It’s Still Dre
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“I want to be a doctor.”
That was always my response in primary school, when we were asked what we wanted to be when we grew up. I said it with pride.
But words have always formed a great part of my life, rather words and music. Mom said I was an early reader, thanks to her homeschooling. And music came into my life because my dad loved music. We had bookshelves for books and rows of vinyl and later audio compact discs.
Several years later, I still wanted to be a doctor, but a doctor like Dr. Dre.
I think it was in my third or fourth year in secondary school, I started to say that I also wanted to be a rapper. These guys were making magic with words. Biggie,Tupac, Dr. Dre, Ice Cube, Salt ’n’ Pepa, Foxy Brown, L’il Kim…
I was blown away by their level of genius to just make words flow with all the figures of speech we were being taught in literature class.
I wanted to have that magic and I started to create it. I did lots of freestyle and also wrote verses in secondary school, which I performed during entertainment nights and class prep (got punished for it on a few occasions too as I was disturbin’ da peace).
It was a girls’ school and I was a rapper…you don’t see that everyday. I became a star. It was also a cool thing to be able to spit their rhymes without missing a beat.
So when I watched the Pepsi Super Bowl LVI Halftime Show, it was only natural that I got into a frenzy. It was a night to remember. Seeing Dr. Dre in all his glory, Snoop Dogg still with his classic legwork, Mary J. Blige, Eminem…
These were the legends who made me fall in love with rap and hip hop.
I’ll still call myself a rapper. I still drop bars when the beat is tight.
Maybe I’ll do me an album or two sometime.
Day 23 of the Not Enough Writers 30-Day Writing Challenge
