Hip-hop is poetry.Yes, this is a lifestyle/fitness blog, but we have no rules. We respond to our environments and get in moods. As such, I’m sitting in a Phoenix coffee shop, working, writing and reflecting. The speakers are pumping mid 1990’s hip-hop, the greatest era ever for the genre, hands down. I deem it apropos to illuminate some of the best lyrics/verses ever laid … [Read more…]

Playing music in the office will absolutely elevate mood and increase productivity for you and your teammates.In every clubhouse I’ve ever been in, loud music has been a part of the culture. From merengue to country, from rap to R & B, the atmosphere was perpetually soaked with the playlist of our athletes. There was consistent competition for who would choose the … [Read more…]

Sometimes I want to spin this off into a music blog. As I type at my kitchen table, I’m floored by the delicate flamenco guitar wafting from my speakers. Alas, this is not a blog about melody, so I won’t be breaking down this particular piece note for note. I’ll leave that to my musician father.This is, however, is a lifestyle site. We may shy away from analyzing … [Read more…]

This post is about a piece of music that swam through my soul this morning and has yet to emerge for air. I’ve played Bill Withers’ masterpiece, “I Can’t Write Left-Handed” hundreds of times, but this is the first time I’ve discussed it publicly.Over the course of the last eight months, y’all have become like family to me. As such, when I’m annoyed about something like … [Read more…]

Workout classes blast their sound systems for a reason, folks. Music enhances your training sessions.Your favorite tunes are capable of subconsciously encouraging you to train harder and distracting you from pain. From the New York Times in 2010: Multiple experiments have found that music increases a person’s subjective sense of motivation during a workout, and also … [Read more…]