When I was a kid, my biggest dream to begin with was to become a video game developer. I then abandoned this dream when I realized just how much work really went into being a developer (it is equivalent to learning another language) and just how little control I would have had over the final product in question. I was not about to dedicate a decade of my life to learning something (no matter how much I loved the idea of it) if I could not stand on my own two feet and design my own games at the end of it all.
Of course now I know my thinking back then was flawed, as plenty of indie game developers have not only made games nowadays, but actually succeeded wildly (Notch selling Minecraft to Microsoft is the best example of this). Seeing all the hurdles involved kind of turned me off the path of a game developer as I turned my attention to my other love - rap music.
I went all out and my mother bought me a beat making machine, the production software, a brand new laptop, and more to pursue my dreams. I made about 4 or 5 mixtapes of various rap songs before I linked up with a former friend to record what we called, "The OG Chronicles", a CD of about 15 songs that we collaborated on (I still have the songs saved on my drives somewhere) and put out in our high school as we gave away copies to local kids. This was my first taste of making music for a living, and I loved it.
Eventually I branched out and found a buddy who liked to sing and put him on a couple song hooks to up my production value as I searched everywhere for opportunity. One day, I pressed a box of CDs and began walking around town trying to hustle them. The first guy I came to gave me a $5 bill but refused the CD as he said he respected the hustle but hated the music. This experience taught me a lesson that people were more willing to buy something if they liked you or felt sorry for you rather than wanting to support you. It was this that was the final straw to push me into doing poetry for my venting.
I turned off all my music equipment and never turned it back on. I figured I had a better chance selling just my rhyme books rather than songs since making songs was getting expensive for me as a new father having just graduated high school. I turned my back on the rap music that had made me into who I am today, but I never really left. Nowadays I write nearly all of my rhymes to a rap instrumental of some kind, and my work has a rhythm of the sort not unlike those found in rap itself. In fact, I'd go far to say that I write my poetry like rap songs, and it has helped me transcend the usual spoken word scene as it is visceral, volatile, and effective.
First rap I was really exposed to were Mike Shinoda from Linkin Park and Eminem, since my brother listened to both musically. From there, I branched into Big Pun, Big L, Notorious B.I.G., and more. Nowadays, I mainly jam to Bambu, Immortal Technique, Brother Ali, and a few others. My point in all this, is our origin stories play a massive part in the art we produce, so make your Joker origin a fucking Batman origin story and don't stop until you do. You write your stories, not someone else.
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