Dear Jay,

We miss you, man.

And by “we,” I speak on behalf of hip-hop heads everywhere. Not that make-it-rain, bubble-gum, I’ve-got-more-swagger-than-you-and-your-crew hip-hop. I mean that life-blood, pockets-full-of-hope, do-it-cause-you-got-nothing-else hip-hop.

You gave us a pledge, we listened. You warred against bullshit using your style, we followed. You saluted, you revenged, you boxed, you produced a gem.. And we hoped. We hoped that THIS was a pivotal piece of the puzzle to revive our ever-deteriorating art form.

Just recently, you put on a brain-blowing exhibit. Even though we heard it before, we needed desperately to hear it again.

Still, it’s like I haven’t heard from you in years. It’s right now that we need you more than ever. You’re one of the few artists that has never strayed from what makes hip-hop genuine music: You are real. You don’t front. You ain’t a gimmick.

Which is why I, as a person with kicks, snares, sample loops, and microphone reverberations running through his veins, is begging you for something new.

I know you’ve got a newborn baby, congratulations by the way. I know you’re goin’ through stuff with Erykah, I just hope she didn’t do you like Common.

I understand life gets in the way of music sometimes. So, I’ve been patient but I can’t keep quiet anymore. My love for hip-hop won’t let me. Help me justify to everyone that I tell that you’re damn near the best lyricist hip-hop has heard in a decade. Give me something I can push on site, that I can buy in the stores, to help real hip-hop emerge from its subterranean realms.

I leave you with your own quote, that it might inspire you to give hip-hop what it wants needs.

Life is like a dice game

One roll could land you in jail,

Or cuttin’ cake, blowin’ kisses in the rice rain

I’m ready to roll. Are you?

Sincerely,

Dom