This album– compounded with my recollection and re-watching of Hunter x Hunter (HxH) in an attempt to find the hidden gems in Jazelle’s lyrics– is also allowing me to re-experience a nostalgic foundation of myself through a wiser eye. As I sit here and relearn the lessons of Nen, I find myself in a bit of awe. At 17 I had only a surface-level layer of understanding of various concepts in HxH, especially considering all of the charts and graphs being visualised in Japanese– a language I haven’t achieved fluency in. Nen was one of those “hand-wavy, hazy” details I’d determined I only needed to know enough of to enjoy the context of the fight scenes in the series. While I didn’t yet appreciate the richness of the concepts, I knew by intuition that the lessons portrayed were significant.

Watching the series again as a 27 year old – inspired by listening to . the hunted . – I’m experiencing the lessons of Nen with a new awareness and understanding of one’s life force: what and who depletes it, how to nourish it, and how to use it as a manifestation of your Will. Alongside this understanding I find enjoyment rewatching the fight scenes through this unlocked new lens. If this review gets too long, I’ll likely write a Substack article about it (it’s too late– it’s long as hell. I’m a yapper, ya’ll already know this). My point is, the nucleus of this introspection, of this revisiting, is . the hunted . album.

Moving on and getting into the actual music review. During her listening party for this album, Jazelle Made It described the piece as a mix and mingle of parts of her identity in fusion with those of the HxH characters. Listening aptly, we might be able to discern which songs alluded to her experiences versus those of HxH identities. Below are just some of the tracks included in the album that I’ve written my thoughts on.

. stitching time together .

Every time I listen to this track I am so mind-blown remembering all of these sounds are a capella: Bass Drum, Hi-Hat, the sound of voice distortion via layering, THE REWIND???

My favorite bar from this track: “is amazon the only time you ever give a direct request to see prime?”

I think this track fuses some identities of JMI and Machi into one. Machi, Phantom Troupe Member #3 has a Transmutation Nen type, Nen stitches. Considering Jazelle transmutes her voice into an expansive symphony of musical instruments while also transmuting her aura (and mind) through her choice of words and rap flow – you see what I’m seeing, the synchronicity?

. staff meeting .

One of my favorite pieces based on the vibes alone and has me bouncing in my seat every time! As a screwston baby–I appreciate this track so much. It reminds me of my childhood seeing slabs drive through Mo city with their glossy deep purple or red paints.

Now with this track, I asked some questions to JMI previously so I can’t take credit for deducing all the meanings without help! I will say, learning about Zelly’s idea, “if you think creatively enough about any situation, you can turn something into a weapon…” gave me a glimpse at just how expansive her artistry goes! Envisioning the hippocampus as a freaking tekken weapon??? While I didn’t play Tekken myself, it still brings me nostalgia and good memories of being five and watching my older brother play video games. And of course, this song being about Canary with its allusions to her weapon of choice, mentioned explicitly only at the end, and her role as a Zoldyck employee– chef’s kiss. Personally, she’s one of my favorite characters in HxH.

I don’t have a favorite lyric from this track but I do particularly love the cadence of the last stanza:

wall blocked the path

like Ming

all in the street fighting…

. kurta clan shoulders .

Now obviously if you’re going to do an a cappella sample of Jay’s “Dirt Off Your Shoulder” you better come spitting. And Miss Zelly did. not. disappoint. Not with the bars, nor with the decision to tell Kurapika’s story over this track. Banger song for a banger hunter. If you are a lyrical nerd this track, alongside most in this album, is for you– get to digging.

This song has my favorite lyric of the album – literally had me screaming like a plum fool when I first heard it:

“kurapika kurta klan / that’s triple k / without malice attached”

Nigggggaaaaaa whatttttt. Cold. Nobody tell me otherwise, I actually don’t want to hear it. On top of that, later tying the red eyes to “what’s brackin boss” – this is when words and cultural context are just so perfect. It’s cultural poetry.

Honorary mention to the last stanza as a favorite bar for sure though.

. i’m a zoldyck after all .

I’m not sure I have anything to add for this track other than listening to it feels like Jazelle’s Nen over the soundwaves. Goosebumps cascade down my body listening to this track. In my mind, this song puts me in the same mental energy of “Save Me” by Chief Keef and considering this piece is about Killua and JMI, it makes absolute sense. No I will not elaborate, this one you need to experience first, analyze later.

. healing hz .

This is a nice palate cleanser while also being a big flex of JMI’s commitment to a capella. As I listen to this track, I’m brought back to one of my favorite places on Earth; being a musician on a rest in the middle of a band or orchestra– when your body can most closely feel the physical vibrations of instruments transmuting air into a cacophony of rhythm and harmony. It’s an energetic reset, it’s Bliss.

. jazelle’s gazelle .

This piece feels like the concentrated essence of who Jazelle Made It is as an artist. If I were to describe JMI as a word cloud I think the biggest three that come to mind are: Elegant, Girly, and– as she aptly wrote in her lyrics– Meticulous. You can’t listen to a piece by Jazelle Made It without sensing the sheer volume of thought that goes into seemingly everything she touches. It circles back to my preface of exclamation that she is an artist who empowers you to think and study. Yes you can enjoy delving audibly into the art she curates. But if you’re a writer, a reader, lustful for linguistics – her music is steeped in Literature. And she has an official music video alongside this track!

. thank you everyone .

Influenced by Sade’s “The Sweetest Taboo”, we canNOT leave this one out of the replay rotation. I don’t know if she’s specifically using the chromatic scale (it’s been a while since I’ve looked at or practiced any sort of scales) but it sounds like it and it’s really doing everything for my ears.

Final thoughts on . the hunted . by Jazelle Made It:

This album is dense. Dense with literary devices: from alliteration to allegory to allusion, this project is going to leave you with the auditory version of a runner’s high. The album transitions through tracks with eerie, disjointed minor keys that remind me of the artist Sevdaliza and stimulate the entire surface area of my ears in the best way.

I foresee this being an album I purposefully come back to to uncover more themes with each listen upon fresh ears. While it’s been a treat for the anime nerd in me; this album can hold its own without prior knowledge of Hunter x Hunter, and makes me so excited to experience more as a JMI listener and supporter.

Jazelle Made It — You did your thing miss ma’am. You did your thing!

Being horny, compounded with the slow and steady good news of: getting a chance to submit my work to join E.N.D. writers program, getting an offer for representation for ZBD Talent, having a successful first interview with a callback for a second for this job opportunity in Minneapolis. I feel the way a bumblebee sounds. Like my body’s vibrations are tangible, I’m acutely aware of the thrum. 

The positive energy has made reflection come in abundance as well. I’ve freshly developed a crush on a close friend– and because we are so close, my horny energy has lots of positive seeds to water; meaning the blooming feeling has been strong. The difference between my emotional butterflies now and the last time this occurred– my recent ex-fiance of three years– is my awareness, my wisdom of my Self. I know that I struggle finding safety in stability; I met and began a serious relationship with my ex six months before leaving the country to live in England for three years. As I reflect on the childhood memories that remain strongly in my mind, my comfort with instability and scarcity make logical sense. Now that I know and understand, I’m trying to use my personal experience and wisdom in real time. 

Regardless of the emotions attached: I am a woman who dated a person for three years with conviction I would become his wife, have his kids, and build a joint life in a country outside of the United States of America. I believed in the idea of this life so strongly that when he proposed I said yes– until Reality came knocking and I realized I wasn’t ready for the timeline he was on. Not only was I not within the same time frame, but I’ve also come to the realization that the Black Woman I am growing into: is someone who wants to embody Black Love, not just witness it. An even deeper truth is if I’d been more Self-aware, I could’ve seen that misalignment from the jump. I know it’s better to learn a wisdom late than not at all, but I still wince from realization’s sting of who I am versus the actions I chose to take. 

As I imagine tomorrow I see –

Waking up in the city I grew up in. I see myself in a house I own alongside my Mother, my Brother, and my nephew. The house wakes up with a slowness, languid is the intention. There’s no rushing out to work a job in your field to make some looming quota: STEM field, Medical field, Entertainment field, Cotton field. There’s Joy, Peace, and basic needs met with ease. I wouldn’t worry where I’m going to get the money to pay off my already late bills, bills that are the energy cost for being alive while Black. My mother wouldn’t wake up to a house of clutter and chaos – hoarding material items as a preservation of Self: items she clings to of whom she once was, before life got too expensive to live and some days completely passed her by. 

Tomorrow morning we would all participate in the ritual of breaking bread as a family. And as we enjoyed the tranquil morning, strong rays of Sun would breathe Life and warmth into wooden floors, providing food for the plants living with us in their preferred areas of the house. I would dress with fervor as I got ready to leave and pour into the community as the local scientist. I would teach folks how to grow their own food: how to enrich their potting soil with banana peels for potassium and crushed eggshells for a boost of calcium, to add extra nitrogen to get blue hydrangea blooms instead of pink. I would teach our youth about the benefits of gardening for our health and get to experience wonder over and over alongside them, as they watched seeds planted by their own hands sprout in front of their eyes. For the older youth, those that have seen more deaths than years they’ve been on this Earth: I’d teach them about their choice of self-medication. We’d practice reaction mechanisms of the cannabinoid chemical reactions occurring in their bodies. Class lessons would study the functional groups of terpenes. Pupils would no longer dim as they glazed over white names that were hard to pronounce from countries they’d never experienced because of plane tickets they couldn’t afford. I’d teach those interested to grow their own herb organically, holistically. We’d discuss the significance of biological warfare – how generational genetic stressors and prolonged cortisol have influence on our bodies and minds, and why diet and lifestyle impact our future generations’ wellbeing. 

After teaching, I’d take a walk through our community, greeting neighbors that have the ability to grow old and age gracefully, Black smiling faces who owned their properties. I’d walk to our local community center, through collegiate glass sliding doors. I’d make my way to the podcast suite. Inside, I’d roll a spliff and start my passion project: hosting an educational lecture series while smoking pot with masters of their craft. I’d record for two hours learning molecular orbital theory and calculus concepts from lecturers that look like me. 

I’d make my way home with my Mind and my Spirit full. I’d be excited to meet my family around the dinner table and hear all the accomplishments of their day. In the evening, I’d start my wind down process. I’d light my incense and shuffle music by Nina and Erykah and Jill. As I sat in my bed, finished with another autobiography of the Greats, I’d hug my book to my chest and wonder: wonder if Assata felt this level of tranquility as her family touched down in Cuba and she’d marveled at how tall her daughter had gotten, if Malcolm X felt this wonder after his pilgrimage to Mecca. I’d wish Dr. King, and Bob, and Harriet, and Sojourner could be here with me to experience the fruits of their unyielding labor. I’d fall asleep to the comforting thought that I’m just one amongst many that continue to nourish their heaven on earth. 

Alongside this hollistic process of finding myself and healing myself, I’ve taken up writing again; writing about my life and plants here on Substack, journaling, and writing submissions for literary competitions. Most recently I submitted a piece for the BlackInk 2026 writing competition. The submission subject was to write a piece with the theme, Reimagining Tomorrow: Black Classics. I can’t publish it yet until the results of the competition are out.

I’d been turning the idea of participating around in my head for awhile, but didn’t really know what I wanted to write about until inspiration struck me in the form of a two-hour long conversation with my best friend from 6th grade. That day was actually overflowing because earlier I’d journaled for almost an hour. I felt so energised from it that I posted about the feeling on Substack. I wrote my submission piece until 3 in the morning, just in the zone.

After it was done I reread it and it was the first time, maybe ever, that I was both excited and nervous about “showing my work.” And I am not a shy person. All of you that have interacted with me at all probably have no doubts about that. I was the toddler on the airplane that shouted “Hey Mister, watcha got there!” to a man with a Cinnabon a couple rows behind my mother and I, while we prepared for takeoff.

I was confused as to why I was shy about letting someone else read it and I think I’ve come to the conclusion, it’s because I’ve found and written with my Voice. Not my writer’s voice; the one in which I feel the energy of being perceived and am speaking directly to you, the Reader. This was being with no perception. There wasn’t any thinking followed by writing, I can’t even describe it as my thoughts because I would have to perceive thoughts as notions in my head, then transcribe them on paper. I was just speaking with my pen. I read on paper, after writing, what I was imagining in real time. It was really amazing.

For now I’ll give you a snippet (in the Block Quote below) of the preface to my actual submission. But I can’t wait to share the entire piece with you all, when I can. And when I say I HOPE YOU LIKE IT because I’m so nervous!!!!!!! If you think it’s just mad ramblings though, on some real shit — please tell me, don’t let me look like a fool for too long okay community!

I am ready to write. My chest and palms buzz with energy as my Mind and Spirit alchemize my being into wet black symbols: infusing power onto paper as they dry. I remember my ancestors doing this, performing rituals of intent and setting imagination into play as they ingrained their hopes and dreams— on walls, leaves, skins, etched in stone. Words have power, and in this moment I am wielding mine.

I have to remember that believing in something: engaging with the discourse and not being afraid of expressing my thoughts means the embarrassment of being wrong shouldn’t serve as my shame or a deterrent – it’s proof of me trying. Admitting when I’ve gotten my ideas or beliefs wrong is proof of growth.

In practice, it’s fucking hard.

I feel like I argue with my cousin more and more every time we talk. I will say, I think we’ve both come far. We can get irritated with each other and still talk for an easy hour without ending up emotionally drained or scarred. That’s BIG for my family, especially for the women in my family. I won’t lie and say I’m not sad though. I’m still learning to not judge, goodness knows I stay making mistakes and everyone is on their own paths of self. But it’s still hard realizing when your family members aren’t valuing the things you are, at the same time as you.

It’s also hard when you’re picking up the pieces of your own recently fractured mind and fear ending up in unhealthy isolation. As I try to understand my own psychology, I recognize that my emotional turmoil paired with my propensity to lean on my spirituality could very easily have me looking like a fool. I’m trying my best to acknowledge this truth while also not allowing for the acknowledgement to have me operate out of a space of fear and self-doubt.

I also feel like I haven’t seen enough normalized discourse around what it looks like to lose your mind and then do the work of putting it back together, especially when you don’t feel like the qualified expert. I’m grateful I’ve been able to see it on the Grits and Eggs Podcast, with Deante and Dr. Taylor Cummings (who doesn’t have a Substack though I wish she’d hurry up and get one because her thoughts are brilliant and I’m going to shamelessly plug her Decolonizing Your Mind guide because I am a supporter forreal!!)

I struggle with owning the stewardship of my learning, though I’m certainly not surprised. My career/educational path up until this point has been a series of continuously proving my knowledge to have access to an educational opportunity, then giving the reins over to an organization that forms their own opinion of myself, of my knowledge, of my experience, and decides if I meet their qualifications of intellectualism. It wasn’t until my PhD that I could truly stare at myself and see how the effects of such a system have impacted my mental independence and wellbeing. The phrase “choose your reality” has never felt so significant to me than now.

Society would lead me to believe I might just be crazy. But as long as I use this energy for good: through acts of kindness, love, and grace, I should be alright.

It might mean that I’m a little too weird for a lot of people. But that’s okay, as long as I’m practicing living in my truth.

The scary thoughts I admit to myself nowadays are my increasingly shaky beliefs surrounding science as a public field. Don’t get me wrong, I am very much still a scientist, still a researcher at heart and in thought. But as I continue reading and digesting the history of the USA, I find myself wondering which scientific papers and truths I can trust at face-value. I have the exhausting thought that you really can’t (or maybe shouldn’t?) trust anything at face-value. But that goes down a slippery slope with quickness. It has already been exposed to us on several different occasions that researchers have had to pull research articles from previously published, esteemed journals due to data fabrication and/or embellishment. If we already have a shared knowledge that researchers get caught up in their careers trying to make the data fit their narrative rather than allowing the narrative to manifest from the data collected, then how deep does this actually run? Lord knows when it comes to Amerikan government and public policy, shit is usually in the trenches – the Mariana trenches.

That line of thinking takes me to public health: the pandemic, COVID, vaccines, etc.. And I have to take the time here to reiterate – I still don’t know what I believe. For now, I feel intrinsically that nothing is ever as simple as a black and white binary. I think a lot of things reside in the purgatorial “grey area.” But my point is, it’s a scary conversation that I want to be able to have without being berated or pigeon-holed for being unsure. Where’s the space for the healthy skeptics, because I am in the middle of some heavy mental inventory.

As for the spliff part; maybe part of it is missing the summer that I really enjoyed smoking weed before starting my PhD and maybe part of it is liking how it eases my vulnerability of learning and being ignorant to the back of my mind and gives me the open confidence to ask questions and learn in real time, maybe it’s a bit of both.

But I find myself in the evenings and on weekends pouring through YouTube trying to look for Black Lecturers to relearn Molecular Orbital Theory and brush up on my partial derivatives and there is just nothing of interest. Like— NOTHING. And maybe you think “okay but if the content is interesting enough then does it matter who is teaching you?” And it does. It always has, and it always will. I want to see someone like me in these videos. I think that’s why my mind curated this scenario; trying to get lessons from Black academics about foundational science while being myself, my full self. And in video format specifically for people like myself who want to learn through all hours of the day and stages of their lives without paying the cost of university. I don’t just mean the monetary sticker price either, I mean the predatory loans, the often racial isolation, and needing to smooth and tuck oneself under this square, polished pseudo-professional persona.

Anyways I’m absolutely writing this as a way of complex procrastination to avoid sleep again. Glad I wrote it though. If anyone knows of any Black lecturers in Physics, Chemistry, or Math that are on YouTube please let me know. 🤎

Today (February 18, 2026, 16:47) I quit my PhD. It’s super cold outside, but I prefer to be out here.

I think the past 8-9 months have been leading up to this moment. I have no idea if I’ll be able to stay in England. I don’t know if I’ll have to pay back my stipend (I can’t even pay next month’s rent, lol) and YET— this is the most joy I’ve felt in a long time. Joy, Relief, Freedom, Excitement. I haven’t felt this much like myself. It feels good to let go— almost as if what I had in a death grip was not my hopes and dreams but instead my own neck. I was dying, and at times I was suicidally ideating.

It’s been a difficult process. A therapy appointment (shoutout to Sacha) allowed a lightbulb moment to occur. I realized that I was holding on so hard because school has always been the one place that was always safe. From staying at teachers’ houses in times of need, receiving care packages from teachers

, having something that I was good at and validated for; school was an oasis for a long time. Learning has been an oasis for a long time. Except, somewhere along the way I started to confuse learning for being synonymous for school. Lord knows that’s not true, as a matter of fact I’m now reckoning with the miseducation I’ve been steeped in, in my younger years, that I now realize was mostly whitewashed Amerikan propaganda. But that’s a whole other project that I’ll deep dive into later. But the teachers were real. The care they had for me was real. Their belief in my success was real, and it’s a large reason of why I’ve gotten so far today.

I’ll end up with a Master’s instead of a PhD. I want to use my voice professionally, next; science communication, personal poetry (I’m excited to continue developing my personal writing journey.)

I feel good. Well, more good than bad I should say.

I can’t wait to see what I do next, and in this very moment, I’m happy to say that I am proud to be Me.

So many tears

Have left these eyes of mine

I’m surprised I still have any left

Yet they continue to flow,

In abundance.

For the Black Pain of my ancestors

For the troubled waters that won’t seem to settle in my tummy and my chest.

Assata says that only the strong go crazy.

I don’t feel particularly strong,

Most days it’s all I can do to get out of bed.

But as crazy as I feel,

I should have the strength of a damn Ox

Maybe I do, and can’t see it yet.

I hope to see it, one day

Enduring is hard, but I try

For the hope that one day

I can help my momma

To see her enjoy a day

Where her only stress is that

She can’t decide which tropical trees

She wants to plant in her garden.

I love you mom,

And I am trying to persist for you

Even though I feel more crazy than strong these days.

Because who’s gonna talk about a regular, degular, brown paper box.

And yet— I can’t wait until I am me, and a box is just a box.

They used to be what I sat next to

packed, aiming to touch the ceiling but settling on being my tall companions as I did my homework.

People couldn’t come over because they were crowding so many parts of the house,

at least to me.

A box used to represent hopes partially dashed.

We were finally getting out of here! Like actually this time.

A new start: unpacking, unpacked, no more boxes.

But they remained. Frozen in time, always on the precipice

Sagging now with age and weight and dust,

but nevertheless still packed.

Now, for me a box is a suitcase.

Trying to figure out where to settle.

To move, unpack the box, and stay.

I can’t wait for when I am me,

and a box is just a box.

I might even have a photo shoot to celebrate.

This one is just a personal essay. Not polished, not cumbersome—just me putting my thoughts in the universe and being scared that I’m not supposed to.

I struggle so hard with doubt.

Doubt is what has me stuck in a self-manufactured binary of if I should finish my PhD or not.

You’ll have more standing with people if you have those three letters behind your name.

The if I finish or not blocks me from seeing the multitude of nontraditional ways I can finish my PhD. I am a lifelong learner, that will never change. That has never changed; it has been the throughline of my life. From other peoples’ mouths, I’ve ‘lived a thousand lives’. And the connection between them all? I always went where I was curious.

I volunteered in emergency veterinary hospitals from age 12. I got my first paid veterinary assistant technician job when I was 15. I was on Animal Planet alongside my mother who is a lead veterinary technician (after switching from being an accountant in her 40s—talk about trusting your gut to follow your passion. And so it was written in the DNA). In high school I went on a full scholarship to study abroad and learn Russian. I competed in and won state awards for studying Latin. I worked at a toxicology lab for four years that specialized in addiction studies (primarily opioids and nicotine). I switched to a, rather than biology, chemistry degree—a subject that I was so poorly at in high school I got my conditional offer letter from Glasgow Veterinary school revoked. Which is another thing; I applied to veterinary school (a graduate degree equivalent to going to medical school) as a high school senior and not only flew out to California by myself because I got an interview offer—but then proceeded to be awarded an acceptance, conditional on my high school AP test scores: because I’d had extensive experience, but not a bachelor’s degree.

As I completed my undergraduate degree, I was so grateful to the University of Glasgow that I wrote them a thank you letter acknowledging the importance and blossoming that can come from a rejection letter. They said they were so appreciative of the rare letter, and remarked that they remembered my interview.

And now I’m here in my final year of a Chemistry PhD, and yet I feel my next call? I’m trying to answer it from the maturity that I have gained in my, albeit still limited, 26 years on this Earth so far.

I dare to wonder if I should reduce my PhD to part time, to allow for space of the new narratives that I feel blooming around me. I find myself devouring literature again and writing with an addiction and focus I haven’t had since I was 12 (ironically you could say since I joined the workforce).

However, I both fear and doubt myself that my yearnings are too everchanging, too childlike. I don’t want to dream so much that I miss the joys of being in the moment, being grateful to myself and to the Universe for aligning my world so that I am achieving the goal I’d set for myself as early as I could form an intrinsic thought; I always knew I would spend time living abroad. To the point that it wasn’t even worth bringing up in conversation to mull over because what point was there in pondering something you already knew has happened? And here I am now, sitting and writing this from a library in England, whereupon I have lived for almost three years now.

I suppose I am now experiencing the physical and emotional process of learning to trust myself. To trust my capabilities without egoism or egotism.

Why is it so damn uncomfortable?? Is it so that I don’t stay in the doubt too long? Or is it the necessary shedding of layers of myself that hold me back, so that I may start afresh?

Imagine a world in which our first instinct was to find the happiness when we sensed the fear. How powerful could that be?

If we ponder the belief that happiness and fear are opposites of the same spectrum; truly as in energetic pairs much like a proton or an electron. If this is the case, when you experience your greatest fear it should mean loitering in the background recesses of your mind is that absolute value in happiness. I wonder if intimidation and fear-mongering are done to keep you not only focused on the fear, but constantly feeding you new fears to keep that chronic, detrimental attention so that you don’t realize that you yourself are powerful and can turn to follow the sound of goodness—throughout even the most fearful of times. Imagine a world in which our first instinct is to find the happiness when we sense the fear. How powerful that would be.

An ICE Nazi,

Enraged by his sister’s

Excommunication

from her Eve status.

Shoots where he’s too disgusted to look.

Renee Goode

A White Woman

Given a Black Death.

Now do they see—

What it’s like to experience

The trauma of supremacy?

Thoughts From a Black Woman