Yesterday I was getting gas, and this negro walked past me, and yelled out looking at me… “I wanna be up under somebody’s mama tonight.” I guffawed. That shit was funny. Ain’t happening, but it was super funny. Cuz this Mama is only trying to be up on one somebody’s son. But it ain’t nothing wrong with being a semi hot Mama out in these mean streets.

Seriously tho… when I learned I was gonna be somebody’s Mama, I was like …

WHO?

ME?

Now I was good at doing for self but I had no idea I could cape for someone else so hard. No idea. I swore I was gonna drop him and ruin him for life. I was sure I was gonna cuss too much and his first word would be “shit!” I was sure I would mess up and he’d end up smoking menthols with a scratchy voice, working on cars that would never run again, on a diet of Church’s chicken and Crown. But he just laughed that one time he rolled off the bed, and we kept on trucking until he looked down on me at 10, sang As by Stevie Wonder for me from memory, told me the song playing was John Coltrane “In a Sentimental Mood” , and recently introduced me to my jam… a bit disturbing but containing a Vanessa Carlton sample of “1000 Miles”… “Who I Smoke!” Our love language is music. And he’s not brain dead. I’d say I did pretty good. But who knew?

Motherhood is the single most GANGSTA shit ever. Raising a Black son during this whole Black Lives Matter moment has been heartwrenchingly difficult because each of those men and boys looks just like your son in the moment. Being in a car with a teenager behind the wheel is some otherwordly, my life might end, jumping out of airplanes shit that can only be characterized as mafia life. We are out here slanging and banging for our kids, not only so they succeed but so they know what success looks like, shat restarting looks like, what happiness at all costs looks like. We blow up twice our size to carry these miracles, and sometimes they don’t take that extra shit with them. We feed them from our bodies. If that’s not the dopest thing ever. We are made to keep them nourished, as long as we are nourished. We leave men who don’t serve us to find ones who do, so they will also see positive committed love demonstrated before their eyes. I’m telling you, you can’t get more Mack and Bewick than being someone’s mother. We are honey badgers who will scratch your eyes out and eat them as delicacies if you try our kids. Gangsta shit.

If you are somebody’s mama … you are an umi (Arabic) and belong to a tribe, Ummi (my tribe in Arabic), cuz what we do is God’s work! And the lights we bear are our legacy and lineage. These children are going to do things bigger and better than we ever could imagine. We are the vessel and the alchemists to carry them into the world… literally and figuratively. So if you are somebody’s mama, and especially if you still kinda hot out in these streets, then celebrate yourself. And keep the fire lit! 🔥