Music Full-time, Life Part-time

Alexander Zacarias

Music Full-time, Life Part-time

Most people call me lame because I’m not able to function in the real world; well that is why music is my crutch. Even when my eyes open from my slumber and my conscious awakens, my thoughts are consumed by rhythms and melodies. Most people enjoy waking up to the sounds of nature or dread having to punch that wretched snooze button that lies on the face of a nuisance of an alarm. Well, I breach the world of reality from dreams with music blaring throughout my room as a message pops up on my phone, “School :/ 9:00”. From then on I almost feel that I’ve never truly awoken all due to music bombarding my speakers. The entire process of brushing my teeth, grooming, showering, and getting dressed, always falls as a surprise to me because this brain of mine is trapped in by lyrics and beats. This musical seepage leaks into my car as the stereo pounds the rich treble and bowel-moving bass. As I lip sync, they almost feel like the magic words that transport me to school because there is no thought of any excursion from my residence to my university. I put my mobile boom box in a park and neutralize myself by burying headphones into my brain via my ears. I feel as the world is lost in me rather than me being lost in the world. My surroundings, set in mute as my trek across the silent campus consists people  that float by my distorted vision of reality. As I pull my headphones out, my soul goes along with it.  The instrumentals are quieted down and my heartbeat is set in stereo. The next sounds I hear are abstract to me because I realize I am not alone in this world but this whole time I’ve walked in sync with a young freshmen classmate who wears thrifty shoes from Wal-Mart asking me “do you think we are late?” I have no response for her. All that I can spit out is the rhyme schemes that have been hosting in my cranium. My consciousness is abruptly awoken up from my teacher announcing  the lesson plan for today and I suddenly come to the conclusion that I am sessile in a Seattle sky colored chair that annoyingly squeaks like a thousand puppies as my body quests for comfort in it. As class and reality fade in, my music and my life fade out.

I strongly believe you can have music without life but cannot have life without music. Simply impossible. That right there is the belief of a music head. Music heads, a huge category of youth culture yesterday, today, and tomorrow. Let us marinate on them for a minute or so. Let’s define a music head first to truly comprehend these creatures. According to UrbanDictionary.com, a Music Head is someone who listens to all types or just certain types of music constantly; even for a couple of seconds. Music heads believe that along with water, food, and shelter to survive, we need to music as an essential of life. These music heads can be found everywhere including and not limited to: parks, schools, school parking lots, lobbies, hallways, couches, swings, porches, porch swings, terraces, mountains, bikes, mountain bikes, driveways, restaurants, rest stops, etc. Music heads have been around for years and are most populated by the youth of an era. Music represents an air that oxygen doesn’t allow to breathe. It varies from the Swingsters, the RocknRollers, the Jazz cats, the Grungers, and even the Hip Hop heads. Music is universal and is a universe in itself. It presents an escape, a revolution, a statement, and life in its most beautiful raw form. Moral of the story is that these musical monsters are everywhere. Now we can bring stereotypes into this but they will be broken and various due to the genres of music.

Yet, in this case we are bringing a focus upon the Hip Hop heads. One of several branches of the tree of Music heads. Let’s play society for a minute and round up some stereo-types of these “hip hop heads.” These hooligans usually wear baggy clothing, a little sag for their swag, headphones that blare music that all of the nation can hear, usually a flat-billed hat, and the noble nod of the head as it simultaneously bobs with the beat. Of course this is a stereo type but again there is a reason it is a stereotype. Now if you come across a Hip Hop head hold your tongue on what you say about Hip Hop. Their mind has solidified on the Hip Hop world. There are some Hip Hop Heads that are a bit narrow-minded when it comes to the music world and others a bit more flexible. Either way they still know what they are talking about. Unless, these alleged Hip Hop Heads are just posers. We can call these music phonies, “Conposers.” A Conposer according to urban dictionary is a person who likes a certain type of music to fit into a group of popular people even though they hate the type of music.

                             

Notice the exaggerated headphones. Yup, the girl above is doing too much. This is a sign of an extreme Conposer. Of course Hip Hop needs some work done to it but this isn’t the tool (Bieber) we need for the job. The girl above is a pop savant. She excels significantly in Pop music yet when it comes to other genres she likes to pretend that she has a high capacity of skill in any other music when the truth remains she doesn’t.  That right there is posing.  There is video of Justin Bieber allegedly free styling a rap. That proves my point of a Pop star simply trying to put on another persona just because she might a Hip POP head doesn’t cross-over to true Hip Hop. Please forgive me calling the boy-kid above a feminine pronoun; at first glance I thought it was Ellen DeGeneres.

If you found yourself face to face with a conposer, resist the urge to jab him/her in the face and simply say “get real”. These conposers aren’t highly dangerous yet they can be highly influential. This is where the stereotypes usually start. The reason people learn to be about it rather than talk about it is situations like this. A noob conposer is extremely noticeable. They may wear the before mentioned ball cap on sideways, the expensive headphones, an exaggerated sag in their jeans, expensive shoes that don’t match their attire, etc. The true way of discovering their true selves is listening to them talk about music. You’ll hear the lack of knowledge and passion when conversing about Hip Hop. The more experienced conposers may know the essentials of Hip Hop of “who’s who” in the game but lack any real education in the subject. Most easy-goers may find them as real Hip Hop heads because the illusion they perform. Their prestige stage is when they can recite a couple lyrics of a hot song yet there is one way to remove their mask. Get your hand on their iPod and look at their artists and you will most likely find a couple songs of each artist that have hit Billboard’s 100. This shows that they only listen to the radio and what is floating on the surface of the mainstream. One moral code a true Hip Hop head is that the radio is no-no. Conposers are a nuisance to the Hip Hop game yet they have sprung a movement not only in this genre but others too. The “poser” sub-group is a commonly found youth group species in history and today. The poser itself presents a sub-group in practically any group or sub-group.  When you pose you remain in a same action or state so therefore it only makes sense that the poser is here to stay. The real difference of a conposer and an actual Hip Hop head or even a music head is that the integrity of the music is never compromised, lost, or fake. Music to real music heads is a getaway from the world while conposers manipulate the art only to get “in” the world.

Hip Hop Heads, the group I closely identify myself. Yet, I actually branch off a bit more from being a Hip Hop head. Those who are Triple H’s (Hip Hop heads) are also sub-divided into smaller groups. Groups that range are: historians who tend to listen to more old school and classic hip hop, the Gutter boys who only listen to that dirty rap, go-getter mentality, southern-fried Hip Hop, the gossip gods who are up to date on the personal lives of artists and songs, etc. The one discover myself with are the Hip Hop artists. Making music, a very usual road that many music heads take when obsessed with their love and desire to take it to the next level. The mentality becomes “if I love this so much then I should marry it”. It’s as if you almost get tired of hearing someone else do what you love you rather do it yourself. Don’t take it, make it. My music is relatable because I wrote it myself and it’s about my life, struggles, ups and down, and everything all around. All I ever listen to is either my own music or instrumentals. My love is music and I know my love. She’s like the girl you have a crush on. You get tired of all these other guys taking her out, loving her, abusing her, and just being able to appreciate all she has to offer personally. You get to the point that you decide to ask her out, develop a relationship, get married, and knock her up. Together you make the outcome of what happens when you and that love of yours get intimate. Losing myself in music is where you can find me. The chains that are meant to bind me in this world are broken as I’m hung with the same hooks in my songs. Lines that are meant to limit me are erased and replaced by the same lines I write in my songs. The vivid feelings the course through my veins transcends from the sense of hearing to another sense, touch. I feel what’s real. My beats and rhymes are what I use to shoot for the stars, my puns and double entendres only reload the ink in my pen which create the words are the bullets to the magazine of my flow. My mouth becomes the chamber, my dreams spark the gunpowder of my ambition, and that makes the ballad of my bullet. Boom! Headshot.