The Popular Nobodies Blog

Sierra Leone

Madina Village, Sierra Leone Africa

By Nathan Thomas

The country of Sierra Leone has lived through much suffering for quite a while. There was a decade long Civil War where there were no winners just losers and then the country was hit hard by Ebola.
Now is the time to rebuild and the village of Madina is doing just that through education and now health care. At first just a dream of Francis Mustapha who is from the village and has lived and taught in Fort Wayne for many years, it is now an elementary school with 390 children and money is being raised for a clinic.

I traveled to the village for 16 days last July and saw firsthand how the school is changing the village and the villages all around it. The students love coming to school and are learning so much. Many of their parents never went to school because over 1200 elementary schools were destroyed during the war and remained closed during the Ebola crisis. High Schools and even colleges were also destroyed. These children now have the opportunity to learn, grow and have dreams of changing their world. Knowing the students, I have no doubt that they will.

In May solar panels were added to the school and now the next step can be taken, the building and opening of a clinic complete with solar panels. Right now the only medical care in the area is the school nurse. She is an amazing nurse but there needs to be more. Malaria is the leading cause of death for children in Western Africa. A little girl died of malaria just before we got there last year. Last fall Mable, the school nurse, tested the children and 89 of them had malaria in their system. This is a chronic illness and the children often miss school because of it. Money was raised and now all of the children are sleeping under mosquito nets which will help but a clinic is still needed. A clinic will also provide a safer place for women to give birth and provide other medical care.

I take all of this personally because I was there and hope that the clinic becomes a reality sooner rather than later. I also hope to return to Madina because it isn’t a place you can go to and leave and forget. A part of you remains there. If you are interested in learning more about Madina or interested in donating to the school or the clinic you can go to

Madina Village School Website
Madina Village School is the on-going fulfillment of the dream of Francis Mustapha to return to his home and build a school for the children of his village in Sierra Leone. Upon his retirement from teaching Biology in Indiana, he began spending months at a time in Madina, supervising the construction by hand of two large classroom buildings.

If you are on Facebook you can follow their page for updates.

video from Wane.com

Classic or Trash?

Classic or Trash (The Quick Review)
By Jemeil
11:00pm on a Thursday night and 10 albums just dropped. By 11:15 half of those albums are already proclaimed album of the year and/or certified classics. Not enough time has passed to fully digest a song, let alone a project from the beat selection, to flow, to lyrical content, to cultural impact yet we feel like with one listen we can determine how great a project will be and gauge its longevity. But alas this is the time we live in where we want to be quick to judge something and feel like we have to be the first to have our opinion out to the public. We don't give anything, music specifically, time to marinate before we call it classic or trash. This could be due to the microwave generation we live in or fast food music consumption as some call it.

I wanted to touch on it more in depth in another post but this is a perfect time to bring it up so here's the quick summary; The name microwave generation stems from us not wanting to let things cook, simmer, marinate etc etc. we want the quick snack. With music this becomes detrimental because we can listen to an album or song and immediately afterwards we're waiting on the next one. Kendrick & Joey BadA$$ both dropped albums earlier in the year and I've seen a lot of fans already asking for new music. We fail to realize music is an art and these artists/musicians put time and effort into it and it's a slight to them to demand music right away after them giving us their art. But enough about that, back to my main point...

Now I don't know if it's the influx of music as a whole or just the social media era in general but the review 24 hours after a project releases has to come to an end. Now I believe on first listen of an album you can determine if you like it or not but reviewing it is a whole other thing as is calling something classic. Classic takes TIME & That's what we fail to realize the most. For example, Meek just released his album 'Wins & Losses' and within an hour it's been referred to as album of the year and he's been called a top 5 rapper which I've personally never heard. Recently seen him compared to Jay and that's blasphemous. And not to intentionally bring these 2 artist names together let's look at More Life, a playlist by everyone's favorite Canadian Aubrey Drake Graham. When More Life was released people were hailing it as Drakes best body of work and it being a certified classic...a few months later and nobody is even talking about. It was a vibe that came and went. All I ask is that we quit the quick microwave review and give everything time to marinate. No more of the "classic or trash" narrative after you hear one song. In closing just remember the words of the great poet known as Hov, "Do you fools listen to music or do you just skim through it?"

Big Thing In Portland

By Nathan Thomas

“And with the 26^th pick the Portland Trailblazers select Caleb Swanigan Purdue University.” Less than a month later it didn’t take long for Biggie to win the hearts over of the Portland faithful. The former Big Ten player of the year and AP All American completely balled out in the Las Vegas Summer League. He put up 16.1 PPG and 10.4 RPG. Becoming the most recent first round pick to average a double-double since Blake Griffin did it in 2009.

His first Summer League game came against the Utah Jazz and Biggie did what he does best, Rebound. His first bucket was actually an offensive rebound put back. He didn’t shoot all that well but he made up for it on the glass grabbing 13 rebounds and putting up 16 points on 4-12 shooting in a win in his debut.

From the first game, you could tell Biggie was going to be the leader of this team, he does so much to impact a basketball game without scoring, boxing out every play, creating space down low, directing the offense on the post, he’s the complete floor general. His 2^nd game of summer league was in my opinion his worst game, he got into foul trouble early and couldn’t get into a rhythm offensively he ended with 12 points 7 rebounds in a single digit loss to Boston.

Moving on to game 3 Biggie got back into his grove putting up another double-double, his 2^nd game with 13 rebounds. This time against the Spurs. The game was great up until the 4^th quarter. Bryn Forbes who led the Vegas Summer League in PPG with close to 30 a night had a monster game with 35 and couldn’t seem to miss. Biggie however dominated on the post he posted 19 points on a terrific 8-12 shooting. His 19 and 13 weren’t enough through. The Spurs won 99-85

With a 1-2 record and only one game left until the playoffs

Biggie and the Blazers turned their mindset completely around, They Dominated early against the Bulls, I said it early during the draft process and I’ll say it again , Biggie is by far the best passing big in this draft. After getting into foul trouble early with a few questionable offensive fouls he took a less aggressive approach to his game, looking to pass more from the post worked in his favor Portland’s whole starting 5 was in double digits scoring. Biggie ended with 13 points and missed his double-double by one rebound. Portland won 88-77

On to the tournament where Portland met the number one seeded Toronto Raptors. With the fear of elimination facing them in their eyes Biggie and Portland didn’t turn away. This game was so fun to watch, two great teams trading buckets back and forth. Nick Johnson who came off the bench for Portland put up 17 points all in the 2^nd half and hit some of the clutches shots I’ve seen in summer league. Biggie played a great game shooting 50% from the field and being and an ultimate defensive anchor playing great on both sides of the court. He ended with 13 points 11 rebounds.

In the 2^nd round of the tournament Portland got their rematch with Forbes and the Spurs. This time they were ready they frustrated Forbes early, forced him to take bad shots and got him into foul trouble early. He only played 19 minutes and fouled out. Biggie shot well going 8-14 scoring 16 points. Advancing to the semi finals to play Memphis. That game started horribly, I’m not going to lie at one point I thought it was going to be over this dude Bigs proved me wrong. He ended with 15 points 11 rebounds but it was his energy that stood out. Dude never quits man, going for every rebound, playing hard on both sides, getting everyone involved he put the team on his back with his hustle and will. The 2^nd half of this game was all Portland, leading them to the championship game to face the Lakers.

This whole game all we heard about was Lonzo Ball, the number 2 overall pick in this years draft from UCLA. He won the Summer League MVP which I thought he shouldn’t have because he missed two games including the championship but that’sa topic for another day. . This game was extremely fun to watch, fast pace basketball at its finest. This was Biggie’s best game by far. What stood out the most was his court vision. Biggs was looking like a point forward out there! Getting rebounds and pushing the ball, throwing no look passes on the break. Proving my point that he is BY FAR the best passing big in this years draft. He had a near triple double with 25 points 12 rebounds and 7 assists. 3 steals on defense too dude was everywhere . Kyle Kuzma went off for the Lakers scoring 30 points hitting 6 threes. Portland lost 110-98.

Biggie made First team all Summer League, I may have a bias opinion but I felt he was the MVP. But he really proved that he can be the best player on a team and win. His game is going to fit perfectly with Portland’s pick and roll system. I can’t wait to watch him out there with Dame and CJ, I think they can surprise a lot of doubters and make some noise in the west. Biggie is certainly holding his own out there in the NBA, he’s definitely putting on for Fort Wayne too. I can’t wait to see what’s next to come.

Video Credit To - Free Dawkins (Youtube)

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'Taking Care' Of Business

By Teryle,

Like everyday, I wake up & scroll through my twitter account in attempt to see what's trending. Little did I know that today.. I was in for a treat. I'm pretty sure you've all heard of Drakes Take Care album that was released November the 15th, of 2011. Now, 6 years later there has talk about ANOTHER Take Care Album (Take Care 2). Pretty exciting huh? With all the attention Drake got with his newest released albums (Views & More Life) he's going to get even more attention with this Take Care 2.. That's IF it happens. You would think that with all the speculation about the album already it would already be happening. But sources say it's just hype. Will drake fans get lucky & get a Take Care 2?? If so, when ? Is it real or fake ? With 2018 getting closer & closer, you'd have to wonder if it could happen next year. Everyone already knows what drake is capable of. So much potential since 2009, we all know he can do it. The question is will he.