Contrary to popular belief if you met me in person you'd assume that I've been an avid Hip Hop Head my whole life. Granted, I listened to the more popular music back when Limewire was a big deal. Being from a mostly white part of Baltimore I had to show my edgier side and bump some Fat Joe or Lil Wayne just to show people that I was 'cool' or to conform to the normal standards of the kind of people I thought I wanted to be associated with. The older I got the more I thought I had to fit into a specific group of people so I decided once I moved from Baltimore that I was gonna have a punk phase. I spent a significant part of my youth trying to fit a mold of someone I thought I wanted to be. I wanted to be expressive but having no real skills or motivation I used my 'superior' music taste as a crutch. By my sophomore year of high school, I ended up in the same place I was when I was in Baltimore. Nowhere closer to feeling like I belonged to anything.

Then came the girls.

I was trying to seem impressive to women while rocking my hair down to my shoulders wearing a NOFX t-shirt. I decided to make another change. I was gonna revert back to my Baltimore roots and pick up listening to Hip Hop for exclusive attempts to impress a senior girl I had a crush on. She was listening to a song on the ride home one day that she really liked, and just coming down from my punk days I, surprisingly, liked it, or at the very least thought it was catchy. I made it my personal mission to figure out exactly what song she was listening too. What happened next was a rabbit hole of self-discovery, and inherently molded a big part of my later years. I couldn't tell you where that girl is now, but I'd like to thank her for inadvertently reintroducing me to Hip Hop.

The song I was looking for was "F**kin Problems" by A$AP Rocky. Granted, not the most conservative song to put on in my room after school, but to each his own. During my search I stumbled upon Kendrick Lamar from there, and as you can probably figure this really sparked my interest. It's one of those artists you end up enjoying just based on how raw and lyrical they can be. This stirred something in me that I couldn't exactly figure out, but as the next year progressed I focused a lot of my time listening to new Hip Hop and catching up on the classics. I had an easy year my senior year so even though I didn't have a lot of motivation to do well in school, on top of the parties and devoting a lot of time to music I scrapped away with some pretty good grades. (There's some relevance to this I promise).

I decided I was going to a state school in Maryland a few hours from home and that year, as well as the past year, were completely unpredictable. Like I said before, I was slacking in school and lucked out on grades, but once I had 8am college courses no luck could have saved my GPA. On top of the drinking, skipping class, doing nothing but listening to music, and joining a fraternity, my grades ended up suffering heavily and I found myself in a place that I couldn't get out of mentally and physically, considering I didn't think at the time that I had a lot of options.

A little dramatic for an eighteen-year-old, but it all seemed very serious. The funny thing is during all of this if I ever felt like I needed to get a grasp on things I'd just walk outside, smoke a cigarette (I know, I'm working on it), and listen to whatever I was bumping at the time. For the third time in my life, I was trying to fit into a certain stigma, this one being the classical college experience. But this time was different, I had something I could really hold onto, because the more I discovered about the genre, the more types of Hip Hop I could match my mood with. Me listening to Hip Hop evolved into something other than me trying to fit in, it became something I was genuinely passionate about.

So once the first year of college ended I was in some serious trouble with my grades as I mentioned, but lucky for me I had a backup plan. I applied for the Disney College Program on a whim a few months back as an escape from school, my home, and everyone there for better or for worse. Turns out I was accepted and I went off to Florida with a solid 1.9 GPA. You ever have an album that resonates so heavily with you at a certain point in your life? Mine was "The College Dropout," even though I was off on an internship I knew as soon as I got off the plane at MCO there wasn't a chance in hell that I'd be back to school in Maryland struggling through morning lectures.

Here I was in Florida, fifteen hours away from home. But I felt like I was in a place I actually belonged. I knew I was in a place with people that would accept me for who I was and not who I was pretending to be, which meant I didn't have to go around trying to fit into to everyone's perception of me. During this year I met many lifelong friends as well as experienced musicians that would change my life in some interesting ways. But for as many new friends I had made I was still in a kind of vagueness about my life. It took several more months to make some changes that would positively affect me, but an album came out during this time, and it will be a long time before another album affects my life as much as this one. Travis Scott dropped "Rodeo," September 4th, 2015, that had instantly become my favorite album. From the production to the lyrics the album was the perfect thing to regulate my mood. When I felt overwhelmed or sad I listened to the album and felt in control again, ready to take on the day's problems. I'm sure all of you have that kind of album.

The main point to this article isn't exactly about my unique story with music, but how I'm sure it relates, for a certain extent, to everyone. This article isn't about how 'special' I am, it's about how a form of art can literally change a life.

There's a sort of catharsis to sharing your story with someone, so I encourage everyone to go out and tell theirs. Everyone has different outlets to help them deal with their emotions whether it be drugs, music, alcohol, or anything else. I had a problem with a few of these but with some time, the right people in my life and the important music, I've been able to stop most of my bad habits and focus on bettering my life and continuing discovering and listening to some bomb music. It's hard to describe my life in 1500 words, so there are more than a few critical points missing, but for the sake of time, I'll leave you with this.

As a final note, if anyone needs me I'll be listening to "Birds in the Trap Sing McKnight."

If Travis Scott is reading this (I know you are) I'd appreciate some free tickets.