Bless up from your feet to your head top
Sunday we lost Kobe.
I happened to be working, working on my podcast. Editing and creating assets. Not at my usual pace but I was making it happen, I got a text from my partner in the podcast with a one word text ‘Kobe’. I hadn’t the foggiest what he was talking about. I was thinking about bears then the beef, then Kolby Coventen all sorts. I did think the text was weird considering was talking about Kobe Bryant on the Podcast just the day before.
Main point is his text made no sense, I thought Kobe May have done another amazing feat, he has a production company I wanted to help build. After listening to him for some years and his last appearance on the knuckleheads podcast when he was talking about writing kids books on competition and being the best. I was like ‘yeah that’s dope I love that me and him will collaborate some day, he thinks just like me.’ Maybe my boy has a good Kobe topic after me telling him bout Mamba mentality on the Pod.
This was my mind before receiving a screenshot from the same friend about a helicopter crash. My immediate thought was he’s being rushed to hospital, ‘he’s obviously not dead it’s Kobe lol socials is bare dumb’ I thought to myself ‘this why I ain’t on twitter I’m working’. Reluctantly I open the app and the RIP’s ensue.
Good God what is happening today, everybody is annoying the whole world is annoying why are you people doing this. Then I realise for hours I hadn’t heard the news.
Me to me: you guys don’t know how annoying you are
You see I have a different relationship with Kobe. My older brother showed me the lakers when I was like 9 years old, we would watch highlights and he knew I loved basketball. After watching my first dunk competition I was hooked, a lil barely 4ft me. No one had the heart to tell me I would never make it but him. I loved basketball anyway was the one sport I felt just built for too just as well, it was more than the game it was the way Shaq Kobe and AI would speak about it. Before I knew what was going on I had an affinity for THE BEST TO HAVE EVER DONE IT.
Like I said my relationship with Kobe is different it wasn’t a Big Brother or Father complex thing. I had them both and didn’t need anymore, as far as I’m concerned my dad is the GOAT MALE, it goes him then every other man on this Earth, irreplaceable. I didn’t need anyone thinking they could run me either – already had a big brother for that.
You see having grown up the way I did Kobe and other men have a character I like. There are men who do certain things that I love that I needed to meet or work with, ones that died being Prince, MJ and Mohammad Ali, James Baldwin more of the best to have ever done it. More still with us being Dame Dash, Jay-Z, Andre Leon Talley, Honourable Minister Lewis Farrakhan, men that walk with distinction on this Earth.
Guys like Kobe who walk with my relentlessness, men like Nipsey who walked with poise among the forgotten of the world and Men like Jahseh XXXTENTACION, that knew how to speak to these teenagers who were really going through it and he would help them. These men did something so many others couldn’t and earned my respect in the most unconventional ways. I adored these men and one year after the next they were taken from this realm, my prayers go to their families.
Selfishly I needed them around. The work they were doing was so paramount, and the way they were doing it won’t be happening like that again. They thought in ways that I did about the world and had the character to do something about it. They lived with distinction and created a dominion on this Earth and in my heart that will never be forgotten.
I know their families needed them immensely but they had the families that knew their gifts belonged to the world. One by one assassination after assassination & accident they got taken.
Kobe was the type of character in my life that made me know the way I was thinking was okay. Being strong headed as long as you do great and can back it up, that was his way. He knew he could achieve greatness in the World by staying a student and continuing the Marathon of Inches. That mentality is one that I didn’t have to adopt because I lived with it. I never needed him to show me how to do it my boy moved in that way by default. Sometimes all one needs is permission to act in the way they know is right. Kobe and many others did that for me.
You see the way I see Kobe and Men like him is different and when you see me protect certain men or boost them in the future understand that I need them to be protected and know that they’re needed. I cannot do anything for those who have transitioned but I can continue to live in the image they left behind because I hold it too.
Forever grateful, forever thankful
Keep grinding and keep your neck up
