Uncle Fester
A Meditation on Aging, Ego and the Responsible OG
On this most recent dip around the sun, I opted for a quiet one. A reading of a fantastic farce, some alone time, and a nightcap with my favorite person, my spouse. I was also called OG for the umpteenth time since these grays done dominated the lower chin space, and in that moment, I had an epiphany.
I love The Addams Family.
For a brief saunter into the weeds, I have an unhealthy obsession with books, film, and TV. I have a Netflix cheat sheet (ask me about it. I’ll send it), frequent the library, and need to cut back on streaming services because this doesn’t make any sense. I remember the theme songs of my favorite childhood shows, thus my remembrance of The Addams Family.
Because it’s a dark comedy and I’m all for works that tap into that space. I’m here for the liminal space between macabre and madness, existential horror, psychological disintegration, and the like. As far as the characters, Gomez was my guy, not this most recent interpretation by Luis Guzman in the Netflix Wednesday jont. Personally, Raul Julia was jive mid, with the OG Gomez, John Astin, brewing my favorite because he brought the right amount of snark and menace to the character. Kudos also to Jenna Ortega, who bodied the whole Wednesday jont, angst and all. Christina Ricci was no slouch either. Highkey, casting Catherine Zeta-Jones as Morticia was a solid decision, and in my humble opinion, Angelica Houston is and shall be the goat in that role.
Which brings me to the character I have rocked with across all the iterations of The Addams Family, Uncle Fester. He was cast as the silly, off-kilter, quirky uncle in the show’s earlier iterations, but has since gained depth and now appears as both a menace and an unhinged figure in this most recent imagining. Fester has always had resources and fearlessness and will do anything for his niece and nephew, with his most endearing quality being empathy in the midst of his madness and opting not to preach to or talk at them kids.
A lot of y’all are out here the opposite of Uncle Fester. You’re the anastrophe, opting in on being festering Uncles. Caught up in yesteryear and nostalgia, reminiscing on good old days that are only good because “the culture” was at one of its golden eras. Whether you’re Fab 5, leather choker and lace gloves, Stetson hats and shelltoes, backpacks and Avirex, or shiny suits and “get money”, years old, you were in the turn of technology and social medialess social functions, where advancements in both technology and misogyny were at full gate. I’ve always had a complicated relationship with hip hop culture or “the culture” in all of its tenets or the lack of recognition for each pillar, the unknown knowns that live in the margins of the annals of our indelible historical documents in all their technological iterations. I’m watching heroes who lived through the era of self-destruction, self-destruct on these apps, full maga hat 4chan adjacent theorists, exposing all the reasons why they were better off sticking to Facebook proper and Tumblr. Absurd Sir Capalot’s in a room full of groupthink, raising their SM7’s as a pseudo lance to charge headstrong into the windmills. A cavalry of Don Quixote’s, clad in tarnished armor, beriddled with album credits and the love of fans who, in real life, should never ever meet their angry Uncs and, in some instances, your salty Aunties.
Aging is wild. I’m thoroughly around the corner on this solar rotation and am in complete understanding that you have to stay limber, physically, mentally, and spiritually, or you get stuck. You resonate as being stuck Unc, in your own time, in your ways, in your own way, and outchea looking mad goofy. As we grow and accept our years, may they also be filled with wisdom and understanding, so that in the role of mentor, we are the student, gleaning lessons from those we pour into. The elder/younger relationship isn’t singular in its direction; there’s a sacred respect that should be there, especially when we consider how we got here.
I had a father and an older brother, but many of my friends didn’t, for a multitude of reasons. We could name-check policy, poverty, prison statistics, capitalism, the prison industrial complex, the Iran-Contra crack shell game, Snowfall already got you hip to the gears and cogs of the machine that begets these kids. So the OG (Unc)/Yute (nephew) relationships filled the chasms left by absent fathers/brothers, men sacrificed to the system, and by some who didn’t know how to raise young boys into anything other than soldiers. The OGs weren’t perfect by any stretch, but they offered their protection and assistance when the community needed surrogates. Those OGs kept watch, gave you some game, and made sure you got home safe. That kind of love and protection builds a reverence that transitions into adulthood, that in turn has the new OGs acting on sankofa; reaching back. These are the OGs from whom we should take notes; they didn’t hate on us, at least not the ones I knew, and even if they were out here dry hating, at least they didn’t do it publicly. So I rock with Uncle Fester over the festering uncles, because he had a penchant for popping off while always maintaining a modicum of his innocence, which for me serves as a reminder not to let the patina of our circumstances dull our shine or spirit, but to stay curious, playful, and determined even when we weren’t sure about what to do.
I’m a stick to the rivers and streams and keep it a bean. I don’t get the hate for the youth. I mean I do, and I don’t. I get that for the latchkey, get it out of the mud generation, we are used to making something out of nothing, and may feel like those who showed up in the generations after benefited from our grind. I also get the blog, AIM, techno-savvy gen behind that who benefited from the CD-to-Limewire-to-streaming tech leaps, feel like they don’t owe anybody anything. They weren’t the crumpled paper flier generation; they were building social equity online, and that was something done in “public” and because it was “public” it’s both transparent and open to scrutiny because they are living in “public” all the time. For some of these festering Uncs, all that dirt was done in the darkness of pre-IG, so no one knew that they harbored hatred from tight jeans and black women at the same time. Don’t get mad at me for calling it what it is, I’m watching heroes so abused from the system and fucked up personal decisions crash out over an homage, thinking folks are trying to eat off their name. I know the business has done some of us dirty, and there is a collective need for therapy to heal, but Chill B, your wounds are oozing, and why are we so bitter? Why is there a constant need from some to yank the bouquet that’s being handed to them and try to flip that into laurels, laurels only earned because you were there and have lived long enough to insert yourself into narratives, hoping that those of us who were actually there don’t shed light on the facts—though you purport to have been outside, you Unc, were indeed, not outside at all.
I get it, we are not the same, but we are closer to the yutes because we share the same technology. I’m pre-Internet years old, and I’m friends with post-Internet people who have taught me about audacity, and that my generation and I have carried some of the conservative, practical values and misguided ideas our parents had, which are antithetical to what hip-hop culture taught us. I’ve also become more aware that some of the rules and foundational pillars of the culture are rooted in patriarchy, internalized oppression, and predatory capitalist practice, and that I should do my damndest to keep these yokes of oppressive and recessive thought and practice out of my space.
Which leads me back to this epiphany: I was at a function most recently, and one of the not-so-young-anymore, youngins pulled up, and we got to rapping about the differences in generations. He’s created a solid number of successful partnerships with brands and activations, in different industries, and is now an OG (i’ll use this lightly because it’s starting to teeter on the edge of being appropriated) in the space, where younger folks are starting to ask for his advice. He asked my perspective on that, on being the elder in the situation, dealing with someone younger, when it came to mentoring, and all I could think about was Uncle Fester.
My two, to both him and y’all who find yourselves at a similar crossroads: off top, it’s humbling when the youngins trust you enough to be vulnerable and want your opinion or advice, honor that. Answer questions when asked. Speak to and with them—but never at them. Be a Fester to their Wednesday. Be available. Support, even when the ideas seem wild and unattainable. Don’t be out here peeing on parades—provide context, life experience, and wisdom, while fully tucking your ego and not trying to son people who trust you enough to grant access. Lead with empathy, integrity, and love. And sometimes that love is tough, so reassure them that the toughness comes from love. Sometimes the best thing to do is be quiet and hear them out; in those moments of vulnerability, the answer shows up when you give them the agency to hear themselves speak.
Easy
k
about:
KOKAYI
Artist | Author | Speaker | Producer | Preeminent Improvisational Vocalist, GRAMMY-nominated musician, and multidisciplinary fine artist, is a Guggenheim Fellow for Music Composition (the first emcee to have achieved this distinction). Host of the Interledger Foundation’s Future/Money podcast. Author of You Are Ketchup: and Other Fly Music Tales, creator of HUBRI$ and Blackness and the Infinite Potential Well, whose artistry and work reflect a rich tapestry of life experiences shaped by DC and the cultural innovations of the Black diaspora—an enduring legacy that continues to shape the world, often without the proper recognition. Here for all the panel discussions, podcast yakkin’, DJ gigs, and keynote addresses, should you need me, holla.