ATEN / BTR / JOURNAL / 001 / ♠
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001 · ATEN JOURNAL ENTRY · ♠ ✦ read
ACT ONE · IN DEVELOPMENT · THE HAND IS DEALT
Over the course of
several years'
more than likely Ten.
Since we being real' Act One of BTR has been in development. I've always known someday I'd work on something that would bring the soul back' or the dead back to life' "as the old folks would say." But I don't think speaking on the AlCUM — my word for AlBUM — in a cliché way will help anyone. So here's what we shall do. I'll give you some of the raw thoughts of ATEN. It go something like this on a daily in my mind's eye.
One' I love thinking about Cats. All things Cat. If it's a cat' I love it. Now you simply can't gentrify a cat. Same way you don't tell the moon what to do — you get what you get' nothing more nothing less. She does what she wants to do. You know what I mean?
Ten years is not a long time to some people. To ATEN it is the exact right amount of time to understand what was actually being made. Not a project. Not a release cycle. A resurrection — built stone by stone' word by word' the way ancient things are built. With patience. With intention. With no interest in shortcuts.
♠
Every hand played across ten years led to this one. The AlCUM is the ace held until the right moment' not rushed' not folded under pressure. ATEN sat on something real until the table was worth playing at. The table is set.
The AlCUM is not the album. The AlCUM is the total object' the living thing that contains music and stone and story and the person who made it. You cannot reduce it to a playlist. You cannot reduce it to a purchase. You experience it or you don't.
// BTR is not a project.
// BTR is not a release strategy.
// BTR is what happens when a person decides
// to stop being buried and start being worn.
// ♠ — the gambit begins here.
ACT ONE ♠
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ATEN / BTR / JOURNAL / 002 / ♦
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002 · THE MUSIC JOURNEY · ♦ ✦ read
MAGIC IS REAL · NOT ENTERTAINMENT · HEALING
Music is real
as it gets.
Over the course of my music journey' Magic' I've learned that it is more of a real thing than some child's play to be handled haphazardly. Nor is it a magic trick or a game. Music is real as it gets.
And the world is the way it is because you got some bad bad corrupt players going against the truth. Selling you nostalgia or a problem. Putting on acts' portraying as if they are these cold emotionless beings out for revenge. Spoiled and soulless. Lost. And did I say cold beings? Um um umph.
We've all been victim to these types of artist. Making music just to give people entertainment but not truly healing these wounds out here.
But see — it could all be so simple. Shout out to Lauryn Hill. Why not just let your soul shine and overcome your weakness? Really tho. Be about love' connecting truth and justice. We all need that forest out here. Heck' we require that at this point.
The artist who heals is more revolutionary than the artist who performs.
ATEN chose healing. That choice is the whole album.
Ten plus years in this and what becomes clear is that the artists who last are not the loudest ones. They are the most honest ones. Honesty in music' in 2026' in the environment we are all living inside' is the most radical act available to a person with a microphone and something real to say.
// Not entertainment. Healing.
// There is a difference.
// ATEN never stopped making that distinction. ♦
MAGIC ♦
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ATEN / BTR / JOURNAL / 003 / ♣
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003 · THE WORLD AS IT IS · ♣ ✦ read
REFUGEES IN OUR OWN COUNTRY · TURNING WEAKNESS INTO STRENGTH
All this trouble
in the world.
You don't need much of a reminder about it. If you're simply in touch' go walking down the street of any major Black city. Go through the neighborhoods where original people are. See what's going on. Dealing with court systems' mental things and trauma that needs repairing.
But artists these days take a cheap route. Band-aids in the music instead of that Soul. It's like we're refugees in our own country. That's how I feel yo.
"You'll be wondering why you feel this deep to your core' or why these words won't leave your mind. It's because it's the truth. So it ain't hard to speak a word of positivity over all the corruption and crookedness. We know better."
All us so called creators' let's keep it grounded with each other. Share our pain. Rejoice. I'm saying that this is the Resurrection of turning weakness into strength. Cuz damn it' I've gone through enough. My limits end. Bottom line is the world has to now regenerate and I'm not waiting on a slain king to fix it.
With all due respect to Michael Jackson' if you know what I mean. Not to toot my own horn but my day is here and now. And out of respect for you I will not be watching none of your biopics' because you didn't like Sony having any of your catalog and they had something to do with that movie. I like the image you already left in our minds' in your own likeness' while you were here.
Lapis lazuli has been found in burial sites dating back five thousand years. The Egyptians ground it into pigment to paint the skin of their gods. They wore it as protection. They placed it over the eyes of the dead to ensure safe passage. The stone that resurrects' chosen for this collection' has always been the stone of people who refused to stay buried. The deep blue holds its color across centuries. The gold runs through it like veins of everything that survived.
♣
The clubs is the ground card. The thing that grows back after being cut down. You do not fold the clubs hand. You play it harder. That is what BTR is.
// The resistance does not wait for permission.
// It gets up. It generates. It moves.
// ♣ — the ground card. Played to the last.
ENOUGH ♣
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ATEN / BTR / JOURNAL / 004 / ♥
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004 · THE OUROBOROS · ♥ ✦ read
OWNING SELF · JUSTICE FOR THE ORPHANS · LISTENING TO LISTEN
I'm owning my self.
Full Ouroboros.
Not on a cliché basis. But making a full Ouroboros. Doing the right thing. Making the right choices and decisions. Turning off the sound. Turning off the TV. Being a healed man. Leading' guiding my inner heart' not allowing my mind to do what he wants. Putting forth an abundance of good deeds.
Especially for the Orphans. And emphasis on that. Justice for these innocent babies' they deserve a true life. May they have access to the joy of this world at all times without fear. May we all as adults speak a kind word to one another. May we uplift with our voices and shy away from shunning the next man or woman that's striving to do righteous.
Let's be that Revolutionary.
The Ouroboros is the serpent eating its own tail. The cycle that has no beginning and no end. You cannot gentrify a cycle. You cannot market your way out of one. You can only move through it honestly' which is what every piece of this collection is asking the person who wears it to do.
"Making this AlCUM brought me to the truth and closer to our Majesty' and most of all to myself. Through Him all is obtainable. I've realized what's important — that being calm and collected' in touch with self and the people' with family' to listen more than I speak."
You know' listening to listen. That's revolutionary.
The Lotus and the Majesty are not just names for two pieces. They are the two forms a resurrection can take. Lotus' the feminine form' blooming after the fire' rooted in earth and water' growing toward light without aggression. Majesty' the masculine form' commanding' grounded' heavy as the stone it is made from' wearing the lapis like armor that was earned. Both forms are correct. Both forms are necessary. The question is only which one you are.
// Calm and collected is not passive.
// Calm and collected is the most powerful state
// a person can enter a room in.
// ♥ — the heart suit. The one that keeps going.
LISTEN ♥
♥ ♠ ♦ ♣
ATEN / BTR / JOURNAL / 005 / ♠
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005 · GIVE · THE INVITATION · ♠ 🦂 ✦ read
ANCIENT AMERIXANA ON THE RISE · WELCOME TO XYZ · THE ACE IS PLAYED
Giving. Yes. Giving.
So simple but
we all can do it.
It's truly the most remarkable thing we can do. Give a smile. Give a good gesture. Give off positive vibes. Give a good attitude. Give in many different ways. Of course respect yourself and do not overflow' but give. It's always the right thing to do.
Dang' I think I'm starting to sound like the Quran here haha. But it's true. Give.
"For a while I thought to myself to be a loner and selfish — but that was merely my weakness to transmit into my power. To be the opposite of all that could hinder me from being on the path of the most just and metrical God Allah."
Each lesson I won't speak on' but know I've fought hard. Tooth and nail. Striving to be upright just to get to this point where I'm writing you. And now you're on my website reading something like this that I genuinely wrote from the top of my heart. It took worlds of wisdom and working on myself. A lot of good deeds. A lot of teaching moments. Pain repaired. And oh yeah' getting into my own damn home cooked meals. For sho.
I encourage you to do the same. Write it down. Share your journal. Tell the world about what you got going on in your mind. It's important.
Lapis lazuli was the stone of the ancient world long before the ancient world had a name. It traveled trade routes from the mountains of Afghanistan to the courts of Egypt' Mesopotamia' Persia' Rome. Every civilization that encountered it kept it. Ground it into pigment. Carved it into amulets. Set it in gold and placed it on the bodies of their greatest people. The stone does not ask for credit. It simply endures. Not loud. Not desperate. Enduring.
"Bite" is not passive. It is not poetic. It is not waiting to be saved. It is reaching into the thing with your full self and taking it. The resurrection is not a reward. It is a choice. A grounded one. A necessary one. You have been through enough. Your limits end. The world has to now regenerate and you are not waiting.
♠
The ace of spades is the death card and the power card at the same time. That is the gambit. To hold what looks like an ending and play it like a beginning. Bite The Resurrection is the ace played face up. No bluff. No apology.
If I was you' and don't tell nobody I said this' but spray paint the sidewalk: BITE THE RESURRECTION. Let it be a movement. One of revolution. A call to all Ancient Amerixana that we on the rise.
Welcome to XYZ.
This is about Man' Woman and Child. The resistance against weakness. Home cooking. Original Tech. 🪷
And to the one arriving soon' the one whose season is the season of depth and transformation and the kind of power that does not announce itself' know that everything written here was already written for you too. You are coming into a world that has already been told your father's name. You are coming into a collection that carries the stone of pharaohs. You are coming into a movement that was building itself before you arrived so that when you got here there would already be ground under your feet. The scorpion does not sting without reason. It protects what matters. That is all any of this has ever been. Protection made beautiful. Love made permanent. Gold and lapis and sound and story' all of it' yours. Welcome. 🦂
// Ancient Amerixana — not a typo. A declaration.
//
// BTR / 2026 / Washington DC / XYZ
// "The Ancient IS The Now"
// ATEN
// ♠ 🦂
RISE ♠