“Oh my god, he is so….GHETTO.” It’s a common expression these days. I hear it all the time from white folks, black folks, even Jay-Z himself. Mr. Beyonce may be using ‘ghetto’ as a self-referential complement, but for most people the word is an unmitigated insult.

It was my first time in Mexico, and something felt off. I was sitting outside the faded colonial church in Teotitlan del Valle, a village in the beautiful, proudly indigenous state of Oaxaca in southern Mexico. I surveyed the scene, trying to decipher the source of my uneasiness. In the…

So I wrote this poem last fall called Tree Hugger. It’s about Oakland, violence, fatherhood, what it means to be man…and the first time my hippie-ass 10th grade science teacher asked me to hug a tree. Now that piece is gonna be on a mixtape over a Lil Wayne beat.

I had to go Lenny Bruce on this one. The good folks at Reboot and Smith Magazine called me up and said, “Hey Josh, we’re doing a show of Jewish stories. Six word Jewish stories. You got anything?” Well, there’s only one answer to that question. Here’s the video proof….

A couple years ago, I got booked to perform at the Black History Month celebration at the Museum of the African Diaspora in San Francisco. I was excited, no doubt…but also a little confused.