A Swagnificent Introduction.

A lot of people tell me I am a true character. Hmmph, probably so--i'm me. Well, my government name is Grant Yanney. I go by many different aliases. Some people call me Grant. That's really rare, actually. However, the only people who call me that are usually females. . . that and Mr. Yanney :). Others just call me Yanney(Pronounciation key: Yah-Knee). My fraternity brothers call me GY(Big ups to the ice cold,06 familia.)I've been called various nicknames such as: G-Money, G-Yans,Yandough, G.Yandough, Sir Yanney, G-Dollar, Nana, Nana-Kofi(My pops is Ghanian), and several other surnames i'm sure you'll familiarize yourself with during the course of this blog called THE SWAGNIFICENT SPEAKS.

So why did I decide to start up the blog you might be wondering? Well, I've always been into writing ever since I could remember. Growing up on the south-side of Chicago, 35th...the "Low-End" to be exact, I was a huge sports fan. Every hooping enthusiast/gamer can attest to the days when the video game "Live 95." was popular. Arguably,the coldest version was the first one to me. We all could agree the current rendition out today is huff. That's now though. The "NBA LIVE" editions of old were most definitely not garbage. I mean literally, cats were breaking controllers, and subsequently getting they ass beat over that game...You know young adolescent youth let their emotions get the best of them. Digressingly enough, the interesting thing about NBA Live wasn't the beatings(Fellas remember the "Dub rule?)" What actually piqued my interest into writing was the constant hassle of having to update the rosters even before you played the game. This was well before the years people were able to upload the rosters off the internet. Back in the day, Live would come out every year around October. This basically meant, any trades, drafts(create-a-player anyone?),free agent signings made after the release date wouldn't be on the game. When I was coming up, you had to sit your monkey ass down for hours to manually trade all those players.

For real, for real, it was a very tedious process, but who wanted to play against someone in 96' who picked a team like the Dallas Mavericks? The beginning of that year, Mav players Jason Kidd, Jamal Mashburn, and Jim Jackson got traded. Why would I even entertain that game? I could faintly remember playing a game once against my cousin Quentin and subsequently pausing the game immediately. "Where's Sam Cassell, A.C Green, and Michael Finley?" I asked. "Update your rosters fool!" You know I did that. But amongst the gamers you could always find a few who were "on dummy." It wasn't that they didn't feel the need to make the trades. Often times, it was laziness and nostalgic feelings towards a traded favorite. I, for one, definitely didn't appreciate it when the "Three J's" split up either or even when Larry Johnson a.k.a Mr. Grandmama left Charlotte for that matter. In the words of Grammy-award winning emcee Common, "Players are getting traded..." If my favorite rapper and fellow Chi-town native can understand that the nature of the business, so should a 14 year-old. I know I did.

The Swagnificent feels no need to boast or brag, but LOW KEY, I was that dude in the hood you came to if you didn't want to play with fraudulent rosters. My memory card stayed recently updated! I knew better. Hence my love for journalism. I would survey the back sports sections of the Chicago Sun-Times every day to find out what new trade acquisitions there were. My logic, even then, was one can't stay sleep when there KNOWINGLY is an update needed. Everybody should know when you don't know something you're ignorant. Morpheus warned us about this. Its millions upon millions of people who know zero percent about whats going on around them in this world.

Understandable. Of course... Not the end of the world, in some settings, but in others that could be the cause of your demise. You see it was more than sports for me. That's why I'm still smitten with what we all call the news. I went from being curious searching the back ends of the sports section, to being curious, perusing the front pages, finding out what was going on in the world around me. You see newspapers, writers, and journalists keep you updated in life. Sometimes its a bit biased, but what isn't? CHICAGO IS THE GREATEST CITY IN THE ENTIRE WORLD. Didn't I tell you? Baby girl, this is my blog! I can do anything I want to do with my blog.

Oh, big ups to Accra, Ghana and those Blackstars! Even though they didn't win it all, they had a hell of a run in the Africa Cup.(Not to mention, they bullied Nigeria.) You see, not only do I enjoy watching basketball(I'll actually dunk you), football, tennis, and boxing, but another form of The Swagnificent kicking it (pun intended)would probably involve soccer. Don't sleep, scuds are serious about their futbol. Now back to the extraodinarily scheduled program! I ended up taking some creative writing classes in high school(Word to Mr. Blair) and later picked up journalism and wrote for the school newspaper in college. You guys might have heard of Southern Illinois University. The home of the Salukis! Noooo...not to be confused with the Edwardsville campus. The institution i'm talking about is in Carbondale. This university, which was established as a teacher's college(they called them all "normal" schools), is more well-known for once being rated as the number one party school in the country by Playboy magazine.(Really good articles in the mag I tell you.) Southern Illinois doesn't really crack like that anymore.

Outside of the print medium, I also worked at the local television station where I was kind of a big deal. Case in point, I was on business. Still am. Today, I do all my newspaper reading online. Actually, I don't read actual newspapers these days. As a shorty, I read the Sun Times because of the style. The layout was simple. It reminded you of a magazine almost. You could easily ride the "L" and read on a packed train. Not so much with the Tribs. Your fold game has to be proper. As for mine, you might ask. Not so much. Mediocre at best. That's why i read the Tribune stories online through my Blackberry. The Tribune paper is noticeable superior to the Suntimes, much like a true emcee battling a snap rap artist. Its just more content. Better stories. Last I checked, I was 23. I can't front, I've bettered myself.
G. Yandough the Swagnificent 4.0!!!
Touche. I'm glad you've come along for the ride. Check this blog like you would your gmail, facebook(stay off mine, haha), or Myspace. Complacency kills. Familiarize yourself weekly and expect the blog to get better. Expect the unexpected.
Hey! I told you I stay recently updated...

G.Yandough=The Swagnificent!!!