james

Did you know that my little brother is a hip hop star?

James and I have different mothers. He grew up in Eugene, Oregon and was raised by my dad from about the time he was 8 (or 9 or 10). I met him during a summer visit to Oregon when he was 11 and I was around 20. At that age he was passionate about music, skateboarding and graffiti art.

A few years later during another Oregon visit, James was around 16. He shared with me a notebook of his writing. Pages and pages of lyrics, poetry, written in pencil, with the occasional illustration. His words were sometimes serious and sometimes silly, definitely older that 16. I knew his passion for music and his writing ran deep and he would live his dream to create and perform.

James stays in touch, but a year or two will go by without any word and without any way to contact him. A couple of winters ago he showed up in LA on tour with his crew, Animal Farm ( I hope that's the correct term, I'm not very hip to the hip hop lingo) they were playing at The Knitting Factory. We were able to spend the day together, he filled me in on how our dad was doing and as always we laughed and had a great time. And then he was off to another show.

James is funny, smart, charismatic, and super sweet. I love him and am so proud of him.

Here is one of their songs from the YouTube machine.

James chimes in around 2:01