"I only listen to dirty rap music"

What kind of music do you listen to?

“Dirty rap music.”

Legit, that’s all I listen to.

As soon as I sit down to open my computer around 8:00 am, it’s straight coffee and rap music.

All day.

Everyday.

It could be 11:30pm driving home and it’s fully turned up rap.

Last week Travis Scott released a new song with Kid Cudi. It premiered in a game on Fortnite with 12 million people showing up to watch a giant version of him stomp around a video game.

The next day I played it on repeat all day. No, like, literally all day.

And then the next day, too. All day. Back to back to back.

Pretty much most of the third day, too.

I’ve liked rap pretty much from the beginning, age 10.

I remember getting Nas’s Stillmatic in 5th grade on the way to Port Aransas for our big “graduating middle school” celebration.

Pretty sure by the time we came back I had it memorized.

After then it was all the 2001 hip hop:

• Lil Jon & The East Side Boyz

• Puff Daddy

• Jadakiss

• Eminem

• Hot Boyz

• Lil Wayne

• Z-Ro

• S.P.M.

• T.I.

• DMX

• Lil Keke

• UGK

• Busta Rhymes

• Ludacris

• Outkast

• Ja Rule

• Jay-Z

• I’ll even throw Limp Bizkit in there.

So pretty much for the last 20 years, I’ve listened to rap / hip hop.

Only.

It hits just right, energizing some deep down part of me, giving me energy and excitement. Driving to the coffee shop in the morning I’ll be jamming it loud, singing along with the sunrise flying down the highway.

Inspiration.

Vision.

Opportunity.

Pursuit.

I relate to the pursuit, the energy to accomplish. To making progress, learning on the go and relentlessly moving forward. The need to craft thoughts and ideas and put them out into the world. I relate to the energy, blatant authenticity and disregard for any route but their own, confidently doing what the fuck they want.

And a little bit to the excessive cars and shoes…

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If you’re reading this May 14th or 15th, tune into my IG live carpool karaoke-ing 2008’s anthems.