persons living in this society.  This especially gets sticky when dealing with politics or religion, and public policy.

I felt I wanted to address this topic when I saw the below photo on Instagram....

I do not know who originated this image, and what their exact intentions were; but what it seems to me is to a picture of priests painting the word "Catholicism" in Black and white, while Pope Francis walks up to "add some color".  In my opinion I resonate with the picture, because the word is not changing... It is very clearly still "Catholicism" but it implies that joyfully Pope Francis is just bringing a perception of more color and depth than perhaps the "picture has been painted" in the past by many.

When I put out The Dedication Mixtape(available for FREE download), I put out 2 music videos that were a part of a story that was implying the same thing of my work... Not a "No" to anything of the faith, but instead a "Yes and..."  As I have kind of coined in many of my recent social media posts and such "Hip Hop raised me, but Jesus Saved me."

The Dedication was a big project for me, as it really was an artistic ritual to step into the new me as a Catholic Hip Hop artist from the secularism and immorality that proceeded before. 

The first video was a remake of "Shook Ones" which my intent was to honor classic Hip Hop with really witty, quick, and clever lyricism while at the same time representing the church. The video being in "Black and White" and the whole scary monster thing in the beginning was to represent the negative perceptions that people have from one side of the spectrum "Hip Hop" and from the other side "Catholicism" in itself.

The second was "Boneless Chicken and Pork Fried Rice" which is really a song about conversion and dialogue with the culture.  The simple Chinese food combo that the song was titled after and video revolved around was a symbol of "the culture" as a whole especially in inner city's like the Bronx here in America.  In the 2 videos, everyone wanted "The culture" and were even "fighting to obtain the culture" while the media speculated about it without taking full sides.  My "All American superhero" character was the one fighting to unite the culture and give it back in a way more unique, true, and beautiful than before.

People have always been confused about why the "guy with the Jesus hat was the bad guy" and why he was defeated in the end. In fact he wasn't!... He was just brought to color.  There was supposed to be a 3rd part in this video series in which you would see both characters played by me working together(to the last song on the project The Dedication pt.2), but as fate would have it we were never able to shoot it, and wound up shooting a documentary entitled "Animated Destiny"... then before you knew it I was doing Golden. lol

This is a long enough post as is right now, and if I took time to delve deeper there are many more "Symbols" in the videos... Even when you get to my later work.  This is not stuff I overlook. I just hope that you take this and reflect on it a bit as we move forward feeling inspired to bring a little "color" and "life" where you go.

- The Symbol
- All is Love

I'm crazy excited about this one... It's been a long time coming.  Video shoot day one on Saturday, September 5th, 2015.  If you want more details and want to know how to be a part of it all, check out this post on the all is love official website.