"Media Magic" Rap about Bay Area Media Influence

I recently found an old USB drive while cleaning. It had just 512MB, but whoa! It had some content.

I found a bunch of old photos from the College of Alameda Black Student Union (Alameda BSU). As a side note: I posted those to my Facebook, and it's good to see many of those relationships still active. I found some old homework, essays, instrumentals and some lyrics.

What follows is my first first from a song called, "Media Magic." It featured me and a young man named, "Mari Bo." The song is about media, its portrayal of Black people and its influence. Ironically, both me and Jamari Caldwell have both gone into journalism. Last I heard, he was at Chico State writing for the Orion.
(Lyrics Below>
"Media Magic"
By Reggie General

No me gusta escuchar la radio
Porque dispersa decepcion en mi barrio
Estas hablando espanol? [What you say?]
Mi mal! My bad! We multi-lingual in the Bay
Bruh, Look at the way the portray us on 106 and 94-9
Misleading and deceiving yours and mine
Distracting minds, with that audio swine
Got us thinking Black Enterprise is to hustle and grind
You ever find it weird the news never be near here
When we do good, but if we “Go Bad”, then they appear
Smear, distort, manipulating the facts
Political lies, criminalizing Latinos and Blacks
Cats need to see the television telling lies to your vision
Trying to get rich or die quick? They trying to put you in prison
The Terminator is the Governor and you think I’m tripping
Then go home and listen to that FOX, Dennis Richmond
Then tell me, Who Pimping?

* *

I'm trying to find the recording of the song. I know that at one point, journalist and online community organizer Kara Andrade had an audio recording. She wrote a great piece about the story for the Alameda Journal's "Friends & Neighbors" section.

I still have a few songs on Myspace from that era.

Photo Credit: Weapons of Mass Expression (WOME)

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