The Immersion: Hearing Screams With Chance the Rapper Posted by Dharmic X on 05/03/13 | Filed under Opinion, The Immersion

For those that follow "The Immersion", you are familiar with a certain format that I have tried to keep consistent for close to a year now. Every Thursday, I have talked about a song or an album or an artist that I was listening to as I discovered hip-hop culture and embraced it more and more. The music that I was listening to often intersected with the events that I experienced, and so thus far it had been relatively easy to organize each week’s chapter around the music. The series has eventually reached a stage where the music had more of a prominence than my personal life, which makes sense because RefinedHype is here for the music, not for some stupid adolescence coming-of-age story.

Well, consider this week’s piece to be an Explanation. The series is about to enter a different gear.

The story that you are about to read starting next week is brutally honest and accurate. There is no ulterior motive behind it, nor is there a higher purpose for it. I always believed that, much like the Notorious B.I.G., I had a story to tell, and it is a story that is engaging. From 2009 – 2010, I battled a phase in life that made me who I am today, for better and certainly for worse.

I think that everybody goes through a stretch where nothing goes right. We all deal with that portion of the fight where the enemy is upon you, pouncing and landing blow after blow and all you can do is offer a meek defense and pray that the round ends and you’re still breathing. This is just my story.

And of course, hip-hop plays a role in what happened. During my darkest hours, hip-hop was a beacon of hope. It was the voice that spoke to me when I refused to turn to anyone else. There were songs and albums that offered me insight on the obstacles I was dealing with, music that maintains a special place in my heart.

It is interesting to look back at that time, seeing what I went through in the context of what I am currently battling. The same hip-hop that saved me so long ago now almost feels like a poison that is sapping away my future, creating a career path infested with hardship, no money, and oftentimes, deadly consequences. One year in the game, I’ve already been rendered helpless as a dear friend, Jamal Dewar (Capital Steez), committed suicide several months ago. I don’t know if it is worse that I knew him and got to hang out with him several times, both before and after the rise to stardom of his Pro Era collective, or that I can visualize myself doing what he did in the moments leading up to his demise (on several levels).

I wasn’t lying when I said that hip-hop has saved and destroyed my life nearly six months ago.

It is no secret that I’ve thought very highly about Chance the Rapper’s newest project, "Acid Rap". I first found out about Chance last year, before "10 Day" came out. I was not exactly a huge fan of Chance back then. It definitely had some potential in my mind, but overall, the project lacked depth sonically and lyrically. Chance’s raw emotion had not funneled itself into full creative expression.

Then in late February, Chance dropped the Jake One-produced “Acid Rain.” And everything changed.



The song, which is really just a three-and-a-half minute verse and bridge, finds Chance bringing a very simple flow over the lush, layered, and soothing instrumental. The Chicago emcee ruminates about his twenty years on Earth in a very sincere, sophisticated manner, in a way that anybody can relate. Don’t we all “miss our diagonal grilled cheeses” of our youth? But the line that resonated with me the most goes to an incident Chance dealt with in 2011, when he saw a friend of his stabbed to death at a house party.

“I seen it happen, I seen it happen, I see it always, he still be screaming, I see his demons in empty hallways.”

No, I have never taken acid before. I’ve never even smoked a cigarette. But the feeling that Chance talks about here is all-too familiar for me, familiar to anyone who has seen and can remember the frenetic moments of a person transitioning from life to death. Death may take you to a better place, but our bodies react to the process, thrash and flail and experience immense amounts of pain at that last stage, creating imprints on the minds of those around to witness it that can never be shaken.

Nearly three years later, I can still hear the screams. I can still see the demons, demons that may haunt me for the rest of my life…