GUEST POST: Review of Tanjint Wiggy's You're Young For A Long Time

Hi, I’m Richard Blacksher. I’m a musician. 

I’m a firm believer in this musical truth: Hip-Hop belongs to the 19 year olds. OutKast, Ice Cube,

Mobb Deep, Carter era Weezy, the list goes on. But what sustains Hip-Hop is when it matures. It’s

The Blueprint that elevated Hip-Hop to the fashion houses. It’s 808’s & Heartbreak that allowed rappers

to sing over autotune. Like Naomi defeating Serena, the young rappers have the energy to keep the

work going, but it’s the older MCs that break down the barriers. Because when Hip-Hop grows up, as it

tends to do, rappers find it easier to express themselves off the mic. The appeal of superficial rhymes

turn to regrets, reflections, sometimes even remorse. Songs become conversations; therapy over

instrumentals. 4:44, DAMN , Because the Internet , are a few of my favorites. Something happens to a

rapper when they turn 30+. It becomes easier to observe the zeitgeist and “pop a wheelie” on it.

Tanjint’s latest album You’re Young for a Long Time, continues that tradition. 

Tanjint’s album plays like the kind of Friday night kickback we find ourselves at this age with

nothing but a great playlist, wine, weed, and great conversation. Compared to the hatred I felt about

the house parties I went to in my 20s that were loud, crowded, and one joint for twelve people

(how did COVID not come in 2013?), You’re Young for a Long Time provides the kind of experience I

didn’t know how much I’ve missed through this pandemic.

Sonically: We are fortunate to be in a time where the IE has well-regarded artists in a multitude of

genres. From Cumbia, Rap, EDM, Jazz (yes I’m plugging myself), etc.--but damn does it feel good to

hear something that sounds underground. You’re … is not packaged as the most (dare I say) “polished” package of music, but that’s a huge part of why

I keep coming back to it. Whatever flaws that come across on the album seem only to be because of

how different it sounds compared to everything else that’s out. Charlamagne told a 36 y/o Kanye that

“Yeezus sounds like an incomplete album”. Hindsight.

      

Tanjint’s beat selection tastefully curates a journey through what feels like the days when Stones Throw’s only press were the classic mid-00s [adult swim] bumps. Remember when people didn’t know Nujabes, Fat Jon, Dilla, and Madlib? The music rings out like a playlist of the best unheard beats from that era while the blunt is being passed by the charcuterie board. And on a less confident MC, Tanjint’s accelerated flow would come with a “Don’t Try This At Home'' label; yet his approach on each track of You’re Young… is skillfully executed over variating cadences and tones. To be blunt (no pun intended), his approach is unparalleled to any contemporary rapper that I’ve encountered in recent years. 

Thematically: Tanjint guides the listeners through what feels like a warm gathering of friends,

old and new. The intro “Welcome to the Late Show,” makes it apparent that this is a celebration of life!

For real, parties in your 20s often come with the unexplained expectations that you’re supposed to

leave with something: maybe a girl’s number, maybe some new friends, maybe just a hangover.

But, as someone who still hates parties, it’s different in our 30s: you leave with an unopened bottle of

wine, new insight about the article someone read on Linkedin, or sometimes just peace. And it’s that

aspect of hanging out with the same folks that you used to live recklessly with but now have gotten

more mature, more reflective, that Tanjint captures so eloquently in this album.

I have too many favorites to name. “Goji Brothers” reminds me of my own changing

relationships with my siblings as we’re living separate lives as separate families.

“To Come of Age” reminds me of the trauma I’m still processing of my father’s death ten

years ago. “May 5th” reminds me of my personal struggles grasping to my Latinx identity that

still never felt like mine. The title track, “You’re Young for a Long Time” voices how I feel on a

daily basis of dealing with all of life’s lemons; “I’ve kept it tight, I’m tired, I wanna unwind”. 

But even based on the few tracks that I’ve listed, it’s obvious that this isn’t an album for everybody.

It’s introspective that requires a commitment to want to engage in not only the answers that Tanjint is

asking the listener but also for the listener to want to ask those very same questions of themselves.

With the advent of social media, youth is no longer wasted on the young. There is a fear within

millennials that we’re growing old and no longer valued the same way we did not value the generations

before us. We’re desperate to cling on to the trends, to be in the know, to face our inevitable 40s. But

the freedom Tanjint expresses here makes it apparent that growing up is a blessing, and youth is

found in your state of mind, not in TikTok influenced art. With that understanding, we all can be young...

for a long time.

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Richard “RnB” Blacksher is a writer, musician, composer, performer, MC and educator in San Bernardino, California.  You can find his music on streaming platforms under “Richard Blacksher”.

BRAC: The Sacrifices Moreno Valley and San Bernardino made for global peace

Wise up about the region’s recent history

Moreno Valley and San Bernardino used to have a big Air Force base employment sector due to March Air Force base. Then the Cold War ended and President Clinton, the first post-Cold War president, in recognition of this enacted BRAC, Base Realignment And Closure, because the country didn’t need to maintain so many full capacity military bases in the wake of the end of our decades long struggle for power with Russia. So the Inland Empire, being a politically not-that-powerful region for a few reasons ( as a conservative part of a liberal state, it was unlikely to be a factor in flipping the entire state in a given race) was on the chopping block. We were to help pay for America’s peace dividend: and so, March and Norton Air Force Bases two of the area’s most important economic engines had their operations drastically reduced and even partly privatized in terms of the campus’ use if I’m not mistaken.

So we laugh at San Bernardino and Moreno Valley for being ghetto and poor but these are the harsh realities of society: people don’t want to pay for militarism forever and Bill Clinton was actually trying to reduce the military industrial complex’s massive pervasiveness a bit in a time when that was politically sellable. Sometimes unpopular things are the right thing to do, sometimes the right thing to do has unfortunate consequences. Sometimes smaller pictures suffer in service of the bigger picture. I’m not justifying any particular side of a debate on these issues I’m just saying know the context. Know that it’s more than just “haha so ghetto and poor i could never”. 

Tristan "Tanjint Wiggy" Acker is a staff writer for Zus Entertainment, a Jooseboxx and Untapped Hip-Hop contributor, and member of the Inland Empire, California based nerdcore hip-hop group the West Coast Avengers

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Shots Fired: The under-discussed classism of dismissing California’s Inland Empire

It’s hypocritical to yap about Reagan all the time and then leave poverty out of your analysis of the I.E.

It’s wild how we love to give rappers passes for stuff we don’t give anyone else passes for.
Jokes about how ghetto the Inland Empire and San Bernardino are about class, about making fun of
people who struggle economically, don’t have pristine environments and struggle with poverty.

To take the semantic stance of “oh he didn’t say the I.E was bad just that he was glad that he wasn’t
raised there” is to work very hard to ignore the class implications of dismissing California’s Inland
Empire a region that includes Temecula, Victorvile, Corona, San Bernardino, Muscoy, Redlands,
Riverside, Fontana, Ontario, Rialto, Highland, Colton, Grand Terrace, Hesperia, Lake Arrowhead, Lake
Perris, Crestline, Upland, Cucamonga, Bloomington, Alta Loma, Etiwanda and more. 

photo of gathering at Serious Cartoons Records & Tapes in San Bernardino, CA; submitted by Noa James

As the word “ghetto” finally fades into tackiness, people look for other ways to make fun of people that
are poorer than them and for some Southern California residents, “San Bernardino” or something like it
are shorthand for that. This is why it’s important to educate people about social justice, socioeconomics
and numbers more broadly: it’s not like it’s a city of people who decide to be poor or “ghetto” or “dirty” or
“shady” or whatever: statistically over ⅓ of the population of San Bernardino is actually literally living in
fucking poverty. Half of the city is receiving government aid of some kind. People who run cities and
municipalities have to look at a region’s “taxbase” in other words, who is paying the taxes to fund a
government and a society: when half of your people are on government aid and ⅓ in actual life or death
struggle with real poverty then you have a very small taxbase to fund services and make things better
with. This isn’t hard to understand. But some people still want to joke about Sanbernaghetto like a bunch
of people just decided to make a shitty city.

There’s a lot to factor in: a city slow to take advantage of the potent cannabis economy, going through
bankruptcy, high rates of violent crime. In the last 35 years the Inland Empire has lost jobs at Kaiser
Steel in Fontana as well as military-base shutdowns in Moreno Valley and San Bernardino and these
are cited as the biggest factors in discussing the last few decades’ poor economic performance for the
region. During the recession we were hit particularly hard and were slower to recover. Countless people
lost their homes in Fontana, Upland and Cucamonga around 2008 and left to cheaper Bernardino,
Moreno Valley and Rialto in the decade since. 

Dark city?

That’s something I don’t get: American media is so obsessed with both the stories of races co-existing
and post-industrial towns economic situations. The Inland Empire is all of that and more than most
places but still it is dismissed as dismissible, forgettable, “ghetto”, meth-ridden. It’s almost as if lots of
activists, media figures, corporations and more that say they care about minorities and quality of life for
the unfortunate do not actually care.

Ta-Nehisi Coates, who wrote the famous Atlantic Case for Reparations article in 2014, talks a lot
about how the dominant American narrative has always indoctrinated us to think that people of color
invite their challenging circumstances with particular short-comings in work-ethic, “family values”,
“strong male role models” etc. but all studies show that when you factor in structural barriers to normal
healthy economic and family life installed into the superstructure of our society by centuries of white
supremacy and imperialism, black and brown people are not intrinsically less likely to work or be there
for their kids or have good values etc. So to bash areas like the Inland Empire full of impoverished
brown people working their asses off is to victim-blame. When rappers like Tyler or Jay Z or whoever
dismiss poor people and poor areas firstly it’s not a coincidence that that is the area that they chose to
bash and secondly, it’s part of the same right-wing white supremacist ideology espoused by the old
white guys pictured with Reagan people are always meming about, the same philosophy that birthed
Trumpism, the post-Paul parts of the Tea Party movement. 

This is not to say any rapper that says shit like this is a war criminal in the class struggle but rather
just to say be aware of this train of thought’s origins and context. Realize when framing is causing you
to elide class in your analysis of something.

                                               THOPFest Ontario, CA photo by J. Sevilla

What does all this have to do with hip-hop?

Personally it doesn’t bother me that much that bigg-ish rappers say stuff like this from time to time.
I’m even starting to like it because it helps me find other social media accounts of people that live in the
I.E. but what does bother me when I see people co-signing the bashing of the Inland Empire because it
reminds me of how ingrained into us hatred of the poor is by American culture. It’s one thing to say it’s hot
or to complain about the struggle but I disagree with comments about the area or its people being
intrinsically uncool or whack and I object to comments about “it’s bad for creatives/we don’t support
creatives”.

Imagine going to the home of a family that is hungry and criticizing them for pirating music online or not
having nice enough art on their walls. That’s what it is to say the I.E. doesn’t support its creatives: yeah
Mo Val, San Bernardino, and many more have major economic issues, why wouldn’t support for the arts
be part of that context? That’d be like a city being on fire and you kept complaining about this one random
part of the city that’s on fire as if the rest of the city wasn’t on fire.

Anyway yes: there is less city by city support in terms of dollars for the arts in the I.E. than in an area like
Long Beach that is both more affluent and staffed by city leaders that prioritize a more progressive vision
of culture and the arts. Because so many people are struggling economically, it’s harder for artists to
make a living off of solely a regional customer base. Harder but not impossible granted. But in terms of
the people? In terms of the talent? 

It’s just wrong to say there’s not opportunities. I’m from San Bernardino and the proximity to San Diego
and Los Angeles and my own diverse area has allowed me to achieve a healthy amount of my artistic
goals and has since given me as much of a platform or shot as I could ask for to try to tackle the rest from.
If someone wants to show me how per capita (controlling for population) compared to x, y or z region
there’s less opportunity, given the economic context I’d be very open to such an argument but to say
there is no opportunity and that “people don’t support each other” is factually incorrect.

photo credit: China Tokyo Japan, submitted by David Dee

Given the economic challenges of the Inland Empire, people should be amazed at what HAS been built: the Common Ground, a massive legacy continues, THOPFest, Punch Line Kings battle league, a cannabis friendly record store venue in Serious Cartoons and way more….this is just the stuff that’s still happening right now. 

Stop twisting it in your head to something that it’s not: the I.E. is a region with talent like many others
and it’s also a region with massive swaths of impoverished people. These are two distinct categories
but these identities intertwine, so when people try to dismiss and then people try to say you’re crazy
because you’re feeling a certain way about it just remember your correct feeling of there being something
wrong about such dismissals is you knowing deep down that this is all part of the only argument that ever
really mattered: the one about valuing all humans regardless. 

Stop twisting it in your head to something that it’s not: when they dismiss the I.E. they are spitting on what
they perceive as lower-class people. Class struggle is real and social media and the internet allow people
to tell on themselves about whose side they are on; we’re not haters for keeping note on when people
reveal themselves.

Tristan "Tanjint Wiggy" Acker is a staff writer for Zus Entertainment, a Jooseboxx and
Untapped Hip-Hop contributor, and member of the Inland Empire, California based
nerdcore hip-hop group the West Coast Avengers 

Jooseboxx THOPFest coverage kickoff w/ Tanjint Wiggy

                   Tanjint Wiggy talks about his experiences at THOPFest 2019

         To give context to my THOPfest experience we’ll have to go back to 2014 when I discovered Pppaccee & The Herbalistics’ Inland Empire area Sunny Days & Vibes showcase. 60 East was just one of the many names I had seen big on the flyers. Later that same year when I started writing for Jooseboxx and starting to bug those very names I would see on those flyers for interviews and article write-ups, I noticed 60 East, named for one of the Inland Empire’s most frequently used freeways, was not someone I would just run into in the I.E. the way I would with MC Lyfe, Epyk, Wonders Trillions, Greaseball, Hephty, Calligraphy, Mando the DJ, Os One, Vision and others. I eventually heard word that he was in Europe, touring and grinding. Over time I heard his music and wrote about it here and had tried to keep my ear to the ground for his next moves ever since.

     So I shouldn’t have been surprised when just a few years later his Happiness of Pursuit Festival event was announced with flyers announcing dope hip-hop acts from all over the country playing in the Inland Empire. Fast forward 3 years later and fresh off of losing a second consecutive “Who Got Next?” Showcase626 to P the Emcee and Cam Archer, I see a THOPFest Launch Party competition flyer. I hesitated for a moment, ‘do I want the IE’s dopest + co. to see me lose two contests in a row?’ but ultimately I was hungry for a win so I threw down the bill to enter and was stoked for the chance to finally meet Mr. East in person.  

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Won the @THOPFEST Launch Party contest tonight- thanks to all the friends that came out to support, everyone in the crowd that rocked with me and everyone that helped make the event happen @60east @noa_james @lesa_j  @firewatercantina @bigrobthechamp @rawz_ir  @allflowsofficial @zzay92 @yahcreates Beat by @kill.casket ; 📷: @balanced_production #thopfest #happinessofpursuit #tanjintwiggy #iehiphop #tanjintwiggywoo #intheie #thop #60east #bricktoyaface #showcase626  #tanjint #wiggy #woo #wca909 #nosleep

A post shared by Tanjint Wiggy Woo (@tanjintwiggy) on Feb 9, 2019 at 3:41am PST

        The contest was at Firewater Bar in Ontario off of Holt which I was told was where the festival itself would ALSO be. I had to do a double-take – this was a standard sized bar with a big parking lot in Ontario but I was being told they convert the lot into the fest! After I won the contest (peep my Instagram for the highlights) I saw some social media sniping from some cats not from the area who lost the contest saying the festival was a fraud for being at a normal bar but I thought the exact opposite: in the wake of the Vibe in Riverside closing, many have tried especially Lesa J, Noa James (of BTYF), Giliead 7 and Phantom Thrett (of Serious Cartoons), to keep events cracking in the I.E. and 60 East was doing a great good along with his team in trying to make a full on event happen at an easy to access spot in the Inland Empire. To build something like this from the ground-up can be rewarding but also a thankless job along the way and once I grasped what the event really was I was very proud to have just won myself a slot at it.

       So when I pulled up to Holt Street about 61 minutes before my scheduled set time it was packed and the speakers from Firewater Cantina echoed down the boulevard. I walked in and it was already cracking – graffiti artists on multiple walls, hot fry vendors and young Latinas selling tall boys, various stages, Cam Archer and Big Rob running up to me making sure I knew my set-time…  

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Reel of me in the earlier hours of @THOPfest 1 month ago - more THOPFest coverage from me and the @Jooseboxx team this month! Huge shoutout to @calmfixup of WCA backing me at this performance and everyone who made THOPFest happen! song: "Hooked" from Guardians of the I.E. - Awesome RemixTape EP out now on all platforms and comic shops around the I.E. 📷: @knawledgevisuals #thopfest #jooseboxx #intheie #iehiphop #knawledgevisuals #knawledge #hooked #gotie #guardiansoftheie #mcu #marvel #guardiansofthegalaxy #tanjintwiggy #tanjint #wiggywoo #westcoastavenger #avengers #endgame #avengersendgame #threadscientific #thetbrand #nerdcore #nerdcorehiphop

A post shared by Tanjint Wiggy Woo (@tanjintwiggy) on May 6, 2019 at 3:42pm PDT

         The red carpet and press gamut afterwards was fun, the food trucks were legit. I'd walk into the bar itself and see Rawz DJing, or 2mex, Noa James, D'zyl 5k1 and other luminaries holding court, running panels.  It was the best long day of hip-hop I’ve had in forever. Fresh State was there, Showcase626, EOTR Network showed up Mid-day, and everyone was blazin’, drinkin’, grubbin’, socializing. It usually takes several days over several cities to see all those friends so to consolidate all the folks in one place for a day was amazing. EOTR, 18Scales, Nemy, Thascool and Rane Raps were some standout sets from the earlier part of the day. Cam Archer’s freestyles while hosting were dope. Noa James and Cookbook’s banter was hilarious. Vel, Gavlyn and Sa-Roc were probably my favorite sets of the night due to their tight balance of originality and execution. 60 East’s set was fun as hell as he busted out Thai sticks, Self-Provoked and Elzhi. I left before Sick Jacken took the stage (I was there since like noon foos!) but I saw the Griselda crew rock a bit and that was great stuff- they seemed genuinely surprised at how much love and dedicated fandom they had in the I.E. My recap doesn’t do justice as to how massive of a day this was but suffice to say, 60 East has built a young but solid institution with this festival, it was as legit as any event I’ve attended and easier to blaze at than most to boot. I truly look forward to being involved next year. Peep Jooseboxx in the coming weeks as King Dice and the team roll out video interview coverage and more!

Tristan "Tanjint Wiggy" Acker is staff writer for JooseBoxx, a youth hip-hop and poetry tutor, and member of the Inland Empire nerdcore hip-hop group the West Coast Avengers. Catch more of their work at westcoastavengers.com, follow Tristan on Twitter @Tanjint or e-mail him at tristanacker@gmail.com