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The Valedictorian Perspective

A semi-regular dispatch on culture, music, design, nature, and the world we’re building.

By a certain point, I had stopped observing it and had become a part of it.

I f you’re reading this, it's not too late.

There’s a tendency now to equate taste with accumulation. Similar to the way we confuse being busy with being productive. It shows up like this: more references, more interests, more visibility, more signals. A better playlist, a longer top X list, a more complete explanation of why something matters. It can start to feel like taste is something you build by adding.

But it doesn’t work that way.

Taste tends to form somewhere quieter. More personal, and usually later, after a kind of internal negotiation. After you’ve decided, consciously or not, what you’re willing to believe without softening it or dressing it up for approval.

There’s a vulnerability in that. In saying this is what I like, without qualifying it. In letting something reflect you without worrying about how it’s received. Which is why taste has as much to do with removal as it does with selection.

It requires editing in the pursuit of clarity. Letting go of what doesn’t fully register, even if it almost does. It's about trusting that what remains doesn’t need reinforcement or explanation to feel complete.

The same is true of how we engage with culture. The ability to sit with something before defining it. To notice what draws you in without immediately turning it into language. That space, however brief, is where preference begins to take shape.

And over time, that becomes taste.

In this issue:

– Arrival, now in presale
– Kanye released a new album, Bully, The Score turns 30
– Project Hail Mary and it's hero, SNEAKERS is still so cool
– Examining a life of surrender
– It's the best damn cake
– Presence and what means to be here

01 / Valedictorian Updates

W hat happens after something is made.

The past few weeks have been less about building and more about placing. Letting what we’ve created exist in the world and seeing where it lands.

Arrival remains open. The pieces are there when you’re ready for them.

The focus now shifts outward.

We’re beginning to think more about where Valedictorian shows up in physical spaces. In the city. In rooms. Along the river. In spaces where the energy is already there, and we can complement it.

There’s the potential for something in the future. Nothing formal. Just a chance to bring people into the same place and see what happens when the brand moves off the page.

For now, the work is simple. Keep building. Stay present. Pay attention to what matters.

You could almost see the music in the smoke

02 / New Music and What We’re Playing On Repeat

E very great experience deserves a soundtrack. This month we have a new album from Ye and the 30th anniversary of The Fuguess classic album, The Score.

New + Notable Album: Ye, Kanye West- Bully

The rollout is familiar by now. Apology, re-entry, a suggestion of clarity before the next body of work. With Kanye West, it rarely exists outside the music itself.

Which makes the release of Bully complicated, but still worth paying attention to.

There’s a long memory here. The College Dropout through Graduation. 808s & Heartbreak. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy. The Life of Pablo. Not just albums, but chapters. Each defined by a shift in sound, production, and emotional register. Even the collaborative work, Watch the Throne, Kids See Ghosts, carries that same sense of forward motion. Few artists have built a catalog that consistently redefines its own boundaries.

That context matters, because Bully doesn’t operate within that lineage.

The album is less entertainment than catharsis. Less interested in creating a shared experience than in working through something personal. It feels inward and private. The music processes more than it communicates.

And still, there are moments where it locks in.

Tracks like Circles and Father carry a different energy. Brighter, more defined. You can feel the structure return. The production sharpens, the ideas land, and for a moment the album opens outward again. Not traditional hits, but tracks that create a space you can step into and stay with.

Preacher Man stands out. The track opens with a calm, melodic base that creates space. A kind of sanctuary. Then the lyric cuts through it, “I Hate that God didn’t make a couple more of me,” interrupting that stillness before the song settles back into it. Kanye’s voice moves more cleanly here. Less defensive. More natural.

Whatever Works moves in a different direction. Higher tempo, more energy, a defined structure. The production nods back to earlier Kanye, pitched samples, forward momentum, a clear rhythm to follow. It feels less performed. More immediate. Like he’s saying what’s there, not what needs to be said.

Those moments matter because they contrast with the rest of the album.

The production leans heavily on mood, at times to the point of monotony. Transitions blur. Songs drift into one another without clear separation, not just in tempo, but in tone. It becomes difficult to track progression, to understand where one idea ends and another begins. The sound skews industrial, almost desolate, closer to atmosphere than movement. It creates a world, but not always one you want to stay in.

There’s a heavy use of voice samples throughout. Religious passages, fragments of self-actualization, references pulled from earlier eras. They anchor the album in a philosophical space, but they accumulate without consistently resolving into something cohesive.

The title track, Bully, featuring CeeLo Green, brings the central tension into focus. CeeLo’s presence reads almost like a conscience, reinforcing the sense of being caught in a loop, defined by past actions and how they’re perceived. The framing returns to being wronged, misunderstood, held in place by it.

That’s the tension.

The gesture of apology sits alongside the inability to move beyond it.

Which leaves Bully in an unusual place.

Not as a definitive statement, and not as a fully realized listening experience. But as something more immediate. A reflection of where he is, rather than where he’s trying to take the listener.

For some, that may be enough.

Notable Singles

Moka Only Ft. MF Doom- More Soup
Danger Mouse, Black Thought, Michael Kiwanuka- Aquamarine
Billylildove- She Got The Bomb
Death- Politicians in My Eyes
Vin Skully- Earl Sweatshirt, The Alchemist
Sublime- Doin' Time
Quackers- Life's Highway

Album to Revisit: The Fugees - The Score

Thirty years ago, the Fugees released The Score.

Over that time, it hasn’t lost any of the relevance or grit that makes it what it is. If anything, it’s become clearer what the Fugees preserved on record.

The Score is a classic hip-hop album. That’s true, but incomplete. It’s closer to audio cinema. Not just in structure, but in intent. Every track carries a scene. Every verse moves a story forward. The title wasn’t accidental. This is a record about keeping score—of life, of power, of identity.

You can see its influence in albums like Good Kid, M.A.A.D City. Projects that don’t just collect songs, but explain a place. A time. A day in the life.

The Score captured the 90s without being confined to it. A living archive of language, rhythm, and perspective that still holds because it was never chasing a moment. It was built on lived experience.

The range is what makes it endure. Hip-hop, reggae, and R&B move through the album without friction, but underneath that is something more deliberate. The Beast calls out corruption directly. The Mask plays with identity while exposing what sits behind it. Cowboys reframes survival as narrative, years ahead of how that conversation would evolve.

And then there’s Lauryn Hill.

She’s untouchable. Zealots alone is enough to understand the level they’re working at. The control, the clarity, the confidence. Nothing feels forced, and nothing feels accidental.

What separates The Score is its ability to build a world and stay inside it. The skits, the sequencing, the pacing. It moves like a film—not in a gimmicked way, but in how it holds attention and carries tension. You don’t just listen to it. You move through it.

That’s why it still works.

Find these and our pinned seasonal acts on the Valedictorian Playlist.

There was a moment when no one spoke. It didn't feel important at the time.

03 / Books We’re Into Right Now

A curated shelf for clearer thinking, deeper feeling, and sharper creativity.

The Surrender Experiment — Michael Singer

Last month’s read was Stoner, a novel that observes a life shaped more by quiet acceptance than intention. Stoner moves through the world without asserting much of himself onto it. Detached, passive, and difficult to fully grasp, the novel sustains a sense of aloneness without resolution.

The Surrender Experiment, by Michael Singer, is a natural companion and antidote.

Where Stoner presents a life defined by inertia, Singer examines a different orientation. Not detachment, but openness. A willingness to accept what unfolds without resistance. An emptiness that comes from stepping out of constant negotiation and allowing experience to move on its own terms.

Singer’s central premise is simple and demanding. Surrender is not passivity. It is participation without control. The throughline of Singer’s life is trust and a commitment to yoga and meditation- the practices that help him feel balanced and centered. That, coupled with a sustained belief that, left unforced, life offers more than any plan could account for. And it certainly does.

Read alongside Stoner, the contrast clarifies itself. One life narrows through disengagement. The other opens through release.

The difference between them is a question of posture.

04 / Film: The movies we've watched and returned to

T he films we’re watching and rewatching, the ones that shape our taste, match our mood, and make us feel something real.

Awards Season

This year’s Oscars felt less about the performances themselves and more about how they were carried by their stars.

Michael B. Jordan’s win for Sinners, playing Smoke and Stack, felt earned in a way that didn’t need to be emphasized. The performance held its weight without asking for recognition. It was there for anyone paying attention.

On the other hand, Timothée Chalamet’s campaign was impossible to miss. The campaign signaled that it needed everyone’s attention, not that the work deserved it. It’s the difference between wanting to be seen and allowing people to see you. Between signaling importance and letting people recognize it.

Both approaches have their place. But over time, one tends to last longer.

Project Hail Mary

I saw Project Hail Mary last week, the second novel by Andy Weir to make its way to the screen.

I’ve always been drawn to science-forward sci-fi. Films like The Abyss and Interstellar set the tone, while Arrival and The Martian expanded it. Saturn Run, by John Sandford and Ctein, sits in the same orbit. Stories where science drives the plot and defines the limits of what’s possible.

Project Hail Mary begins there, then loosens its grip. Where The Martian stays tightly bound to its problem-solving logic, this opens up. The structure remains. Clear objectives, defined constraints. But the tone shifts. Less procedural, more conversational.

At the center is Ryan Gosling’s Grace. Self-deprecating, hesitant, quick to defer responsibility. Not the obvious choice to carry something of this scale. And yet, he has the capability. The knowledge is there. What’s missing is belief.

Grace works as more than a character. He becomes a proxy. The same question applied at a different scale. Can we act when we have to. Can we work together when it matters.

At times, it plays like E.T. inverted. Not an alien learning to live among humans, but a human learning to live among something else. The relationship carries the film. The science sets the stage, but the connection drives it.

The tone follows. There’s humor, sometimes edging into camp. The stakes remain existential, but the experience is lighter. Space feels less like isolation and more like a setting for possibility. Less about survival in the strict sense, more about what happens when you assume you might be capable and act accordingly.

What stays with you isn’t just what happens off-world, but what’s happening back on Earth.

Nations and scientists working in coordination. Planning for failure. Managing food systems, transportation, infrastructure. The quiet mechanics that make modern life possible, suddenly aligned around a single objective.

It’s a version of competence we don’t often see depicted.

And like the film, occasionally, it works.

Sneakers (1992)

Robert Redford, Sidney Poitier, Ben Kingsley, Mary McDonnell, Dan Aykroyd, River Phoenix, David Strathairn, and James Earl Jones. Imagine that today. Not just star power, but presence. Everyone is confident, composed, looks great, and clearly enjoying themselves. The movie understands that, and gives it room to breathe.

The premise is straightforward. A group of security specialists are hired to test systems by breaking into them. What begins as a job expands into something else, involving a device capable of breaking global encryption.

What the film gets right, early, is the risk. Not just the technology, but who controls it and how it’s used. Systems built to protect can just as easily be turned. That idea runs through everything. It’s tested in how the characters work, who they trust, and what they’re willing to do with what they’re given.

At the center is the group. No single hero, no dominant personality. Progress comes through collaboration. Each person contributes something specific, and the film trusts that dynamic without over-explaining it. They challenge each other. They take responsibility for the outcome.

And they have a good time doing it.

That’s part of what makes the movie work. It’s intelligent without being heavy. Clever without needing to prove it. There’s a looseness to it, a sense that the people involved know exactly what they’re doing and don’t need to overdo it. They were having fun.

Underneath that, there’s a clear moral position. The goal isn’t control. It’s containment. Protection, not possession. That distinction carries more weight now than it did when the film was released.

The nostalgia is there, but it isn’t doing the work. What brings you back is the tone. The ease. A group of people operating at a high level, trusting each other, enjoying the process, and getting it right.

It’s just cool.

I didn't know it then, but it was exactly how I wanted the night to end.

05 / Food & Drink — Taste, Texture, Atmosphere

T The James Beard Foundation released its 2026 restaurant and chef nominations. It’s one of the few moments when the industry pauses and takes stock of the work being recognized.

A reservation becomes harder to get. A restaurant you hadn’t heard of becomes worth planning a trip around. A nomination alone is often enough to move a place into the broader dining conversation.

The nominations set direction. Not just in who is recognized, but in what is worth paying attention to.

The structure of the awards is regional, and that framework holds. What changes year to year is how clearly each region expresses itself through its restaurants. It’s no longer a question of where good food exists. It’s a question of how distinctly each place inspires and defines it.

Across the nominations, there’s a consistent point of view.

Chefs are cooking closer to who they are. Menus that reflect lineage, region, and training, shaped as much by personal history as by the environments they draw from and the atmosphere they create. At their best, the food presents itself clearly. It doesn’t need translation or softening for broader appeal.

The difference often shows up in how a restaurant relates to where it is.

The strongest restaurants don’t sit apart from their surroundings. They clarify them. They reflect the neighborhood back with more definition, then extend it with their own point of view. You leave with a better understanding of both, and a clearer sense of how to be there, what to notice, and what you’re willing to engage with.

There’s also discipline, in the stronger kitchens, in how dishes are built. Fewer unnecessary components. Techniques that serve the ingredient rather than compete with it. Open fire, preservation, and fermentation appear often enough to register, not as trends, but as tools used with intention.

Taken together, the nominations offer a clear read on where attention is being placed, and why.

It’s a useful pulse. And a good reason to travel.

The Best Coconut Cake

Some desserts can change the energy of a room.

It gets set down, and within a few minutes someone has already asked where it’s from. You’re thinking about the next piece before the first is finished. Plates linger. Conversations slow. This coconut cake does that.

It’s been showing up again lately. The Tom Cruise coconut cake from Doan’s Bakery. It sits somewhere between the practical and an escape. Coconut carries something distinctly tropical. Not overt, not performative, but present in the texture. It brings energy into colder rooms, something slightly removed from the usual rotation.

This version lands in that space.

The Best Coconut Cake

3 cups (360g) cake flour
2 teaspoons (8g) baking powder
1 teaspoon (6g) salt
1 cup (226g) unsalted butter, softened
1 3/4 cups (350g) granulated sugar
3 large eggs at room temperature
2 egg whites at room temperature
1/2 cup (240g) canned coconut milk
1/2 cup (120g) buttermilk
1 tablespoon (16g) coconut extract
4oz white chocolate chips melted
1 cup (80g) shredded sweetened coconut

06 / Wellness — Mind, Body, Spirit

W ellness is shifting from aesthetics to regulation: nervous system care, breathwork, and rituals that slow you down and bring you back to yourself.

Presence

Presence isn’t about adding anything. It’s about knowing what to leave alone.

Not everything needs to be shared the moment it happens. Some things diminish when they’re explained too quickly.

A night that lingers because no one documented it. A meal that holds because no one paused to photograph it. A moment that becomes yours because you let it pass without trying to fix it in place.

Presence is direct. It’s the ability to set aside what has already happened, and what might happen next, and stay with what is.

Simple doesn’t mean easy.

Most of what surrounds us is designed to pull attention away from that state. Marketing, media, culture. All of it trades on memory and anticipation. What you had. What you could have. What you’re missing.

And once you step outside of that, there’s another layer. The idea that you can transcend your current state entirely. That with enough discipline, enough intention, you can redesign your life into something better. And if you can’t, it becomes a failure of effort, or belief.

Presence doesn’t remove difficulty. It doesn’t make disappointment easier to explain or sadness disappear. It builds stability. The ability to stay with something without immediately trying to change it.

Over time, that becomes a form of resilience.

Not as a solution, but as a way through.

It doesn’t change the outcome. It doesn’t make things work that weren’t going to. It creates just enough space to see what’s actually in front of you, and to respond without spiraling.

Because life still lands the same way. Rejections. Missed opportunities. Things that don’t work out for reasons you can’t fully control.

What changes is your relationship to them.

And from there, you continue.

07 / Closing Thoughts

That’s it for this issue.

A few things to return to. A few things to leave where they are.

That’s it for this issue. Films watched, books read, work released into the world. Awards will be given, opinions shared, and most of it will move on faster than anyone expects.

What’s worth keeping are the things that linger—the scenes you replay, the ideas that quietly rearrange how you see things, the objects and rituals that make everyday life feel a little more alive. That’s where the good stuff hides.

Saúde,
Haven