The Role Music Plays in My Life

In the book "The Other Wes Moore," the other Wes Moore talks about the role music plays in his life and explores the importance of Hip-hop, which was extremely influential for him as a teen and helps him build a sense of identity. Hip-hop plays a huge role and acts a "validator" at this point in Wes's life and it gives him a way to reconcile the self he presents among other young men in his neighborhood. We recently celebrated 50 Years of Hip-hop, and its global popularity made its visions of Black life and messages of Black pride accessible to the other Wes’s white classmates and at the same time, his devotion to the form and easy memorization of lyrics led his neighborhood between Wes Moore’s two worlds and two selves. Now, on to the role music plays in my life. 

Music plays a vital role in my life. I love listening to music and it's become one of my favorite things to do in my free time. I was exposed to music since I was in kindergarten and now to my age, I experienced listening to songs that were unexpectedly from my favorite artists, singers and bands. When I was little, I was taught the most common ones: the ABCs song, Twinkle Twinkle Little Star, Happy Birthday song and others. There are so many different categories and genres of music such as rock, ballad, Jazz, Hip-hop, pop, techno and others as well. Whatever music that I heard, and I like gives me so much joy and entertainment and I sometimes do dance to it while no one is watching. Without music, our lives would be soulless and boring. 

Some lyrics define my life. I was amazed to find a song that was just that and how to have more fun with my life. The song is "Time of Our Lives" by Olivia Holt. That was the theme song to the Disney series, "I Didn't Do It" and that was one of my favorite shows to watch on TV and it made me laugh watching every episode and that's what makes it great about these kinds of shows. Whenever I want to relive some fun and touching memory in my mind, I listen to that song and other fun songs in particular which makes me go back in time and I can see the flashbacks on my camera roll and reflect on how much fun I had with friends and family on that day and night. Different music styles have different effects on me. For example, rock music always calms my anger and pop makes me feel fresh, if I'm stressed, techno genre will be heard and when I'm sad, it's a soothing music kind of day. 

Just this past semester, I had new classmates in my Italian film class that are in bands and are both locally based in New Jersey. Dignitary and Starberries, and when I first listened to most of their songs, I felt a huge and a close connection to the band members. Punk rock bands wasn’t really my thing at first but after that, I realized that I love that taste of the music genre even more. Some of my favorite songs from Dignitary are “Blue Virus”, “Whirl”, and “Skid Marks”. It’s safe to say that bands from the 1960’s, 70s, 80s and even new age bands formed more recently and discuss love in mostly the same way. Love and situations surrounding it are common themes that are explored in punk music, just as in most other genres.

Besides listening to music, I prefer listening to someone singing a song instead of me. Sometimes I do hum to some songs to express my feelings. Other than that, I automatically will become comfort and satisfy with myself. For me, music indicates a soothing place for calm and relaxation and a personality. Music is also an expression of soul and it’s the most comforting soul especially when I’m lonely and there’s no one around. It heals the heart, soul and mind and it helped me a lot in the process of learning in my daily life and still helps me a lot about music from different countries and cities from unique singers and bands I’ve never heard of and never thought I would love hearing their songs.