Finding Hope in Hip-Hop

I believe in hip-hop. And being a white girl born and raised in the whitest conditions, it surprises me that I've come to this belief — especially since I used to hate this music. My husband, Adam, would try to play it in his car while we were dating, and I hated it so much that I would give him the silent treatment.

But nine months after we married, Adam was diagnosed with bipolar disorder. To take care of him, I dropped out of college to work a factory job that provides mental health insurance coverage. My American dreams of an education, job, house and kids dissolved. My working-class life began.

One Saturday I sat alone on the floor in our tiny apartment, piecing a quilt, when the CD changer switched to a Mos Def album that Adam had been listening to a few days before. What had once sounded like a muddle of words to me took form and my belief in the message of hip-hop began, and this is what I heard:

All over the world hearts pound with the rhythm
Fear not of men because men must die
Mind over matter and soul before flesh,
Angels hold the pen, keep a record in time

I listened carefully to the entire album and actually heard what Mos Def was saying. I heard his call for self-reliance and his cry for equality. But more than that, the music let me feel the struggle of another person's life experience.

Because I haven't achieved my own rise from struggle to success, I rely on other peoples' stories to revitalize my hope. And I find that some of the most compelling come through hip-hop. I believe in the rhymes of socially conscious M.C.'s who rose from difficulty and used their success to address societal ills and their desire for change, artists like Blackalicious, Jurassic 5 and Bahamadia.

I believe in the story of the genre itself. Hip-hop was created in the housing projects of the Bronx by people whose struggle was more severe than anything I could have imagined before. But they were brilliant and innovative enough to rise above it.

Hip-hop is my gateway to their lives and learning about African-American history. References to people and events in songs have me searching at the library through books and documentaries where I've discovered inspiring people who were never mentioned in my all-white schools.

Now I like hip-hop more than Adam does. It's what gets me through my day. Working with the beats helps me move faster, increasing my piece-rate pay by a dollar an hour. My dream is to help those who suffer with mental illness. I want to fight the problems of inaccessible treatment, incarceration, stigma and homelessness all resulting from mental illness. The only problem is that I work in a factory all day, everyday, just to pay for the medications Adam needs to get by.

But no matter how tired or hopeless I am feeling, hip-hop helps me look beyond my own circumstances to find the determination I need to move forward.

Independently produced for Tell Me More by Jay Allison and Dan Gediman with John Gregory and Viki Merrick

在hip-hop中找到希望——“我相信”系列

我相信hip-hop。作为一个白人女孩，我从小接触到的是各种“白人理念”，所以连我自己都会为我这个信条感到惊讶——特别是我曾经是那么讨厌这种音乐。我的丈夫亚当曾经试图在我俩约会时在车上放点hip-hop音乐制造气氛。结果每当这个时候我便生他的气，不和他说话——我实在是太讨厌这种音乐了。

但是就在我们结婚九个月以后，亚当被确诊患上了双向感情障碍症。为了照顾他，我从学院退学，来到了一家提供心理健康保险的工厂工作。我那期盼着能接受良好的教育、找到一份体面的工作、买下一处属于自己的房子、拥有一群健康的儿女的美国梦就这样破灭了。取而代之的，是即将开始的工人阶级生活。

在某一个周六，我一个人坐在我俩那小小的公寓地板上缝着棉被。这时，CD播放器自动转接到了亚当早些日子听过的Mos Def的专辑。那些我以前听起来含混不清的hip-hop音乐这刻却听起来无比清晰，我对hip-hop所传达的讯息的信仰从此开始。那时，飘进我耳朵里的是：

整个世界，心随律动

人无所惧，因为终将一死

思想高于物质，灵魂重于肉体

天使手中执笔，时刻记录人生

我认真地听完了整张专辑，实实在在地听懂了Mos Def每一句歌词。我听到了他对自信心的召唤，听到了他渴求平等的呼喊。但除此之外，他的音乐更让我体会到了另一个人不断奋斗的心路历程。

由于我没有成功地通过奋斗地实现我的理想，我需通过阅读和倾听别人成功的故事来使我重新扬起对生活的信心。而我发现，我听到的许多鼓舞人心的故事都来自hip-hop音乐。我相信那些从充满了社会良知的饶舌歌手们的音乐。他们从困难中崛起，运用他们的成功来揭露社会弊病，抒发他们渴望改变的愿景。Blackalicious, Jurassic 5 以及Bahamadia都是这样的音乐人。

我相信这种音乐流派本身的故事。hip-hop是由于当年布朗克斯房屋建造计划而产生的。当年这些计划的参与者们经历了我所无法想象的困难。但是他们运用自身卓越的智慧和革新精神战胜了困难，获取了胜利。

Hip-hop引领着我去关注他们的生活、研究非洲裔美国人的历史。歌中所提到的人物和事件诱使我去图书馆查阅书籍和资料。通过阅读这些史录，我认识了一些振奋人心的人物。而在我原来那充满白人学生的校园里，却从来没有人提起这些名字。

如今，我变得比亚当更喜欢hip-hop了。它使我挺过每一天。伴随着这些节奏，我的工作速度变快了，计件工资制率的提高使我每个小时增加了一美元的收入。我的理想是帮助那些正受精神疾病煎熬的人们。而现在唯一的问题是，为了支付亚当所必须支付的医药费，我得每天都在工厂里从早做到晚。

但是无论我感觉多么劳累与绝望，hip-hop音乐已经使我不再为了眼前的苦难而唉声叹气，它使我看得更远，去寻找前进道路上所必须的决心和毅力。