EXGF | Et Musique Pour Tous

We Are The Hearts…

Have you ever denied yourself the opportunity to make the right decision? i.e. You know shouldn’t take a job for the money, you know the person you’re with isn’t right for you, but you do it anyway, you carry on for the wrong reasons. What makes us so reluctant to choosing our nobler influences and why are we ruled by habitual vices, weak to our desires?

Those are tough questions but often times it’s our own ego hidden in the form of intellect that gives credence to our ego supported qualities. The intellect is nothing more than a middle man who creates an imaginary barrier between the finite self and the infinite. It serves a purpose, but it’s only good a pointing out what’s wrong and what’s missing and leaves you hanging without offering a solution. Want to sell something to people? Appeal to their intellect and take away their power, make them feel as if they are missing something and then sell it back to you in the form of something material…

No point in getting upset about the unknown. Only suckers do that.” A hustler has to deal with danger and risk. It’s part of the game. You cannot control it all, nor would you want to. Chaos, unknown factors are not something to be anxious about. They represent opportunities for new angles, new hustles. The sucker cannot stand the unknown and so either fouls up by getting impatient and over anxious, or retreats to a false world of security and the known.” – Iceberg Slim

So no, intellect will not set you free, tapping into the infinite requires freedom from the shackles of thought. What do Space Age kids do to middle men? We get rid of them because as above so below, the finite and the infinite are one and the same and we must free ourselves of anything that gets in the way of that truth. Everything we need, all the resources of ultimate creative power are already within us. The intellect can’t comprehend that because it’s beyond thought – what’s a God to a non-believer?

This is what I mean by freedom, giving free play to all the creative and benevolent impulses inherently lying in our hearts. Generally, we are blind to this fact, that we are in possession of all the necessary faculties that will make us happy and loving towards one another. All the struggles that we see around us come from this ignorance… When the cloud of ignorance disappears… we see for the first time into the nature of our own being.” – D.T. Suzuki

WE ARE THE HEARTS

My affection for that phrase is not a thought, it’s a feeling that taps far beyond I could express in words. It’s the feeling that has changed the world time after time for better or worse. The feeling that frees us from the tyranny of intellect and makes a person believe in themselves and their power to create. This song captures a passing moment of sadness and defeat as it’s becoming hope and motivation for triumph. Down but not out you dig deep and find the meaning of your struggle…

The more you suffer the deeper grows your character, and with the deepening of your character you read the more penetratingly into the secrets of life. All great artists, all great religious leaders, and all great social reformers have come out of the intensest struggles which they fought bravely, quite frequently in tears and with bleeding hearts.”

EXGF returns with a song that is not about intellect, it’s about heart. Not about raising questions and finding what’s missing but about embracing the mystery and opening up to the power of creation within us. It’s a song about people who don’t give up and do everything in their power to fight back…

To make you feel what I feel I’m try my best
And if you real like I’m real, you could provide the rest
Everything left out, you could blame it on the brain not the heart, I’m playing my part…” – Memphis Bleek

EXGF is an anomaly but it doesn’t matter because in the end great art will outlive artists. That might be a novel concept in this modern age of selfies and instant gratification but there’s no greater accomplishment as an artist than to have the work become bigger than the creator. As we slowly put together the mystery behind EXGF you start to find these nobler influences overwhelmingly present in their work. EMPT speaks that Don language, enjoy.

People always talk about how music speaks to you but for me the best kind of music is the type that speaks for you. We’re all growing, trying to realize ourselves, find our paths and often times there are certain ideas and things we feel and believe that we simply don’t know how to effectively communicate, not just to the outside world but more importantly to ourselves. You seek those answers but can’t find them and then suddenly a song or lyric comes along that summarizes it perfectly. That’s what the lyrics from EXGF’s Idle Hands were to me…

You, you don’t have the answers and think that we all do…

There’s something wonderfully profound about that. It’s easy to look at the illusion of someone else and desire that, it’s even easier to look at yourself and feel like you’re in a constantly nebulous existence in comparison. But those lyrics capture the beautiful truth, that we often look to and at each other for the path…

And we, we don’t have them either, we make them up and break the ones that don’t agree with how we see it…”

It’s human nature, tribal instincts, how we’ve grown and survived. At dinner last night one of my oldest friends said something very profound, that a leader is just another position. It’s no less or greater in importance than any other position. Humans have expectations of reciprocity, that means we all look to each other for answers, inspiration and guidance, the leader just plays the role of pushing forward and brining all those things together. I love that feeling, the feeling of community, shared interest, doing things for love; the feeling of the collective. That’s the feeling I get when listening to this record, it’s built in.

Pied Piper, you’re not the leader…

But not everyone standing behind the booth is worth the admiration, fit for leadership so see through the illusion at all times.

But that’s just part of it, all in all this song is about the vices that come out of boredom, the need to escape and elevate. For many it’s unfortunate that the path leads to destruction. For others the state of mind alteration isn’t real and I don’t blame them, it’s hard to alter your vibrations and distinguish between your real emotions and feelings vs what’s enhanced, it’s not for rookies that’s for sure.

Idle hands are the devil’s workshop.” When bored we do destructive things, dangerous things, ill-advised things. Drugs, sex, vice; excess is the simplest way to escape. Some get lost and never find their way back, but some find inspiration in seductive new highs and ambitions leaving us to wonder…is overdoing really such bad thing?”

But somewhere in the verge is the place where EXGF resides, the place where you sky dive to learn how to walk better. It’s a dangerous place, it need realness to function because it redefines the commonly accepted notions of right and wrong but it’s life, it’s adventure and I love it. There’s nothing like a feel good summer record that makes you dance, feel, think and groove, enjoy.