My First Love

sometimes it is in losing ourselves
that we find who we truly are.
rejecting the fabric we are made of;
fed new threads through chords and progressions.
trading identities and trading eighths,
only to find that our desires betray us
just as Peter's speech betrayed him.

we do turn into our parents.
i yearn the food mother craved for 9 months;
and instead of crying myself to sleep
i hum familiar tunes that have groomed me into a man.

wondering where the wonder years went,
i get by with a little help from my friends-
until getting by becomes the preferred flavor
where moving on up is the path only the privileged are privy to.

i ride high in my low rider
and consume thin air through my brown nostrils.
flipping sheets of dyed pulp,
while dreaming of time travel...
latching on to underground commodities
adopting and transposing
concocting and proposing...

step by step
treading water
back to a simple place.
using new threads as a platform
to come back...

to my first love

ARTIST**** Johnston Michaels

How About Those Commies?

I absolutely hate modern day capitalism right now if I didn't before. I got a plane ticket for the wrong date...to change it I had to pay a fee AND pay for a new ticket! Right now my car is still totaled simply because the insurance company doesn't want to pay the $7,700 it takes to get it fixed, even though I know I give them so much more money than that. I pay insurance for a cell phone that's only insured under certain instances.

How is this a consumer-driven economy when the consumer doesn't matter?

CEO's are making record numbers off dollars where customer service and job security is going out the window. I overdrafted my account buying gas to get home, while the Fat EXXON Man got a record number of money. We are getting SOOO PLAYED by this system and we love it. We love to buy more and more while we get less and less.

It's official...I'm dropping out of school and moving out of the country into a commune. All that will do is put me in a market yet to be reached. Maybe I can move to Cuba. I hope Castro doesn't die soon!

ARTIST*** Dr. Miafere Olivia

Vintage,Seasoned,Antiqued,Marinated and Familiar

allowing transit to further the foundation I thought I laid in///
opting to sit alone and backtrack instead of posting next to a stripped stranger///
backtracking reading my lines my pupils havent penetrated in a while///
watching each line polish the dullness i've worn like a badge///
throwing its remains back into a bin of other knick knacks,earrings, back pins, beads and buds///
rereading words and singing them out loud-even the lyrics forgotten is whats dope on my side of town///
knowing when to go back///
what references to check///
chasing pavements with pressed pupils to each ground rock, from cement to sentiment///
post-it notes, left in liner notes and highlighted paragraphs shift to the ashes of myrrg scented sticks and cones///
revisiting these materials reminded me that GOD is a BLACK woman
and humble pie hurts no matter how thick or thinly its sliced


ARTIST*** nyjia jones

blowin fresh breath in the people's face since 2007!!!

Many people get fickled when they see the stamp: "The PepperMint".


They don't know what to expect. Of course any normal person would first think of the candy [not the plant] ... as they continue to sift through web pages and [paper] pages [lol] .
they are either made moderately uncomfortable or are intensely intrigued by our boyish charm and gender ambiguous-sass!

AND ONLY GOD knows how many times we've been labeled as an OCCULT or compared to THE FACTORY. [much love edie sedgewick]
WELL, GET READY! because we are 'bout to make more noise than that old lady in your church unwrapping a piece-a-candy...

put your righteous minds @ rest. We are not a cult. [tho we do burn sage before meditation] We are not a candy company. [but please dont judge us if you see us dancing to an old 50 cent hit]

We are not endorsers or public advocates for the technicolor-david la chapelle shoot-hype williams video extra-zebra stripe and leggings-hipster movement...however, we might be caught rockin patent leather technicolor dreamcoats and rasberry berets!

[i digress] I say all this to say. That we like to consider ourselves messengers. A medium. we shy away from the missionary approach [when infecting subnations and subordinate cultures =) *

The PepperMint Arts Collective's vision is to create. To avail ourselves as an additional voice. volunteering a few more pairs of legs for the movement. and there are countless other analogies that could build upon what is still being built upon as we speak. but I think it's best that we leave this abbreviated vision statement like it is.


Soooo...be on the look out for more from THE "we're not candy. we're not a cult. we're an arts collective -PEPPERMINT ARTS COLLECTIVE"


shalom-mubaraak*

that means PEACE & BLESSINGs.

if ur an erykah badu PHan...u know that they manifest with ev'ry lesson learned*