This blog is about a couple of topics that I feel relate or at least in my experience they are irrevocably linked. The first is control or the power to control. The second topic is our dreams and aspirations.
In my first blog I mentioned the fact that I had taken to the streets to sell my own music and that many of the people who have becomes friends both online and in the real world first made contact on the streets of my home town Manchester. Although I have remained in regular contact very few of these people know that on the 19th December 2007 I was prosecuted by Manchester city council for selling my music on Market Street in the town center. It seems that no matter what argument I put to the council they were hell bent on prosecution, and believe me I did try to reason with them. I tried the argument that all I am is a poor guy trying to use his entrepreneurial spirit to better himself. I tired the argument about the music industry being in turmoil and with that turmoil no one is being signed so I decided to wait no longer to get my music out.
What I learned was you can’t reason with a dog that’s got a bone between its teeth especially when that dog’s got a taste for meat. I realized I was the meat. In the eyes of the council I was no different to pickpockets or people selling fake DVD’s and other bootleg material.
So off to court I was headed still thinking of my best defense. However the more I looked into the law coupled with the fact that they had me on CCTV tracked trough the city like I was Jack Bauer in an episode of 24. The footage clearly showed me selling and taking cash from members of the public. So not only did they have me by the short-and-curly’s , they also had hold of Big Willy and the two twins as well (painful). So to jump to the outcome the verdict was guilty and the fine was £250.
From my point pf view the money I had to pay was worth it. Not because I believe that £250 is nothing but because the experience taught me about one thing. It taught me about control. The control that society has over us all, it taught me that if you have a dream sometimes there is a price to pay for that dream.
I will be totally honest I have never been a lover of authority figures, men in suites, men in black or whatever you want to call them and anyone who has listened to my single ‘FREE UR MIND’ will know where am coming from. That’s right the council guys were just a couple of agents without the dark shades and cheaper outfits. But the control they enforced was no different. If I had stolen, then come after me. If I had killed, come after to me. If I had raped then by all means come after me. But the so called crime of selling my music just didn’t add up. To me, the council and the police officers who confiscated my music needed to free their own minds and quickly.
Ok, now I come to the most important part of this blog and my experience.
After I was prosecuted I did not go out to sell for a while until I realized I had stopped hitting the streets not through choice but though fear. Subtle fear had crept in and along with it the feeling that I was being watched. I felt like I was doing something wrong.
Me scared? Yes Elavi, you, scared like a little baby scared of the monsters in the dark. This realization came to me when I was watching a film called HUSTLE AND FLOW. In which the main protagonist DJay relates to another character that it’s not about making it. It’s about making it with as little resources as you have. He said that it’s not about how big the man is in the fight but how big the fight is in the man. It made me think that it was from the street selling that I had been able to record my album, get it stocked in many HMV stores and build my website. The streets had been good to me. Why should I desert it now? So I decided to break trough the fear buy a new bag, fill it and head for the town center to sell, sell, sell like my name was cash generator.
The first couple of times I was uneasy this was not helped by the council guys finding me straight away like agents chasing NEO. But the more they came the less I feared them. I mean what more could they do to me apart from prosecute me again (which they are in the process of doing again by the way). No, in a way they have helped me to realize that they can not control me unless I let them control me, unless I crumble to fear. So far I have paid £250 for my dream but more than money I have also paid the price of my fear and to be free of fear is a priceless thing, because with the absence of fear comes freedom. I am free of what people think of me. I am free of the control and I am closer to my music and my dream.
So, to all the dreamers like me who are driven to create, those who have a dream and a goal. Face your fear. Find out the price of your dreams and gladly pay it no matter how high the price because the reward will be priceless.
Elavi AKA The Fearless
CLOCKWORK by ELAVI
WWW.ELAVI.COM
In my first blog I mentioned the fact that I had taken to the streets to sell my own music and that many of the people who have becomes friends both online and in the real world first made contact on the streets of my home town Manchester. Although I have remained in regular contact very few of these people know that on the 19th December 2007 I was prosecuted by Manchester city council for selling my music on Market Street in the town center. It seems that no matter what argument I put to the council they were hell bent on prosecution, and believe me I did try to reason with them. I tried the argument that all I am is a poor guy trying to use his entrepreneurial spirit to better himself. I tired the argument about the music industry being in turmoil and with that turmoil no one is being signed so I decided to wait no longer to get my music out.
What I learned was you can’t reason with a dog that’s got a bone between its teeth especially when that dog’s got a taste for meat. I realized I was the meat. In the eyes of the council I was no different to pickpockets or people selling fake DVD’s and other bootleg material.
So off to court I was headed still thinking of my best defense. However the more I looked into the law coupled with the fact that they had me on CCTV tracked trough the city like I was Jack Bauer in an episode of 24. The footage clearly showed me selling and taking cash from members of the public. So not only did they have me by the short-and-curly’s , they also had hold of Big Willy and the two twins as well (painful). So to jump to the outcome the verdict was guilty and the fine was £250.
From my point pf view the money I had to pay was worth it. Not because I believe that £250 is nothing but because the experience taught me about one thing. It taught me about control. The control that society has over us all, it taught me that if you have a dream sometimes there is a price to pay for that dream.
I will be totally honest I have never been a lover of authority figures, men in suites, men in black or whatever you want to call them and anyone who has listened to my single ‘FREE UR MIND’ will know where am coming from. That’s right the council guys were just a couple of agents without the dark shades and cheaper outfits. But the control they enforced was no different. If I had stolen, then come after me. If I had killed, come after to me. If I had raped then by all means come after me. But the so called crime of selling my music just didn’t add up. To me, the council and the police officers who confiscated my music needed to free their own minds and quickly.
Ok, now I come to the most important part of this blog and my experience.
After I was prosecuted I did not go out to sell for a while until I realized I had stopped hitting the streets not through choice but though fear. Subtle fear had crept in and along with it the feeling that I was being watched. I felt like I was doing something wrong.
Me scared? Yes Elavi, you, scared like a little baby scared of the monsters in the dark. This realization came to me when I was watching a film called HUSTLE AND FLOW. In which the main protagonist DJay relates to another character that it’s not about making it. It’s about making it with as little resources as you have. He said that it’s not about how big the man is in the fight but how big the fight is in the man. It made me think that it was from the street selling that I had been able to record my album, get it stocked in many HMV stores and build my website. The streets had been good to me. Why should I desert it now? So I decided to break trough the fear buy a new bag, fill it and head for the town center to sell, sell, sell like my name was cash generator.
The first couple of times I was uneasy this was not helped by the council guys finding me straight away like agents chasing NEO. But the more they came the less I feared them. I mean what more could they do to me apart from prosecute me again (which they are in the process of doing again by the way). No, in a way they have helped me to realize that they can not control me unless I let them control me, unless I crumble to fear. So far I have paid £250 for my dream but more than money I have also paid the price of my fear and to be free of fear is a priceless thing, because with the absence of fear comes freedom. I am free of what people think of me. I am free of the control and I am closer to my music and my dream.
So, to all the dreamers like me who are driven to create, those who have a dream and a goal. Face your fear. Find out the price of your dreams and gladly pay it no matter how high the price because the reward will be priceless.
Elavi AKA The Fearless
CLOCKWORK by ELAVI
WWW.ELAVI.COM
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