The Power of Knowledge

     It’s incredible that one can achieve so much with knowledge. For me, my life goal is to find the meaning of this beautiful life that I have given. But I don’t even know where to begin, where to start, where to search, etc. Personally, I get most of my knowledge through experience and music. Of course education gives me knowledge but not the knowledge that I seek. I believe that we are all capable of achieving things beyond our capacity. We just have mental barriers that prevent of from thinking beyond a certain point. 

     This song, “The Mahdi” by The Underachievers was a song that really made me think about the true power of knowledge. Both of these artists are very intellectual and if you actually listen to their lyrics their intent is to send a message to people, like myself, to break these mental barriers and think for ourselves. I’m not speaking about thinking for ourselves like what to cook for breakfast, I’m talking about higher consciousness. Once we reach this state of mind our capabilities are endless. Our mind transcends and eventually we truly see what is going on with our lives.

What Kind of Person Are You?

What type of person are you? Nice? Funny? Boring? Mean? There are so many different things that make up our personality and that make us distinct from one another in many ways. Some people tend to get along better with people who have similar personalities as them or compliment their personality.

Speaking for myself, I get along with people that are open-minded, non-judgmental, and down-to-earth people. People who have those qualities compliment my personality (not literally compliment) in a way like a puzzle piece and help me build my character and personality being around people like those. I consider myself very open-minded; I’m more of a listener than a talker so I like hearing other people’s perspectives on the topic then put my two senses in after hearing everyone’s opinions. I’m a really interesting (well at least I think I am) person to be around. I promise you’ll learn something new every day whether it’s about me or just something else in general so there’s always some knowledge gained with me.

But let’s tie this into a classroom. Personalities aren't just all qualities that most people think about like exciting, talkative, loud, etc. But what kind of learner/thinker are you? Extroverts and Introverts. For those of you who like speaking your mind, and don’t really need time to think to take information in, you’re an extrovert  For those of you who need time to process information and need a moment or two to gain your thoughts together and need peace and quiet when studying/thinking, you’re an introvert. Personally when I have to think, I need to be in a quiet place to do so. I’m the type of student who doesn't say much in class but gains a lot of knowledge during the process of thinking. Take some time to think about your personality type and ways that you can work with other people you don’t usually picture yourself working with.

Cultural Appropriation in Music

Nyck Caution. Absolute animal on the microphone and has that old school hip-hop vibe. Yes, he is white but that shouldn’t change anything. This example of cultural appropriation had a positive effect on it rather than a negative. He is from Brooklyn, NY and his style of music fits perfectly with his background too. The reason why this is cultural appropriation is because the style of music is considered a “African-American style” of music but seeing as he’s white he’s often looked at differently and people think “wait this kids white?” so assumptions and stereotypes definitely come into play when it comes to making hip-hop music. He changed some of the aspects and elements of the original hip-hop sound and adds his own two-sense into his music which makes it incredible.

Diamond is one of my favorite songs by Nyck, it has that 90’s hip-hop beat to it and he murders it. Nyck could be an inspiration to many people out there who think that they wouldn’t have a chance in making it in the music game just because of their skin color and thinking that they will be judged because of it. Perhaps he could create a change in modern hip-hop and it could be another calling for perhaps different ethnicities and races of artists that are going to be up and coming in the game. “Doubted I could spit, now you shoutin’ for a feature” so it’s clear to me that he understands that he is the minority in this situation but he’s doing his own thing and destined to make it big.

First World Problems

Scary how relevant it is to us isn't it? This video includes everything that I've ever complained about these past few years all in one video. It is absolutely perfect and 100% correct on everything. I guess I never really sat there and thought about everything that I complain about but this was pretty much a reality check for me. It shows me that I don't appreciate the things that I have and I am ungrateful for some of the things that I have been blessed with in this world even over some silly things like getting a new iPhone. For example, I am actually really pissed this is my 2^nd time doing this seeing that my laptop just froze and lost all of my work and I forgot to save. So I am wasting another 10-15 minutes doing this over again when I already did it. There are so many things that we don’t realize we are grateful for the things we have when there are people in different parts of the world who have never seen an iPhone in their life, never have used a computer, almost starve to death every single day of their life, work their ass off for an eighth of what minimum wage is in the United States. This video’s purpose is to remind people how dumb we actually sound when we complain about these little things when there are a lot bigger problems out there, not these little problems like actual first world problems.