The Voices Behind Music: Part 1

'Alive in a generation that's dying of thirst, surviving on medication and buying it first' (Griffin)

We were raised by the beat the melodious rhymes that just demanded to be heard. The sensuous vibes that continuously threaten to invade us. See music to our generation isn’t simply music; music is our lifeline, our voice. Music is what keeps us going because beyond the living battle of being alive in a generation doomed to live the existence of an economically unstable world, music is the dream we’ve been sold.  We live in the generation doomed by its own so-called freedom because see the truth is we are young people fighting wars with our souls, with degrees and so-called certifications but no jobs to chase the paper.

‘They have a house. They’ve sent him to a decent school; maybe he’s even matriculated. He has been given more potential, but he has not been given more opportunity. He has been given an awareness of the world that is out there, but he has not been given the means to reach it.

What happens to a lot of guys is they finish high school and they can’t afford university, and even little retail jobs can be hard to come by when you’re from the hood and you look and talk a certain way. So, for many young men in South Africa’s townships, freedom looks like this: Every morning they wake up, maybe their parents go to work or maybe not. Then they go outside and chill on the corner the whole day, talking shit. They’re free, they’ve been taught how to fish, but no one will give them a fishing rod.’ (“The Cheese Boys.” Born a Crime Stories from a South African Childhood, by Trevor Noah, W F Howes, 2017.)

So what do some of these musical voices have to say about this generational curse?

House Of Stone by Mile, This short interlude off of his profoundly emotional and lyrical album; Trading Hours, talks about the hidden pain we feel as a nation and as a generation talking about the flag and our pride as a nation but also the reason behind making music,'Beat our chest like it’s drums here in the thick of the jungle, Pounding feet on the floor - they forced the fists of the humble The world’s confusing all the silence here with peace in the struggle.' ‘In the streets, this pain we keep finally hits back And now spitting these verses is the only we way spit back’

Stay Winning by Zimrich (Yung Zee and Ruddy) starts by talking about the dream directly, ‘Success be the drug, that I’m into.’

This song uses a unique way to explain the dream we have all been raised to chase. Straying away from many of the cliché prose and new age rapper tendencies of telling us that they have already achieved this dream, but talking about the journey in a way that is both relatable and still entertaining.

Trapped by King Avry ft Rae Lyric; at first glance it almost seems as if this is a love song but King Avry uses a truly lyrical and poetic metaphoric tone of describing the feeling of being quite literally trapped by the industry, with statements like, ‘The pleasure that you give got me feeling important, guess I sold it all for a performance.’ And ‘you feed me fantasies, you are addictive, I cannot resist you the devil, I put it on that 9 to 5, pledged 25-life, feel immortalized till the day I die.’

This song held together by the amazing poetry at the end by Rae is a statement of its own of the struggles that we all face and the needs to not only speak from the heart but imagine a world where we can truly keep the dream alive.

What are some of the other songs that you know that speak of this struggle?

And what’s your take on the new generation, struggling or lazy? And what do you think can be done to build our nation and make the dream a reality?

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Comment below to be a part of the conversation. Full lyrics for Miles house of stone can be found here: https://genius.com/Mile-house-of-stone-interlude-lyrics

The voices behind music part 2