“Why couldn’t I meet you NOW? Instead of 4 years ago…”

For some reason, I naturally woke up at 6 AM today with plenty of energy. It was nice. I made a small bowl of cereal and starting catching up on some music that was released this week that I finally had the chance to sit and listen to with a close ear. The first artist I dove into was NYC’s very own, Boyslashfriend. He just put out an impressive album, “Low Key,” an assortment of different styles all effortlessly mashed into 10 tracks. But let me get straight to the reason why I’m currently writing this piece…

I recently had a conversation with a friend on how sometimes our growth isn’t recognized by the people that have known us before we reach that next plateau due to various reasons. Basically, if somebody meets you as one thing, and you become another thing over time, it doesn’t register with them right away when you’ve fully cemented yourself as an entirely different entity, simply because they grew to know you as that original, one thing.

In the outro song, also entitled, “Lowkey,” BSF says the following :

“You’ve been working on you to be someone better for me, but you’re just better for a man that didn’t know the girl you were. Wish I never knew the girl you were before.” He then goes on to say, “Why couldn’t I meet you now? Instead of four years ago, girl…”

These are the exact lines that immediately struck a chord with me and instantly reminded me of the conversation I recently had that was centered around this idea. I remember asking my friend, “Do you think it’s possible that some things can’t be lived down? Do you think some of the closest people in our life have their vision of us clouded by all the mish-mosh they formerly saw us participate in (and possibly fail at) before we got to this level? And do you think we can only be 100% appreciated at this level by somebody who meets us at this level?” These were all questions that immediately came back to me this morning. BSF entertained this in a very straight-forward manner by asking, “Why couldn’t I meet you now?” Yes, everybody has bullshit from the past that they’re not necessarily proud of, but unfortunately ignorance is bliss sometimes, and if we weren’t there to witness your bullshit, we don’t identify you with your bullshit. First impressions are strong, and we tend to hold onto the image we initially receive of that particular person for far too long.

These lyrics from BSF don’t necessarily only apply to relationships between two people. The topic strikes a chord with me specifically because in the last 18 months, I’ve had multiple different ‘careers’ and a long-term relationship that plummeted for various reasons, and I grew tired of telling people what my latest venture was simply because I refused to allow it to be brushed off as “just another attempt at something else.” Every single time I jumped into whatever I was doing at the time, I went in with 100% effort, thinking ‘this is it,” without a doubt in my mind. The possibility of “failure” (there really is no such thing as failure, but that’s a topic for another time and place) is always there, sure, but if you start working on a new idea/project with that in the back of your mind, you WILL fail, 100%. So, with the most recent personal project/move I took up, I virtually disappeared for months upon months while working tirelessly on my craft on a daily basis. I erased all my social media, hung out hardly and communicated with very few people. I wanted to fully embody my newest craft before I presented myself alongside this venture, and get so good at it that my undeniable talent erased any below-average memories of me from the past. I wanted people (and myself) to see me as a completely transformed being, which I absolutely became. Not a guy who spreads himself too thin.

Here’s my personal answer to the questions that Boyslashfriend made me ponder on again…

YES, first impressions are strong, but YES WE CAN LIVE DOWN OUR PAST “MISTAKES,” or mishaps. If we take a step back and apply a laser-beam focus to our personal transformation, opposed to making excuses or trying to justify the past, we can convince ourselves and others alike that we are capable of becoming multiple beings in our lifetime. Humans are naturally programmed to think that we are only destined to be ONE thing in our lifetime, and that’s absolutely false. The sole reason why that idea is widely believed is because we are raised to follow a certain path of high school-college-career, that our elders never allowed us to believe that it’s okay to dive head first into a career, fuck up, then fully invest yourself into a new career, all in the same year. We are raised to believe one path is the right path, and any other path is simply wrong. I’m here to shut down that idea that the generation before us shoved into our brains.

I don’t 100% agree with the idea behind the lyrics of Boyslashfriend’s guitar-laced anthem, “Lowkey,” but I UNDERSTAND them, and THAT is exactly why I fell in love with the song itself. The song made me THINK, something that’s a bit rare with music of this decade, and while I didn’t apply his female-driven lyrics directly towards a female in my own life, I related it to the general idea of being misunderstood, and overlooked because of our past…something that many of us fear.

Please, do yourself a favor and believe in the fact that almost EVERY single thing on this planet is a TECHNICAL SKILL, meaning you can MASTER anything with Olympian-like focus. Put the time in and watch yourself evolve.

And of course, make sure you listen to BSF’s full album here : https://soundcloud.com/feeluprecords/sets/boyslashfriend-low-key