I can't dance

I can’t dance to save my life. No matter how many shots I drink, I still can’t dance. Though tequila has told me I can. While working two jobs and going to my college classes I decided to take some jazz and hip-hop dance classes in an effort to improve myself, and to do something just for me. Jazz class was a lot of technique and flexibility I didn’t have, yet I still had a blast. However, hip-hop was what stole my heart. From the laid-back and athletic moves to the songs I had never been introduced to, I was learning every day.

I was always a performer, I was meant for the stage, for any reason for people to notice me. This hop-hop class inspired me and actually taught me that I can dance. Our big end of the semester show would feature my class dancing to the song “Queen Speech 4” by Lady Leshurr. She’s this British, African-American that has these badass songs, and acts!

This song and this artist were so much to me. I was this awkward college girl, just going through the motions of making sure I got my college degree. I wanted more, and being able to try this class gave me that opportunity to do that. College is that time to try new things and explore, and I had never really heard rap, let alone a woman rap. I was empowered and hungry for more. Lady Leshurr’s up bring was much different than mine. While my family was not musically inclined in any way, she was around music so much she made her first mixtape at fourteen.

My family loved music nonetheless, however, we never really strayed far from country music. My world was very narrow, and I hadn’t thought about expanding it. My world opened up as I listened to her freestyle raps back to back. I expanded my search to include those rappers that had influenced her from Eminem, Nicki Minaj, and Missy Elliot. Lady Leshurr had said in an interview once, “if you have to look at what I’m wearing do that afterward, listen to what I’m saying first.” For me that was profound, I want to hear what I have to say too. I was a secret poet, worried t get my voice out there and be ashamed for what I had written. Yet, here this woman was demanding to be heard. I had never felt that I deserved to be heard, yet at that moment I knew I deserved to at least try to be heard, and seen.

I remember being on stage and I was so nervous. We started faced away from the audience. My parents were in the audience. My boyfriend and his parents were in the audience. I couldn’t hear anything but the sound of my heart in my chest, in my ears. The hairs on my arms and the back of my neck were standing up. I was afraid. I was scared of messing up, and not looking like I knew what I was doing. I was in the hardest undergrad college degree and this was the hardest final for me. I always wanted to perform, I always want to be on stage. I crave it, I yearn for it. I am a poet, just as freestyle rap is poetry to a melody. I want to move my body and be in sync with the rhythm and music, though I can’t dance. My classmates, now more like sisters and a few brothers in arms, are there, quietly awaiting the queue. Finally, the auditorium dulls, my senses immediately heighten as like Pavlov’s dog I hear the start of the song play overhead. Without much thought, I give myself to the music and I am dancing.