I don’t believe I ever met Wake Self, but as I’ve said in the past, when you live in a place like New Mexico, you just kind of see each other around all the time.
In fact, as I get older I realize it’s so much deeper than that. We grow up, we change, we fail, we succeed, and most of all, we live together. Apart of each other’s lives both through the good and the bad; even if we don’t even notice it.
That’s just how this goes.
I honestly never thought much of that fact, or all the times I saw Wake Self around, until the morning I woke up and heard the news he was killed by a drunk driver on November 5, 2019.
It’s a day and a feeling I’ll never forget, although, again I never knew him personally, no matter how many mutual friends we appeared to have, or how many times we ended up in the same place.
He was a hip hop head and I was a raver, which to the outside world seemed nothing alike, but to anybody belonging to one crowd or the other, you know they will both always go together.
You’ll even find many ravers started down this path by first connecting to hip hop and the lifestyle surrounding it. A connection we never let go. Myself included.
Hip hop spoke to many of us when nothing else did. It still does. It’s the voice of a living breathing, thriving, always evolving culture.
But I suppose I could say that for House Music as well. Which is why a person like Wake Self was so well known and respected on our side of the musical aisle.
And how could you not know who Wake Self was? He was intelligent, passionate, immensely talented, unique, and most of all, committed to New Mexico, which is something I strive for myself even to this day.
He loved this place, and you could feel that in everything he did.
Hell, he even shot a music video inside Meow Wolf, one of my favorite places in the world, which, like him, is a true representation of the creative power of this land.
But that’s part of why I decided to get out of bed and write about this person today.
He inspired me. He inspires me still.
How bright he did shine. How poetic he really was. When you lose someone so powerful, you feel their spirit leaving this earth. I could feel it that morning as I sat in the same chair I’m sitting in now.
So many people I care for, so many people I believe in, believed in Wake Self, and he represented us all so well. I don’t think there was ever a question he was going to do great things.
We knew what we had. We still know that.
He encouraged self-care, respect for women, and the expansion of your intellect as a way of freeing your mind. He embraced the past while still looking towards the future.
He wanted to show how special and unique New Mexico was, and he was on a path to do that with his words.
We had a shining star. You could feel it. He was on the cusp, and yet still he never lost that side that kept him humble, the side that people so clearly loved.
And when I’d see him out in the city, hanging with his people, the same way I did with mine, you could feel how connected we all really were. How alive and never-ending it all really did feel. If only just for a bit.
And now, three years later, as Wake Self Day arrives again, I can feel his star still shining down on us all. In fact, how can I tell him, would he even believe, that his star shines brighter now more than ever?
It shines in the people he left behind, the people who cry for him still, the ones who are now meant to keep his spirit alive.
It shines in murals I see everywhere, dedicated not just to him, but to all the artists we’ve lost along the way.
It shines in the words that he left behind for us with his music and his rhymes. Words, I don’t feel, will ever fade.
But most of all, his light shines in the young artists whose own future his art has inspired. They follow his path while still finding a way to make their own and it’s a reminder that we don’t ever truly die if we lived a life worth living.
And Wake Self wasn’t the first we lost, or the last, but he left so much behind that I don’t think it will be the end for him. I think this is still just a beginning.
So if you’re reading these words, and whether you loved Wake Self, or you’re just discovering him now, all I can say is keep going. Keep creating. Keep learning. Keep trying. And even if you fail, both at life and with each other. Say you’re sorry. And let’s try again. Let’s be better for each other, and for the ones that don’t have a say anymore.
We have to live for the ones who inspire us, and we have to show that every day.
I wish to say thank you to Wake Self for opening my eyes at a time when I didn’t even know they were closed. His loss and the hole his spirt left in this place I love so much, inspired me to use my own words as support and inspiration to others.
And lastly, please don’t drink and drive. Call a taxi, or a ride share, or even just a friend to come pick you up. We have lost too many good people to the bad decisions of others.
Rest In Power to Wake Self.
May your light shine so bright that your spirit never dims.
Come find me on the dancefloor sometime.
You know who I’ll be listening to.
Ourdancefloor.net 