2Hi - White Lighter Bad Luck [ALBUM]

After a few years of loosies and EP’s, the dropping of his first full length project “2 Birds” last year, and being left with the bread crumb that was “Round and Round” back in August just for this moment here, local artist 2Hi continues the narrative of his rockstar lifestyle with the drop of his second Album, “White Lighter Bad Luck.”  Lyrically accompanied by the acclaimed NilexNile, otherwise known as Nile, Lake, and executive productions by No B, this melodic psychedelia is the melancholic voice of all who have found contentment with numbness, however, having subconscious undertones of self awareness and emotional longing; this all blends in to one truth while under great influence.. The intro track “Ghost” leads us straight to 2Hi’s inner conflict; there is an assertiveness here that may pass for aggression, or vice versa, in lyrics like “..And I'm in the back of the room high off the shrooms sitting, just think to myself, I am an artist who starvin’, no I can't bargain, I gotta double my wealth..lil bitch im cool, I don't need help, all of this work under my belt- I gotta do it all myself, I gotta do it all myself..” and the words “I gotta work on myself, I gotta work on myself..'' are heard faintly a lines afterwards, signaling the slip into 2Hi’s subconscious, his real thoughts, “..I'm an animal, I can't live with myself, only hurts if you take it out and you put my heart on the shelf, I just need your help…”

WLBL led with this tone for another 5 tracks and then about halfway into the album, we are temporarily given an energetic boost with “Switch Lanes”- how very telling of the motivation that many try to find after crash landing back on Earth into their own reality. This is made for the ‘fast and the furious’ (don't do it, drive safely), when you feel like a flexer, bump this!!….Annnnnd right back into the feels. Old habits die hard and some norms can't seem to be shaken in “Tattoos.” 2Hi comes a bit cleaner about his vices, even more so about the norms of his life experiences that trigger those vices; “ I got tattoos on my soul, I woke up lost on the road, I know that I'm on my own, mountains to me look like stones- I take these drugs to fly home...I seen it all just unfold, I seen this shit happen before…” Very easily, the methods taken on for masking continuous pain are cause for being misunderstood by those on the outside looking in because of one’s own miseducation on how to cope properly, leaving room to be branded (“tattooed”) as everything that we do not intend to really be. Tell me how YOU feel about “ White Lighter Bad Luck,” Milwaukee.

/Naomi-Re’a for CW

We Outside!!! Keep up w/ your /CW Fam as we cover #OutOfTheBoxMKE

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Join us this summer as we provide authentic /CW style media coverage at Out Of The Box, six-week summer series. Your /CW Fam will be in the field catching all the vibes that change the narrative, highlight the community, and looking at everything through a creative lens. Tag us at @copywritemag and #copywritemag #OutOfTheBoxMKE #BlackBoxFund so we can help show off the local every step of the way!

/CW

Juneteenth Celebration Press Interview w/ Vedale Hill

/CW Editor-in-Chief, Lexi S. Brunson spoke to lead artist for the Juneteenth Mural in Milwaukee WI, Vedale Hill, on how art elevates the holiday & its history.

/CW

Enough of a Woman | Poem by Lexi S. Brunson [Editor-in-Chief]

Enough of a Woman

I have been balancing without footing since the day I was created.

Chiseled from both flesh & dreams.

Perched on ideas that do not suit my fancy but instead interrogated my ability.

A cry for help

An internal struggle for redemption

in a place

no reparations shall be given.

[the strong woman's complex]

I will not snark at my uprising

of an upbringing.

For I was forged from something fierce.

Feminism at its own demise and womanizing at its most vulnerable. 

They thought I'd be the best of my bread.

I was loved from tip to toe.

I knew lust before it kissed me.

Pleasure

before it slid into my deepest depths. 

Heartbreak before it had a name. 

It was enough.

In the midst of it all I had been chosen to carry the burden to bare life.

So I would find grief in my induction into the club of red-rush between my legs.

A monthly celebration of my ripeness, that would follow with grief of misogyny.

I was upset that my gender was political. 

A statement of sexualization that I could not fight without wounds.

I could no longer be ANYTHING

I wanted to be.

[they call me woman]

I had hips, thighs, breast and an aura trained in swift battles of gender equity, pimpin, stubbornness, manipulation, and survival.

I was a dormant weapon in a fight I didn't know existed.

She was enough.

In time I was deemed ruthless. 

A temptress untouchable. 

A prize to be won, a purity to be kept.

The thought of wearing white to my matrimonial casket was torture.

I had to be dominant or be stepped on.

I navigated space with only the memory as guidance.

I had to hold my head high as if losing my paternal link had not broken me.

I had to hold my shoulders square like not having my brother's bond did not mar me.

[this is vulnerability]

I tried to find my way into the den of a wolf pack, because the testosterone smelled like comfort.

Here I would find a truth that was never meant for my eyes.

I was privy to information

that changed me

I was now loaded with arsenal that could never leave me blind

I could not unsee our curse

That behind closed doors their allegiance was never loyal

For every keeper

there were 3 throw away(s). 

For every forever

there were several for now(s).

I didn’t want to be loyal to a lie.

I didn't want to feel the pain of giving up tomorrow.

But I never betrayed the barriers

of their truth.

Until it I was sliced

by a double edged sword.

I had never been enough.

I had been cast aside

for and by my gender.

To perfect was my dismissal.

Intimidation was the poison.

I became unsuspecting wing man 

of fairy tales we publicly call goals

& privately envy.

[thus ignorance is bliss]

Ruined by options, I became an option.

A piece of a picture that had no frame.

A disregard of reality 

A word left unsaid

A speech tongueless

A happy home covered in happy homes, by way of a duck off's and funk off's.

Not a woman's woman. 

So my sisterhood would be stricken off the record.

Not a guy's girl.

So there is no ledger of platonic woe’s. 

Somewhere suspended between big cahonas & an intimidating cunt.

I suffered.

But that was not enough.

I would never bare title

So I made my own.

I would never hold rank. 

So they curse me as a martyr.

I spit back a five star general.

I bleed. Bucked. But would never fold.

It became the ego balance,

nature versus nurture.

A fight for the glory.

But my war had been started

in the womb of some other women,

in the sacrifice of some girls dreams,

in the blitz of some man's play.

Still I stand idol

Abusing my lineage

Willing to sign a peace treaty for the next woman's altar.

So she may never have to 

spill her own blood.

And yet still there leaves the question…

Is there ever enough of a WOMAN?

Lexi for /CW

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Thank you for being 365 BLACK!

We want to say thank you to all of our contributors to the 365 BLACK [Project]. Without your voices we could not make this reality happen! Our goal is to keep pushing the narrative of Black voices in creative spaces all year long in the hopes that the current BPOC spotlight is not trendy but instead becomes a normal thread in our worthy and multifaceted society.

Keep Pushing Y’all.

Lexi S. Brunson Editor-in-Chief /CW

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