I Am Hip-Hop

A Wise man told me that Music is in all of us

It’s the tune that keeps our heart beating every second of every hour

That keynote that makes us vibe with the masses in our head

The strings to our limbs that control us like puppets

Yet, Music can both create and destroy us at the same time…

It was my Genesis and Destruction

I was about nine, when I heard DMX, and became a fiend

Thinking that calling women bitches and ho’s was the right thing

Because I somehow was confused, or perhaps it was he whom had it misconstrued

Cause my Mother wasn’t a bitch...

She was a Queen of many proportions, always preaching U.N.I.T.Y.

Yet I still injected lyrics in my arms like a crack fiend waiting for his next fix

Until the well ran dry and I looked for bigger and faster drugs

It was then I stumbled upon Pac, and I thought Me Against The World was the soundtrack to my life

A short skinny suburban gangster imitator, yelling out the word Nigger

Not knowing the impact of the word and how it condemned my brothers and I to an eternal prison in the wandering depths of society,

And...Without a Reasonable Doubt…Jay taught me that a life of crime could be the come-up,

Instead of telling that little boy back then that it was a gateway to suffering, pain, and death

A very lonely road, where the last time you see your brothers and sisters are in newspapers and on milk cartons

There were ample nights where I wanted to clean out my closet like Eminem

But I just did not have it in me…

We were cut from different cloths and although it seemed our feelings were similar, I just could not disrespect my mother for she had also been my father

I too know what it’s like to be a bastard…

Years of music and the lyrics mold like a gargantuan anthology

Coded by emotions they become easy to find, play, pause, and rewind

There exists instructions guides on how to rob a bank, the successful ways to shoot your brethren, and pimp out your sisters for a profit

Yet I still quest with my tribe…blasting my Hip-Hop

It wasn’t too long before I was familiar with the colors of the rainbow, specifically red and blue

Somewhere along with the times it became cool for a Crip to drop a Blood but not shed a tear for a brother lost to black on black violence, staying true to their flag

Dam…but I love my music

A friend of mine named Nasir, told me a story were I had to Rewind a days events to get the gist, turning my mind upside down but I was left intrigued, until I became a rebel to the turning clogs of society that rendered me useless, and found myself being what I wanted to…be

With my music glaring in between the grooves of my brain I never found it Ludacris in disturbing the peace

But I found it ridiculous to tell a bitch to move; because that same bitch was a sister, someone’s daughter, or even a Mother, only made a female animal by my choice of diction

And while you probably think I’m rejecting decades of cultural creativity, I reassure you that I am not…. just pointing out alternative messages behind the lyrics we all sing aloud and rejoice like church hymns.

No matter what we do the lyrics do not change and neither do the words of the Wise Man…We Are Hip-Hop…. I am Hip-Hop