An Open Letter To The Love of My Life
I never knew a love like this.
Neither can I pinpoint when I first met her.
It was in Kayole, by the balcony.
How romantic.
I was around 5 or 6 years old when I found love. A beautiful thing. Defiant of one’s age. Loving unashamedly. It did that to me when I was on the balcony, with my big brother.
I had two balcony moments.
The first one was when I learnt of the song by Puff. He sang about Notorious B. I. G. after he passed. Few songs take me back to my childhood like that song.
Puff loved a brother so much that he dedicated an entire song to him. The song ended up winning a Grammy.
That’s love. Mysterious with its unseen pain and unforeseeable rewards.
It was the same time when my brother convinced me that the greatest songs came from the East Side. Bad Boy Entertainment. Brooklyn. I later came to appreciate the West Side, products of Dr. Dre and Tupac.
That must have been the first time.
The other balcony moment also happened in Kayole. Again, with my brother.
He had made this jigsaw puzzle from an iron box. He had already solved it and jumbled it up for me to try it again. Then Slim Shady hit the airwaves.
The sound came from a small black box with an antenna that would shift orientation every day just so we could get the best signal. Practically, there was only one radio station, Kiss 100 FM.
May I have your attention please.
Will the real Slim Shady please stand up.
I repeat.
Will the reall Slim Shady please stand up
He got up to add the volume.
The moments are hazy, but some details are inescapable. Singing along, I made up my own words. Creative, just like Eminem.
On the balcony. In the open. That’s when I met the love of my life.
But I didn’t know until I started reflecting.
You are my friend, I can depend
Years later my brother would introduce me to DMX and Eve.
Ruff Riders.
When my mathematics teacher wanted me to solve for x, Snoop Dogg spotted it.
X marks the spot. X spots the mark.
That there was a line in Xzibit’s legendary classic song.
I’d depend on hip-hop for me to stand out among my friends. I knew the local songs, I knew R&B and unlike most of my peers, I knew a lot of hip-hop.
Compared to what I know now, I knew very little. But in my head, back then, I knew a lot.
I was fascinated by the comical videos by Busta Rhymes and Missy Elliot. From these legends and a long list of other rap gods, I fell in love with hip-hop. I fell in love with rap.
As I got older, it slowly became a friend I could depend on. Especially in my final years on campus. But I didn’t know I was in love.
I only enjoyed the ride. Soon I’d find out.
But first, we fell out.
We broke up and got back together
When I was in class seven, I longed for Wednesday evening.
DJ John Rabar would play rock music from 5 to 6 pm.
That was the beginning of my rock music phase.
Artists like Linkin Park, Green Day, P!nk. Songs like Numb, Wake Me Up When September Ends, and Don’t Let Me Get Me, respectively, just to sample a few.
I then learnt of another station that played rock music. Capital FM. When I looked at my younger sister, I saw myself. She also had her rock phase when she was in class 7.
Mine, however, lasted throughout high school, mixed with a love for Jamaican riddims.
But midway, hip-hop started making her way back into my life. Again, unpredicted like the very first time.
I guess it was my teenage juices that helped.
The artist?
Nicki Minaj.
The song?
I was like:
Who is that?
Her verse had me hooked, waiting for every punchline. Plus she was a sight for sore eyes. Who was she?
I didn’t have a phone back then, so I couldn’t get more of her songs.
Rock music, however, had woven itself into my life so much, that even after I rediscovered my first love, I still couldn’t let rock music go.
I even remember deleting my whole collection. It was a time when I couldn’t study efficiently because I always had music playing in the background. Always.
Thirty Seconds to Mars, Twenty One Pilots, and Paramore.
Then my phone got stolen.
Twice.
Imagine that.
The first time was when I was working in a bank, long before I started working on campus.
It was a flip phone. LG. Life was good.
It had limited phone space. So I only had songs by Adele and Linkin Park.
My ringtone was What I’ve Done by Linkin Park. It’s precisely what I asked myself when my phone got robbed.
What did I do to deserve this?
Anyway, the theft was well executed. I had to give them credit for that. One day I’ll tell you the story.
Most important was days after it was stolen, I could still hear the ringtone playing in my mind. That’s how much I enjoyed rock music.
Without a phone, I’d wait for Saturday, from 10 a.m., looking forward to Rick Dees Weekly Top 40 over the radio.
It has been the highlight of my Saturday mornings, even when I got to campus.
But like the first phone tragedy, my love came back into my life when I least expected it.
It was when I was robbed.
Yet again.
On campus grounds.
These were the same lanes I’d walk listening to Wale, Meek Mills, and Rick Ross. I was still blind to the subliminal calls my first love was consistently making. Hip-hop saw me through the tough times in my first year of medical school.
Late nights. Hungry nights. Tired nights.
But in the morning, I’d listen to rock music. Lively mornings. Walking uphill, headed for class.
Until they took my phone.
Just like my previous phone, they stole this one too at night — but with poor execution.
If you’re going to take something from me, at least plan it for days. That’s the only way I could surmise how my first phone was stolen. With proper planning and execution.
Anyway…back to campus.
It was 2 something a.m.
Walking back to my room.
Stumbled on 7 guys. All shorter than me, but tall enough to cause havoc.
There and then, they took my phone and the pair of headphones I was gifted by a close friend.
As I walked to my room, I had nothing playing in my mind. Only silence. When I closed my door, it turned into shock. A shocking silence.
I thought campus grounds were safe. But a rowdy group of boys intent on getting inebriated and forgetting the details of the night is an unpredictable lot.
The following day, I reached out to a friend, now a doctor. Lee Oyugi.
He helped me with his other phone. A Wiko phone.
In it, he had downloaded several albums, three of which I recall. One by Alicia Keys, the other by Arctic Monkeys, and the last one by J. Cole.
I loved the ones by Alicia. Always loved Alicia. I regularly played the album by Arctic Monkeys. But I wondered who J. Cole was.
The album was 4 Your Eyez Only.
It came at the right time.
The mood fit my situation. The words hit home. The storytelling was riveting.
The music was made 4 my years only.
I was hooked.
The love of my life found her way back into my life at a moment I never expected, when I needed consoling.
She proved indeed helpful from that time on. She would later come to my help when needed her most, in my final year of medical school.
Whenever I got lonely or needed some advice
In 2021, my final year in medical school, I was hurting.
This was months before doing my final year exams.
I had met this amazing lady, and I was hardly able to reach her for weeks. When I got to class or went for ward rounds, I’d easily forget, but behind closed doors it was difficult.
I talked to my close friends, and they all wondered. How was I able to be this patient with someone who barely responded to my texts, let alone my calls?
Their advice?
Ditch her. I was being played. They were only looking out for me. It's what friends do.
One of them called her Dimples. Let’s call her Dimples. They wanted me to ditch Dimples.
I didn’t want to listen.
And who was there to console me? The first love of my life.
Songs by H.E.R. and J. Cole. Mostly J. Cole.
I’d get lost in his mastery of rhythm and flow. Album after album.
Forest Hills Drive. 4 Your Eyez Only. Friday Night Lights.
To sample a few.
My friend hailing all the way from Australia helped me formulate a final stroke strategy. I stuck with it. It failed.
Still, my closest friends told me to give it up. To give up what Dimples and I had for a long time. It was painful. Regardless, I still hung on.
And played my hip-hop music.
Then she called.
Dimples called.
I even remember the day. It was the same day when J. Cole released his album — The Off-Season.
How convenient.
The love of my life, hip hop did not just console me but showed me more about the seemingly tough fibre love can be.
Dimples should be reading this right now. She’s my number one fan, my first non-obvious follower on Medium, and the first subscriber to my first newsletter. She’s always been supportive, throughout all my endeavours.
Love is a beautiful thing.
All behind me
As much as it is all behind me, I learnt so much about hip-hop when I was writing my book.
I saw the Netflix documentary, Hip-Hop Evolution. It took me through the origins of the genre and how it evolved into the present version of it — trap music.
I’m not a big fan of trap music. Or mumble rapping. I want to hear your words. Pusha T does an exceptional job enunciating his words. If there’s something meaningful, you should not conceal it. You should make it clear.
Not a fan of mumble rap. You can tell it’s 50 Cent rapping when you hear it. Same to Snoop Dogg. Or Kanye West or Jay Z. Neither of them mumble-rapped.
They said their words in their unique style. You can say the same about Lil Wayne, Kendrick, and J. Cole. Drake even adds melodies to his music.
But that’s a thing about love. You notice the peculiarities. Purity can be boring. A little spice helps to take away the blandness. So there’s some mumble rap I can listen to. A countable number.
For the far we’ve come, I would like to ask hip-hop to forgive me for ignoring her since I was a child.
She let me roam, and suffer and still took me in her arms.
It’s all in the past, behind me, but I cannot forget.
So I made something special just for her.
She’s a queen to me, her light beams on me
I included hip-hop in all chapters of my first book.
But if there’s one person I wanted to feature in my book it was Queen Latifah. I won’t forget this when writing my next series of books.
Hip-hop is not just made by men. Women have made their contributions too. Missy Elliot, Remi Ma, Da Brat, and Eve were some of my favourites when I was growing up.
But I didn’t include them.
To represent all of them, I had the quote of the same figurehead who bumped me back into rap. I used Nicki’s lines. It’s a song in collaboration with Rihanna. In short, to honour hip-hop, I wrote a book with hip-hop lines.
After 7+ years of thinking, research, negotiation, and marketing, I published a book. It’s about evolution.
At the beginning of every chapter, there’s a hip-hop line. My argument was not so many people relate to philosophy. But many do when it comes to hip-hop.
Furthermore, there’s a lot of philosophy in hip-hop.
I made sure the very first book had her featured.
In all chapters.
I express my thoughts and also teach through daily writing on Medium. I try to make most posts have a hip-hop song to them.
Love teaches. Hip-hop teaches. So I’m letting her teach you as much as she taught me. How she continues to teach me. It makes it easier to remember the lessons when they are musical.
I also plan to write another book. Right now, the title I have in mind is The Hip-Hop Guide to Understanding Evolution.
I don’t have a better alternative. Maybe you can help me with that.
The book aims to break down evolution into simple digestible bits about the different theories of evolution, but with the twist of music. Hip-hop music. I’d love to see how that goes.
You know you rock my world
If my love for hip-hop is not evident right now, then I’d recommend rereading this article.
I write not just to show how I love the music, but how much I’m willing to include it in the everyday work I enjoy doing.
You can never forget your first. I never did. She even found me when I had roamed the world of music.
Not to say I don’t enjoy other types of music. I do. But I have a preference. An obvious one.
I don’t have a balcony.
But I have a virtual one.
On it, I write this letter to hip-hop,
The love of my life.
PS: To find the other projects I love doing, you can visit my school, The One Alternative Academy, and my newsletter.
