Author’s Note: One problem area I had is with the conclusion. I’m planning to end it with a quote from a rapper I really like, but I haven’t found it yet. I think the intro works well, but I’m not sure if the rhetoric is up to par.
Being a white kid with glasses from the small town of Blair, Nebraska, no one would ever really guess my passion for the genre known as Rap. I haven’t grown up in the projects or gone to jail like some rappers, but I have experienced the phenomena known as “being a teenager,” high school, and this thing called life.
My fascination with rap started when I was about 14. Being a drummer my whole life, I was first hooked to the genre through the beat and rhythmic aspects (which is 50% of rap). I was instantly bobbing my head to the low bass and clap of the snare. Behind that I heard the complexities of musical production and mixing. After that I started hearing the intricacies of ‘flow’ and differences in style between different origin of cities.
Soon after, I started noticing the poetry and connecting with the lyrics, lyrics dealing with themes ranging from ‘girl problems’ to ‘carpe diem.’ Within these words I found comfort and fascination. My interest wasn’t with the auto-tuned rappers who talked about the clubs and such, but with the lyricists who rapped about real life and its ups and downs. That rap meant something; it was genuine. There was emotion and sentiment within the poems.
It gets a bad rap (yes, pun intended), but I believe rap is a valid art form in which I found self-discovery and rappers I could connect to even though we came from two very different places.