My Music Timeline (Part 2)

...her first response was : "Why do you have me listening to this?" That took me out of my trance really fast. I couldn't even fathom . I was explaining to her how great this was and kept trying to prove that this album was amazing. It came to a point where I was just switching songs trying to please my friend. Then she just stopped me and bursted into laughter.  I literally hadn't heard this being said directly to me since like kindergarten, but while she was laughing she told me that "I was so white." I was extremely upset, but I wasn't going to let her know. It seemed stupid to trigger an argument over music, but at the time I was just really upset, and I couldn't realize that it was more than just music. Then she said she was bored and asked me if I wanted to go, and of course I said no. Then she left my apartment. Then I turned off then music. Then I cried. This moment caused the biggest change on my view of music. My brother walked back in and saw I had been crying and I told him what happened, he helped me realize what the real problem was. He said: "So what Not everyone will like the music you like. She a hoe anyway (I love my brother you guys.), while you are out here listening to music and 'being white', she's out there being nasty. Don't bother yourself about that too much like what you like." And then we started joking around or what not. That night I decided that I was never going to judge someone because of the kind of music that they liked, and that I would be open minded to any kind of music that came to my ears. And five years later this blog was made!


Before I continue with my music timeline I'd like to say a couple of things about that Regina Spektor incident. First my old best friend and I are still cool , that was really something personal..like I doubt she knows any of that ever happened when she left. And second, I'd like to explain why being called white used to offend me so much. It isn't because being white is bad. In my opinion white people should be proud of who they, just as much as black people. There are things that differentiate white people and black people (how we were raised, hair care, skin tone, family culture**), but how a person speaks the English language or a person's accent should not be one of them, and music definitely shouldn't be one. White people should be proud of who they are, and black people and everybody else. But when someone accuses a black person of being white or vice versa because of the music they like, or how they speak is the most offensive thing, because (in my own case) clearly I'm not white. clearly. My dad is from Africa. If I had any European genes in my gene pool from my mom's side, they are being blocked by Nigerian genes. So the person accusing me of  "being white" is telling me that I'm being trying to be someone or something that I cannot be. I am never going to be white. I can have half white babies if I get impregnated by a white guy, but I am never ever ever going to be white. And with that situation, I was being me to the core. Regina Spektor grabbed my soul. And if you are a science person, the music that I was hearing had my atoms going crazy.  So I was upset for being accused of being something that I wasn't.


But that's enough of THAT. So after all of that I began to look into Spektor more and I began listening to indie music much more. My middle school music library mostly consisted of Gangster rap, Raggae, Lauryn Hill, and Indie music. Then I got to high school and I made it on the drill team. And heard "Country Girl (Shake It For Me)". Going back and forth from Georgia to Oklahoma made it easy to take a liking to country music. Being on the bus, passing pastures and cows and farms in Mississippi, and Georgia, and Oklahoma, and Alabama, and Texas. It's the best experience in my opinion. SOME Southerners may have a little issues being close minded from time to time, their landscapes are the most relaxing in America and its gorgeous...in my opinion. Then I got into One Direction. Stop your judgemental looks right now. They aren't bad. They are just really popular, and have really catchy songs, and they came out when hipsters were poppin', so they get a lot of hate and aren't taken seriously a lot of the time. Now when they first came out I didn't care about those british-irish kids at all. All the girls on the drill team were raving on and I was like "BLAH. give me my old '00s jams back, please." and then two years later it happened. I got infected, and I couldn't hide it .My friend  made me watch a video of them, some funny video of them, and that's all it took. From them I ventured into other modern pop artists like Ariana Grande and Little Mix (I love little mix) and they broadned my pop section of the music library in my head. Also around that time, or a little bit before, an old friend introduced me to Iggy Azalea (pre-Work) and I liked her, and she sent me to this frenzy with independent female rap artists, and I liked her and Kreayshawn, and Azealia Banks (ironic because they hate each other apparently). The last artists that made a HUGE impact or shift on my view of music were the Strokes. My friend Adie told me to check them out and I did, and I forgot about them after that. Later on in the year I was looking at Silent Suicide videos, and I ran across their yolo video. And I was looking at they comments, and asn usual everyone was being nagtive, and they all said similar things like: "THE STROKES WERE BETTER YOUR RUINED IT!" "THAT WAS DISGUSTING, YOU GUYS RUINED A CLASSIC." so I had to go investigate these "strokes" guys. And it happened again. The same thing that happened with Regina Spektor happened with The Strokes, except this time when I told my best friend, this one totally understood how I felt. For the first time I had a legit favourite band. Most of the alternative music that were favourites in the past, were solo artists or duets. AND I LOVED EACH AND EVERY PART AND INSTRUMENT THAT WAS BEING PLAYED IN THE VIDEOS I WATCHED THAT DAY. Then I remembered that Adie told me about them, and I flipped out. And that's basically the end. Now I'm a music slut.

Sorry if it ended so abruptly, and sorry if it was too long, but you guys can't say I didn't warn you about the lengths of the posts on this blog. I'm tired of typing now, and I'm sick and haven't eaten all day..so..

SEE YA MY FELLOW MUSIC SLUTS!




Now Playing: Fell In Love With A Girl - The White Stripes


** Dending on the location and what a family is experiencing can effect the culture of that family, so sometimes shouldn't even differentiate races based on family culture either.

My Music Timeline (Part1)

Like many African American girls, my music base or the music that I've been listening to since birth... or probably even before that, like when I was baking in the oven, is Gospel music, R&B , and you guessed hip hop. Those genres are my base, which means I can get down to and with almost any of it, and I can recognize the differences between them all and whatever and what not.
The music that I was introduced after that was like kiddie elementary school songs, classical music, and Disney.
 The weird thing about the elementary songs and chants, is that I know there were a lot of them, but I only remember the Spanish ones.

"NO LIBROS! NO LAPIZ! NO PAPEL! NADA!"

"Can you name animals? Can you say their names? Can you name the animals, in this animal in this animal naming game?"

"BATE! BATE! CHOCOLATE!" (insert accent marks at your own discretion)

Stuff like that. but nothing for math or reading. Anyway So from Spanglish chants and Beethoven during naptime or a test, I began to watch Disney, I can't really remember how it happened or how I started watching Disney, because before that Cartoon Network was my main. I think PowerPuff Girls got cancelled or something, so ditched CN. But here's the thing about "Disney music", it's literally watered down popular music. So that's what I was listening to from like 3rd to 5th-6th Grade.
I had my cheetah girls and Raven being all sassy and watered down R&B for me. And then I had High School Musical being all watered down Pop Music for me. Then I had Miley Cyrus being all watered down country, then the Jonas Brothers came and Disney went full fledged watered down rock. Like Miley Cyrus started rocking and then new girls Selena and Demi came in and started rocking.

It was just a big watered down musical party on the Disney Channel from 2005-2008 (?), but it was great. I loved it. While that was going on I was listening to pop music every morning on VH1 or MTV depending on which channel had the music video I liked the best. And I also listened to like the TINIEST bit of Pink Floyd in the 6th grade.


My brother did this thing like ALLLL of the time were he would blast trap music (as in rap, not dubstep house, dance music) at the highest volume our tv could reach, and I hated for the longest time. I would go turn down then tv, and then he would turn it right back up, then yell at me for turning it down. Looking back it's pretty funny. But towards the end of my first year of middle school,(for reasons you'd have to ask me personally about) I began to love it. Gucci Mane blasting from the tv was the most calming thing coming from a dramatic day at the Middle school. Then 7th grade happened and I got into dance, and because of dance my music taste was broadened. I had began to develop my own opinion of music as well. Music let me dance, so I loved it.
That was all there was to it, until..
I refound Lauryn Hill, and discovered Regina Spektor.

Lauyn Hill turned me into a Rastafarian for a short moment of my life. I was looking for who I was at that age, and some documents to my dad's family in Nigeria that I had were lost, so I gave up on that and went full blown Rasta. Couldn't get dreads though, my hair was always pressed and permed during this era. Lauryn Hill made me feel something heavy and spiritual that I didn't even feel with gospel music. I knew she had sounded familiar, apparently my mom had her album when I was younger. So I thought it was fate, and I began to listen to reggae a lot because her husband was (is?) Rohan Marley, and it just fit for a while. Well thanks to Lauryn I was drawn to more music so I would go to the public Library and check out CDs. And I picked up these two CDs, one was of a lady with lights all around her (I still cant remember who that was) and the other  was a lady with dark hair drinking from a bottle. So I checked them both out. I had a feeling that the lady with the bottle's music was going to be amazing, so I put the other lady's cd in. It was nice, I liked some better than others, ya know, it was normal. Them I put the other CD in and I was blown away. It was AMAZING.  Song after song after song, and all of them were great, unfortunately I was interrupted from listening to the whole album because my best friend at the time knocked on the door. I was in a trance before she knocked on the door, so when I saw who it was, immediately ran her upstairs, and I only said "Listen." And she stopped and listened for a while, and after a short second her response was...


Now Playing: Turn Your Lights Down Low - Bob Marley and The Wailers

Purpose For This Blog

Music is a part of everyone’s life. We all have a rhythm in our bodies, but we also have our individual stories about how music has and hasn’t affected us. These experiences shape our opinions and tastes in music. There are music lovers, music haters, people who truly believe that music is for entertainment, and those few like me, who believes in music religiously and handles it like it’s a cause (because it is both a cause and religious). So I created this new blog to start my storytelling. I plan to tell you guys how certain music has formed me into this music nerd. I think there won’t be many of the post, but the post will be really long. Except for this post of course.

Now Playing: Skin- Rihanna