This is an independent online buroBG publication on hip hop, ego and being an artist.

We worked together with 12 artists we met online and who are currently resident outside of the Netherlands. Every other week we sent them a picture of a word and they responded with works.

I wrote 5 texts for the Ego Issue and this is one of them

3. When I Am alone

Everybody needs to be an island.

Let us not only talk about hip hop material. Let us also talk artists.

The role of artists has changed. They used to make magic happen. They had the power to capture feelings and extract movements in society, turn those observations around and show them in such clean form they could move history. If you really think this is true, then this was a very powerful and political position. It was a way of communication beyond and loss of all control by governments and big companies. It was the real and important message that has to be told. We need this free, and not money-driven art again. Examples are the movie Casablanca, think about Sketches in Spain by Miles Davis, or the city sights from the 17^th century Venetian painter: Canaletto.

What is changing in the creative industry is the creative process getting more and more important. The way to get to the result becomes the result. Or who has written the novel becomes equally as important as the book itself. Think about making offs, behind-the-scenes, real-life TV, blogs, vlogs, video channels, DIY, …etc. Their all marketed on the idea everybody is a creator and has the right to gather all the information about anything: The internet. The concept is great, everybody as an artist, but it is not a hobby. True messages are not just specialist products like; fixies, home brew beers, any sort of GT’s, and also latte art and hairdressers for men-only are part of the outcome of having access to all information, always.

And it is not that we don’t love it; It fits our time spirit to love this mingling of art, design, food, sport, internet, culture etc. And this amazing blend provides us in our whole lifestyle.

But don’t forget this is how the artists are simultaneously losing the power of making magic: Because no creative process has a commercial core, can ever be the same, and most importantly, speaks positively to everyone. The idea and the sculpting of a real concept has to be not capitalized and without concessions. We have to create space for this.

I could tell you how I sit behind my MacBook, how to me every sentence is a puzzle just to be solved. I would probably sound like a hipster sharing my daily activity on Insta and FB. And in some ways that would just be the thing not to do. Why?

Because the real authentic ideas are not made in a grid. They shiver, they worry, they are late. The most important processes are the ones you can’t explain, are worthless, take way too much time and don’t have any audience just yet.

Think about it; The idea of this well aware, creative hipster sharing creative processes and knowledge, and learning from each other, comes from the understanding of the old saying: No man is an island. Nobody can do anything without the help of the others. Those are the copy-past ideas of just taking one and make them better. Newton said: We are dwarves standing on the shoulders of giants. And that is of course very true and nicely put. But this only works for science, design, and for technology. Not for authentic ideas. Not for radical and difficult ideas that have no space yet in society. The kind of ideas that don’t fit in, maybe because they are too hard of a truth to be heard. And we very much need those ideas to happen in the conflicting contemporary society.

That is why I beg to differ and follow philosopher Bas Haring saying: Everybody needs to be an island sometimes. Go be an island, be by yourself and just go with your guts. Follow a completely new and to you terribly important wind where nobody went before. Try it. Because there is no way that by following the steps already taken, you will become an authentic artist, who has something important to say. Shut up everybody telling you not to. Try to imagine who you are, what you stand for and how this reflects to the world you are in.

Funny how this is where the Ego finally starts to make sense. Being authentic is the most important drift of anyone trying to create something. And artists are great examples of people with big Egos. They make it their lives’ goal to do exactly what they find most important and fits their self-taught purposes in life. This to all costs and always. And they share it with the people who are too afraid of doing so. They see eye to eye with confrontation. They don’t let anything get in their way. And we very much need those fighters.

Believing is something important. Creating beliefs from your own grid and never stop believing. Something is worthwhile just if you think it may be. Don’t worry about followers, or addressing accordingly. Don’t become a follower. If the game is to solve the murder. Change the game, conquer the resistance, and let nobody get murdered.

Those rappers explained it much better;

I’m a rebel at my own right – Brother Ali

A rebel in his own mind – Public Enemy

So get up off that slave ship, build your own pyramids, write your own hieroglyphs – Kendrick Lamar