Posts by Tim Natividad

Then + Now

If my mom were writing this, it would be much shorter: sleep eight hours a night, study hard, be pre-med, go to church every Sunday. She’s reading this right now so I’m going to say that I did all of that (she’s in for a rude awakening when she finds out she’ll be attending the ethnic studies commencement and not neuroscience). And more or less, it worked; here I am in the waning days of my life at Brown.

But as I prepare for Commencement, I’m realizing that all the advice I’ve ever received about “how to graduate” has been about how to get to the point where you’re shaking hands, moving the tassel, and holding the degree. Here are seven things I’ve been thinking about on how to transition into everything it means to not be a student.*

*Disclaimer: I’m not sure these steps are 100% correct. I’m not even sure they’re 10% correct. I’ve never graduated from college (yet).

1) Be incredibly ambitious. Be incredibly active. And be humble.
Back when he still had hair, Steve Jobs once said, “Everything around you that you call life was made up by people that were no smarter than you.”

[Read more →]

I didn’t even realize it was possible to pack so much dance in one playlist. The first three songs of this week’s playlist are pure bump ‘n’ shake.

Also, if you watch any video this week, make it this cover of Tyga’s Rack City.

While I couldn’t bring myself to add it to this week’s playlist, the video of Hot Problems definitely deserves some air time. We’re due for some Rebecca Black Fridayesque hilarity, and this video does the trick.

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This Week’s Playlist
Recovery
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Hip-Hop
A$AP Rocky - Goldie
Produced by Hit-Boy. Remember Ni**as in Paris? Yeah, he produced that too. 
Asher Roth ft. Meek Mill - Party Girl
Azealia Banks - Hood Bitch
Curren$y ft. Daz Dillinger - Fast Cars Faster Women
MellowHigh - Go
Death Grips - I’ve Seen Footage

R&B/Funk/Soul
Austin Brown - Groove ’92
Fly Moon Royalty - Betta Have My Money   [Read more →]

Before your hipster friends say they knew all about The Walkmen before they were listed for this year’s Spring Weekend lineup, throw this new track in their face. The track was released earlier today.

The Walkmen, hailing from D.C. are expected to release their new album Heaven on June 4th.

Image via.

You don’t need a playlist to make today better. If you do, you most likely haven’t a) looked outside your window or b) realized that it’s Spring Week!

Hip-Hop
Macklemore and Ryan Lewis - Victory Lap
As featured on XXL’s 2012 Freshman Mixtape 
Theophilus London and A$AP Rocky - Big Spender
Snoop Dogg, Game, Nipsey Hussle, Ras Kass, and Kree -Californication
Aesop Rock - Zero Dark Thirty
Josh Osho ft. Childish Gambino - Giants
Big K.R.I.T. - Sideline
Meek Mill - Flexin On Em
Chris Brown ft. Big Sean & Wiz Khalifa - Till I Die  [Read more →]

Hip hop heads (and everyone on Facebook) are currently raving about Kanye’s two new tracks from last week: Theraflu and Mercy. But MMB definitely doesn’t want any shade thrown on Kendrick Lamar’s The Recipe, featuring Dr. Dre – a clear winner for this week’s best hip hop track.

Hip-Hop
Beau Young Prince - See You At The Show
Look out for about 9 million remixes of this song in the next week
Kendrick Lamar ft. Dr. Dre - The Recipe
A priority listen for all hip-hop heads
Mikkey Halsted ft. Lupe Fiasco - Gone
Smoke DZA - 2 AM Monday Night
T.I. - Love This Life
Childish Gambino - Eat Your Vegetables
Kanye West ft. Big Sean, Pusha T, 2 Chainz - Mercy
Game ft. Lupe Fiasco - Skate On
Quakers ft. Jon Wayne - Smoke
Sir Michael Rocks ft. Shorty K - Slice
Stalley - Everything New [Read more →]

Some of you may have recently seen a popular “Why Being In Your 20s Is Awesome” article from Thought Catalog jumping around your Facebook and Twitter feeds.

At Brown, most of us are barely even into our twenties, and those who are are (mostly) on our way out the door. So instead, roughly one-fourth of the undergraduate population is really thinking about what it means to be a second semester senior. And this is why it’s awesome.

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I know I talk crap on being a second semester senior, but I’m only half kidding. In actuality, there’s no class year I’d rather be. (Besides a first-year, because they don’t do anything except eat chicken fingers and pretend they’re actually good at responding to emails.) [Read more →]

April is smart to start off with April Fool’s Day — a hoax, really, before you soon realize that it’s raining outside, taxes are due, and midterms are coming up. And damn, there are only seven more weeks of school.

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This Week’s Playlist
Taxes, Pranks, and Rain

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Hip
Jay Rock - Checkmate
The Four Owls - Original
Nicki Minaj ft. Nas, Drake, and Young Jeezy - Champion
New album to drop in two weeks
Buddy ft. Kendrick Lamar - Staircases
Schoolboy Q - Brainstorm
Joey Bada$$ and Capital Steez - Survival Tactics
Certified fresh. I love this. Good find, Dizzy! 

Soul/R&B
Fly Moon Royalty - Lemonade
Hawthorne Headhunters - Teleport
The Dream ft. Casha - Kill the Lights
Theophilus London ft. Blood Orange - Take it Off

[Read more →]

For the beach or the library, depending on where you are this week but be on the lookout for a Spring Weekend playlist soon!

Game ft. Kendrick Lamar - The City
One of the best displays of braggadocio I’ve seen in a while from Game, but let’s be serious, Kendrick steals the show with the flow.
Danny Brown - Grown Up
Big K.R.I.T. - I Got This
Odd Future - Oldie
Azealia Banks - Fuck Up The Fun
Swizz Beatz ft. A$AP Rocky - Street Knock
E-40 Ft. Kendrick Lamar, Droop-E - Catch a Fade  [Read more →]