09/03/2026
This is me in high school. I think I was probably 15-16 in this photo (this is before I started growing my fro, wayyy before the dreads). I remember this bedroom — it was my homie’s (the first or second iteration; he moved often), we’d spend hours there creating of and processing our little world as we saw it. I remember that laptop. I bought it used with my birthday money that year. I remember that little mixer - I’m pretty sure it was “tactically acquired” or borrowed from somebody. I used to go straight from it into the 1/8” mic jack on that laptop, pretty sure I was running a copy of Adobe Audition that I pirated cause I couldn’t afford to buy it. We used whatever mics we could find laying around. I remember those old recordings. They were terrible. But they were honest. I remember just making stuff, I don’t even remember if we cared if it was good. Just the pure enjoyment of creating something out of (almost) nothing was enough.
Nowadays, I have much fancier computers, mics and rooms at my disposal. I’m proud to have been a part of a great many musical endeavors that I would say are more than good. I’ve experienced so much joy and fulfillment in my life as a result of a gift I was given by (I believe) a God who cared enough to give us joy in a world of potentially endless sorrows. And that gift is not musical ability, talent or anything like that — but the gift of knowing and appreciating the vast, wondrous, beautifully simple yet complex reality that music, created by human hands, is magic. And in this world where AI is a thing, I think that’s a wonderful thing to remember we still have access to magic.