Ok ok, when you thought you'd got rid of me.....I'm back!
This is one of those blog posts where I take time to get my thoughts together so please bear with me. I've been reading a lot recently and something which spoke into my heart was honing my craft. Now what does it mean to hone something?
To hone means to sharpen a tool on a fine grained whetstone...or in terms of a craft (a description maybe easier to swallow) to perfect or make more intense or effective.
Now my craft consists of two things. My spoken word style (including my rap and spoken word poetry) and my barbering skills.
I realised recently in terms of both I still need to learn a lot. My barbering skills were shown up to be somewhat inadequate in my recent trips to barbershops far and wide. Knowing I can cut hair is a great start, but in terms of detail, quickness, ability, proficiency and experience, I know I ain't there yet......at all.
In terms of the music, yeah I can write...a bit. For over 11 years I've been learning how to put pen to pad, growing in lyrical ability, knowing God has most definitely given me this talent for his purposes. However, only over the last two years I've been challenged in the area of subject matter, how deep into my own personal experiences I'm willing to go and how much I'm willing to learn from other lyricists.
This week after being challenged on a work program I decided to focus in on honing my crafts. Starting with music, I decided that every week I would learn something that is unique to the particular artist I'm focused on for that week. I started with a UK rapper named K Koke today and listened to his mixtape 'Pure Koke Vol 1' after hearing a few promising reviews.
It began as the typical 'hood mixtape' about not dealing with the police, not snitching, keeping a gun handy, selling substances and not saying you do things you don't do. However, for me anyway I was swiftly able to see a person quite transparent, a person who knew what he was doing was wrong, even through all his boasts about it. He mentioned death, thoughts of heaven and even the fact that he knew he was sinning a few times. Through hearing this mixtape I was challenged to think of those outside, those in ends, those who were humble enough to realise what they were doing was wrong. Those who didn't need anyone to tell them they were sinners. They knew it instinctively. Yet through a feeling of it being a necessary evil to survive, they clung to their sin.
I was challenged to think about how this was his life. Not necessarily written with any special effort so people would think he was hard or to portray a hard life but simply because this was his reality. I was challenged thinking that at times I write to sound like I've seen something, or sometimes preachy street commentaries, but he writes just because he lives it. He is authentic effortlessly because he lived the life and his rhymes are the product of his environment.
I have no authority to speak on the same level about such an environment because though I've been in ghettos, experienced the hardship of others for a time, and lived through little things I've never been pushed deep into the experience of a day to day personal struggle such as people like K Koke who write from a daily reality. If making it in rap is my goal I may easily focus on the things I see, from a very dimmed view, not really caring about getting to grips with other peoples reality, just trying to propogate my stuff in order to get approval. But if I really want to learn about people and really am interested in their lives and really want to see the gospel brought to the poor, I will forget my selfish dreams and get into their reality, whatever that means.
So what if I don't became famous, so what if people aren't appreciating me for songs I've recorded. That should never have been the aim anyway. The right aim should always have been to draw others into the kingdom, not for self exaltation but through being a servant. I want to get to the end saying I lived for people and not for myself. I sought to get to grips with them. I cared for them. I fulfilled the call of God on my life. I loved people, not because of what they could help me with, just because I was called to and the opportunity was set before me. I loved God because I ran after the desire of his heart, which is greater than any other thing this world can offer- including fame and self propagation.
Desire for fame seeks to have me, but God has called me to a greater reward. Help me focus in.
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