Wale's "Attention Deficit" making the hip-hop industry pay attention

Wale's Attention Deficit is raw poetry

Before I close this week out, I have to definetly say that Wale's Attention Deficit has been the soundtrack of my WEEK, and probably will be for a while.

I listened to it walking to class, in the car, while I did homework, did my hair and even in my sleep! Wale's album opened my ears and made me pay attention to his message.

My favorite tracks on the album are "Shades" featuring Chrisette Michele, "Let It Loose" featuring Pharrell and "Diary" featuring Marsha Ambrosius.

Wale came harder than most people thought he would. I've been there since "Natural High" was released.

I love how he is putting D.C.'s go-go culture on the map and infusing it with hip-hop.

He is definetly not a an artist to sleep on.

If you haven't got the Attention Deficit album yet, go get it. Tell your mom, sister, brother, bf, bff or whomever to make it an early Christmas present!





So Unjaded!

From NSU to JMU, two completely different environments, well sort of

Jules Braxton, my younger brother and co-founder of "Live Clean Stay Phresh," asked me to accompany he and his highschool graduation coach on a trip to James Madison University in Harrisonburg, VA.

I agreed to go and marked my calendar for the day that I would go the journey to help my 17 year old brother find a university to attend.

(Pictured Below: My younger brother Jules and Me)
Both NSU and JMU are state funded institutions, but it was obvious that JMU recieved an amount of funding much larger than NSU, a public HBCU.

The campus was beautiful. It was donned by clean, manicured lawns, and a back-drop of mountains and a cool breeze. I tried to compare JMU to NSU but I did not know where to begin.

The environment was intimidating at first, since I come from a school where I can get anywhere in about ten minutes, but our tour guide John hit us with a slogan; "Big school, small school feel."

We toured only the east side of the JMU campus in about twenty minutes where we came across one of several campus libraries that had five floors.

NSU just broke ground on a new library, which will still be the only library available on campus. This was a major difference between NSU and JMU.

My brother was also more than happy to hear that JMU had eighteen dining facilities on campus, which is over four times a many as NSU.

JMU also had one thing that NSU lacks; diversity. At the end of the tour we went to a student organization fair where several organizations put on productions.

A few members of Omega Psi Phi Fraternity, Inc. stepped for the diverse audience of visitors, and were followed by a Chinese organization that demonstrated a traditional lion dragon dance.

My brother loved everything about JMU including the appearance of their campus, state of the art facilities, and of course the food!

Aside from the cosmetic and diversity differences, I can say that JMU and NSU both know how to show school pride!

I had fun being surrounded by so many Unjaded Dreamers!



(Pictured above from l to r: Josh Jefferson and Jules Braxton)