My introduction to rap music and the Hip-Hop culture.
Before I start showing you and talking about the amazing musicians, rappers and producers that have inspired me for about 8 years now, that have made me love and grow closer to this incredible music genre and this incredible culture, I have to tell you about my music taste before rap and how I went from completely avoiding it to get inspired to write poetry.
I can't think for how long I've been aware of rap music, I just know that I didn't like it when I was in middle school. Back in Colombia (where I'm from) I went to public school, which is a very interesting place, full of various types of people coming with different backgrounds, and different stories. Most of the people that attend public school in Colombia are lower and medium class families that struggle every day because of money. Due to this, most of my classmates were people that didn't have a good house, people which families had to work extra hard to sustain themselves.
This might not seem relevant to how I got into rap but, it is because that environment and that people that I knew back then, they listened to rap, Colombian rap, which I couldn't stand in the beginning because of its violent lyrics that usually inspired kids to commit crimes. My school as I mentioned before had different types of people, and they listened to all types of music, but for some reason, people who struggled the most, who thought that their only option was to be delinquents, they listened to rap. Most lyrics would talk about fighting in the street, smoking pot, killing someone to steal their phone or their fancy watch, it was raw music, taking about the life on the streets and how 'to eat or get eaten'.
My country has suffered from so many things, especially violence and, music that only incites to violence and hate, wasn't appealing to me because I've always wanted people to do better, to educate and better themselves. The problem is that I never knew the whole culture nor did I know that rap wasn't meant to be about violence.
My brother was the first person to introduce me to the beautiful side of rap music: the poetry. The deep lyrics about life, love, struggle, inspiration, anger, melancholy, about things that matter and that I could relate to.
I used to say that rap music was for gangsters, thugs, criminals, etc., but then one day he played a couple of songs on our PC and it really surprised me, in fact I think it was kind of a slap on my face telling me or showing me through a romantic lyric and a melancholic instrumental that rap wasn't just for gangsters, or thugs or criminals, but it was music for everyone.
The first song is called Solo tú https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDuQtKcvpKQ by Arma Blanca, a Spanish group from Alicante that started making music since 1994. I will go over them in a different blog entry where I'll talk more about the whole scene in Spain. What caught my attention was how they rhymed beautiful lyrics that expressed their feelings towards the person they loved. It gave me a completely different perspective of what rap is.
The second song that he played and that I still feel very moved and that I think of it as one of the greatest reflections about life that anyone has ever given in a song, is Mañana será otro día by Canserbero, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3oDIyImYI) a Venezuelan rapper that helped me grow as a person and made me realize about so many things with his lyrics.
He is still my favorite rapper because of how much he influenced my music taste and the things I believe in. This song name translates to: Tomorrow will be another day, and it tells a story fo something that happened to him when he was younger. He was depressed and angry and he wanted to shoot himself until a blind man talked to him about how grateful he was despite the fact that he will never be able to enjoy a view of the sea or how he will never be able to appreciate his wife's beauty.
After that day, I understood that I had to really dig into rap music and find out what amazing lyrics were out there waiting for me.
I can't think for how long I've been aware of rap music, I just know that I didn't like it when I was in middle school. Back in Colombia (where I'm from) I went to public school, which is a very interesting place, full of various types of people coming with different backgrounds, and different stories. Most of the people that attend public school in Colombia are lower and medium class families that struggle every day because of money. Due to this, most of my classmates were people that didn't have a good house, people which families had to work extra hard to sustain themselves.
This might not seem relevant to how I got into rap but, it is because that environment and that people that I knew back then, they listened to rap, Colombian rap, which I couldn't stand in the beginning because of its violent lyrics that usually inspired kids to commit crimes. My school as I mentioned before had different types of people, and they listened to all types of music, but for some reason, people who struggled the most, who thought that their only option was to be delinquents, they listened to rap. Most lyrics would talk about fighting in the street, smoking pot, killing someone to steal their phone or their fancy watch, it was raw music, taking about the life on the streets and how 'to eat or get eaten'.
My country has suffered from so many things, especially violence and, music that only incites to violence and hate, wasn't appealing to me because I've always wanted people to do better, to educate and better themselves. The problem is that I never knew the whole culture nor did I know that rap wasn't meant to be about violence.
My brother was the first person to introduce me to the beautiful side of rap music: the poetry. The deep lyrics about life, love, struggle, inspiration, anger, melancholy, about things that matter and that I could relate to.
I used to say that rap music was for gangsters, thugs, criminals, etc., but then one day he played a couple of songs on our PC and it really surprised me, in fact I think it was kind of a slap on my face telling me or showing me through a romantic lyric and a melancholic instrumental that rap wasn't just for gangsters, or thugs or criminals, but it was music for everyone.
The first song is called Solo tú https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xDuQtKcvpKQ by Arma Blanca, a Spanish group from Alicante that started making music since 1994. I will go over them in a different blog entry where I'll talk more about the whole scene in Spain. What caught my attention was how they rhymed beautiful lyrics that expressed their feelings towards the person they loved. It gave me a completely different perspective of what rap is.
The second song that he played and that I still feel very moved and that I think of it as one of the greatest reflections about life that anyone has ever given in a song, is Mañana será otro día by Canserbero, (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OV3oDIyImYI) a Venezuelan rapper that helped me grow as a person and made me realize about so many things with his lyrics.
He is still my favorite rapper because of how much he influenced my music taste and the things I believe in. This song name translates to: Tomorrow will be another day, and it tells a story fo something that happened to him when he was younger. He was depressed and angry and he wanted to shoot himself until a blind man talked to him about how grateful he was despite the fact that he will never be able to enjoy a view of the sea or how he will never be able to appreciate his wife's beauty.
After that day, I understood that I had to really dig into rap music and find out what amazing lyrics were out there waiting for me.
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