I said a hip hop the hippie the hippie

 Music was never a really big part of my life until I was about ten years old. Sure, music was played around the house here and there. Filipino artists by my mother and classic rock by my father. My sister listened to various boy bands such as N Sync and Backstreet boys, but me? I didn't have anything that was specifically made for me. Sure, I enjoyed all of those types of music but it never really did it for me.
Then one day sitting on the computer, Lil Wayne's name came across my Myspace page. Curious, I clicked and literally over night, my entire life changed. I spent hours on the computer researching different rappers, discovering albums, memorizing lyrics, and loading hundreds of songs onto my iPod.
Hip-hop, rap, R&B. It didn't take long for it to take over my life, affecting everything from the way I talked, to how I dressed, to how I carried myself. When middle school rolled around and I dealt with being bullied, rappers like Eminem helped me to deal with the crap I had to handle every single day. Even the lame artists like Soulja Boy had an effect on me. I could always look to his songs to brighten my day and make me laugh or just make me feel good.
I knew more about my favorite rappers than I did about seventh grade math. I spent more time listening to new albums that I found than I did on my homework. I could memorize hundreds of lyrics but I couldn't memorize dates for history. I could freestyle over a whole B.I.G. Verse, but I couldn't figure out how to start an essay.
Music was my everything. It still is. I won't say something cheesy like “Hip-Hop Saved My Life,”, because it didn't. But it helped give me the confidence to save myself when things got rough in my life. I wasn't afraid to be myself anymore and I actually liked myself. I liked who I was when I was rapping along with Andre 3000 or making up goofy freestyles in class with my friends.
With my focus on music, I didn't care so much about all of the bad things going on in my life. I didn't care about the people picking on me, which in turn, made them mess with me less. I didn't care about the issues going on at home because I could hide behind my computer and let NWA distract me with their problems.
Now I'm eighteen years old and not much has changed. Some could say that my taste in hip hop has improved ever since I deleted Bow Wow off of my iTunes and replaced him with the likes of Kendrick Lamar, J. Cole, and Mac Miller.. Some could say that my music taste has gotten interesting because of my infatuation with like MF Doom or OFWGKTA. Many people today would think I have a “classic” taste with all of the Jay-Z, 2Pac, Biggie, Eminem, Dre, and Kurupt.
I never would have thought at ten years old that my entire life would be changed by a Lil Wayne album, but here I am, listening to the same album. I'm remember the way my heart pounded in my chest when I listened to lyrics I didn't quite understand and how my foot would tap to a beat that gave me chills. Here I am now, rapping like these were my own lyrics and putting my own damn concert on. Because I'm eighteen and I've still never been to a Lil Wayne concert.