Of Feedback and Persistence

So a couple of days back, I announced on my personal facebook page that I was writing rap songs and posting them on soundcloud, and provided a link to my soundcloud page ( www.soundcloud.com/inianwarhadi ) and asked for a “congrates”, being sarcastic to myself more than anything.

There was this one friend of mine (and yes, I do regard him a friend) that commended me on my lyrics, but added to the comment that it would be better if I let someone who was used to rapping do the rapping bit. In other words, he thought that it would be better if “real” rappers did my rapping for me.

Now I welcome feedback very much, and I appreciate honesty too, so I am thankful that I have a friend who isn’t afraid to give me his honest opinion on my work. But as much as I appreciate the comment he gave me, I am inclined to not accept his piece of advice regarding letting other more experienced rappers do my rapping for me. Let me tell you why.

Any “real” or experienced rapper went through a phase of being a beginner and sucking at what she or he did (I am of the opinion that this rings true for any endeavour in life). Nobody started out “real” or “experienced”. They gained that experience by firstly deciding to do it in the first place, and continue doing it, even when they didn’t sound all that good. They persisted, doing it for years and years, until it became part of their identity, and no one could say that they weren’t “real” or “experienced”.

I realise that what I’m going through right now is a sucky phase. I am not going to sound good. Even if I sound good to myself or some other people, I am still not going to appeal to many people, simply because I haven’t been doing it long enough, entailing that I haven’t gained any “realness” to incorporate my identity with what I’m just starting out to do.Thus it feels out of place, my voice in a rap setting. It needs time to settle, and for me to find a way of using my voice which is both true to myself, yet sounds just right. That takes time, so I’m not giving up anytime soon.

And if I were to quit now (like, stop rapping, just write for other people), when will I ever gain that experience? When will I ever get to be “real”? When will I ever get good enough to do what I want to do? The answer is most likely, never. And I can’t have that.

I got into doing it because I wanted to, because it’s something I’ve always wanted to do, and I feel that I am able to one day bring goodness to the world by doing it, even if just a tiny bit. I like that friend of mine, he’s a good guy. But when you’re shooting for something, you have to believe in yourself enough to go through with it, no matter what anyone else says. Persistence yo. <—nok horip dah start yo yo dah Anwat poyo giler dowh der siaaa.