When I was preparing myself for my first year “away” at college, I was told numerous times about all of the new people I would meet in my classes and spend time with. Being a commuter for my first year, this couldn’t be more wrong.

Sure, I’ve met plenty of people. Whether they know I met them or not is where the lines are blurred. In my experience so far, meeting new people usually only comes about depending on whether or not a  class involves group projects, or who you sit close to in class. Until you’re actually required to make yourself opaque to the student body, I feel like most of us are just kind of translucent to the whole. 

On the other hand, meeting new people is usually pretty rad. If I feel like it’s worthwhile for someone to know my name and not just my face, I’ll introduce myself and then we’re pretty much cool by that point. I’m not exactly a social butterfly, but I definitely don’t dread making myself heard by others.

I guess if you see me around, then I don’t bite!

I find it hard to truly proliferate any of the things I find underappreciated simply by telling people about them. For me, and possibly many, the first thing that comes to mind is music. If for some reason anyone has read all of my posts thus far, you’d recall me talking a whole lot of baloney about guitar. For this post, I feel like some of the most underappreciated music forms I’d like to rap about is something completely different: dat old school roots hip hop and rhythmic rap. Now, if you know me in real life, you’d know that I am absolutely caucasian. If you knew me well enough to step into my bedroom during leisure however, you may be surprised to find my play queue is most likely comprised of Mos Def, Digable Planets, Talib Kweli, a Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, and so on and so on.

Considering that I still need all 6 hours of practicum in mass communications for my major, (and I plan to include work on radio to meet those hours) it’s kind of funny how much distaste I have  developed for the choice of hip hop and rap that is played on X 106.7 KZLX LPFM Maryville. It’s current and it’s trending, but it is GOD AWFUL. Give me the widely unheard lyricists spitting rhymes with personal meaning from twenty years ago. Scratch that, give the people a taste of something different. Mighty Mos Def has more to talk about than the rappers of today if you ask me, and he is one of the godliest freestylers ya ever seen on the spot, son.

This is one of the things I think I can gladly say I do best. If I need to relax, my order of operation is usually as follows:

• shower (if after work)
• music
• incense
• drank
• comfiness

When the rest of that is all taken care of, sometimes I’ll read on my 10 year old stack of guitar player magazines, or just fashion a pillow-chair on my bed and play guitar til I get sleepy. It’s really easy to chill myself out just by playing open, airy sounding chord progressions by fingerpicking and using as many open strings as possible. Sometimes I think that I don’t worry enough when it comes to my responsibilities at college; that I spend too much time chilling. I hear a lot of people stress out about the things that theywill end up doing eventually. In the long run, I think it pays off to keep a level head and a relaxed position. I may think differently in the years to come, but for now I won’t fix what isn’t broken.