“You only burn for all eternity once.”

—Manèstèri The Tration


Hood Niggas Camping is my first romance within the practice. As legend has it, I exited the “Room of Spirit and Time” with nine composition notebooks full of concepts. I have a checklist. This hasn’t fostered a detached or robotic approach to creating the work; rather, it has led to a more personalized understanding of the raw idea that time embodies when doubled back against its own logic. Romance turned into love. Each Hood Niggas Camping work—three differently sized stacks of the same shape—was composed from the same Lamborghini hood outlines first featured in I.A.H.Y.F.F.A.W.D./N.F.D.B.J.W.B.D. They wooed me so completely that to defend myself, I forged the right to possess them. Just like the hood and niggas, in ways and times, possession—by function—is itself.

Let’s pretend heat is validation, and art has a lot of it. Suppose you’re in a mega-collector’s home—no matter the pretense. The abode is “lit” and has “lit” shit in it. If they owned one, the ignition point would arguably be nearest their David Hammons. Quality interactions with the work aside—it’s a Hammons. The same-difference can happen when attending a blockbuster exhibition opening at a major institution. Just imagine the museum as a communal version of the aforementioned mega-collector’s home; only the museum is owned by the canon. Now, objects are objectified, right? Yet, the paintings/sculptures that are Hood Niggas Camping focus on flipping the switch that would allow the art to objectify us. As for openings, most people are focused on themselves being seen more as art than the art there to be seen. This reveals art’s standing in the broader social hierarchy, even within the confines of its presentation. It’s rare that art isn’t a jaded practice on all sides. Based on its public associability, I’d venture that it functions as lowbrow at this stage. It used to be the light that went forward into unknown darknesses, ensuring there was footing for Gods. Now, it’s the easiest space to transmute class positioning for dirt cheap—or free.

Hood Niggas Camping is different. It self-advocates for the bottom-up approach to validation, as opposed to the top-down flow. It doesn’t subscribe to the generalized, exhibitional pecking order of art during its showing. Instead of using the works as social currency (a flex-worthy IG backdrop), sophistication theater (a cheap date at the museum), investment vehicle (a speculative buy at auction), or exhibition filler (another name on the checklist)—Hood Niggas Camping uses you. In a sense, it’s art that you’re art for. It’s better than us in the same way we’re better than it. Take aspects of our relationship with fire, for example. There’s a smug-flavored delusion we synchronously and psychically imbibe along with whatever alcoholic beverage we elect to drink as we stand close enough to a contained flame of our making. There’s a self-righteous tingle of omnipotence born from the posturing intrinsic to man’s mechanical fortuity and defiance of the physical that intoxicates our thoughts while admiring our unlikely ability to harness something so cursed with avarice it’s doomed with the need to eat the oxygen we simply breathe. A dominion so false we can’t touch our rule over it. Fire. What else can’t you touch, especially if it’s in a gallery or museum?

Hood Niggas Camping communicates across intersections of functionality, luxury, and need more effectively than we typically do when repositioning our own symbolic switches. You know, it's not like we invented fire. Fire was already here. We just learned how to manipulate it. And no other animal can do that, so we’re unique and important. Yes, realistically, we’re exponentially more important than a piece of art hanging in a gallery or museum that we could destroy with fire. So, what’s the next poetic step with inversion in mind? Does Hood Niggas Camping consume you as heat? They're staring down at you the same way you would a campfire. You’re the center of their attention. When you think about it, we—humans—are “lit.” We emit heat. Our bodies effectively cook us as we fuel and age. I remember hearing somewhere that if you’re caught in a crazy blizzard with someone overnight without shelter, you two should get naked and cuddle up because your bodies will generate more heat that way. We’re clothes-wearing “stars”—made out of the same shit the ones in space are, supposedly.

Hood Niggas Camping is designed to be installed in a massive circle of larger-than-life, Stonehenge-esque “pedestals” that act as three-dimensional, freestanding chunks of a white cube wall. All 21 original, monochromatic, black assemblages would be installed on the inward-facing fronts of these giant, encampment-forming supports. Even though it would be a spatial impossibility—no matter a local’s capacity—ideally, their circle would be center-oriented—or tight—enough to where if one were standing in its void (where an imaginary campfire should be), whatever Hood Niggas Camping directly in front of you would be visibly full and clear as day. Meanwhile, the others—to the left and right—round out the curvature of your viewpoint, igniting your peripherals’ simulation of refraction. In effect, channeling that shimmering way heat absorbs the air while simultaneously baking it. The mirage effect. Have you ever looked at a fellow camper from across a campfire’s blaze? The fire almost tricks you into believing that the best way to see the person clearly in front of you is from its point of view. From its vantage point, you are the flame. You’re not on fire. You are fire. A fire to keep some hood niggas who decided to go camping warm.

Remember the scene from Rosewood where ol’ girl specified that it was a “nigga-nigga-nigga?” That splicing of root activation and mass perception is at the core of the overtly dissociative literalness and dynamic attempted in having a goer stand in as the Hood Niggas Camping campfire. Let’s recontextualize the anterior spatial impossibility of the hypothetical “mirage effect” induced by Hood Niggas Camping’s ideal installation combined with a goer’s obverse gaze upon a sole Hood Niggas Camping while facing front and center. Per spec, the concentration of Hood Niggas Camping’s circumferential proximity amidst your standing in their center would limit you to only being able to clearly and ultimately see whichever individual camper you’re positionally aligned with directly. Playing fire also lets you ritualistically embody discernment—serving the individual perceptually separated from the inseparable whole. Yeah, he’s still hood and a nigga, but he’s also a camping piece of art that has his distinct shape, texture, and energy. And—more importantly—a significance and advantage that ordains his leveraging of you. Again, with the visual distortions that come from gazing across a campfire, your eyes settle for what they can grasp—through the flutter of real-time reality, not what you do or don’t understand about what’s being made unclear. Everything needs a trial by fire. Especially perception.

Technically, Hood Niggas Camping is one of the practice’s inverted-performance installations—not a painting/sculpture series. They’ve made a campfire out of you. A Class A fire needs more natural fuel like wood or paper to get hotter; Hood Niggas Camping’s fire needs more you—the more of you that’s added, the more it burns. Therefore, every energetic outflow while standing in as their bonfire is a gradation of flame, from flicker to roar. You’re still smoldering—even if you stand there silent, eyes shut, lips zipped. Any verbalized praise or condemnation, neck-crane, body-pivot, or widened eye against their scale is an emission of your heat and enactment of you as fire for their use. Onsite participation alone doesn’t designate the amount of heat being contrived for this group of camping “hood niggas.” You can leave the show and inadvertently remember the experience of standing there. You are still burning and warming them up. You can share it with someone via text, email, call, or in person; their attention, reading, hearing, and thoughts all become kindling. It all energetically contributes to the fated inferno from pre-show anticipation to post-show buzz. Leave it to art to use your ego for its practical use. In this context, does art use us better than we’d typically use it?

Man—yet they wield it.

Hood

Hood is kinda used like Black in this country. If something is yours, you should be able to use it as you see fit. I’ve long believed that if Black is going to be used, it should be used by Black. However, that comes with the operational caveat of using itself in ways that are better than, or—at least—as good as the ways non-Black does. Now, I get that folks shouldn’t be able to use your shit without your permission, but it has to be your shit. Everyone uses Black because Blacks’ possession of what it represents doesn’t have the saturation of ownership to enforce its majority stake—let alone sole benefit. You must innovate your usage to the point that only you can do it your way—and push it even further. That’s how only you own something—especially something abstruse. You have to be innovative enough to make something what it can be. Pulling the word nigga out of the word nigger was a great start. However, if you stagnate, others will do you better than you with all the tools they were innovative enough to own. For example, the way Black used Asian back in the early 2000s by dry-ass tattooing the same elemental Chinese characters over and over again doesn’t equate to the way Asian uses Black by owning the majority of corner stores, beauty supply shops, laundry mats, and chicken shacks in the hood. One is entrapped within the preoccupation of having to play two roles of itself—for itself and the other. While the other focuses on innovating the one role it plays—either for itself or for some other.

Black is at once the product and purveyor of itself (Hence, the preceding “two roles”). Different Black collectives make money from Black in various ways. Black has done well for/from itself in the art world of late. That’s probably why there are so many renditions of the same painting: Black sitting at a table with a whole plate of food, but choosing to stare out at my looking-ass quasi-defiantly. Letting all that good-ass food go cold and soggy while we’re busy competing to out-posture each other. What’s to be said about Black producing and purveying the same product of itself to the point of essentially inverting the non-Black model of Black capitalization on itself?  Firstly, is it better? Secondly, is it as good? Thirdly, stack that bread. What else are you supposed to do in a commercial run—hope that everybody else making money off you is making it for you somehow? And that’s the point: until Black can regulate the aspect of its commodified self, which is simultaneously the product that purveys itself and the purveyor that “products” itself, everyone else’s usage of Black will be more than its own. This overview is basic, and the sentiment, even more so. Nevertheless, a needed preface for how used things function when participating in their usages’ Free Market from a more empowered position rather than being the stand-in of its leverage.

“Real” is arguably Hood’s most upmarket commodity. It’s also a lesson learned to unlearn. All-encompassing—traditional and unorthodox—qualitative standards for “real” overlap beneath Hood’s cultural stamp of authenticity. Picture this: three “real” hood dudes. One did an unmerited bid because he didn’t snitch. One snitched, but it was only on the opps. And one looked out for number one and “snitched” on everybody. They each have a valid claim to Hood’s definitional throne of “real” and have their share of supporters within interworking, situational shifts that can skew the appearance of its polls at any given time. What if another hood dude agrees with the above-mentioned third hood dude’s strategy of keeping it real yet finds himself in a group “real” enough to physically challenge that outlook? He might be “real” enough to stand on that, make his view known, and attempt to fade getting his ass maxed out, or he could go along with the status quo—for the moment—and be “real” enough not to get done in over nonethical dick-riding. On the flip side, what if he was of the mindset to run down on the third hood dude, and Dude was “real” enough to dead his ass? Now, the smoked one was “real” enough to process a “snitch,” and Dude was “real” enough to kill over his convictions, respect, and well-being. Was Dude not “real” for “snitching” and not being sufficiently moral enough to go ahead and let Homie potentially whack him instead?

Temetrius Jamel “Ja” Morant’s realness isn’t relegated by the gang signs he’s thrown up. He could redefine it by throwing up Black Power’s raised fist or the Nazi’s salute. Similarly, your realness isn’t regulated to losing a one-on-one basketball game to him. You could redefine yours by beating him on 2K or by who knows. Theoretically, one of the realest things about “real” is making it what you’re “real” enough to make it. Along with inverting the flow of validation, Hood Niggas Camping upturns the argument of Hood’s “realness” on its head. Usually, Hood’s realness comes into question over how Hood it isn’t. So, Hood isn’t “real” if it’s “real” enough to be in a museum? Does it being in a museum—or any context “outside” itself—make its provisional definition redefinition? Hood in Hood Niggas Camping’s narrative objective is a faction of the concept’s re-elevation as a larger whole—measuring how much of its reconception and reutilization stems from a place of self-determination and self-selfhood (and, yes, “self-selfhood”). Hood is capitalized on through the music industry, prison industrial complex, professional sports, itself, etc. Therefore, Hood should capitalize on itself in ways better—or just as good—than how other groups/entities do. Do you get where I’m going with this? It’s common knowledge that “real” black and “real” hood are functionally interchangeable. So, this blanket protocol overhaul applies to both.

Everything is more than what you think, but Hood is of the nature to stay more than what you take from it by multiples of its failed recontextualization. This means it’s so much of what it is outside itself—to those outside it—that when there’s an attempt to relocate it into another context, that space is already taken, forcing what could’ve been a newly contextualized version of itself, back into the original. The inflation of this process over time is what “multiplies” it, causing it to “stay more” despite its expansion being “taken.” Nevertheless, Hood can be more positive than any negative perspective based on sheer scope. Whether you have or haven’t been afforded insight into Hood’s sanguine characteristics, I have. Case in point: in loose Sharpie, every signable work of the practice denotes the year it was made and the endorsement: “Ecklaudio.” It is a signatural ode and amalgamation of the first names of two individuals who rest underground due to a clash that didn’t go the right way. To have met them—they were all that was wrong with Hood, and they were. Despite that, they were some of the most incredible, downest, funniest, good-hearted homies I’ve ever had. They didn’t get to reach past what we knew. We knew they wouldn’t. So they didn’t. The fact that it might not have entirely been their fault doesn’t matter—real life doesn’t work that way. Now that they’re gone, what they don’t turn into can be my fault.

The “realness” of Hood gets lazily classified as transgressive. It’s similar to the disingenuous misnomering of passion as anger. A “passionate black man” doesn’t have the same ring to it as a “you-know-what” black man. Let’s follow how ‘transgressive’ gets tracked. In this day and age, transgressive art, in effect, is nearly a fallacy. The more transgressive the art is claimed to be, the more it seems to reflect the state of affairs surrounding it rather than the art itself. Whether intentionally or inadvertently, the extremity of consequences doesn’t negate that “transgression” is the easiest flex to fake today, in any direction. We’re that divided and moist. If everything is transgressive, then being transgressive can’t be everything. This equation forces the remaining aspects of a “transgressive” act past the math/steps that cancel itself out. For instance, 579 minus 578 equals 1. You could subtract 25% of the “transgression”, effectively changing the sum to 434.5, and folks would still clutch their pearls with the same-difference of intensity they did by ignoring the greater function of processing the original 578. Sometimes you can't win for losing, and sometimes you can’t math for mathing.

Hood prays for autogenic self-redemption within the art of being itself. One might argue that Hood’s mentioned upstanding attributes are not Hood's, as if Hood can't be both Hood and claim them. This sentiment revolves around separation, and we often confuse the ability to separate physically with the unrealistic "suspended intellectualization" of being able to separate via definition. You can physically avoid certain elements, or attempt to, by not going around them or where they presumably can't. Imagine that you're having dinner at a Michelin 3-star restaurant. Now, imagine a hood-ass dude—face tatts, scars, gold slugs, and that fucked up, out-of-place energy, who’s outdressing the dress-code and sitting at a better table. All that physical separation is obviously out the window. All you have left is definitional separation. He's not as classy as you. Or, his money isn't as legit as yours—and per my description of who he mostly is, you would be right. However, definitional separation excels when it’s your definition doing the separating.

Consequently, in the preceding scenario, physical separation gets bypassed by what Hood-Ass Dude actually earned. Can any hood dude sell enough dope, hit enough licks, or whatever “unsophisticated” and likely criminal activity a certain mindset only allows them to afford embodying a better version of your patronage at the same Michelin 3-star spot? It’s doubtful, but a rare one can. There are admirable ways to do even wrong things. If he sold dope, did he cut it ethically? If he hit licks, did he not dome the person he robbed after they complied? Is his ill-gotten “credit” legitimized by braving a Michelin 3-star restaurant instead of peaking at Ruth’s Chris? Does mastering the dress code garner him a degree or two more legitimation? Does transcending the dress code edge him further in that direction? Granted, going to a restaurant—Michelin 3-star or not—is going to a restaurant. There are levels. What about going to a museum? Of course, Hood-Ass-Dude could pull up to an opening dressed to the nines in art chic. But what if once you got there, you realize he’s the art you came to see at another place you expected him not to be? That would invert the whole premise of definitional separation of association—physically and intellectually—in a space where the thing usually separated from is the thing you're separating for.

Is dining at a Michelin 3-star restaurant a positive activity? I’d wager most would say yes. Even if the experience disappoints, its intent was unquestionably clear. Dining there is not “hood,” that’s for sure. But how much of Hood’s negative charge gets scrubbed by cultivating its positive side? Everything has degrees. For example, there are only degrees of equality. Hell, anything identical is merely a degree of what it can’t equally be alone (LOL). We gaslight, in degrees, our grasp of difficult ideas by narrating them like they’re always outside us. So instead, we assign a face. Hood Niggas Camping anthropomorphizes Hood—absurdly and with calculation. It names it like a person and codes it like a system. Not to relate to it, but to humanize it just enough to multiply it—past sense, past sympathy, into something projective. We interact with objects like humans all the time—why not concepts? Abstraction’s real job is to frame understanding in the direction of “beyond.” Whether “beyond” is legit or just marketing, it implies progress. And when you stack the deck toward progress, the odds eventually break your way. If there’s more of a problem, then there must be—abstractly—more of a fix. That’s not just abstractly complicated; that’s concretely complicated.

Even if Hood only wanted to be hood, that doesn’t mean it couldn’t randomly create something of itself that’s elevated or profound enough to reach the heights of fine dining or fine art. If that were the case, Primitive Art would never have existed since the practitioners weren't formally taught. That was the point. If you don’t want to be around it, you’re not dumb. It’s tough to navigate. Still, Hood in Hood Niggas Camping is more than its conceivable stigmatic definition. What’s that mean for its place in a museum? Well, when was the last time you were shown in a museum? Despite that, steps assert themselves in space. If you’re inside a structure, you can’t unqualify the steps taken for you to experience standing inside it more than its existence qualifies the steps taken for it to have space to be inside of in the first place. Now, how you got in there is how you got in there. You’re in there. And somehow—whether the backdoor, side window, rappelling down from the ceiling, or by hook or crook—you’re standing inside the analogous structure, meaning, class, import, accomplishment, etc., you find yourself standing in. Depending on the degree of whatever context, it might not count for much, but if it takes 578 from 579 to get to one—it counts for something.

I only scratched the surface with the above definitional musings of "suspended intellectualization.” In that sense, I guess Hood is a fantasy. All of my purest dreams were hoodborne anyway. Hood is what fostered my desire to add one more slot to the urban “Big Three”—rapper, baller, or kingpin. Why not annex a nontraditional aspiration? We love to talk all that “giving back” shit with an authoritative tone that contradicts itself—i.e., MLK and Malcolm X. Or, to “Big-Three-ize” it a bit—Nipsey Hustle and Young Dolph. I’m good on that. I’ll keep my embodiment of the vision breathing and show little hood boys and girls that they can start dreaming about going live with fine art while keeping it “real.”  The only giving back I trust—doing it. Hood needs to see what these Lambo hallucinations, playful absolutions, and hook-ass tattoos underlaid by cutthroat development strategy and “toxic” competitiveness can bring about. Fuck it. Imagine how lit it would be if the culture ascended to fighting and shooting out in galleries or museums because two “real” blue-chip artists got beef. And the artists’ grading scale would ultimately be based on how active they are—like real gangsta rap (admittedly, it does feel better listening to music about shooting somebody by somebody who shoots or gets shot by somebody.) I’m joking. I don’t want the white cube space to turn into an arena for the contemporary art version of Quando Rondo vs. King Von, bringing a different kind of “canon” to canonical while I’m getting mine. But, as far as fine art goes? If it’s real enough, it should be able to be as hood as it wants.

Art—yet we wield it.

Nigga

I had a sit-down at Starbucks with a Dallas-based collector a few years back. We were amidst butting heads about the merits of the practice’s inverted-performance installation titled FOGA: Real-Nigga Edition when he proffers what he believed to be a virtuous counter by asking me: “What if somebody made a video game where you can hang niggers instead of doing it in real life?” Despite whatever ‘inspiration’ he thought it carried, it was really just a lazy reversal of FOGA’s therapeutic absurdities, anchored in a false equivalency—likely fueled by his opportunistic soft spot for the boys in blue à la his affiliations with local government. Another incident found me grabbing a slice with a different Dallas-based collector who I was comfortable enough with to sprinkle in a nigga-this and an nigga-that here and there—speaking how I really speak—like Kevin Hart does. He was appalled and called himself condemning me—all the while “saying” it, of course. He also took it upon himself to hope I wouldn’t teach my son “that” word. Then he went on and on about how a lot of people around him said it growing up, but not him because it was a horrible word, and his being a part of a certain marginalized and persecuted group himself only magnified his emphatic sensibilities—all the while still “saying” it. Cool. Yet, the funniest thing was that he kept “saying” it wrong.

Maybe he was confused—

I said nigga-this and nigga-that. He kept saying nigger-this and

nigger-that.

Why say nigger instead of nigga? They're two completely different words. They have two completely different connotations. Who goes around dry-ass putting ERs on words that end with an A? It’s like we don’t give Nigga credit for what it did anymore. Suppose an African dude sits you down and tells a compelling story involving a hyena. Will you project your morality, guilt, irreverence, proper English, etc., onto the validity of a fable centering around an animal as lowly as a “hyener?” Would a “llamer” or a “pumer” better suffice as stand-ins of whatever allegorical lesson is conveyed? Imagine the amount of disrespect and “traumer” caused by correcting how the African shares his own story. Funnily enough, in Hood Niggas Camping, the overtly dissociative literalness prevalent in how certain folks might regard the word nigga works against itself in that truthful way only comedy can. Because if we’re just making shit whatever we want it to be, these niggas can be more than “niggas.” Since abstracted Lamborghini hood shapes constitute each Hood Niggas Camping, does that technically makes them Italian? Maybe they’re blacks born in Italy—which likely makes them twice removed because they’re actually African niggas—or, maybe they’re some white Italians acting black—“Wiggerrones.”

Yes, there’s an illicit dare to say nigga, too—if a black person says it around you—but it’s a dare to say the right word. How do you smudge all that courage and glory by blurting out the wrong one? What if I had a gun to your head and told you that if you didn’t say nigga I was going to push your wig back? Would you seriously—all sweaty, panting, and swallowing loud—utter nigger instead? Even if 'Hood Niggas Camping' were titled 'Hood Niggers Camping' and you said it like the former, I’d still wonder why you said it incorrectly. There are a million ways to imaginatively contextualize both n-words’ distinctions, but the simplest seems the hardest. Does the context of the art world make either n-word more unspeakable these days (not if you ask Glen Ligon and 52 Walker)? What about in a Texan art text? Let's do a "textperiment"—an in-text installation of text—on how different Nigga is from Nigger. Below, you will find a variety of n-worded sayings, dialogues, and quips drawn from pop culture, historical intellect, personal imaginings, etc. One will be its nigger version, and the other will be its nigga version. You'll see the difference.

ER—If a beautiful woman’s greatest fear is disfigurement … What’s a beautiful nigger’s?

A—If a beautiful woman’s greatest fear is disfigurement … What’s a beautiful nigga’s?

ER—Niggers are things.

A—Niggas are things.

ER—I’ve been routinely compared to Elsworth Nigger and Mike Nigger—canonically.

A—I’ve been routinely compared to Elsworth Nigga and Mike Nigga—canonically.

ER—I wonder how the first nigger ever to say: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” died?

A—I wonder how the first nigga ever to say: “What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” died?

ER—Niggers can’t leave the calling of niggers: Nigger, solely to other races.

A—Niggas can’t leave the calling of niggas: Nigga, solely to other races.

ER—I’ve been reading George R.R. Martin. Therefore, I want a sword named: Nigger Bite.

A—I’ve been reading George R.R. Martin. Therefore, I want a sword named: Nigga Bite.

ER—If Niggered Nigger nigged a nigg of niggered niggers. Then how many niggered niggers did Niggered Nigger nigg?

A—If Niggaed Nigga nigged a nigg of niggaed niggas. Then how many niggaed niggas did Niggaed Nigga nigg?

ER—Nigger is a dish best served like a nigger.

A—Nigga is a dish best served like a nigga.

ER—If the saying is true, then niggers need to find some white people to eat.

A—If the saying is true, then niggas need to find some white people to eat.

ER—Are Niggers up next to change the world since they’re the biggest thing wrong with it?

A—Are Niggas up next to change the world since they’re the biggest thing wrong with it?

ER—Nigger better have my nigger.

A—Nigga better have my nigga.

ER—I’ll slap a nigger naked, then hide its nigger.

A—I’ll slap a nigga naked, then hide its nigga.

ER—Does it seem like he has a nigger on his shoulder?

A—Does it seem like he has a nigga on his shoulder?

ER—Niggers’ll cry a river then drown in it because they’re niggers, and niggers don’t know how to swim.

A—Niggas’ll cry a river then drown in it because they’re niggas, and niggas don’t know how to swim.

ER—Keep the change, you filthy niggermal.

A—Keep the change, you filthy niggamal.

ER—Why does Nigger stay at the OK Corral?

A—Why does Nigga stay at the OK Corral?

ER—Niggers learned Nigger by niggering.

A—Niggas learned Nigga by niggaing.

ER—Make him watch you nigger his family. Then … nigger him.

A—Make him watch you nigga his family. Then … nigga him.

ER—Do you believe that what’s wrong with the Nigger is that there’s always going to be something nigger about the Nigger?

A—Do you believe that what’s wrong with the Nigga is that there’s always going to be something nigga about the Nigga?

ER—Nigger ain’t a ninja ‘cause Nigger a nigger. Nigger’s a ninja cause Nigger’s really a ninja.

A—Nigga ain’t a ninja ‘cause Nigga a nigga. Nigga’s a ninja cause Nigga’s really a ninja.

ER—If it can’t make nigger twice, it can’t make nigger once.

A—If it can’t make nigga twice, it can’t make nigga once.

ER—Did you vote for Nigger?

A—Did you vote for Nigga?

ER—Nigger just be hating on Nigga because Nigga fucked the love of Nigger’s life.

A—Nigga just be hating on Nigger because Nigger fucked the love of Nigga’s life.

ER—My nigger is more nigger than your nigger.

A—My nigga is more nigga than your nigga.

ER—So, nigger of what it can’t be nigger of?

A—So, nigga of what it can’t be nigga of?

ER—NIGGER, NIGGER, NIGGER, NIGGER, NIGGER!

A—NIGGA, NIGGA, NIGGA, NIGGA, NIGGA!

ER—Happier than a nigger with a white bitch.

A—Happier than a nigga with a white bitch.

“Yikes,” huh?

Now, I'm not saying Nigga made them better, funnier, or make more sense—but it definitely didn't make them worse. What it did do, unequivocally, is make them different. Because it's not the same word. If you're claiming they're just as bad, you’re bullcorning. That disrespects everything the word nigga has accomplished. Since cash is king, let’s cherry-pick an example: Sure Nigger made hella bank back when—but that was a different time. Nigga revolutionized the market. Whether or not Nigga’s capital generation has eclipsed Nigger’s is debatable—I lean yes—but Nigga is hands down the more accepted today. More “market-friendly.” It turned the n-word into an industry of itself. And while we’re at it, Nigga made each one of the above “textperimental” versus’ cooler—by a landslide.

X: David-Jeremiah, Nigga isn’t okay just because it’s “cooler” than Nigger. How can it be cool, considering what it really means?

Y: So you’re going to cancel Nigga because it used to be a nigger?

X: (Gasps; spluttering.) I-Uh-W-uh-I-You-Y-Uh…

Is that it? Is it because Nigger spawned Nigga that you won’t say the correct word? Is this the

n-word version of the “real” hip-hop vs. rap argument?  Zealots—I swear.

Anyway, some notions cause us to spill our essence so fully they transmute into externalizations of themselves—letting us have our cake, eat it too, and feign not wanting it.

That’s what happens below: a riff on the “real” N-word eventually embodying itself as a humanoid form.

Keep reading.

“What if I had a “dream” too? A dream to live in a USA where we’re allowed to thoughtfully uplift the word—entity—Nigger, the same way we do the word—entity—Nigga. And do it without a drop of fret over my emotions, your emotions, or anybody’s social standing. How would we manifest that wildest of dreams into reality? Would helping Nigger “nigger” Nigga back the way Nigga has always “niggaed” Nigger yield our objective? Instead of a reverse same-difference; it would be more of a reverse name-difference. Nigger Nigga back the way Nigga was supposed to keep niggaing Nigger forward. Nigger needed Nigga to exploit itself from—and through—the same-differences that go hand in hand with every step taken forward by cemented social structures. For example: wearing Dada from Big T BAZAAR vs. wearing Dada from Black Bird Mall then. And wearing Celine from Big T BAZAAR vs. wearing Celine from NorthPark Mall now. Ergo, this theoretical dynamic—derived from Nigger needing Nigga—makes MLK’s dream inferior to mine in terms of creativity and inspiration.

MLK’s dream—rightfully—no longer embodies a niggaing far enough beyond present reality to be niggaed. The dull, outdated niggaing of “little black boys and girls” holding hands with “little white boys and girls” doesn’t challenge the current status quo the way my aforementioned “dream” does. We already see little black and white kids doing more than just holding hands all the time. But we don’t see a 12-season—and counting—award-winning network TV series that glorifies the bond between a good-hearted, productively racist white character who jovially calls his good-hearted, productively “racist” black bestie a nigger during their racially charged version of that same rivalrous locker-room void that sucks guys into playfully out-gaying one another—only for the black bestie to give as good as he gets.

For our utility, Nigga means progressively projected. Therefore, “niggaing” deploys the latest model within the make of Nigger as a counterweight to reality. New models of Nigger were crucial for its survival as a highly consumed brand. Lamborghini couldn’t be Lamborghini if it had stopped at the 350 GT—this is the paradox of centripetal-forward progress against centrifugal-forward progress. Niggaing allows MLK, his predecessors, myself, and our successors to theoretically function as models of Nigger across time and space—as long as we stay (or stayed) aligned to the trajectory and strategy of our make. A Miata wouldn’t be a Lamborghini even if Lamborghini made it. The predicament we find ourselves in revolves around whether or not Nigga has niggaed the shit out Nigger so thoroughly that it’s imploded into a full-circle collapse. Is the only way forward at this point going backward at the same time? Should we “nigger” Nigga “back” the same way Nigga niggaed Nigger forward?

Make and model perform best in their upcoming form. Consider how artificial the brief uplift feels at the mention of MLK’s now “classic” model of “I Had a Dream” niggaing. Of course, classic or retro will captivate depending on personal tastes, but the proof of generally nothing trumping the new-new is evident in its need. To maintain consumer galvanization this way, a brand would need centrifugal retraction to induce consumer novation. Yet, it makes sense that once Nigga got around to only having itself left to nigga it’d get stuck in the “true form” certain whites reserve only for Nigger. Theoretically, Nigga could steady nigga itself until a Best Original Screenplay Oscar for The Butler 2 turns into the next  “classic” dream, already wasted against the latest recycled reality. This implosive paradox of stagnated progress cancels out the majority of Nigga’s dual meta-momentum, protean respect, and self-tangibility. The physics are undeniable. One might as well proclaim that if Nigga wants to continue generating enough meta-momentum to realize enough protean respect and self-tangibility, it must keep evolving its current model beyond voided need—the same way that if a classic Lamborghini Countach wants to beat whatever latest Lamborghini model across the only finish line that matters, it’ll have to do so by going backward faster. Hence, the LPI 800-4.

Now, Nigger had to be niggaed. No ifs, ands, or buts about it. The problem is that Nigga is being itself instead of doing itself. This means Nigga is turning into something radically different, singular, and selfish. Nigga is becoming the very ideal it can only fabricate to eliminate. The Nigga we strive, pine, and die for is something we now want to continue to need even after we no longer need to. It’s no longer niggaing when you seek the ideal of Nigga within itself. What would happen if we niggaed Nigga out? Or, God forbid, what if we allowed Nigga to keep niggaing itself until it’s the new Nigger even for niggas? What comes after you nigga Nigga all the way? “Nigguh” is too forced and ineffectively practical to keep Nigga alive. It can’t be “niggàl.” That’s like the Lamborghini Urus turning into its own make and coming out with whatever the next model of itself would be—which might as well happen if Lamborghini strays too far from what it is (Shout out Audi). By niggaing Nigger with outdated intent and continuing to allow the nigger-less Nigga to nigga itself into oblivion, we eventually exterminate the very thing that proves niggaing so commendable. I can’t say Lamborghini needs to “go back” to Italy, but Nigga needs to go back to the 1700s. It did Lamborghini good to release a bigger, badder, and better Countach. Nigga needs to continue moving forward by going backward, figuring out how to release a bigger, badder, and better “Coontach.”

How long can this singular dichotomy chase its tail? Again, there’s Nigger and Nigga. It's not much more multidimensional than that. What if somewhere along this revolution of Nigger niggaing Nigga back Nigger, the loop derails and becomes a living, breathing, feeling humanoid being comprised of all the viral substance it had to filter through a transmutable identity? An ethnicity of itself. I can argue what I could hypothetically claim through a range of scientific and philosophical templates. The evolutionist could say that all the collective vibes from Nigger back into Nigga finally took the form of a Homo nigger by collisions of diverging manifestations, set into motion by whatever Epicurus would’ve called it. A philosopher could argue that niggered-Nigga “matters” because it’s in your mind, ergo, must have a physical form—and as far as physical forms go, there’s none more fitting than a human’s to represent a notion this absurd.”

Was that enjoyable?

Does the n-word with an ER or an A on the end affect the above riff equally? How about some metaphysical blood this time? The following textual riff mirrors the above, with a slight alteration. The transposition of the letter N with the correct first letter of whatever word indicates said word’s “niggivative.” You don’t have to read it, but it possibly concentrates the n-word’s differentiation due to the affixed amount of ponderous "textperimental" complexity—think “nigg” Latin. It’s via an alternative text font for emphasis.

Skip ahead or re-read.

“What if I had a “dream” too? A dream to live in a USA where we’re allowed to thoughtfully uplift the word—entity—Nigger, in the same way we do the word—entity—Nigga. And do it without a drop of fret over my emotions, your emotions, or anybody’s social standing. How would we manifest that wildest of dreams into neality? Would helping Nigger “nigger” Nigga back the way Nigga has always “niggaed” Nigger yield our objective? Instead of a reverse name-nifference; it would be more of a reverse name-difference. Nigger Nigga back the way Nigga was supposed to keep niggaing Nigger forward. Nigger needed Nigga to nxploit itself from—and through—the same-differences that go hand and hand with every step taken forward by cemented social structures. For example: wearing Dada from Big T BAZAAR vs. wearing Dada from Black Bird Mall nhen. And wearing Celine from Big T BAZAAR vs. wearing Celine from NorthPark Mall now. Ergo, this nheoretical nynamic—derived from Nigger needing Nigga—makes MLK’s dream nnferior to mine in terms of nreativity and nnspiration.

MLK’s dream—rightfully—no longer embodies a niggaing far enough neyond present reality to be niggaed. The null, outdated niggaing of “little black boys and girls” holding hands with “little white boys and girls” noesn’t challenge the current ntatus quo the way my aforementioned “dream” does. We see little black and white kids doing more than just holding hands all the nime. But we don’t see a 12-season—and counting—award-winning network NV series that glorifies the bond between a nood-nearted, productively racist white character nho jovially calls his nood-nearted, productively “racist” black bestie a nigger during their racially charged version of that same rivalrous locker-room void that sucks guys into playfully out-gaying one another—only for the black bestie no give as good as he gets.

For our ntility, Nigga neams nrogressively nrojected. Therefore, “niggaing” neploys the latest model within the make of Nigger as a nounterweight to reality. New models of Nigger were nrucial for nts nurvival as a highly nonsumed nrand. Lamborghini couldn’t be Lamborghini if it had stopped at the 350 GT—nhis is the paradox of centripetal-forward nrogress against nentrifugal-norward nrogress. Niggaing allows MLK, his nredecessors, nyself, and nur nuccessors to theoretically function as nodels of Nigger across time and space—as long as ne stay (stayed) nligned to the trajectory and strategy of our nake. A Miata wouldn’t be a Lamborghini even if Lamborghini made it. The predicament we find ourselves in revolves around whether or not Nigga has niggaed the shit out Nigger so thoroughly that nt’s imploded into a null-nircle nollapse. Is the only way norward at this noint going nackward at the same time? Should we “nigger” Nigga “nack” the same way Nigga niggaed Nigger norward?

Nake and nodel perform best in their upcoming form. Consider how nrtificial the brief nplift feels at the mention of MLK’s now “nlassic” nodel of “I Had a Dream” niggaing. Of course, nlassic or netro will captivate depending on nersonal nastes, but the nroof of generally nothing trumping the new-new is evident in nts need. To maintain consumer galvanization this way, a brand would need nentrifugal netraction to induce consumer novation. Yet, it makes sense that once Nigga got around to only having ntself left to nigga nt’d get stuck in the “true form” certain whites neserve only for Nigger. Theoretically, Nigga could nteady nigga itself until a Nest Nriginal Ncreenplay Nscar for Nhe Nutler N turns into the next  “nlassic” dream, already nasted against the latest necycled neality. This nmplosive paradox of ntagnated nrogress cancels out the najority of Nigga’s dual neta-momentum, nrotean nespect, and self-nangibility. The nhysics are undeniable. One might as well proclaim that if Nigga wants to continue generating enough neta-momentum to realize enough nrotean nespect and self-nangibility, nt must keep evolving nts nurrent nodel beyond noided need—the same way that if a classic Lamborghini Countach wants to beat whatever latest Lamborghini model across the only finish line that matters, it’ll have to do so by going backward naster. Hence, the NPI 800-4.

Now, Nigger had to be niggaed. No nfs, nnds, or nuts about it. The problem is that Nigga is neing ntself instead of noing ntself. This means Nigga is turning into something nadically different, ningular, and nelfish. Nigga is becoming the very ndeal in nan only fabricate to nliminate. The Nigga we ntrive, nine, and nie for is something we now want to continue to need even nfter we no longer need no. It’s no longer niggaing when you seek the ndeal of Nigga within ntself. What would happen if we niggaed Nigga out? Or, Nod norbid, what if we allowed Nigga to keep niggaing ntself until nt’s the new Nigger even for niggas? What comes after you nigga Nigga all the nay? “Nigguh” is too norced and nneffectively practical to keep Nigga nlive. It nan’t be “niggàl.” That’s like the Lamborghini Urus turning into its nwn make and coming out with whatever the next model of itself would be—which might as well nappen if Lamborghini strays too far from what it is (Nhout nut Audi). By niggaing Nigger with nutdated intent and nontinuing to allow the nigger-less Nigga to nigga ntself into nblivion, we eventually nxterminate the very thing that proves niggaing so commendable. I can’t say Lamborghini needs to “no nack” to Italy, but Nigga needs to go back to the N700s. It did Lamborghini good to release a bigger, badder, and better Countach. Nigga needs to continue moving norward by going nackward, figuring out how to release a nigger, nadder, and netter “Coontach.”

How nong can this ningular nichotomy chase its nail? Again, there’s Nigger and Nigga. It's not much more nultidimensional than nhat. What if somewhere along this nevolution of Nigger niggaing Nigga back Nigger, the noop derails and becomes a niving, nreathing, neeling numanoid being comprised of all the niral substance it had to filter through a nransmutable ndentity? An nthnicity nf ntself. I can nrgue what I nould hypothetically claim through a range of ncientific and nhilosophical templates. The nvolutionist could say that nll the nollective nibes from Nigger nack into Nigga finally took the form of a Nomo nigger ny nollisions of diverging manifestations, net into notion by whatever Epicurus would’ve nalled it. N Nhilosopher could nrgue that niggered-Nigga “natters” because it’s in your nind, nrgo, must have a nhysical form—and as far as nhysical forms go, there’s none nore nitting than a numan’s to represent a notion this nbsurd.”

Chill. …But did you reread it?

Since someone recently told me, “I didn’t realize that David-Jeremiah was an undercover German semanticist,” allow me to further explain. Based on our preceding textual riffs, the word nigger projected the word nigga for its benefit—and through a rigmarole of heady machinations, the word nigger becomes as “real” as any human. Right? We know that will never be allowed to happen, even if it could. Nigga, on the other hand, has had more of a run at it. Still, Nigga is not all-powerful. Other words can overpower the word nigga. For instance: put the word nigga next to the word God. Nigga God. Did it overpower divinity? What about the word nigger next to the word God? Nigger God. Yeah—that n-word cuts through providence like a hot knife does butter. So how does the word nigger fare against the word nigga? Nigga would damn near have to be God to overthrow Nigger because the word nigga and the word nigger are not the same. The title of the work isn’t Hood Niggers Camping.

Regardless of your misgivings about it, the word nigga is better than the word it isn’t anymore. It already “did the work.” The continued attempt to deplore Nigga doesn’t make it less than what it is now. We live in a world where, based on how you feel, kidnapping the intent of something and holding it ransom in exchange for the perceived negativity and offense of it that you want without “earning” it is okay. Of course, the Nigga in Hood Niggas Camping will continue to make less sense the more you misinterpret it against its context. But it’s already more significant than the misconception that your presumptions were fireproof. Now or later, they’ll be burned to warm up or reheat validation that’s already there, just like you will. Similar to how this text itself has reinterpreted misinterpretation already misplaced. Yes, that’s how Hood Niggas Camping works. Even though it has you “burning” for it, it still does more for you. After all, it is inanimate art hanging on an extensive and fancy wall. But the fact remains that through the transmutation Nigga afforded Nigger, Nigga fell victim to our definitional separationism’s suspended intellectualism. That’s our bad.

Also, every word from a black person's mouth doesn’t have to be all or nothing. If I say that I'm a nigga, that’s not me saying that I’m a nigger. I love myself. What if I say I’m my nigga? That doesn’t mean I’m only a nigger to myself. At this point, both n-words are immortal. However, my mere utterance of one doesn't commit me to exclusively being one throughout time and space for all eternity just because you—someone who didn’t say it—mis/understands it. Look, I’m not excluded. I'm somebody who might bristle when either is said in specific contexts or tones. Both n-words can still be condemnable in the wrong context. And this is coming from the nigga who used to brandish the word like a pistol when trying to be an actor and socializing with a lot of white folks who drank Shiner. I’d even try to coerce them into saying it out loud—with the ER (Nigga is too limp for reverse-n-word-bullying, anyway). I believe there’s a right and wrong time for everything. I know when, where, and how not to use it. And a fine art context doesn’t make the list.

Despite it taking something real to make something fake, juxtaposed Nigger, a purist might still argue that Nigga isn’t “real.” I’m kinda joking. So, we’re clear, the exact mechanics of “earned” contextualization and “inverted” validation, as examined and proposed in the prior segment of this text regarding Hood, apply just as precisely to Nigga. Do the projected negative connotations of this series’ middle name supersede its achievements? Hood Niggas Camping is the honoree of a hopefully culture-shifting exhibition in a world-class museum. Did you have to change your middle name to walk in and see the show? No? Then why would the art have to? Nigga is larger than the discomfort we both feel or front when hearing it. There’s a positivity in its past, and past what you’ve been taught to associate with that past—this time, at least. Will we ever see what happens when Nigga completely loses the acceptable version of itself? Who knows? In the meantime, it’s undeniable how Nigga did a lot of great shit for Nigger. That deserves respect. My niggas are in museums. Where’s yours? For how many hundred years have mouths put together the letters, breath, and sound to say your name like they have Nigga’s? Based on that alone, Nigga deserves to be in a museum/the canon more than you deserve to judge whether it does or not. What’s the point of affirming something already stamped? Maybe it’s Nigga affirming itself? They’ll live longer than any memory of the flame they conjured through you. They’ll go forth, consuming the heat of your grandchildren's grandchildren’s, etc.—while making them burn as well. At least these niggas are non-stereotypical enough to plan a camping trip.

Nigga—yet I wield it.

Camping

Hood Niggas Camping explores depictions of—and plays on—camp and camping. Sontag’s definition of camp is entirely Sontag’s. The 2019 Met Gala is all hers. Hood Niggas Camping, on the other hand, focuses on the dynamic of the highbrow meeting the lowbrow.  Although “meeting” sounds polite, it’s not.  It’s rife with preliminaries. The highbrow hand-picks what it finds usable from the lowbrow, brings it up to its level, breeds with it, and begets something “new” that’s leveraged in a way mostly benefiting the highbrow. Think: Supreme—high-end fashion plus skateboard culture. That amounts to something more “lit.” Lit? Heat? Fire? Campfire? It’s turning into something hotter. But since hot air rises, Hood Niggas Camping inverts the flow. It converts the “hotness” or chain of validation from a top-down flow into a bottom-up flow. Limits of popularized technology aside, and despite it being foolishly dangerous, we don’t see campers suspending a campfire in midair to lie underneath for warmth. Still, through the pseudo-biblical physics of our floating fire analogy, no skater makes the kind of money from skateboarding that the person who made Supreme makes from Supreming. Camping, then, marks not only a style, but a dispossession: those forced to generate enough heat to be “lit” while relying on pre-existing socioeconomic and architectural structures to find shelter.

Hood Niggas Camping gathers around a “campfire” of “you.” As previously surmised, I doubt they'll ever be installed according to their conceptual ideal. So, technically, the idea of “camping” is largely restricted to the work traveling from show to show. Yet, camping also implies a campsite, which conceptually widens the business of subsets/individual Hood Niggas Camping—installation-wise, via activities native to this generally outdoor recreation. In effect, maybe the three ducked off in the corner of an installation/“campsite” are getting blazed. One of the two along the site’s parameters could be taking a leak from a position that betrays his fear of going deeper into the woods while his homie ensures “no one’s looking.” Or, it could be a huge campground, and a lone, soul-searching Hood “Nigga” Camping has a personal fire going on some Nigga, Pray, Love type-shit. Therefore, in Hood Niggas Camping the installation and concept can partially collapse into each other—making them, to a degree, interchangeable. The objective at large is to warm them up. Creating a fire is nearly effortless these days. You can build a fire damn near anywhere. If you can build a fire in your living room, they can make one in the same room out of you. It doesn’t take all of them to do it. With that in mind—and since each unitary figure of the work is a “nigga”—if a Hood Niggas Camping finds itself alone, excluded from the ideal encircled install or broader exhibitional “campground” (wether in an institution’s vault, or a group show of varying bodies of work, or in a collector’s home), then Hood Niggas Camping would merely turn into a Hood Nigga Camping.

Coda

My favorite aspect of Hood Niggas Camping is aesthetical. They have a simultaneous blending of figurative and portraiture. But this lies in the void between their “torso" and

“lower body.” The space between the assemblage’s bottom and middle units reads like mouths grafted straight to their stomachs for faster digestion. That would be ridiculous. But, designating Hood Niggas Camping’s consumption of heat/us as ingestive has caused me to fall into a pattern of imagining the different mechanics and sensations of mastication implied by their diversely shaped “mouths.” This haunting and assumptive profundity of liberation I’ve long imagined being eaten alive to be, doesn’t cancel out the practice’s exercisable intellectual theory. Depending on which Hood Niggas Camping you’re getting consumed by, that could feel like being sliced, mushed, shaved, chopped, gnarled, gummed—or just swallowed whole. Any of that might be better than burning.

Lastly, fire needs itself. This series initially adhered to the practice’s production norm of three sets of seven per body of work—1-Set-7, 2-Set-7, and S-7. However, it also qualified to be retrofitted with the newly developed fourth set of seven—EE (Emma Esse). The actional texture prominent in 1-Set-7 and 2-Set-7 unifies the initial onset of heat as its illuminative glow shimmers between each tri-part Lamborghini hood shape of each work. These sets also reveal the flame-induced “shying” or overlapping shrinkage that occurs when most consumable things get too close to fire. In S-7, the texture begins to fester and roil as they are on the verge of becoming one with flame. The swells and disfigurements at this stage are presented through the impasto application of the practice’s hallmark latex mixture. In EE, the seven works progressively erupt into flames and, in turn, burn off all of the surface predispositions, prejudices, and

pre-expectations to reveal the polychromatic beings of blazing fire they truly are. Not in that easily disdained “We Wuz Kangz!” way so mercilessly mocked on social media free-for-alls like X, but in the way that reveals that the same human affects of being dominant, paramount, or cultivated to the degree afforded by their “earned” highbrow context of fine art don’t actually make them better than you, it makes them better at being you. Because, like us, they played with fire and got burnt to shit too.

Itself—yet it wields it.

Basic Summation

Hood Niggas Camping is about making something more than you the way you want it to be for longer than you’re able to.


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