Why I Rap (like a boss)...

To hear the kiddo tell it, I’ve got more rules and procedures in place in our lives than an eighties communist dictator.  But he’ll also be the first to tell you that I’m present and engaged and I care about what’s going on in his life.  I try hard not to spout off opinions like I know it all because the truth is; today’s kids aren’t growing up in a world anything like the one I enjoyed.  While I try hard to pull relevance from my experiences and salt and pepper the truths of my upbringing into my kiddo’s life, connecting the parallels where I can, I don’t discount the differences.

I know genetics. I know how life within these four walls operates. But the truth of the matter is my kiddo is out of these four walls now more than he’s here so it’s my job to expose myself to some of what he’s exposed to. I want to understand what his environment outside of home base is lavishing on him.  My latest attempt at tuning in and trying to better understand this phase of my son’s life has me downloading a lot of the music he’s currently listening to and forming my own opinions.

I was raised on country, gospel, and bluegrass music with a bit of the Eagles, Fleetwood Mac, James Taylor, and Bob Seeger tossed in for good measure.  As an 80’s teen, I hit my own stride in mainstream pop (Culture Club, Cyndi Lauper, the Eurhythmics’, the Thompson Twins, Duran Duran, the Artist…). And as a mom in 2018, I now find myself listening to hip-hop and rap.

We tell our kids that anything is on the table and there’s nothing they can’t talk to us about but then we’re quick to scoff when they fall into something we don’t like. Don’t misunderstand, we’re allowed not to like everything they like with good reason. But if we want them to talk to us about things like sex, drugs, depression, and love… Shouldn’t we be able to handle listening to a few of their favorite songs? 

I made a pact with the kiddo and as such, I’ve spent the last few weeks intentionally listening to a lot of rap and hip-hop.  Whether I like it or not is immaterial.  It was the anthem of our summer.  You know that one that will be the last one when my son still felt like a kiddo to me? As a musician, the kiddo is always studying new things in an effort to learn all he can and there’s something catchy about these genres to him so when I noticed they survived August and have stayed somewhere in the background of his playlist, I decided to pay a bit closer attention.  While I tend to get stuck in predictable ruts, the kiddo hops around music genres like I change channels during basketball season.  So now I find myself purposefully listening to the music that he and I drove through Ohio and West Virginia to this summer while his dad snored in the backseat. The stuff we sang to, our own version of dash cam, him singing every word and me picking up on harmony and melody and spoofing most of it for fun, while we laughed away the miles.  

Do you remember that song that felt like it was written just for you?  The one that was an anthem of some long ago summer?  Can you still hear a few bars of a specific tune and be transported right back to the lake?  The prom? Do you remember the one you used to sing along to the way you thought it went because you didn’t grow up with Google so you couldn’t go run check the lyrics?  Yeah, that’s where I am with this stuff.  I rap my words and I haven’t checked Google yet because I’m pretty sure I don’t want to know what they’re really saying. 

It’s been an education to learn what the lyrics and various slang terms and phrases mean in some of this stuff.  Did you know one of the artists in these genres has a Pulitzer to his credit for writing lyrics? It’s been enlightening to engage my son in-depth about why a beat is structured like it is and why tempo and timing changes work in a given piece or why they fail.  Why a slap beat bests a hi-hat in one case but not another.  Why certain words have to be repeated so many times.  And it’s been a chance for me to remember that I’m never too old to learn something new and to see that my kiddo is a good teacher.

I don’t love these genres but I adore my son and since he’s shared this part of his life with me so willingly, you can bet I’m in going to listen up.