My Voice: A Memoir Read Online Free Page B

just to hang out next to the Music Express ride because the music was so dope. Biz Markie, Audio Two, and—of course my favorite—Eric B. & Rakim. When I could convince Nikki to go, too, that was even better. She only went once or twice. The walk home—dark, deserted, and under the elevated train tracks—was not for her. Not the safest for two girls walking alone late at night, much less for one. But in the end that didn’t deter me. I went alone when I had to. There were a lot of kids like me there just to hear the music.
    If you were a kid who came from nothing, and you listened to the radio or read entertainment magazines or whatever, you didn’t relate to any of that. None of it. So hip-hop became a reflection of real life. And over time, even if you didn’t come from the hood—or maybe yourcircumstances were a little better or a little worse—you could still relate because what you heard was honest.
    In the early eighties, I can remember Grandmaster Flash and Melle Mel, not only with the “The Message” that talked about the jungle of ghetto life but also “White Lines,” which was the first of its kind to reference the coming crack epidemic. As a sixth grader, I was too young to really understand all of the themes, but the references felt familiar. It felt like I was getting the real story of what was going on in the city around me, the unedited version. And I loved it.
    •   •   •
    M y growing love of hip-hop didn’t prevent me from trying my hand at musical theater. I use the term “musical theater” loosely.
    I was in sixth grade at PS 216 with Mr. Devinoff, who had sort of an old-school
Brady Bunch
look and was known for putting on the best school plays. And for some reason I thought it was a good idea to audition for one of the leads in
Oliver!
That is, until I heard Mr. Devinoff say it was my turn to get up in front of the whole class and sing. Oh my God, all of sudden I was terrified. I’d never sung in public before, and as soon as I walked to the front of the stage and opened my mouth, I completely froze.
    No sound came out at all. I couldn’t move. The only thing my body agreed to do was cry, so I did. Like a weird ugly cry. Inside my head I was screaming at myself
: This was the stupidest idea you’ve ever had!
You’re clearly not built for this. You’re terrible!
    “It’s okay. You’re just a little nervous,” Mr. Devinoff encouraged. “You’ve got to shake it off.” He didn’t let me off the hook. He didn’t let me cry and then not do it.
    Like a deer in the headlights, I just stared back at my teacher. I still couldn’t move.
    “Okay, I just want you to calm down. Take a deep breath.” After I did, he insisted I sing the part that I had chosen to audition for.
    And that second time, I kind of killed it. So much so that I wound up getting the part of the Artful Dodger!
    I remember that moment, and I remember it mattered, like—
Oh! I see
.
I just have to get past the nervous energy.
    That audition left a lasting lesson. It proved to me that if something happens to throw you off, you can’t curl up in it. You have to get past it. What sealed that message for me was the next day, when Mr. Devinoff pulled me aside during class.
    “I went home last night and I was sitting with my wife,” he began.
    That was weird to me. I’d never thought about my teachers as full people outside of the classroom.
Mr. Devinoff has a wife?
    “I was showing my wife the video of the auditions,” he continued. “She thought you were so great after you pushed through being scared. She thought it was the greatest.”
    How cool was it that I had a teacher who had the insight to know how much that would mean to me? I loved every minute of rehearsing and performing in that show, especially playing the Artful Dodger, who was coolest part of all anyway. And it was not lost on me that I could have missed out had I let my nerves get the best of me.
    In the years to come, there would be