Starting off as a youth, people believe in anything...i mean come on-hands ups who played football just to fit in with the up and coming craze of your generation? i know i did. As far as hiphop goes many youngsters are taken up by the same influnce and take the music they listen to unrealisticly. From my own expereinces growing up in a mutli-cultured environment its hard to appriciate a certain type of music when there are so many different genres to choice from-with so many recording artists doing different things. For example, going back to high school days i used to listen to gangster rap and mainstream hip/pop (g-unit, lil-john etc) and wasnt really focusing on what i was hearing through lyrics. So for this, growing up and taking a liking to hiphop i ultimately became a 'slave to the game' while my friends would keep telling me to 'check out this' or download this mixtape etc'. However, what i can tell you, is that i was the first to realise what i was doing wasn't how i wanted it to be. 

This is when I started to take my music a lot more seriously 'by putting both headpohnes in-and not just the one whilst chatting to your mates!' I bascily started listening to as many different artist as i could and fore-seeing lyrics in my head to start making sence of them. I wasnt planning on becoming a rapper..or anything like that! i was just starting to realise that the music i was listening to HAD meaning and some times i could relate to what people where saying, maybe not in terms of the things that have happened in their lives but how my own life situations and feelings can adapt to the music in order to express something...a feeling..a desire. 

To get the grips with the genre itself and understand what i was effectivly 'enjoying' through my CD player, i had to do my history and dig deep into the hiphop achives to gain better knowledge on why such an expressive form of music has come about. A funny story was back towards to end of high school, whenver there was a break in the lessons i would go on the interent and research absolutely anything and everything i could on hiphop, it was like a crazy idea i had that i was going to take this shit so seriously and devote time to the cause i was chasing beacuse i started loving it so much. And from doing reaserch and speaking to people i could relate to (when it comes to hiphop) i started to say RAEKWON, JAY-Z and BIG  L instead of LUDACRIS, T.I. and NELLY. But i mean...thats just me..maybe some people look at the music they listen to in a totlay different way, thats cool, i respect that, but knowing WHY and WHAT you are listening to is another dimention of any form of beat or word. Another clean example i have is from back when soundtracks where the first highlight of a night out and my friends would be tune-ing into Westwood or something crazy like that and whenever a banging 50 CENT joint would come on the volume would be cranked up to the ten's but then something soulful and more uptight would drop like a classic LL joint or a remix with COMMMON they'd turn it down and i'd be like,' why'd you turn that down?.......I realise now that its harder for people that havent experienced the music the same ways that i started doing. They seem to 'switch off' quite easily from something that production wise sounds good, to something that actualy has a good lyrical point or funny punchlines. This then bring us on to a whole new dicussion about the ways in which hiphop is changing and how the fans are perciving it to be.....are these fan actualy for real? are they listening to hiphop on the surface? are they looking at the whole picture and not just what pops up on MTV BASE every month?.

There was this guy on 1XTRA the other day (must of been 14-15) chatting about how much he rates the new Eminem album saying its the best, the greatest (you get the point) the screems the shout outs go on. And i think about these people that comment on things like that... i think to myself, yeh? o.k, but what is he base-ing his answers on?...has this dude heard Em's first album the Marshall Mathers LP? has he been listening to what has happend to Em within the last 4 years?..more than often the answer is no, and the youth of today pick up albums because 'word of mouth' said so. I think its time for the people who actualy enjoy hiphop to start respecting the music.  

You're possibly thinking by now what is this guy saying? is HE himself actualy for real?..Well let me tell you, i aint a gangster, i aint been in the struggle, i aint a wannabe rapper and i aint no hiphop extremist, im someone who beliefs that music is so powerful and expresive that it can change attitudes and feelings so therefore cant be messed around with. I like hiphop because i want to, not because of what racisum says or what Joe Blogs on the corner says, i just feel everyone is alowed to/and can relate to it, but this relation must be met with MEANING....i hope i've displayed mine, peace out.. X