I believe certain songs can be a way to release my stress and fill the soul in many different levels. To me music is an outlet to freedom. I listen at work, at school, in the car, and definitely at home. It helps keep that certain focus that I need to continue with. I cannot say I always felt this way about music. It all changed when I started listening to the words more carefully about two years ago. I was only hearing the beats before I started understanding the writer’s points of view with some artists deeper than others. Their visualization can take me to another world. In that world is where I relieve myself.
Artists like Tupac Shakur brings ambition to the soul. “Changes” and “Dear Mama” are two of his best tracks; both filled with inspiration. “Changes” is about keeping your head up when times are low and down. “Dear Mama” is the other about his dear mother that he couldn’t thank enough for everything she has done for him. Songs like these are what keep me going every day.
I remember growing up to his songs being played by passing cars, on the radio, and of course my own home, never really listening to the real messages in his tracks. The beat was the main thing I paid attention to. It then hit me what his words really meant in “Dear Mama”. This is all after my own mother had passed away two years ago. She had a certain type of cancer that spreads within the body. It started in her foot. “Just a tumor,” the doctor said. They could remove it with an operation. They did it successfully, but it had already transferred to a lung. So another operation was needed. Doctors needed to cut off some of the lung to remove this cancerous tumor, but some was left behind. And within a couple months it grew back again. They tried everything they could but it was not enough. Her lungs then collapsed, and just like that my mother was taken. And me, angry with myself because I felt empty like my chest was missing something inside. Still listening to this song as I played it on the way to see my mother get buried. But until this day, she knows that she is appreciated. She knows how much I loved her even though I would forget to tell her sometimes. She knew, and she still knows.
I filled my emptiness with the memory of all the love my mother gave me.
I believe that this certain song, “Dear Mama” helped me release my stress and fill my soul in many different levels.