Featured on Track 1
Keeping My Day Job
and My Daydreams
Kenneth Bryant II — spoken word, feat. Ebony Bryant
Movement I — The Question
Life is a fight that we all must engage.
But what is life meant to be —
if it's doing the same thing every day
without purpose, without reason?
Is life functioning —
even if it's at a high level —
while having no understanding,
even of our very potential —
no understanding of our abilities
to build, to go beyond, to grow beyond
ourselves, our careers, our relationships —
and even some situationships?
Is life merely the totality of what I do in the marketplace?
Is life just the span
between my birth date and the day I pass?
Or is there more to life to be engaged —
more to existence than simply finding where I fit in?
Can I discover what life —
what the ME —
was meant to BE?
Movement II — The Torment
And I know you say — "I have dreams."
But what happens between the time I dream
and its reality?
What HAPPENS when IT DIDN'T HAPPEN —
and I'm left to figure out the rest?
What is this life fight meant to be —
When you lay out plans,
But it doesn't seem like they were blessed.
If everything is important,
does that importance also include ME?
These are the questions that torment the minds of dreamers.
These are the thoughts that emerge
between a dream and its reality.
These are the challenges of someone who refuses
to accept the reality of what is —
when more is just beyond the door
of my next better,
my next best,
my next test,
and my next yes!
Movement III — The Wrestling
And like so many others,
I face these very same challenges every day:
"Do I give up my dream —
or do I give up on reality?"
"Is this all I can do?"
Or as we say in the south —
"Is this all that is do?"
But right when I'm about to let go —
forget it, it's too much, the life, I'm not about it —
the tension, the wrestling, the fighting
leads me to understand:
one creates the other.
My choice right now
can break through these sutures.
It's my decision in the present
that shapes my future.
What if the struggle
is just my tutor?
What if holding both together
makes the other possible —
the yin and yang of life?
What if the push is what builds the muscle?
What if the weight is what wins the wrestle?
What if I could be more than just one thing —
successful in more than one industry,
notable in more than one category,
achieving greatness in more than one identity?
Movement IV — The What Ifs
What if I could be a masterful symphonic composer
and a renowned culinary chef?
What if I could be an award-winning photographer
and a virtuoso musician — reading every clef?
What if I could be a distinguished keynote speaker
and an elite professional athlete?
What if the only thing standing between me and greatness
was the lie that my story was complete?
What if I could be more than what I studied for —
more than what I am right now —
more than what my experience has made of me?
What if the ceiling was never the ceiling —
only a vow
I made to my fear in a moment of doubt,
when I chose to survive instead of fly?
What if extraordinary wasn't the exception —
but the answer to a question I was afraid to try?
Movement V — The Landing
If it happened for them —
why not for me?
Not maybe. Not someday. Not, if the stars align.
But when I decide that the dream, deserves my fight.
So until then —
I'll be keeping my day job.
And my daydreams.
"All it takes from Jon is one take. Because when he gives me two, it's like going to the optometrist, and trying to tell which letter is different on the eye chart. I can't tell which take is better!"
— KB2, on working with Jon-Jon Webb
