At sixteen, I cringed when my friends would play rap music. Most of the time, I suffered in silence. It wasn't until I heard George Watsky — a hip-hop lyricist, known as"Watsky" that I learned hip-hop and rap could be poetic, beautiful, uplifting, and even a little weird.

The summer leading up to my first year of college, I admittedly grew into liking artists like Kendrick Lamar, Futuristic, Rihanna, and Tyler, the Creator. I still bump to them fairly regularly. While I loved the heavy beats and impressing my friends with my "rap skills", there was something about the experience I was missing from these artists.