rap over love
was the best title in our class written by kenny lee
I found out my writing class friend, Kenny Lee, passed away and the site he created was one of the most beautiful ways to exit I have seen. He knew he was going to pass away - he told people and created a site for this exit and to exist after it. “Well, party people–here we are. With Digable Planets rocking Rebirth of Slick in the background, it feels like the vibe is right for kicking this thing off.”
“What’s going on for me is an opportunity for us all to reflect on what life and living are all about, and what it means that we were here.”
I missed this all in real time. After reading his words and the memories- I was moved to share this here and will be sharing on the site he created too.
If you ever share writing with people, it is a mix of this unique intimacy and closeness and familiarity in a rapidness of creating a friendship where you get to the good and hard stuff right away especially if you write about your own life. We shared notes back and forth in class (in real life where you read your pieces aloud) and outside of class for multiple years and he was a voice that believed in me to write more.
And those voices really matter a lot. Those voices stay with you.
kenny in an email sharing our work back and forth:
“yes, get to work! :). it's sometimes tough for me to focus and dive into something esp when i'm not sure where to start, but once i'm in, i'm good. i liked the direction and tone of your pieces, so i could see you getting into it pretty fast. ok, thats the end of my little league coach pep talk :).”
and sharing about 826 writing tutoring we both did:
“i keep collecting the stories from 826. maybe it's just me that thinks every kid's an adventure. yes, the kids. so far kalli, wesley, eduardo and aaron. all good times. and they remember me (1 advantage of being a bald asian dude, i suppose).”
Since words live forever and those who write give us theirs— I thought sharing some of his words in his piece written once upon a time Rap over Love only felt right. It stood out when he read it in class— the lyrics and artists and finding peace and belonging again in things not working out as you once had hoped. “Rap can change the world. Of love.” He wanted to publish it at one point long ago, and we shared notes back and forth because so much of writing and also life is about the relationships that support you.
Excerpts are from the music parts because “rap over love” and the way music can heal- a brother who makes a breakup mix and another brother who writes about it lives beyond the confines and boundaries of this life— it is forever.
“Somehow, as laughable (or Ludacris) as it sounds–rap saves. Gives air and lift to a kid, who even over thirty, still needs it. Revives to life parts of me that were pounded to flat pieces of chewing gum by the feet of New York, my own memory, and her.
Here, rap stands–new artists, maybe more inspirational, but with the same bully, the same bluster, the same beat. Telling me something about life’s pitfalls and mistakes that you can’t sallow in, not if you’re going to make it big, or just survive, I suppose.
Learn, and move on. Can’t control anything, but yourself. You’re not alone–and your life isn’t over yet.”
Rap Over Love
By Kenny Lee
Rap can change the world. Of love.
Really. No, really. I know, it sounds crazy. Maybe people will tell you that rap can change the world of music. Or dance. Or any number of things, but rarely, would anyone ever say that it can change love.
But I’m saying it. I’m saying it as I sit in JFK airport, listening to a music mix my older brother gave me, after I lost my girlfriend. I know, it sounds a little weird, a mix tape from your brother. And maybe even weirder sounding, a BREAK UP mix tape from your brother. But there it is.
Don’t worry. At least, that’s what they say. It was only months into it. And it was long distance, New York to San Francisco.
Around the airport gate–that family, those couples, that man–why are they taking this trip, JFK to SFO? Bet, not as good a reason as mine. After a weekend that was originally going to be with her but since our breakup, was supposed to be just good times with other friends, I’m ready to leave New York. Since every step on sidewalk, drinks at bars, pinstripes on jerseys (she, Yankee fan), plastered Manhattan with sticky, post-it reminders of her and me. I feel angles of glass inside. She’s gone.
I grew up in a small town in Maryland, the chicken farming mecca of the east coast, I like to say. There wasn’t a lot of music for me to role model up to, so I did what I suspect a lot of kids did those days, searching for an identity out away from the pop and classic rock surrounding them. I bought F**k The Police.
Technically, the album’s called Straight Outta Compton, but F**k The Police, one of the singles, just sounds better, doesn’t it? N.W.A.’s second album, introduced everyone to the raging, rebellious music of the eighties, what I believe is the equivalent to Elvis and the Beatles and rock and roll in the fifties and sixties, Jimi Hendrix and the flower power songs of the seventies. When I couldn’t translate the anger I felt at nothing in particular, the pride I wanted to rip from roots and slap in the face of the world–I got fat on rap. Rocked it in my room, in my car, on my walkman.
The classics: EPMD, Rakim and Eric B, Public Enemy, Paris, Big Daddy Kane, the Geto Boys, early Ice T. These guys helped me define me, in a time when I needed definition. I stuck through the fall of N.W.A., the rise of Ice Cube and Dr. Dre. Hell, I even own some of Ren’s songs (sort of the Pete Best of N.W.A.). The coming of Digital Underground to Tupac, Boogie Down Productions to KRS, Nas, Tribe, Wu Tang, Biggie, Puffy, and on, and on, and on. Like rap was my cool uncle growing up. Equal parts coach, guru, and O.G. (original gangster).
Lately though, I’ve gotten a little disgusted at the pop rap on the radio these days. I mean, I guess it had to soften up eventually from the streets of South Central, but this whole thing, how artists rap and sing about love, makes me want to smoke something, jack somebody. Back in the day, no one had any illusions about the freaks of the industry, or pimpin’ ain’t easy, or all I want to do is zoom my zoom zoom zoom in your boom boom–being about love. But these days, you got cats singing about making love in the club, or Fifty Cent poetically describing the power of love as akin to how a fat kid love cake, or how tragic it is that I’m in love...with a stripper. I mean, come ON.
A lot of this stuff, while maybe good beats and production, is just lyrically ridiculous, and sometimes I have to cringe at the idea that maybe, just maybe, generations below me this is what they use to define love. This is what they think makes up the most important parts of love. Not heart. Work. Understanding. Not forgiveness, communication. No, it’s the new easier look of love. Measured on the price tags of champagne bottles you pour, the number of five-hour magic stick rounds you go, the amount of pimp ship, commander-in-chief deployments you sacrifice.
JFK airport.
My brother opens with a handful of knowledge-kicking from some pretty famous people. Peter Gabriel, feeling like I do, and having a woman tell him don’t give up. Leona Lewis saying that it will all get better in time, John Mayer singing what I hope to feel someday as I alternate between sitting and standing at the gate, that I’m going to find another you. But what surprises me as I condense in my airport seat–are the rap tracks that follow.
There’s Jeezy, with a song about putting it on for my city, on on for my city–like I need to be surviving and punching, because my stuff represents the whole damn city I’m from. There’s another from Fabolous, like he’s rapping right at me: go on today, can’t worry about the past ‘cause that was yesterday...I’m a stay on my grind ‘cause it’s my time. Of course, something from Eminem who I consider the ultimate fighter underdog rapper: I just can’t keep living this way, so starting today, I’m breaking out of this cage. And to finish it off, B.o.B., who gives me this: it was just a dream, just a moment ago, I was up so high, looking down at the sky, don’t let me fall. I was shooting for stars, on a Saturday night, they say what goes up, must come down, but don’t let me fall.
I know, it’s crazy really. I’m pretty sure none of these guys were thinking about me and my failed long-distance relationship when they decided to lay down their tracks. But somewhere, I flow a sense of belonging back in me. Feel the airport seat reinforce beneath.
Somehow, as laughable (or Ludacris) as it sounds–rap saves. Gives air and lift to a kid, who even over thirty, still needs it. Revives to life parts of me that were pounded to flat pieces of chewing gum by the feet of New York, my own memory, and her.
Here, rap stands–new artists, maybe more inspirational, but with the same bully, the same bluster, the same beat. Telling me something about life’s pitfalls and mistakes that you can’t sallow in, not if you’re going to make it big, or just survive, I suppose. Learn, and move on. Can’t control anything, but yourself. You’re not alone–and your life isn’t over yet.
At least that’s what I take from it, as I board my plane. I’m not saying there’s such a thing as a lyrical panacea for your heart. I still miss her. It’s tough when you lose what you thought was your true–in the purest, non-pop rap sense of the word–love. But she gone, me down–that’s reality, this day.
I guess, it must be on to the next one
(Jay-Z).Thank you, rap.
Thank you, Kenny.
From Kenny:
“From the smallest interactions to the biggest adventures, let’s make time to talk story. You are special to me. Just by being you, by spending time with me somewhere on some crazy journey, headed to an unknown island.
Or maybe we already made it to the island and it’s time to dig in.
Thank you for being a part of my life.”
support my work (and love of coffee) here. i am committed to sharing my work as widely as possible and having no costs to my writing on substack allows this to continue to happen.