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Hip Hop Life
"It’s not the way you walk and talk. It’s the way people
live."
Listen
to this Commentary!
By DeSean Robinson Walker
I’m the perfect example of hip hop’s influence on
teenagers.
You can tell by my long list of names. My real name is DeSean Robinson Walker.
But I call myself… DeSean “Puffy” Combs, DeSean u wine (De-Shawn-you-wine),
DeShawnti, DeSean John, and The Prince Of Hip Hop and R&B.
Most people take it as a joke and I laugh along with them. But inside, I feel
like I’m a superstar. I’ve always known it.
You can come from nothing but still amount to something.
In Richmond, California, where I live, your chances of making it out are really
low. Our school system is bad. Our school is low performing. And we’re
close to the oil refinery, so we top the charts in cases of asthma in the United
States. Life is really hard. You have to get out.
For me, that way out was the arts. Even when I was younger, I found creative
things that I was good at, and I took to them like a fish to water. I fell in
love with hip hop when I was in elementary school and I fell in love like you
fall in love with your wife. You know how there’s something about that
person that makes you stick with them forever? Well, I feel the same way about
hip hop. I’ve grown up with it. And I’m not just talking about listening
to the music; I’m talking about making it. It’s an amazing outlet
for my thoughts, my feelings. The creativity of it keeps me interested –
I get to push the envelope more than I do in school. I don’t have to stick
with the same formula, or the same rhythms. I can always change it up.
To me, hip hop isn’t a style. It’s not the way you walk and talk.
It’s the way people live – people being harassed by the police,
people being murdered, people living in poverty. A lot of people get that really
confused. A lifestyle and a life are totally different.
If you’re living in the ghetto it’s not a lifestyle, you’re
a victim of your circumstances. I just think a lot of people can relate to songs
and messages that capture that.
Hip hop gives hope to those who don’t have any. There’s not that
many who make it out of the ghetto with their grades. In Richmond, in my school
district, it’s just a fact that most kids aren’t going to make it
to a major university. I might not have a high school education yet, but I still
worked hard to get to where I am. I believe the cliché - as long as you
work hard you can still get somewhere. It might not be the top of the world,
but good things can still come to you. You can still get out. And believe me,
anything to get you out; you’re going to do.
That’s the part of hip hop that speaks to me. The success stories and
entrepreneurship. I don’t care about the hip hop clothes in major department
stores, the slang that’s so hot it’s part of a dictionary now, or
even the toys like hip hop Barbie or the food like Master P potato chips. I’m
excited about the people behind those commercial ventures, not the ventures
themselves. I admire a person like P Diddy who was able to launch his own clothing
line. To me, he’s like Donald Trump – a risk taker. To make a little,
you have to risk a lot. And although mainstream media like MTV puts out a message
about the cars, the clothes and all the bling bling, making kids want all those
things to feel like they’re on top, MTV doesn’t teach that you have
to be persistent. But that’s the message I get from hip hop. And it’s
the message that keeps me from losing hope after calling record label after
record label for a year trying to get an internship.
So I’m not giving up. Here’s a taste of how big I’ll be and
you can say you heard it first…
"Loving you is easy because you're beautiful. And every time that we,
ooh…"
17-year-old DeSean Robinson Walker wants to give P Diddy a run for his money
one day.
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