iMedia: The Digable Planets

Digable Planets - Where I'm From
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I chose to write about a song called "Where I'm From" by the Digable Planets. Lately I've been finding that I actually learn quite a bit from rap. I used to reject the genre and think of it only as music that talked about money, gangs, and women. I've started listening to some older groups, and I have found that rap is, at it's essence, just slam poetry. Although it may not deal with the same topics that traditional high-brow poetry does, it deals with real life, and real life issues.

This song "Where I'm From" also relates to the differences, as well as the similarities, that humans share, no matter where people come from. I researched a thing called the "Where I'm From Poem" and it is basically a template where you fill in the blanks according to your own individual life, and it comes out being a different poem than anyone else would have. The song doesn't fit the exact template, but it seems as though the template might have been an influence on the Digable Planets when they were writing this song.

I think it is really interesting how people could take the same template to start off with and end up with something so completely different. Instead of just saying bluntly how important rapping is to the members of the group, this is how they expressed it;

We live to love and we love to rock mics

We speak in ghetto tongue cause ghetto's the life

Food for thought so get a buffet plate

The lyrics are so fat you might gain weight

I think that expressing feeling through a rap or a poem is a very unique and interesting way of expressing feelings. Hearing music like this inspires me to want to share my story of whereI'm from, hearing music like this makes me interested in the lives of others. I also find it quite amazing that songs like "Where I'm From" is kind of like a little chunk of history, and peoplewho look back at the song, or the music video will be able to experience what it was like where other people were from, and the different lifestyles that people live all over the worldat different times in history.