My Highlights Of 2006

Don’t worry, I won’t be like Skillz and try to wrap the entire year up in a rap, but I am going to put down my Christmas copy of Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas and turn off my continuous loop of Gamera movies for second to reflect on my various accomplishments of 2006 and attempt to see how I can build on them for 2007. I don’t do this as an ego thing, but rather as a realization of what I’ve managed to do over the past year. I remember a few years ago I was speaking with an old friend of mine and I told him I felt like my career was kind of stagnant and he replied that’s because I’m only looking at things in the short term, I needed to look at things long term, like how things have changed over the past year, two years, etc. That’s the only way we can truly measure how far we’re going in life. With that in mind let's go to the videotape (or, er, words)!

Before I even get to the work related stuff let me begin with 2006’s personal highs. In 2006 I earned my second degree black belt, the Mets reached game seven of the NLCS, I found yet another author I love (in previous years it was Henry Rollins and Chuck Palahniuk, this year is was Jack Kerouak), and I continued to make a ton of great friends along the way.

When it comes to work 2006 was a huge year for me as I placed 35 articles in over half a dozen major magazines including XXL, Soak, Foam, Elemental and metro.pop. I continued to make moves in the entertainment world as I had FIVE cover stories for Soak this past year and interviewed everyone from Charlie Murphy to WWE Diva Candice Michelle. I also branched out even more with my profiles of painters and clothing designers for metro.pop and Foam.

My work in Hip-Hop was still extremely prevalent this past year as evidenced by my articles in XXL and Elemental, as well as the nearly 40 full length interviews I did for RapReviews.com which included extended sit-downs with RZA, The Game and Duck Down CEO Dru Ha.

After years of sitting in the co-host's seat at WVOF, 2006 saw me earn my own solo prime time slot on Friday nights and I manned that seat over 40 times during the year.

In 2006 I attended nearly 40 events including the Pulse Magazine launch party at Hofstra University where I was a featured speaker. In addition to the events I was at in-person, this past year I was also quoted for articles that ran in AM New York, The Villager and on WWE.com, and even had a guest spot on the What She Say Show, a radio program based in Seattle.

This very site, Adam's World, had record highs in hits and unique users in 2006. I’d like to think this is due partly to people liking my writing and partly to the Artist Of The Week features I post up every Monday with a new interview with an up and coming artist the masses may not have had the chance to wrap their ears around yet.

2007 looks to be another year of continued growth as I’ve already placed articles in ten publications (The Source, Vapors, Soak, Mean, Foam, metro.pop, Beyond Race, Xpoz, Crunk and Fire) and I’m still gunning for more. All in all, when I look back on 2006 I’m pretty happy at the growth I see in both my life and my career. I’m not sure what 2007 holds, but I think if I keep my hustle as strong as it is now, and find a way to make a few more inroads where I need them, it will be another year of upward movement, and that’s the real goal, continued positive upward movement. Who’s with me?