I sometimes throwback to those late nights where I’d be thinking of the possibilities of outfits I’ll buy tomorrow when my mom takes my siblings and I to the mall to buy clothes. Yeah those dreams only lasted the night. The pull of the blanket would let in cold air to wake me up in the early hours of the morning, my mom would be in her usual haste because the journey to the mall involved a lot of admin. It is a trip from the further outskirts of the city, through the city centre to the opposite outskirts of the city. When we finally arrive to the mall with the excitement to assemble a new addition to the wardrobe still intact, we’d maze through the clothing shops. Reaching for those bright coloured skinny jeans back in its heyday would immediately be met with my mom telling me “awulinganise lobhemude ozowugqoka eSontweni”. I’d be bummed but grateful.
In the early years I’d usually have those clothes my mom’s knows are for respectably stunting on other kids on Christmas and civvies days at school and I’d have clothes for church. But what I really wanted were clothes that matched my personality.
Music is not so different. We have the old heads telling us that this and that is trash and that we should listen to “real” music. We have the hipsters fixated on being different who get angry when their favourite artists gets more than six fans. It’s hard to naturally find your identity in music, same as fashion, when you’re not allowed fully, to find what expresses how you feel. My formative years as a music lover I’d listen to whatever my cousin thought was hip, he was the kind that calls deep house “sophisticated” house; anything exceeding certain tempo was immediately deemed as child’s play. I had to start fronting to impress him and man did I not miss out on some fire Gqom in my pre-teens.
Later on I gravitated to hip hop, a step towards forging my musical identity. Little did I know that I had to know Biggie’s music before I claimed that I really loved the genre. I had to straight cap about who and what I loved or hated, anything with an 808 was frowned upon, Rakim and Eric B had to somehow be in my top ten even at the age of fourteen. I thank my love for Drake at the time because it helped say “fuck the OG’s I like this singing nigga’s music”. The seeds of individualism were placed and the beautiful relationship with music I really like started to blossom.
Let these kids be who they want to be, listen to whatever they want and dress however they want. In a time flooded with opinions, people already find it hard to say Chance the Rapper or J. Cole is their favourite artist because the banter bandwagon seems cool. The notion is worse when you gain an interest in music your race or age mates “shouldn’t be listening to”. Mainstream or underground, real hip hop or just hip hop, new school or old school, straight cap or baseball cap whatever man, just let these kids be who they want to be.