hood therapy vol. 5
It's a couple niggas every generation. I wasn't supposed to make it out but decode the Matrix. When they speak it's like a coded language reminds niggas of their strength and all the stolen greatness.
*awkwardly knocks on mic* elephant in the room moment. I check numbers, I love stats, that’s just the way I am wired. I accepted this a long time ago. And I promised myself as long as I stayed authentic to who I am and spoke my truth run the numbers up. I know that’s the opposite of what everyone tells you but it’s a form of dimming to stay within comfort perimeters, but I’m digress.
The numbers on Hood Therapy Vol. 4 were interesting.
Within 48 hours views were over 200 within the range of the previous newsletters. But the engagement averaged roughly 16%, yes I am a nerd.1 Focus. It wasn’t bad, but I will admit it was rushed after revisiting the original format. I’m not going to apologize and there is no excuse. I got lost in my creativity and that is amazing to me, the intention was to explore with no limitations and I did it, proudly.
Mission accomplished.
Maybe volume four is before its time, it could have truly been a flop, or possibly it was too seasoned, and to all of that, I say I didn’t quit. I took my time this week to get back to the basics because I want to continue exercising this muscle. Last week I showed up to the gym sore, this week I showed up resilient feeling unstoppable.
I say do what is best for you on your platform. If you want to share more, don’t ask your readers for permission - look at it as a gift to them. Plus it connects you with new readers so why not post more if you are inspired? Stop feeling guilty for wanting to see growth in your numbers, why do you think stats are available for us? We need this data, that helps us expand if that is why you are here. Some of us are here to break free from the traditional way of making a living, and writing is a form of art.
IT IS OKAY IF YOU WANT TO BE PAID TO WRITE!
It’s no different than a music artist wanting to get paid for a song, a producer being paid to make the song, or an artist getting paid for a one-of-one painting. Young Dolph would tell us to get paid young nigga get paid! 2
what is it? the braids?
"They don’t understand what it means to me, where we choose to go, where we’ve been to go, you know this hair is my shit." 3 True confession: Every time I write Hood Therapy newsletters I immediately start to sing in my head the F.U.B.U. song by Solange and as I continue things begin to flow. Solange hit us with a true gem with her album, A Seat at the Table.
When she said ‘They don’t understand what it means to me, where we choose to go, where we’ve been’ it hit me in a new way when writing this piece. For a few weeks, I’ve wanted to talk about Black hair specifically braids - well the history behind Black braids. And this lyric was the perfect introduction to this quick history lesson.
Braids have always served as a form of self-expression for us culturally for many years. In Africa, braids were used to identify specific tribes and communicate status, emotions, and beauty. Forcing enslaved Black people stripped our culture and our way of communicating.4 Well, not fully we cut it, but we let it grow back and braided it again.
Only this time the communication was in the form of maps, and the pieces of hair strategically crossed over one another creating the perfect cornrow that became grocery store aisles storing rice to feed our families.
They don’t understand how we braided our escape routes and communicated our freedom through our hair so how dare you touch all that we own of our culture. And when Kendrick Lamar asked Drake, ‘What is it? the braids?’, he reminded us that our braids hold value in our culture. I would stretch this to say that Kendrick’s line wasn’t just about his braids personally but asking Drake if he believe his braids make him culturally accepted.5
This brings me to my next thought.
Why do we even want a seat at the table anymore? History has shown us how far oppression can go with humans. This proves my theory that we are a special people, the original people of Earth and we are the subject of focus because of our unique features that allow us to work harmoniously with nature. Our melanin skin glistens while being kissed by the sun, and our hair grows thick and coiled towards the sun breaking all rules of gravity.
I understand why Tupac told us it’s time to heal our women because we as Black women are the backbone of our culture. We are healing ourselves from the years of resentment and grieving the loss of morals and integrity within our culture. I understand why as Black women we are tired, and I can see why Black men feel lost.
after we heal, what’s next?
This section in the newsletter is inspired by a conversation in the
chat last weekend sparked by a ‘Note’ posted. The topic spiraled into a thought of how my narrative would sound if I healed and moved past the things in life that I’ve declared to be my oppressors. I know the topic was about our response to whiteness, but my mind led me to wonder after that conversation about what I view as my oppressions. What beliefs have I formed from my oppressions? And how is this affecting me in my life today? The answers became pretty obvious and I would say the rose color lens was removed. I saw my life clearly, and the role I was playing in my experiences. After all these years of healing, unlearning, and reparenting what’s next?I wanted to be free, in all the variations of freedom. But not just free in how we have been conditioned to view freedom, no, I want to be free of my habit of suppressing my emotions to make others comfortable. I desire to be financially free and to me, that does not mean only living debt-free it means being able to support the experiences in my life I wish to have. Living a financially free life looks like making a living by doing things that bring me joy and fulfillment.
I don’t want to feel like I have to compromise my creativity to survive nor do I appeal to the staving artist sacrifice. Writing brings me fulfillment and healing, I think everyone will express fulfillment through learning to navigate their emotions by learning to articulate them into words. We fail to communicate our feelings with others because we fail to communicate them effectively with ourselves first. Freedom for me is to help my people break free for themselves.
Not freedom from oppression from society, not from our government, but the freedom to live life after you’ve healed. In a way that brings you joy, happiness, fulfillment, and contentment in your life regardless of how it is portrayed in society. Freedom is to share our stories to remind our community of our strength and capacity to heal, fostering a collective sense of hope and empowerment.
gives a reassuring perspective of how we can reclaim our stories and I look at this perspective compared to us reclaiming our braids, necessary.You know you are healing when your stories inspire the people you tell not make them empathize with you because you can speak to your trauma from a healed perspective no longer as a victim.
shared a powerful piece with us last week and the title itself was confirmation of how I desire my narrative to sound when sharing my stories, Calm in Chaos.
Again, Solange's album is packed with gems - I feel it was before its time, like Hood Therapy Vol. 4.
The lyrics to, Where Do We Go? gave me goosebumps listening to the song while brainstorming for this section. This is why these newsletters bring me so much fulfillment, by allowing myself to let life align things for me I come across pieces y’all shared that send my mind on thought trains finding new details and connections at every stop along the way. Once the newsletter is complete, or hit email limits, I look at the newsletter in amazement that I was able to piece together something so relatable by exploring my thoughts more.
Solange asked the question I want to have conversations with our community about, where do we go from here? We’ve healed and broken free, now what?
West Coast rappers make me feel like I can do anything.
Last Sunday as I drove down the highway with the A/C blowing and front windows down in a Jeep Wrangler, I performed a full-on Victory Lap concert, looping Young Nigga, like it was a Kendrick Lamar Popout show.6 I picked up my family and took them on a more calculated willpower-driven journey home. It’s something about when I listen to Nipsey Hussle, the motivation that bubbles up inside me often results in a blast of productivity with positive results. Call me crazy but I believe Nipsey knew that music was spiritual and used it to uplift those who listened, he reclaimed his stories and narrated them in a way that inspired the culture.
The song Young Niggas has served as a gospel melody for me over the past four years since I took the first bet on myself and stopped trying to make corporate America accept me. Entrepreneurship is not for the weak, there is no security in this way of living. People live paycheck to paycheck but I was once living invoice to invoice. And if a client was late on their invoice, my rent was late, or my phone bill, sometimes that would determine if my daughter had a bowl of cereal for dinner or a hot meal.
But when Nipsey said, first you over dedicate then you notice that you’re great, it hits me differently each time. This song brings tears to my eyes every time I hear it because that little bit of belief in myself is ignited and spreads through my body like wildfire. For the 3 minutes and 56 seconds of this song, I feel unstoppable and by the time the song has ended for the second time, I am hyped up to accomplish that goal I just hyped myself up to do.
As we cruised down i80, I served as both the entertainment and tour bus driver I cried trying to rap the lyrics to ‘Let’s Drive to Vegas’ by one of my favorites Larry June. The tears that flowed freely from my eyes were tears of gratitude. Singing alone to the song I realized that I knew the words to this song because I used to play it every day manifesting a life for myself in California. My morning walk to the coffee shop in my downtown neighborhood was only a short block down Elm Street, just enough time to hear one full run of this song to get my day started. And here I was in my dream car driving across the Golden Gate Bridge blasting Larry June to make the Bay Area my permanent residence. It hit differently in that moment, that was a special moment for me and it’s carried me through some major pivots this week.
This is another West Coast rapper who has lyrics that resonate with my experiences and give me the motivation and inspiration to go for it. I live my life by taking bets on myself because I understand as an entrepreneur trying to make it in this society, I have to think outside the box. With affirmations like "Good Job Larry Jacquie” and words of encouragement, the music ignites my inner willpower. I often surprise myself with the enormous bets I have begun to take on myself—calculated risks I like to call them. This week, the calculated risks are doing numbers!7
always been the aesthetic
Black culture has always been the aesthetic for me. From the way we line our lips with chestnut lip liner and layer it with a shiny, non-sticky, 99-cent lipgloss to create the perfect ombre lip to the way we turned a NY Yankee’s baseball cap into an iconic fashion accessory the Black aesthetic is beautiful to me.
Our nails as Black women have always been our basic standard of beauty. A Black woman with her nails done is unstoppable. The way a full set with just a basic French tip can book the confidence in a Black woman should be the written prescription in our therapy sessions covered by our insurance companies. We can write it off as reparations if you will.
With nail prices going up in the blink of an eye and customer service now becoming a thing of the past, yeah Black women’s nails should be free for the next 400+ years. Tell Biden and Trump to use that in their campaigns.
Look at us, just look at how we outshine our environments. The world is mediocre but put Black people in nature and you will see the most beautiful, aesthetically pleasing sight you will ever see. We are built differently. Our genetic makeup is unique. We are one-of-a-kind beings and the world knows it, we need to own it.
Ever since I can remember going to the nail salon was considered both a luxury and a necessity in the Black woman’s life. No matter the occasion, nails and hair had to be done. For me as long as my nails were done, and depending on the occasion I might be able to finesse a baseball cap into my fit if my hair isn’t done. I call it balance.
Nails are a form of self-expression to me. I love colorful designs and for my set to tell a story. I used to love long coffin-shaped sets, but now I love shorter square sets with fun designs so I can type better. When people see me and they get a glimpse of my nails they immediately ask to see them and lush over how creative they are. However, in times like right now when my nails are plain in their natural form I have learned to embrace them as a badge of honor for my sowing seeds season. I pop out with my new fresh set when it’s harvest season.8
a letter to the reader.
Thank you for visiting again to read yet another Hood Therapy newsletter, and if this is your first time we welcome you to HoodStack. Our little corner of Substack where we are unapologetically leveling up in all areas of our life but doing it in true Black fashion. The community formed through the weeks of cultivating these newsletters inspired me to create a safe space, a cultural hub for us called
. Feel free to subscribe as long as you can answer a couple of questions, you know basic stuff, "Ain’t nobody here to see you, ____” and “What flavor Kool-aid did you drink growing up?”Hint: If the answer is not a color you cannot subscribe, but you are welcome to follow.
On another subject, I am taking control of my life again but in a new way. There are so many things boiling inside of me to cultivate and share with the world, and at times I get in my way, but this is changing now. I know there is something huge I am meant to be curating for my community, and I believe I know what it is but I don’t know how to share it just yet.
Between my book, Un-Trap da Hood, and my mission to carve out safe cultural hubs for us as Black people, I know how I am meant to be used as a vessel in this time. I am going back to my intentional focus of treating our natural abilities to be self-sufficient. We can be free, and we can heal, but if we still depend on the resources provided by our oppressors then where do we go?
I will be curating a monthly newsletter to discuss ways that we can change our reality by learning to be self-sufficient in urban environments that will be exclusive to paid subs. This was a battle originally because I wanted to use the space to coach but I want to do more than coach people, it’s much deeper than that and I understand value better now. For the ones that understand that we are actively in a reset, our watermelon is blowing up on the kitchen counter with bananas that bend like rubber. It’s time for us to stop waiting on the government to make change and understand they did make the change, it’s up to us to take care of ourselves.
I am redefining community through my action to redefine our revolution. Instead of ‘charging’ random people to scale their business I would rather invest my time and energy into a specific community that wants to be free in all variations of life. This journey across the country served as a much better mission than I originally thought.
Until then if you would like to support my next coffee shop writing trip, here is a cool little website that lets you give me monetary support with the click of this link. Or you can purchase my book, or as always I love it when you shower me with links, comments, and shares! Those make me the happiest!
9I love y’all…all 200 and some of y’all!
Jacquie
I enjoy stats, and my years as a makeup counter manager taught me to calculate my conversion between visits and sales. I use this method as feedback for my posts, specifically Hood Therapy newsletters. Why? I enjoy cultivating these newsletters to better expand on my missionary work to un-trap the hood through hood therapy. These newsletters are fulfilling for me to curate but rewarding when it brings healing and comfort to you as the reader.
Young Dolph has a song called, Get Paid, and I quoted a popular line from that song. To listen to the song click the link hidden in this footnote.
Don’t Touch My Hair by Solange - the music was speaking to me through lyrics making the connections for me in this week’s newsletter. To listen to the song click the link hidden in this footnote.
The article titled, The History of Black People Braiding Their Hair, by Dope Black provided as a resource to fact check. The link to the article is hidden in this footnote.
Maybe I missed the conversations, but I haven’t heard anyone break down that lyric that we all love so much from Euphoria. Drake has braids, doubling down calling us slaves, and being called out for going to Atlanta to utilize the resources available to make him more ‘cultured’ just like a colonizer. I could be reading too deeply into the lyrics, but they’re saying something. See for yourself, listen to the song linked in this footnote.
During Kendrick Lamar’s popout concert, he played They Not Like Us back to back several times for the audience. I was in the car playing Young Nigga over and over as described.
One thing Larry June is popular for saying is, “Numbers”, to indicate that he is doing good in numbers when checking his stats or bank accounts. In this sentence, I am suggesting that my calculated risks are doing well when it comes to the success of the risk.
Gardening reference to sowing seeding is when you get your hands dirty, but in harvest season you bear the fruits of your labor. My nails being done symbolizes me being able to bear the fruits of my labor when my nails were sacrificed to sow seeds. I am in a season of my life where I started the seeds, the seeds have sprouted, and now they are ready to be planted in the ground. Once I am settled at my physical home I can nurture my manifestations until they can be harvested.
Loaded Based by Nipsey Hussle
This was a great read! Plus anybody who likes Larry June is cool with me. I scooped up your book too. I can't wait to read it!
I don't know, the "you can subscribe if you can answer these questions" makes me glad I'm gang😂