I don’t remember the exact age but I do know when the first time was that I heard a hip hop song. And for anyone reading this under the age of 30 you may be surprised as to who the artist is and you’d probably never heard the song before.

Parent’s Just Don’t Understand – Will Smith and DJ Jazzy Jeff.

Yes, that Will Smith.

I remember recently having a conversation with a co-worker who at the time was 25 and I had made mention of Will Smith being a rapper, and her response was.. “The Movie Star?”

Beasties Boys, Fresh Prince, and Run DMC were my first introductions into Rap/Hip Hop in the 1980’s but it was sparing. I had a teenage brother who listened to a lot of different music than myself and my father, and he exposed me to my first initial tastes into a lot of genres. I’ll talk more about those in the future, but a passing listening of Hip Hop came from him.

It was always a sound I enjoyed but never really found myself searching out. Neither of my parents listened to it, and my relationship with my brother was.. strained to say the least. But they set a nice foundation and introduction into the enjoyment I would eventually have for Rap as a whole.

The major catalyst came in my younger teenage years, In the mid to late 90’s when the only way to play a CD (if you don’t know what a CD is, google it, I’m not getting that deep lol), in a car was either to spend hundreds of dollars on getting a player installed in your car, or hoping to god the little cassette adapter that plugged into the headphones of your Walkman would work correctly, one of my best friends played a new album he got one day while we were out cruising around town. I had recognized the genre as rap, but having never heard this take on it before I was enthralled with the sound,

The song was California Love by 2Pac (Feat Dr Dre)

All Eyez on Me would become the first Rap album I would own. While I couldn’t directly relate to the words being said, I fell in love with the structure of both the rhymes and the music. Another friend from school let me barrow some NWA, Dr Dre, and WuTang CD’s and it was like nothing i had ever heard. Evetually artists such as Kid Rock and Limp Bizkit would come on the scene and mix Rock with Hip Hop and I began to fall in love with the structure of the music. I even had a guy I knew in high school who was apart of Tech N9ne’s street team here in KC and got my first does of Strange Music

Then one day after school my junior year, a friend of mine said he needed me to listen to a new album he got! Said it was crazy and he was in love with the music beat. So I got in his truck after school one day and what began to play was indeed crazy. The beat forced my head to bop and the voice was weird, and the lyrics were… fucked up.

The song was My Name is by Emniem

It was Eminem, (Yes, I am aware lol) that really made Rap one of my most played genres of music in high school, right behind country music. During a very volatile time in my youth, Eminem’s music channeled the anger and hate that I fought to control when I was dealing with the home life I had. It became my escape music for when I needed to let go of the rage that filled me. The humor also matched the dark world my brain would go in on a regular basis, and the smart ass side of my personality fed off of it.

As I got older I would find more artists in the genre that would fuel my love of rap. Busta Rhymes, DMX, Missy Elliot, Snoop, Nelly, LL Cool J, Lil Kim. All became mainstays of music I would cycle through in the late 90’s and into the 2000’s.

Over the years the genre of music would cycle through and I would find myself listening to whatever was the most popular thing out on the radio, but for the most part my listening of Hip Hop fell off. In the mid 2010’s I was talking to my nephew and asked for a list of the best rap artists that I should listen to and i get inundated with a list of people to check out. Kendrick Lamar, J Cole, Lil Wayne, Future, Logic. I found a love for Hip Hop again and it fell right back into my normal rotation.

Today I seek out new music from friends, and love artists such has Hopsin, Joyner Lucas, and Travis Scott. By two arists that get the most airplay on my phone is Ren, and NF. NF in particular has been a major outlet for my mental and emotional state as I get older. Where Eminem filled the anger and hurt void, NF fills the depression and self-doubt thoughts from dealing with a life time of trauma.

What are some of your favorite Rap/Hip Hop artists? Let me know below!