My friends often ask me why I rarely join in on conversations when they talk about music. They go on for hours at a time about their favorite artists, when these artists were at their peaks and when they fell off. Their favorite albums and why, even going as far as to analyze album covers and how they relate to the personality and music the artist intends to present. Then they talk about their favorite songs, breaking apart lyrics slowly line by line, connecting with each word as if it was written just for them. This conversation almost always turns from a discussion to a heated debate, when that one person asks the bold but sensitive question “Who takes the title for king of R&B?” or “who’s better Jay or Naz?” or the worst “do you think ___stole their music style from___?” More times than not I am quiet in these discussions. I take it all in laughing, sometimes crying from laughing so hard.
This is the most beautiful thing to me. That a group of people can sit and intensely have a conversation on a topic so vague, but yet so specific. So popular, but yet so personal. They think I am not adding my opinion because I simply do not care. But they do not realize that their taste in music, their connection to certain songs, the facial expressions that appear when certain genres of music are brought up, let me into a part of them that I will never know through a regular conversation. While we can all agree that music is a universal language, we never stop to think about how that language was taught to us. We do not come out of the womb instantly speaking English, the same way we do not instantly form an opinion on music.
About a week ago at a friends house, we were listening to the music on his computer. He had over 1,000 albums, such an array of music, and genres, that every time it was my turn to chose a song, I spent over 10 minutes just looking through his collection. At one point, an album did not have any of the songs listed, instead, the songs were called “Sample#1,Sample#2,Sample#3.. etc” This instantly brought me back to years ago when music first meant something to me. When I was downloading music on Lime Wire to my MP3 player and having to remember the song titles by numbers, because of course since it was downloaded illegally, we did not have the privilege of the song and the title being saved.That reminded me of the days when music was found everywhere in my world. Waking up in the morning and hearing my parents dance to “Here and Now” by Luther Vandross, where there love for each other was expressed through song lyrics so it transferred to the way their bodies moved so perfectly in sync. When listening to the entire India Arie album, “Testimony:Volume1, Life and Relationships” taught me the importance of self-love, self-care, and self-development, lessons that my mom echoes daily but that I actually understand when I heard the music, because the way yI felt after her albums were nothing short of positivity, self-confidence and reassurance in yourself. Or going to church and hearing Donnie McClurkin’s “Just for me” and understanding suddenly what my Sunday school teacher attempted to teach me but I was too distracted to care.
All of the music I was surrounded by in my younger years all shaped who I am today and my preferences in the music I listen to now. While I am not like most and do not take the time to look up the ratings of my favorite artists or compare them to others, I see music in a different aspect. It is frustrating when I hear others bash their friends for their music styles, saying they are “wack” or “they don’t know nothing bout that good sh*t”.We all have different ears for music because, at some point in our lives, music was introduced to us in a way that stuck with us and made us like this music for a particular reason. It made us grow closer to certain artists and yearn for their next album because it meant our life will once again have clarity. It made us listen to a specific album over continuously because we knew it will get us through the mental pain of a situation that we could not go to friends with. Conversations about music are a magnifying glass into the lives of people we encounter.
Next time you have a conversation about music, forget about ratings, numbers, and fan bases for a while. Talk about why an album is your favorite. At what point in your life a particular artist was introduced to you. Conversations like this help you gain insight on why people listen to certain music. Use this to grow closer to others and learn from their musical experiences rather than bashing their choices. Remember music is a universal language, yes, but it was taught to us all differently.
