"The Ill Mind of [EMZ]"
The first gym we visited was blindingly white, sterile. I can’t remember if there was any music playing, but in hindsight, there might not have been any. That might have been one subconscious reason why we didn’t see ourselves there, in addition to the many conscious ones: no waiver, more expensive, strange instructor-student dynamics, and general awkwardness and spirit of inhospitality, both around new people and current members. Things felt strained, forced, unnatural, from the white lights to the white gis to the white walls and mirrors in the changing rooms upstairs.
We knew we’d like Revolution when we heard music with some snare drums and swear words, two things we never would have found even if there had been music playing at the other place we dropped in to visit.
At the Revolution Saturday Open Mat in Houston, our third day there, Buggie was surprised at hearing one particular song, one I hadn’t heard before and that I didn’t find particularly remarkable at the time called “Ill Mind of Hopsin 8.”
For the next three weeks, I’d hear this song (along with “Breath of Life” from Florence and the Machine, a remix of La Roux’s “In for the Kill” and a few others) on repeat at Buggie built out his playlist for his first BJJ competition since November 2019 and his first at a new weight class.
The song is long at six and a half minutes, but the changes in pace and tone at certain intervals keep you engaged throughout—not to mention the content. It’s a song in which Hopsin, the artist, disses the CEO and co-owner of his former label for all the ways in which Hopsin got cheated financially or in which the label was poorly run. It’s filled with the usual verbal acrobatics and poetic barbs that mark a good rap song where the artist is looking to undermine an enemy, proving that the pen, used well, can be mightier than any other weapon.
By the third or fourth listen, I started to pay a little more attention to the words at the end, where the pace slows down and it sounds like someone else is speaking. It’s a beautiful, hauntingly-rendered bit about the need to change in order to grow and flourish. I was unsure if Hopsin, his producer, or someone else had come up with the verses. Maybe it was a sample. Regardless, I decided to look it up on the off chance it was from somewhere else.
Turns out that the verse was from somewhere else: from a Joel Osteen sermon. Osteen’s megachurch, Lakewood, is alongside the highway I drive with some frequency. Along with going to an Astros game, going to a service is one stop on my Houston bucket list, if time permits.
For my Jewish peers or anyone nonreligious reading this, Osteen is one of the biggest Christian personalities and motivational speakers in the United States. For anyone who ever watched True Blood, I have a hunch that the Steve Newlin character, a televangelist, is supposed to be based, aesthetically, on Osteen. Osteen isn’t a vampire as far as I know.
The end of the song, which caught my attention by excerpting Osteen’s sermon, is as follows:
Change is one of the most difficult things that we face
But change is inevitable
One reason we don't like change
Is we get comfortable where we are
We get used to our friends, our job, the place we live
And even if it's not perfect we accept it, because it's familiar
And what happens is, because we're not willing to change
We get stuck in what God used to do
Instead of moving forward into what God is about to do
Just because God's blessed you where you are
Doesn't mean you can just sit back and settle there
You have to stay open to what God is doing now
What worked five years ago may not work today
If you're going to be successful
You have to be willing to change
Every blessing is not supposed to be permanent
Every provision is not supposed to last forever
We should constantly evaluate our friendships
Who's speaking into your life?
Who are you depending on?
Make sure they're not dragging you down
Limiting you from blossoming
Everybody is not supposed to be in our life forever
If you don't get rid of the wrong friends
You will never meet the right friends
Houston has an interesting group of motivational figures hailing from here. You’ve got Joel Osteen, Brene Brown, and Beyonce. There’s gotta be some magic in the Bayou around embracing change, daring greatly, and being not sorry, respectively. Thinking about the journey of who I want to become and the impact I want to have, Houston has turned out to be the perfect starting point with these kinds of “North Stars.”
Personally, I feel a little more like Hilary Duff getting inundated by flash flood waters and “Coming Clean” but anyway, whether by Hopsin or Osteen, this was the message I needed to hear in reflecting on the last month that was flooded with change, with only more change to come.