500 WORDS, DAY 13: My Relationship to Hip-Hop

This is my 13^th daily post of 500 words or more. Today’s topic loosely follows yesterday’s topic, and the same is true for mostly every day so far.

• If you want to start from the very beginning, start on DAY 1.
• If you want to start from yesterday’s post, start on DAY 12.

So, now that I’ve written at length about the ideas I have about time, time management, the infinite possibilities of life, and the overwhelming anxiety that accompanies the realization of all those possibilities, or more accurately, of the awareness of our incapability of knowing or experiencing all those possibilities, I want to zoom in into some of my own possibilities, paths I’ve imagined myself walking through this life, usually because they align with something I feel deep within my soul. One of these paths is that of a poet, or more specifically, of a rapper. Ever since I was a little kid, I would write short rhymes, I always felt a fascination with writing in general, and with writing poems or rhymes more specifically. I remember when, in the fourth grade, we had to make a booklet of poems, a poem for each style of poetry. My favorite was the lyric poem, if I remember correctly, and I wrote a poem about people ‘living with nightmares of a shadowed past,’ and rhymed it with how ‘some people even wish the current day was their last.’ It might have been a bit cheesy; I don’t remember it all, but it was somewhat deep in a way, and it read more like the lyrics of a rap verse, with the way the syllables and the lines were structured. Keep in mind that this was fourth grade, but it was also my first grade to be in school in Canada. I was born in Honduras, in Central America, where I started school and lived until I was about nine, almost ten. I grew up speaking Spanish with my family, which I still do. My dad is Brazilian, and he always spoke to us in Portuguese, which later I had the chance to practice during some time in Brazil, so English isn’t close to my first language. However, my best subject in school was always English class, and it seemed weird to me when I saw kids mixing up words, like their, there and they’re, or your and you’re, when they had been born and raised here. Anyways, I guess I’m just saying that words and languages have always been cool to me, they’ve always been a big part of my life, and they’re something I’ve found I’m somewhat good at. When I was about ten or eleven, I remember watching 8 Mile and just being so inspired by the story and the overall feel of it, the way Eminem rapped in it, the battle scenes and all the crazy shit they would say and all the different flows people had. That was basically my first introduction to hip-hop, and when the movie was done, I was feeling like rapping was the coolest thing in the world. Although when it comes to subject matter there are a lot of rappers that have inspired me more now that I know the genre better, for example 2Pac, the greatest ever rapper in my eyes, I still consider Eminem to be the pinnacle of hip-hop when it comes to flow and wordplay. When I got into 2Pac’s music more, I felt compelled to blend real lyrics with powerful philosophical and universal messages, with interesting and complex flows that people could vibe with. So, Em and Pac were definitely my biggest inspirations when it comes to rapping, with Nas coming in at a close third. Anyway, for now this is just an introduction to my relationship to a music and culture that, like I said, I feel a close connection to because of my past and because of its own past. I won’t go into more detail for now but will continue this tomorrow. Much love y’all!

If you have a few minutes please listen to my track “Everything Stay In The Past.” It means the world to me. I appreciate y’all.