Nah Hov Tidal seems real LAME

Yesterday or the day before Jay-Z and his talented super friends dropped what they might have thought was the best thing to happen to music since the iPod but is more like shining up the same old shit then adding a price tag to it. But fuck the long prologue and let’s just get in to it.

Side note but I’m currently listening to “Watch the Throne” which I illegally downloaded the day it came out #ThugLife.

Nobody asked for this

At least once a week I read or hear somebody asking when is Andre 3000 going to drop a solo project. At least once a month people are still on the lookout for a Jay Electronica album. Shit I can name 20 people I personally know that still have hope in the Detox ever seeing the light of day. You know what I never hear? You know what people never ask for? The ability to stream lossless music files. Fuck the fact that average FLAC file is about 100mb and streaming it over your 10gb data plan with allow you about 45 minutes of music a month. How many of you actually knew what lossless music was prior to Monday? Ok here’s an even better question if you are listening to a lossless version of “Niggas in Paris” through your Beat by Dre headphones could you even tell? My guess is no, because I’m listening right now (via a download, not streaming) and I can’t tell the fucking difference after 3 playbacks the shit sounded the same.

Music is FREE and nothing is exclusive

Music is so free it’s actually harder to buy music than it is to “illegally” download it. Remember when the Magna Carta dropped via that Jay-Z app at midnight for Samsung phone owners only? Yeah I literally had it on my Drop Box drive at 12:05am EST and on my HTC phone and PS3 by 12:07am EST. The exclusivity of the app didn’t even last long enough to make it to the 4th track. That was 2 years ago if it dropped tonight I’d probably have it by 12:01am if my internet connection is slow. So with that tidbit of knowledge and the fact that 99% of all recorded music is literally keystrokes away at any giving moment and FREE why would John Q Public pay you for it? And for the exclusive video content you can YouTube Netflix original content right now. If Netflix can’t keep its exclusive content from escaping to the regular net how is Tidal going to keep behind the scenes footage of Alicia Keys at the Grammy’s safe?

Pandora and Spotify exist and are doing pretty well

I don’t stream music. Even with my unlimited data plan I don’t stream music. I don’t like commercials. I don’t like surprises in my playlist. I like to have total control of my music so I’m only listening to music from my digital library. This clearly sets me aside for the average Joe because every other person in my office is streaming for FREE. That 30 second Spotify commercial doesn’t even faze them neither does running into a track they might exactly fancy because they won’t pay to skip it they’ll just suffer thru it. A commercial break every 5 songs isn’t a deal breaker and certainly does not validate a $9.99 monthly charge.

We don’t care if “artists” aren’t getting their money

The Beyhive is huge. If you sneak diss Beyoncé online they will swarm into your Twitter mentions and make you consider deactivating your account. An artist my think that kind of love can be transformed into dollars and yeah that’s true, if you’re on tour because we can’t bootleg concerts. See being on online terrorist to people that don’t feel the same about our favorite artist is free love and we are all about FREE love like it’s Woodstock. So if Pandora isn’t giving artist their fair share of profits for the usage of material that’s something for that artist to take up with legal office at Pandora. We don’t care. We see the artists as rich, even if they aren’t rich like Ryan Leslie. From the consumer stand point our free music vs paying for music isn’t going to stop you from getting that new Maybach. Plus Kanye has thousand dollar Lavin T-shirts with no logos and Jay-Z has a Basquiat to look at while he’s peeing so yeah we won’t be adding to excess without good reason.

Good Luck but ain’t nobody fucking with Tidal
Jean DeGrate has spoken

Four Questions Men Need to Stop Asking

Men are famous for asking questions that never result in straight forward answers and more times than not annoy the woman being questioned. Being that women often don’t voice their disgust clearly with men during the courtship phase these following questions have landed several men on the "Do Not Answer" list or comfortably in the friend zone without any explanation. Asking any of these questions will not only do more harm than good you won't gain any insight.

Why are you single?

Honestly bro how do you think she’s going to answer this? Let me think… Ok I got something. “I’m single because I’ve just been focused on my career/kids/spirituality/school and haven’t really had the chance to meet anybody.” This response is going to be 98% bullshit. The more realistic answers go more like this…

“I was dyking for the last 3 years.” That temporary lesbian pit stop is getting more popular by the day.

“I’ve been fucking my baby father and hanging on to the hope that we might get back together.”

“I’m completely insane and once men figure it out they leave me faster than the starting line at the Boston marathon.”

“I only date men that buy me expensive things; I mean that can bring something to the table.”

“I just haven’t met anyone because I don’t know what the hell I really want.”

No grown woman is ever going to be that up front with you and you’ll come off as just another dude asking the same generic ass questions.

Do you like it? (During sex or immediately after sex or ever referring to sex)

Funny thing is up until recently I didn’t know this was a thing grown men did. I mean I'd understand if you’re 16 or 17, just learning your way around the female body and trying to hone your craft; it’s perfectly OK to seek out a few pointers. If you’re 21 and over you need to at least pretend to be confident in your stroke game and pay extra close attention to her body cues. The moment you open your mouth to get a critique on your bedroom performance is the moment you become a weak ass nigga. Seriously bro don’t ask her. If you think your game was lacking take it to pornhub, google some Karma Sutra moves or start eating that booty like groceries. Just don’t ask her. Ok. Ok. If you’ve got her screaming into the pillow while destroying the pussy from behind and you yell out “You like that, huh you like that” rhetorically that’s fine but that is the ONLY exception.

How many men have you been with?

Besides coming off like a total lame; she’s not going to tell you the truth if the numbers are higher than she’d like them to be. If she 6 boyfriends but has 34 bodies under her belt at 29 she’s not telling you that shit man. In this day, in this age almost every woman has a body or 9 over your comfort level. Unless you’re willing to go that Tyga route and get them while they still have recess and detention; you can expect some wear and tear. If you want to know something real about her sexual past ask her if she ever ate ass. Imagining her sucking so dude's hairy asshole; that’s a real deal breaker. Who really cares if she had a one night stand in Miami last Memorial Day weekend?

What do you like in a man?

Chances are this question won’t get you dropped into the friend zone or land you on the blocked list but it will give you an impracticable expectation to live up too. Asking a woman what she likes in a man is like giving a 5 year old boy a pen and pad then telling him to design his ideal toy. All the dope things that couldn’t possible co-exist in a single human being will be nicely packaged into this dream man she’s going to lay out for you. Now the funny thing about a woman’s criteria is it’s etched in stone right up until the point she meets a guy she likes but he doesn’t meet her set standards, then all that shit goes out the window. She wants a tall man but her baby father is 5’7. She wants a book smart and street smart guy but has never dated a man with a college degree. She wants a guy that eats healthy but her last boyfriend fed her so much pizza she thought she was a Ninja Turtle.

Do yourself a favor and don’t ask her bro
Jean Degrate has spoken

We’re Not Taking the Blame for That

Somehow, some way “us” men catch a lot of heat for the woes of women for which we can’t be held directly accountable. I don’t know when it happened, but one day I was an adult, and I started catching beefs for things I’ve never participated in. “You men this” and “You men that” started being slung around quite frequently. As if there was some sort of Illuminati secret society of men making laws and breaking hearts that I had yet to be invited. I'm 35 now, and I nor anybody I know have been tapped for admission; therefore, I’ve determined we are not to blame.

We set beauty standards
"We" set unrealistic standards of beauty. "We” glorify body types that aren't within reach of the average woman. In spite of it all, "we've" done nothing to neither influence the female image, nor do we have anything to do with the way you feel about yourself. I can't remember not one brainstorming session at our monthly men's meeting where we ever set the standards of female beauty. Nope. Not a single fucking one. We never went over the importance of thigh gaps. Never touched on the need of ridiculously long eyelashes or painted on eyebrows. We never endorsed waist trainers. We didn't start the ass shot and boob job campaign, either. Last time I checked, women with small butts and tiny breasts were still being courted, still getting married, and still having kids. Rihanna has the build of a 12 year old, and guys are still actively checking for her. Aside from that, "us" men have individual preferences (as all people do) and they vary greatly; don’t tight cast us into whatever ideals Beyoncé is pitching you in her latest Vogue spread.

Wasting your time
I’ve dated a lot of women. With that said, I’m prone to walk away when I see that shit isn’t about to pan out. I’m not the “stick around until we can’t stand each other” type. When I call the whole thing off, it doesn’t matter if it’s 2 dates or 30, I always get accused of wasting her time. I'm not the only guy that has been accused of wasting a female companion's precious time. It seems as if any relationship that doesn't end in happily ever after is considered a waste of time. How so? How? Did you have other plans from which your latest suitor held you? Were you painting the town red night after night before he came along? Chances are when a man comes along that starts to hold your attention, it’s likely that you weren’t doing anything of note besides live tweeting Scandal on Thursday nights. This shit doesn’t always end in marriage every time boy meets girl. It’s not a waste of time; it’s the way life goes. Kiss a few frogs until you find your prince because Lord knows every nigga you handed the pussy to wasn't in the running to be your husband.

Past men that hurt you
Carry your baggage until you are ready to put it down. Nobody sets the parameter on how long one should hurt because we all heal at our own pace. That’s right boo boo, you can be butt hurt as long as you need to be. Cool? Ok. I’m glad I got that out of the way. Now if you decide to hop off the bench and get back in the game before your feelings are intact you CAN’T blame that hurt on the new dudes you’re dating. Just because cheating ass Derek said he was running to the store, yet he was really fucking the bitch that lives two buildings down, you can’t spazz out when Jamal makes a liquor store run. Just because Tyrone borrowed half of your tax return to buy a QP of loud then you never saw him again, you can’t tell Jamal you don’t believe in loaning men money when he asked for $20 because he forgot to hit the ATM and the pizza man is outside. How is the pizza man going to get paid? When Pizza Hut stop delivering to your house how you going act? We are all different, but maybe, just maybe you're a bad judge of character.

Nah, you're grown and make decisions on your own.
Jean Degrate speaking for all men has spoken

Thirsty Guy Flow Chart

I actually made a flow chart but it wasn’t mobile phone friendly. I had to scrap it. Too hard to read and grasp the concept at that small of a scale. Ya’ll are just going to have to bear with me and let these words illustrate my points.

There are only 3 things you need to understand:

1. Repeatedly reaching out to you is FREE
If it cost men just 25 cents for every text, FB inbox, dick pic, DM and thirsty comment sent most of you women would never hear from us guys at all. But since it’s free it’s like “Why the fuck not?” Think of it as finding an unscratched scratch off lotto ticket on the ground. It’s well worth the effort to pick it up and take a nickel out of your purse to see if you found a winner, right? That same logic is applied to the thirsty nigga approach only this scratch off ticket has infinite places to scratch.

2. He got your hints
Every time you’ve curved a guy there is a 99% chance it crystal clear to him that you weren’t interested. His reply to you: “So, just because she doesn’t like me doesn’t mean stop trying” especially since it FREE. So when he asked to hangout and you never replied or replied “LOL” he got the hint. When he offered to eat your ass before even going out on a single date and you replied “Fuck no, go kill yourself” he got the hint. When he sent you the unrequested dick pic , you blocked him from every possible way he could contact you and he, in turn, made an entirely new FB account just to inbox you again, he got the hint.

3. Pride is not a factor
Women aren’t normally aggressors: So on that off chance a woman ends up being direct with a guy by expressing her interest and that results in a curve you can consider all forms of communication ended. Men, thirsty men in particular, don’t possess the same type of ego. Rejection is a part of life for a thirsty nigga. So, that screenshot you posted of him saying all the things he would like to do to you won’t stop his advances; furthermore , it won’t stop him from continuing to use this formula to gain the affections of other women. “Pride? What pride? She’s way too phat for me have pride. “

With that said, it’s them not you. You don’t have to re-evaluate yourself the next time a guy comes at your wrong. He’s just following thirsty nigga protocol and it has nothing to do with the way he views you.

Thirsty niggas, much like Kevin Gates, they don’t get tired

Jean DeGrate has spoken

How to Cheat

Because anything worth doing is worth doing well

Not that I’m a cheater and not that any of you care if I am or not but I felt the need to state it nonetheless. I’ve been trained by the Jedi masters of sleeping around. Nope, not some crew of super pimp player ass guys. I’ve been trained by the best that have ever done it; vagina owners. Nobody does it better. Chances are if your girl is cheating on you’ll never find out. Anyway, let me get this started.

1. Get a side piece that knows they are a side piece

One of the worst things you can do to yourself is trying to juggle two or more relationships and keeping everybody in the dark. YOU ARE GOING TO FUCK THIS UP. You’ll laugh before the joke because you’ve already seen the new Tyler Perry movie with your main chick. You’ll mix up dates. You’ll forget to move your side chick’s shampoo out of the shower and put back your main chick’s razor and body wash. “Donte, whose “Crème of Nature” shampoo is this?” At that moment you will know the jig the is up. You will sleep much better with a side piece that knows what it is. Plus you can say shit like “Be quiet for a second this is my girl calling I got to take this” and your side piece will actually shut up.

2. Safe sex

You can be the Floyd Mayweather of getting pussy on the side but when you bring that chlamydia home shit is going to get real and you’ll really wish you were Mayweather when she’s trying to take your head off with a baseball bat. It’s going to be a no brainer that you’ve been fucking around. Her last doctor’s appointment said everything was AOK and that was 3 months ago and she’s been letting you hit it raw for 9 months. Yep all arrows will point to you. On the bright side; setting your Jordan’s on fire and carving “cheater” into the hood of your 2008 Impala with a kitchen knife will make you a legend on Twitter and Instagram.

3. Leave that social media alone

All that liking and commenting on pictures is the fastest way to throw up a red flag; even if you aren’t doing shit but liking and commenting people always assuming those DM’s are doing the most. Just yesterday a female homie told me a dude she doesn’t KNOW AT ALL started following her on IG liked a few pictures and a few days later his girl was in her DM’s asking her if her dude was sleeping with her man. Now in this case this girlfriend is a bit over the top but your seemingly saner significant other is still paying attention and suspicion will lead to you getting caught up.

4. Cash is king

Swiping creates a paper trail that you can’t explain away; especially if it doesn’t correlate with the lie you already have in place. If you went to your brother’s house to help mount his TV and setup a new entertainment center then 1 beer turned into 12 and next thing you knew it’s 7am and you’re found sleeping on his couch with crust in your eyes and morning breath. That’s a very believable story, until your credit card statement comes next month with a $42.56 charge from the Waffle House at 12:57am.

5. You don’t “own” your side piece

Don’t catch feelings. Don’t get jealous. Don’t expect loyalty. You’re cheating and it’s a dirty game. If you see that your side piece Man Crush Monday is Andre that works at the Auto Zone on MLK you just got to keep on scrolling. If you happen to run into your side piece out on a date you got to act like you didn’t even see her. Don’t send that “WYD” text. Don’t be that guy. Your time together is your time together and your time apart is your time apart.

6. Don’t give all your free time to the side piece

Slipping away every chance you can, will get you caught. Canceled 3 of the last 4 date nights so you could be out in the streets with your sideline joint and your girl will notice. If you’re a “get off at 5pm and pressing the elevator button at 4:59pm” type of person you can’t suddenly become Mr. Company Man and start “working late” 3 nights a week. When the “Why don’t we go out anymore?” and the “How come you’re always working now?” questions come the shit is moments away from hitting the fan.  If you can’t stand being around your significant other that much it’s time to break up and just be free. Your side piece is a vacation home and should be treated as that; take your ass home sometimes.

7. No Pictures

As a child I learned never to take pictures with guns, drugs or side bitches. 25 years later it’s still valid. Don’t let her take no selfies in your car even if you’re not in the picture; remember your son’s car seat is. Matters of fact don’t let her take any selfies anywhere: not in your bedroom, not in your bathroom, not in your living room. Don’t even let her take pictures of her food for the Gram when you’re out with her; don’t nobody give a fuck about that jambalaya pasta from the Cheesecake Factory anyway. You don’t need a stockpile of nudes. She sent you a nude? Cool, look at it for 30 seconds then delete it. All that shit is evidence. You’re not making a memory book you’re having an affair. Be a fucking adult and stop making Kodak moments.

Now go off into the world and unfaithfully flourish
Jean DeGrate has spoken

6 things to STOP doing for the 2015

I know I haven't been cranking out the blogs over the last few months because I've been super busy. I'm going to do better in the new year and I mean I'm really going to do it not in that "in the new year I'm going to be in the gym" kinda way.

But here's a list blog because everyone loves a list blog...

1. Stop taking pictures of receipts and posting them on the web

We get it you buy shit. Dinners, clothing, shoes and all types of other dope shit. We don’t need the proof that you bought your dinner. We don’t care how much you dropped at the mall today.

2. Stop posting all your massive coupon gains

Yeah it’s cool if you got a 65 inch Samsung 4k TV for a 1000. Please post that shit and post all the info of how you acquired it at such a dope price. Now if you obsessively sorted and collected coupons to buy 3 shopping carts full of dishwashing liquid for an average of 26 cents a bottle nobody gives a fuck excluding other manic couponers.

3. Stop dressing your little boys like the 4th member of the Migos

No explanation needed.

4. Stop making public record of your hoeness

Ladies if you’re going through “baes” like bundles of weave you might want hold off professing your new found love until you get a season change or two under your belt. Trust me posting pictures and the details about your latest bi-monthly HIM with only make you seem kinda hoey. You might be deleting your hoeness in your mind but Facebook and Instagram are keeping track. Kim we know you’ve got at least 5 new bodies in 2014.

5. Stop giving credit for shit that doesn’t cost anything

Let me elaborate on that right quick… You posted 10 selfies this morning and your new boo likes all 10 within a minute of you posting them then you praised him for it. No. Stop that shit. You shouldn’t receive praise for double tapping a picture on your screen of your cellphone with your thumb.  The same goes with “Good Morning” text and clever use of emojis.

6. Stop being thirsty PUBLICLY

This goes out to mostly men but some of you women are thirsty as fuck too.  These days it’s so easy for your thirst to be exposed to the masses via the invention of the devil known as “the screenshot”. Every text, FB inbox, DM, G Talk and email can fall victim to “the screenshot” releasing all the creep shit you’ve said in confidence to social media. I don’t personally know the scorn of having “Girl I want to eat your ass for Sunday dinner” posted on twitter but I’ve seen it and cried from laughter. Exposing thirst has sent many into social media exile and with that said why would you want to say some wild shit out in the open for the world to see? You really want to be the guy to openly say “Inbox me if you want me to buy your rent and eat your pussy”?

Just STOP
Jean DeGrate has spoken

4 More Things Men should be Telling Women but We Don’t

From 5:22am to about 6:05am this morning I spent sitting on the floor in my bedroom digging out shoe boxes looking for a pair of shoes that I donated to charity 3 years ago. Welp. During this fruitless search I discovered the book “Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban” snuggled between 2 pairs of shoes I forgot existed covered in a lifetime’s worth of dust. I don’t read Harry Potter nor do I know anybody that publicly admits to reading Harry Potter that has been through puberty in the last decade. “Oh yeah a woman must have left it here” and in the trash it went and this brings me to my first point…

Take EVERYTHING with you when you leave

In my dream bachelor pad before entering the main living quarters you have to go through a security check point where females will be ask to disrobe by TSA agents and all their clothing and personal belongs will be put into a storage locker. Afterwards they will be handed one of those “Orange is the New Black” jumpsuits and their cell phone then be allowed entry. We can dream, can’t we? Because nothing like that will ever remotely fly. I don’t know if it is intentionally, unintentionally or subconsciously, but women always leave something. You know you walked in here with 2 earrings on and this $3 bottle of Moscato; please take that shit with you.

We Want to Break Up

Excluding the big end all be all argument that will have you sitting Indian style on the living room floor divvying up DVDs while trying to figure out who really has the right to take “The Five Heartbeats” on Blu-ray when they leave; every man I know wanted to break up with his girl way before he actually did it (or forced her to do it for him). We men are cowards in the break up department. You want to know why men don’t like settling down. One of the main factors is because we dread breaking up. Getting to all the reasons why is an entirely different blog in itself just know he’s been laying beside you for 70 straight mornings thinking “How the fuck can I get out of this smoothly”.

Shut Up

Time and time again I’ve found myself on the receiving end of some pointless gossip story about people I’m only familiar with via other pointless gossip stories. I think it’s part of the sex contract that you have to listen to these stories if you’ve seen her naked more than 4 times. “Remember when I told you about Kesha that got pregnant by her cousin’s baby father but she ain’t know it was her cousin’s baby father because they never met so when she found out she had an abortion?” (Side note – Are they still making new Keshas? I haven’t come across a Kesha born after 89 like ever in life. I think they discontinued that name.) “Well now she’s full on dating the cousin’s baby father. They are on Instagram posting selfies together. Look at this picture. She had the audacity to caption it “the heart wants what the heart wants”. These hoes ain’t loyal.” In reply we say “Oh my god, that’s crazy.” But our souls are screaming “Shut up don’t nobody care about that shit.”

This ain’t going to work

We as in men often come across women we’ve loved to see naked but know that we can’t actually turn that relationship into anything significant. Everything about them goes against the grain of everything that makes us, us. She’s a vegan, gym rat, tree hugger, that drives a Prius and does volunteer work on the weekends and you on the other hand drive a 92 Bronco that gets 4 miles to the gallon highway and your dream weekend includes binge watching Netflix in your underwear. Instead of shutting it down right then and there we drag it out hurt some feelings while we attempt to play in a lane that is clearly not our own.

Welp
Jean DeGrate has spoken