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By Daeveon
When I was a kid, I never understood music. The message it was giving, the purpose of the song, and the importance it had to a community. With age, I slowly began to understand the lyrics and meanings of songs. It all started when I began listening to Slick Rick. Whenever Slick Rick song came on the radio my mom would explain the lyrics to me helping me better understand him. My mom has always told me the truth of things and helping me decode hidden messages in these songs so I would know exactly what’s going on in life and so I would never be that naïve kid who didn’t understand the true meaning of things. Her help in looking past façade and uncovering the truth really helped me throughout life.
This sparked my interest for music listening to the good messaged songs and the bad. Songs about being wrongfully arrested and being racially profiled has helped me want to give back and fight back against the law but in peaceful ways. Songs like “F The Police” by N.W.A tells the truth of these officers and the way they think of us really changed my life. I’ve been able to learn about my rights and I learned that I could say no to searches. Recently I was skating with a group of my friends by Alameda College, off campus, and we were randomly stopped. When we asked him why he said, “There’s no skating on campus,” which wasn’t the case for us and most college campuses allow skating. He began attempting to give us all tickets then when we began to argue using the knowledge we learned from music and researched on are own, he began to get mad and as we explained how skateboarding is not a crime and how there aren’t laws against skateboarding in a public area he let us go knowing he was wrong. He used the excuse “This is a waste of my time, move along”. The ability to learn all this knowledge through music has changed me as a person and has helped me better my community by giving me the inspiration to want to help others.
