Age and Music
October 12, 2022
Two careers that a young black boy will always take an interest in are, Rapping and Athletics. Most people have done both feats and most haven’t made any professional stride in either category. Most of them starts young as well. I never wanted to be a professional athlete but please believe I love rapping with all my heart. I’ve been rapping since maybe 2000. I really started consistently writing raps in the 7th grade but I wrote my first rap way earlier, it was a rap about shoelaces lol. During that same week I wrote my first song called “Oreo Klondike Bar” lmao. I wrote it in the vein of RUNDMC’s My Adidas lol. If you know me my first song being about Oreos makes perfect sense lmao.
Fast forward as I get older with music around 18/19 I started locking in with my younger cousin Khalil, who was around 12/13 at the time. So basically I became his mentor and started getting his rapping chops right. When he started writing it was a struggle because he was so young so he didn’t have much experience in life, I was only a few years older, but those few years makes a difference.
Me and Khalil first and final tape together released in 2011, due to tragic events we could not complete the second one even though we worked on it. #LongLiveKhalil
When we would be writing together I told him “Cuz just focus on yo flow because nobody grown wanna hear you because you too young to talk about something relatable.” That’s when he would start going and start focusing on playing with how he said things rather than what he said. I can remember coaching him on saying the same part fifty different times lmao. Man those were great times, as time started to progress, he started digging deeper, and was starting to fight the reverse ageism against his lyrical content.
With the combination of him studying music on his own and me co-writing his verses, he started to understand himself as an artist. It got to a point where he would send me hooks and songs that I didn’t write his verse or anything, and I would be impressed like Damn cuz you wrote this?
For anyone who starts music young this is basically all our story not just Khalil’s. When you’re young making music, you’re either capping way too much or talking about some absolute bs. The younger you are you should just focused on sounding good, learning how to write, and studying music. Then when you’re older you’ll gain actual experience which you could translate into songs.
Its amazing as an artist to reach a point where you can take a situation or event in your life and write a song about that one specific thing and not get off topic, while rhyming and actual sounding dope. That’s why I’m so excited to see younger people get that spark to want to do music, but I hate the people that get into to waste time and not take it serious.
I don’t wanna hear no 14 year old talking about smoking opps, racks going crazy, and a whole bunch of dumb stuff we know you not doing, If your idiotic self is actually doing it then we got bigger problems then music because you’re heading down the path of destruction. Its getting real Dennis the Menace in this bih lmao ( but a 100 times worse).
Remember Bow Wow started young but no grown man wanted to hear him as a little boy. He was for little girls, as he aged he still had a female target audience, but his content grew and matured, proving my age and music point.
If you’re a young a preteen/teen don’t ever get discouraged from pursuing your genuine interest in rapping. Yes we have enough rappers and most are extremely trash and posisbly destructive to our community but I believe in people following their passion. Who cares if its a thousand rappers, its only one you! Invest in yourself, let time be your teacher, and grow, grow, grow!
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