My Music and Me

 Hello, Im Grant Robertson, I just moved to Converse from my home in Michigan and this is my first time being in South Carolina and living in the south. Im originally from Detroit, Michigan and got exposed to music in general from my father that would always play Kid Rock and AC/DC in on the car radio on the way to school. I originally went to a high school in downtown Detroit but moved to a Spire Academy, a boarding school in Ohio my senior year on esports scholarship to further my career and improve myself and a person and competitor.  

The music I've had on repeat the past month has been cut even between an artist I just recently found and fell in love with his work and an artist I've known about and followed for a while but just released a new project. The first artist is a HipHop artist named Smino whose music is an amazing blend of R&B and HipHop with Neo-Soul aspects which he flows together beautifully with his own voice that is blended excellently with his amazing production. This track in specific has been my personal favorite as it has my favorite chorus in his whole discography and just entrances me every time I listen.

The other artist that just released a new project that I've been listening to on repeat is JPEGMAFIA and his newest album, "I LAY DOWN MY LIFE FOR YOU". This album is an incredible mix of experimental HipHop and Rock. My favorite part about this album specifically is JPEGMAFIA's production in which gives each individual track a special flare that makes you want to keep listening. My personal favorite track on this album is, "vulgar display of power" as it is the most hard rock AC/DC inspired track on the whole album that on first listen reminded me of listening to the radio in my dad's car on the way to school.

For music that is deeply meaningful to me it would without a doubt have to be the album "Mr. Morale and the Big Steppers" by Kendrick Lamar. This album has helped me learn about myself and helped me when I moved away from home the first time last year. This album is the most recent project from my favorite artist of all time Kendrick Lamar and in my very biased opinion the best therapy conceptual album of all time. This album is about the breaking of generational curses, accepting who you are as a person, and growing to be a better person for the future generation. In the first disc of the album Kendrick talks about his issues growing up in a hostile area in Compton, California and what he had to do to get out of his dangerous situation. The second disc, my personal favorite, he reflects on his life and his parents curses that they bared on him and how he grew and from it and broke those curses to not pass them onto his kids. My favorite track from the second disc is "Mirror" where he speaks to the audience personally saying that he is not a savior or leader but instead just a person. Kendrick admitting this is huge in that in his past albums he frames himself as someone that will free people from oppression and fight for others like a savior, but here he says that he is not a leader, he is not a savior, he is just another person and he needs to think about himself and his family.  The whole album comes to a close with "The Heart Part 5" where he speaks about institutionalized racism and the current climate of African-American culture and how in his words the culture needs to change, "In the land where hurt people hurt more people fuck calling culture,". My favorite track from the whole album is "Father Time" as it is the track he talks about how his father was during his upbringing and I related to it in ways because of how my father put a lot of pressure on me when I was a child and how I grew from it and learned to love him for who he is. My favorite part of the song is the beautiful singing from Sampha on the bridge. 

The type of music I cannot get into no matter how much I try is purely electronic music like dubstep, phonk, or house. The reasoning to me not liking it isn't very complex so I will not be writing much but the main reason is that it just overstimulates my brain and makes it uncomfortable to listen to. An example here is "Satisfied" by Sully and Effin and listening to it just sounds like a collection of instrument samples on FN Studios put together with no thought behind it and I just cannot get behind it.