Losing/Finding Me:

When I was preparing to go to college, I applied for a scholarship that required you to come out and participate in a series of activities with other perspective scholars.During these activities, you were grouped and assessed on your communication skills, strategy development and how well you worked with the others. The school I was applying to was predominately white I was one of three black students there on this day.

One portion of the day required a one-on-one interview with one of the staff of the university. In an office that wasn't hers, used for the purposes of conducting the interview, sat a petite silvery haired white woman with a fanny pack on her hip. This was the school nurse and she was very pleased to meet me. She asked about my family, what I did in high school and other etcetara things. But the moment I lost myself came when she asked, "Do you have any talents?" I replied, "Yes." Interested, she inquired as to what my talent was and without hesitating, I said I sang. She wanted a sample! I shied away, claiming stage fright as the reason for my reticence.

Anyone who was around when I was 12 years old was probably well aware I was a rapper. Listening to instrumentals over and over again with a notebook in my lap, going over my friends house to rehearse, auditioning for shows--the whole shebang. I was a mini-superstar. My friend Victoria and I were a duo named, ESG(East Saint Girls). We were young but we had a following even before we knew Twitter existed. We won 2nd place in a school talent show, was contracted with a talent agency for a little while and had other appearances in our area. We performed once at this venue, "The Village Theatre", a performing arts theatre that was totally underused at the time. The most exciting moment of that night was during and after the song. People were rapping along, singing our lyrics and afterwards, everyone cheered and chanted our name and repped our neighborhood. We were the stars! I think I was 14 at this time. We weren't Salt n' Peppa, but it was pretty cool to hear OTHER people rapping a verse that YOU wrote. I didn't know what it meant at the time, my rapping. I liked words, I liked music and I used them together very well for my age and time. It was something I truly enjoyed.

But why, when the health lady asked my talent, did I say the exact opposite of what made me so happy? I wasn't able to pinpoint this moment as the exact point that I lost myself until I actually REALIZED that I lost myself a few years later. And I found myself again when I returned to what I loved the most: music.

My fourth year in college, I met a boy named Ryan. Among the plethora of unique talents and characteristics he acquired(including rolling aerodynamically engineered joints) one of them was music.Music I'd NEVER heard before that had been around for years. Not only did he have music, as in the capability to download it digitally and transfer, or WMA files on his hard drive, but he WAS, IS music. He lived with my family for a short time. He didn't have much with him when he came but a bag of clothes and a keyboard. Who was this guy? He slept wherever he laid and one of those places was upstairs in a living room space adjacent to my room with green carpet, it became known as the green room. One day I was heading downstairs, probably to get something to eat, and before I could hit the first step, he began to tap some keys on his piano. Forgetting anything relating to my hunger or the satisfaction of it, I pivoted sharper than my J.R.O.T.C classes taught, and went to stand at his side.

Those notes were the most beautiful compound of sounds I'd heard to date. I streamed classical music online, so I wasn't foreign to the sound of piano and I'd been in church so I heard it played live. But this was singular to any moment piano has been played in my presence. I didn't want to interrupt but I had to know the title so I could put a name to this melodic masterpiece. "Merry Christmas Mr. Lawrence" by Ryuichi Sakamoto became one of my favorite pieces, among other works Ryan would introduce to me.

From then on, something began rousing in me. A feeling I hadn't felt in a while. But I couldn't remember at which point in my life I felt this way. I WAS TUNING IN. My rapping days were over, but I desired the connection I had with my music and words back then--no one could break that.

I have an eclectic music interest but when I like something, I will play it on repeat, change to the next song, then go back to the song I like and repeat it some more. The first time I smoked and listened to music in headphones loudly, I heard music for the first time. In songs I'd listened to a thousand times before I smoked, I'd all of sudden hear a kick, or a bell I didn't hear before. And since I loved music so much, I wanted to hear every sound that made up what was going into my ears.

There is a dash between my re-awakening to now and it will be told. But today I want to proclaim I have placed myself and my purpose in this world and MUSIC is its center. When Mrs. Fanny Pak asked me that question, I know why I lied. I thought she, the whole university, would think of me differently if they knew I rapped. Although I loved what I did, I felt I had a good idea of how they would perceive me-ghetto, hood, negative-and I was afraid to own who I was and where I was from. When I denied rapping, I denied my hometown, my best friend, I shunned MUSIC-and MUSIC IS LIFE. IT IS THE LANGUAGE OF THE UNIVERSE. Along with reuniting with my first love, I began a journey of self-discovery and I have quite the playlist so far. I plan to never go without music or writing again and build a knowledge base and collection that will bring the most confident music aficionado to their ankles--because I love it just that much.