Warning: swearing

You will recognize the hard-rapping, clear-thinking local emcee's name from its homonym Medgar Evers — famous civil rights activist, namesake of the public swimming pool in the Central District — and that's no accident. Mega EvErs is trying to free minds. And he films lots of videos in the CD near the pool. I'm late to the party (The Stranger and The Weekly can call firsties on blogging about this guy). But we all have to start somewhere. Mega apparently goes back to the MySpace era, as Mega Man, but I never heard of him.

"Ambition" made me pay attention. I'm pretty sure the lyric about going from "crack in the cabinets" to "serving crackers cabernet" is about the transition from drug sales to the food service industry. I love hearing that. Not because the legal life is the best life. But because it's the perfect thing to brag about to the glut of complaining prima donna artists who don't want to work hard. They say things like, why am I not signed to a major label, why won't Seattle recognize how good I am at music, and why is there an illuminati secret society set against me?

How about you get a difficult, unglamorous job as a waiter, and also be excellent at rapping, and then STILL don't expect Dr. Dre (or whoever you perform for*) to call say Good Job? That's reality.

Mega EvErs is a realist and — crucially, when skies are gray — an optimist. I know so many quality local musicians on food stamps eking out minimal existences, cash-wise. It's a humiliating life if you think about it the wrong way, especially this holiday season, with people killing themselves because they don't have enough money to buy gifts. Mega reminds us to think about it the right way. Which is to think about the future, think about goals, and how you have to change something in your brain if you want to see differences in real life.

*Reference