Unlocking the Truth, Video Games, Metal and Being an Awkward Black Kid in NYC
I recently watched Breaking a Monster, a documentary by Luke Meyer about the band Unlocking the Truth, made up of three 13-year-old black kids from Brooklyn who started a metal band that rapidly skyrocketed to success. The film tracks Malcolm Brickhouse, Jarad Dawkins, and Alex Atkins during their first year as the youngest ever signed band with Sony Music. Theirs is obviously an exciting journey — getting a record deal at such a young age would be a momentous event for any group of teens, let alone ones from their background. Yet much is also said in the quiet moments amidst the cacophony — killing time on the tour bus, sitting around the dinner table or doing kick-flips in the backyard. We get a nuanced tour through the sometimes suffocating worlds of success and childhood alike, and what happens when they are lumped atop each other. Watching the film, what spoke to me most directly were the many similarities to my own childhood — growing up as a black nerd, deeply into metal and video games — and how my hobbies reflected the course of my own life.
Something I noticed immediately were the numerous scenes that featured members of Unlocking the Truth playing video games. Whether it was Brickhouse sneakily playing Flappy Bird under the table at an important signing meeting or Atkins’ adorable obsession with GTA V, video games seem to be woven tightly into the tapestry their lives. Even as the scope of their worldview widens exponentially — as they are thrust onto the stages of Coachella and South by Southwest, or into rooms packed with celebrities — video games remain as a comforting presence, something familiar they can continue to carry with them.
My teen years were equally focused around glowing screens and well-worn thumb sticks. A friend got me into death metal and I’d joyously blast Cradle of Filth while cavorting wildly through the castle halls of ID Software’s Quake, engaging in the kind of cathartic activity unavailable to me in the regular world.
When I was 12, I was lucky enough to receive a scholarship to attend a private middle school in NYC. While this pales in comparison to a 1.8 million dollar signing deal, ghosts of what I was going through as a poor black kid suddenly shoved into a world of elite whiteness were visible in the trials experienced by Unlocking the Truth. From Brooklyn, they were swiftly transported to places like Los Angeles and beyond; where adults spoke to them in a language of easy familiarity with money and business and who expected them to quickly get it. As someone who also faced an abrupt transition in regards to both class and race, this resonated deeply with my own experiences.
Both cases are a matter of engaging with a kind of fantasy. But the thing about fantasies is they often look better from afar, from perspectives without too much at stake. Up close, the cracks become visible -the artifice reveals itself. Fantasies demand you embrace them regardless of the downsides, even when simple reality is what you’d prefer.
Soon after starting the new school my grades began to falter. Each day when I got home — finally free from being the awkward new kid at a place where everyone came from the same elevated social circumstance — I’d wind up spending my evenings lost in a book or solving puzzles in Myst or Monkey Island instead of focusing on homework. My teachers grew frustrated with me just as Unlocking the Truth’s co-manager, Alan Sacks, did with them. Like Alan in the film, my teachers reminded me of the great opportunity I had been handed and was throwing away. They couldn’t understand how I was flagging behind, why I wasn’t accepting their charity with wide open arms, and eager smiles. But it wasn’t laziness that was making me fail as much as the kind of disassociation that only those of us that have been thrust into the houses of white privilege and been expected to adapt and assimilate immediately have felt. I had, and will always have a love of knowledge and learning new things. But the context of my education put up barriers that were only visible to me. In the face of such social discomfort, turning away and finding momentary escape becomes necessary to carry on.
In Breaking a Monster, Alex Atkins, the band’s bassist, shares with us his love for GTA V. When he plays the game it allows him to “live my life before I get to live my life.” It affords him the opportunity to play adult, to drive a car, and simulate adulthood, admittedly a pretty simplified and violent one. It’s well-understood that games offer a form of escapism. And as a kid who, in effect, is trapped in childhood, with no autonomy of your own, games can empower you and give you a sense of freedom past the bounds that you are normally held behind. It’s a taste of responsibility that can be incredibly intoxicating the less your means and the greater your imagination.
One of my earliest opportunities at creative exercise was building custom levels for the computer game Marathon. With relative ease, you could build entire architectural structures and even change out the bitmap textures of enemies and weapons. From these small experiments I discovered in myself a love of creation, and of sharing my art with others. Even as I existed bodily and materially in the minimal existence of a teenager (and further, a broke one in NYC) I could expand far past those limitations and, for a short while, glimpse the outlines of greatness.
Unlocking the Truth use the escapist nature of video games as a mechanism to duck away from the stresses of everyday life. Music works in similar ways. I played bass guitar in two bands in high school and college respectively and nothing matches the adrenaline and excitement of being able to perform on stage in front of a crowd of people who are deeply enjoying themselves. It’s a feeling I’ll never have outside of music. It’s an instantaneous manifestation of the energy that is drummed up by that particular form of creative sharing.
Getting into metal in high school allowed me an entree into a refreshingly new and welcoming world. Borrowing the hobbies of whiteness can grant you a certain protection. Even if you stand out like a sore thumb in a sweaty basement in the Lower East Side, the music always comes first -the awkwardness of the scene only shows up as an aftertaste. For the moment, you belong exactly where you are, you aren’t worried about impressing your benefactors or alienating your white friends. You’re just swept along gratefully for the ride, tasting the glorious freedom of screeching guitars, stale cigarette butts, and the thrumming boom of the bass that threatens to tear your body apart. You don’t have to admit you’re different, even as that feeling forces itself upon you in every other social situation.
The myriad ways in which music and video games dominated both my life and that of the subjects of the film are notable to me. When they weren’t playing music they were playing games. These disparate practices feel like two sides of the same creative, escapist coin. Whether they were shredding up on stage in front a huge crowd, or hanging out on a couch blowing up digital cars in a creepily accurate facsimile of L.A., all the stress and confusion about their place in an overwhelming world seemed to fade away. They could act on instinct and talent and intuition and just be kids. They could glean a sense of belonging even if it was only to each other.
The energy of music and games are a potent brew, especially when you’re an outsider in nearly every community you participate in. In a Q&A session after the film, the band members mentioned the Afropunk Festival as one of their favorite performing experiences. It was one of the few places where they truly felt they belonged: a bastion for black nerds who don’t fit the stereotypes handed down from either side of the racial divide. As someone who’s spent several decades trying to find a place to belong, I am both envious and proud of the community these kids have built within themselves. Though I’ve spoken fondly here of the freedom of digital escape and the creativity one excavates from the stone walls encircling adolescence, it’s also incredibly valuable to find friends who share common interests and can support you in your creative endeavors. Everything I’ve ever gotten into, whether it was metal, games or playing in a band, was inspired by friends. Unlocking the Truth is a testament to the positive impact friends can have on each other, the benefit that comes from the human desire to seek out and embrace others with the same strange, nerdy fascinations as your own.
