Reflection

Music.

Music is something we as people enjoy in our daily lives and is viewed differently. From Hip-Hop to Country and everything in between people seem to be connected to music. As a listener it’s easy to appreciate and share the feelings of a great song. As a listener we often debate on artists that are the “goat” of generes, fantasize about collaborations, and even dream of creating vibes for ourselves. Creation is another world in itself.

As a music creator, I’ve found myself in many late night early morning sessions that leave me thinking. What do people truly yearn for when it comes to music. Do we crave not to think? Do we crave thinking deeper or even just slightly? Now, I am someone with huge aspirations and work towards my goals everyday with music, but I always found myself reflecting. This eventually became a style of mine and something I think we lack in music today.

What is pushed out front is the normalization of materialistic/ superficial value. We’ve all heard about the money, the cars, the parties, the women(the inglorious violence)but what we don’t achieve daily is reflection. I would love to hear about the times a person wasn’t too sure or how they rebuilt what was to be thought of as a “burned bridge”.I think plenty of us have gotten used to how media has made us think. How media has made us see in their fish eyes instead of ours. We find reflection more often in interviews and honestly I think that should change.

Realizing that we are all human and make mistakes should be normalized. Reflecting on music today makes me look at every genre and ask where is the knowledge? Where is the controversial view that we can all discuss at the round table? And when I say controversial view, I don’t mean what can be easily blasted on media platforms as slander to character or scandalous relationship struggles. I mean controversial views as even being able to explain that every artist that takes it seriously has their moments of doubt. Doubt that they learn to push through and moments of uncertainty that could tip or possibly break the scale. There was a time where music informed. That information seems to be water down by challenges and over saturated basslines. Believe me I am not knocking any of the songs i turnt up to in college, or even some of this generations hits. I’m just saying we as people shouldn’t allow freedom of expression to lack knowledge.

Reflection, at least in my life, has created the wisdom that I don’t have to follow any exact guidelines. Hell, this may not even be a properly written story. I can tell you that reflection has shined light in some of my darkest moments and has even become the blunt statements that are loved in my music. It’s even the things I love about artists like Russ, 6lack, and J Cole to name a few. I feel artists like these are ones to follow today, but there isn’t a huge market yearning for us to be educated in song.

For those, who think I mean some collegiate lecture on life. I want you to take a long look in the mirror. I am one who believes that professors aren’t built to teach us to be free thinkers nor are they yearning to teach us about life. Why? Because they don’t have it all figured out. No one does. The commonality that we all listen to musicians tells me that we all gain impressions from them. Whether it’s to take life in stride or to focus when it’s time hits harder in your favorite song than it does from your parents. At least for me it did. And that lessons comes to you when you take the time to think and reflect.

And by no means is this an author preaching about how we should go back to the “good ol days” of music. This is just a late 20’s musician sitting in front of his laptop sipping coffee. This is just a musician realizing that his purpose and our purpose as artists is to have our message. I think that takes a bit of reflection in itself.