Throw a Beat On

After watching some of my old home videos with my friends and free styling to beats that we use to create by beat boxing, I realized how much I miss those beats.

I miss the time when we all use to circle up and share rhymes about experiences we were undergoing in life.

I miss it when somebody would throw a beat on.

Sure there were times when we would rap about each other and when we had battles.

However, at the end of each session, competitors would shake hands and go on about their day.

I miss the days when love was shown through music — when music was all about sharing stories with the world and an opportunity for artist to display their artistic abilities.

Some music today is like the music that I miss; but, unfortunately, a majority of it isn’t.

Many of the songs of today have nice beats, but the lyrics have no substance.

I miss Tupac “Keep Your Head Up” and “Dear Mama.”

I miss Nas “I Know I Can.”

I miss songs that had the capability to inspire listeners to want to better themselves — songs that inspired their listeners to place value on their lives.

Today I throw old beats on because I’m still waiting on new ones.

I don’t want my kids growing up listening to Wacka Flocka “Bustin at em” or “Hard In The Paint.”

I don’t want my kids to have to search for inspiration in Niki Minaj track “I Did it On ‘em”.

These are songs with great beats, but the beats aren’t anything if the lyrics mean nothing.

I’m not attacking the artist that provide the music because they are only making their living by providing listeners with what they want to hear.

I am saying that we all need to realize that we live in a misguided and troubled society when we believe that it is cute to film a two year old reciting all of the lyrics to a song that talks about shooting people.

We need to wake up, especially when we can no longer throw on a beat without it’s having negative connotations attached to it.

I miss the days that we people were able to just throw on a beat.

One for the week: Now write down this song and teach it to the Israelites and have them sing it, so that it may be a witness for me against them. Deuteronomy 31:19