“I never saw a wild thing sorry for itself. A small bird will drop frozen dead from a bough without ever having felt sorry for itself.”

          This quote caught my attention as I was watching The Great Debaters this past weekend and it hit home something serious regarding self pity.  I know in the past I have been known to throw myself a pity party here and there due to certain circumstances that were in my control and some that were out of my control.  But after these pity parties I feel worse and my progress and productivity is stunted tremendously.  But as the quote referred to above, wild animals never feel sorry for themselves so why should I.  I have so much more to smile about and so many opportunities to fix my wrongs or bad decisions that there is no room for self pity.  YPs we have to stop allowing one bad decision or bad situation take precedence over the many good things we have going for us.  One bad apple doesn’t spoil the bunch.  YPs I’m sure you guys have dealt with self pity in some form or fashion but enough with the nonsense.  Self pity does nothing for you or me so YPs live with your decisions and/or circumstances; learn from them and continue to get better which shorten your recovery time and get you back on track to ‘Successville’.  I’m through with self pity because I’m determined to be successful in spite of my bad decisions, circumstance, and failures.

YPRuck, Young Professionals Writer

YPRichB: I got an opportunity to check out TonE Da Underdog’s mixtape “The Five Dollar Mic Sessions” while enjoying this snowstorm that hit NJ and after listening to it a few times I definitely have a good feel for TonE’s talent and direction for this mixtape. While there are a few “missteps” on the mixtape he does have a few standout tracks on here. The first song “Broke Rapper” sets the tone for an artist who feels like his financial standing has no direct relation with his talent level by stating “I’m a broke rapper, but that don’t mean i’m ain’t a dope rapper, top spot is what i’m going after”. On “My Two Cents” TonE makes a great point about the current state of hip-hop by stating:

“allow me to ascertain/and try to kinda explain/ just exactly what happened to rap/ cuz now you don’t need the will or even the drop of skill, you can just make up a dance or snap/ and what makes things distorted is people still support it/ which in turn ends up hurting us all/ we need to realize it’s not on the uprise, we’re leading it to it’s downfall”

The only real “missteps” to me were “All Eyez on Me” and “Slow It Down”. On the first track he adds his verse to the Clipse song of the same name and throws a verse on Drake’s R&B joint “Slow It Down”. While maybe these were attempts at adding variation to the mixtape I feel like these two songs take away from the overall sound of the mixtape. TonE chose to rhyme over a few older instrumentals that all seemed to have a familiar sound to them.

Outside of those two songs I feel like TonE definitely did a great job displaying his talent on the tape. While he’s probably not at his apex right now the talent is definitely there. Take a listen to the tracks below, comment, and check out his info as well.

Super

9 to 5

Dedicated

My Two Cents

Download Mixtape: Click Here

Check out TonE Da Underdog’s bio:
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