I started writing and reciting my own rhymes as early as 1999. I still got the notebooks to prove it. It's quite embarrassing reading back on the kind of basic ABC whackness that I was putting down at the time. Nonetheless, it was part of a process. A process of becoming as I would learn not just the forms and structures of the art of rhyming but also a deeper understanding of its true function as I found myself in moments of self-reflection and social critique. In a changing world, it has always been my constant. A tool for healing both the self and others. A tool for changing the world one listener at a time. A tool of documentation and counter-narration.
This past year, I've started to really rethink my approach to music in way it fits outside of the box of the "political rapper" as I have often been labeled but at the same time fulfill my responsibility to push culture in areas that have rarely been explored. Questions such as "How do i push diverse perspectives without being preachy?" "How can I make political, racial, class, gender, etc. consciousness cool?"
-ARISTYLES
