AS FAR BACK AS I CAN REMEMBER WAR has always been a MAJOR part of my life. The furthest back I can recollect my upbringing was surrounded by death. If it wasn't outside of my window, it was on my TV screen or silver screen and sometimes it seemed to be just a phone call away.

Death is like a mist that goes from swirling around you, fuzzy and blurry to trying to get up in ya like Keith Murray until it ultimately consumes your oxygen like smoke from a Newport.

Before long, murder, death, kill, homicide was all that was on my mind, because that's all that was in front of my eyes. To tell you the truth, I fell in love with it. I was an impressionable youth sucked in by the allure of the tube. If it wasn't Arnold or Sylvester shooting shit up then an old school gangster flick or spaghetti western would do.

I've seen the world in two lanes Cowboys and Indians-and you best be quick on the draw like Quick Draw McGraw and if all failed The Shaw Brothers always came through with ways to break a nigga up something proper when you wasn't toting the biscuit.

Unlike these "fake gangstas" out here these days, we didn't have drill music, Brothers managed to ride to the vibes of BDP, G Rap, PE and EPMD. Rakim & Eric B. made sure they told us to get Paid In Full, keep the pork off ya fork and the fish on ya dish, and along with it all, the ropes, the sun, moon and the stars. The God dished a decent plate of food for thought that only he could spit. That's why I feel like my life is the shit! I grew up through all of this and here I stand in the midst of the game and its ninth inning. Not too many eyewitnesses to this shit can tell it like I can, not too many of the eyes that witnessed this shit is still open. And the eyes that have witnessed the sights that I've seen, the eyes that have seen a man die are eyes that still cry blood. My tears are frozen, and I keep them tattered on my face to remind me of the paradox of the pain of loss but the joy of death; the two opposing forces of joy and pain, which drives a young boy insane. Like Yin and Yang. Is causing pain in others the only way to soothe the pain in self? Ask me no questions and I tell you no lies. The story of my life is all in my name, Skarz, short for War Skarz, to symbolize when the blood that flows through my veins ended up being the same blood to bathe my frame, like that DMX album cover (Flesh of My Flesh, Blood of My Blood) Also broken skin represents the separation of something that was once solid. Just like skin is subject to unanticipatedly split and rip, so is clicks. The heart of conflict in a battle is known as the Frontline. In my hood it's known as Front Street. My name is Skar. These are my War Stories.