On the Day I Finally Go to the Studio I Get Fired from My Job!

This is an earnest, heartfelt post for all of us in New Haven who know how hard life can be. Sometimes, life beats us down through no fault of our own. I know I wanted to become a rapper for, like, 12 years before I actually did it, but something always came up, or I smoked too much weed, or I spent the studio money on weed, or I was studying real hard for an exam, and rap just didn't seem relevant anymore, you know what I'm saying? When I finally started rapping at the age of 40, the whole time I was spitting I was feeling like a dark cloud was hovering over my head because I should've been doing something else, tutoring kids, studying for that exam, cleaning my apartment, shopping for kicks, etc.

Now I'm a white guy. Thomas Wexler is my name. I grew up in the suburbs, and my parents wanted me to go to school and become a professor like them. I actually have a Master's Degree, but that's not good enough for them. They want me to earn more money. They don't want me recording music on my boy Adam Christofferson's record label, Musical Intervention. So we fight about this, and the dark cloud of pent up hostility stays, and what could be a very festive, joyous, artistic celebration, becomes an angst-ridden, hate-fueled pit of depression.

I can't say if the same is exactly true for Thomas Ice, the man you see in the video here. I know with a name like "Ice" you better be "nice," and you've probably been through some shit, too. (Actually I have a feeling Thomas Wexler and Thomas Ice got into the rap game for much the same reason—to tell our stories of surviving the judgements, pre-decisions, and pre-packaging of a society that doesn't know how to deal with people like us who might be just a little slightly tweaked). The shit that was fucked up, though, is that Ice goes down the street to the studio to crank out a hit, and he finds Adam and P and all the other guys working there, and he jams out with them, and it's all supposed to help in his rehabilitation and then someone, (not saying who—Adam)—decides he hasn't been working hard enough and he loses his job! Bummer, dude. Major bummer. It seems as artists who struggle with a history of addiction or mental illness, when we raise our voices in joy or praise, our enemies and self-doubt want to sing even louder! Don't you let them, Thomas Ice. You sounded great to me, and you're welcome to pour me a cup of coffee anytime! Just coffee, though. You promise?

He did promise and he schooled me in the ways of the rap for many days after that. For me it was about other people believing in me as an MC, or at least proving them wrong if they didn't believe. For him it was about looking his illness right in the eye and firing back. I'd be crazy to think our parents and teachers don't support us in these efforts but sometimes, due to the lyrical content of what we're rhyming, feathers get ruffled and feelings get hurt. The good guy sometimes looks like a fucked up mental patient who's screaming "fuck the world!" at the top of his lungs for no reason at all—simply because he wants to provoke and be obscene. I'm not saying there's no room for obscenity in rap—the mainstream is full of it. I'm saying, next time someone tells you they wanna be a rapper don't automatically clown them and go, "Yo, ho, ho, homie, yo," all in their face and shit. They may have one shot to do this in life, and have a lot of pressure on them from God knows where else, that if they fuck up they can't take it back, and they may have gone through a whole hell of a lot just to get today's studio audition. You may not agree with what they have to say, but the least you can do is listen. Sometimes that makes all the difference.