“Has anybody in this class ever purchased a CD?” Mr. Rector asked our English 9 class.

Raising my hand, I responded, “I bought some J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Drake albums to play in my mom’s car when I was younger.”

“You like J. Cole? You can’t possibly like him; that dude’s wack!” a fellow classmate responded. A couple others laughed in agreement.

First off, J. Cole’s music has repeatedly gone double platinum without features, so I don’t really understand how that’s “wack.”

More importantly, the overly judgmental and baseless opinions that shame people’s music preferences often go too far.    

Music is powerful. Everyone has heard that one album, or even that one song, that made them feel something deeper than just the words, the beat or the melody. It’s a personal connection, and songs that stick with us always have some sort of relatability to our own lives.

Songs that make us feel on top of the world, such as Drake’s “God’s Plan,” or songs that remind us of dark days and long nights, such as XXXTentacion’s “Sad” can change our emotions in a heartbeat.

A problem I’ve begun to notice and encounter is music shaming, a hurtful culture in which people ridicule and criticize others’ taste in music just because it doesn’t agree with their own.

Objectively speaking, music shaming makes little sense and sounds ridiculous. Of course, everybody has different tastes: We’re all different people who’ve come from different backgrounds and have gone through different life experiences, which lead us to have different music preferences.

It’s unfair and unjust to shame someone for celebrating something they enjoy. If someone likes a certain song, artist or album, he or she should be able to play it and not feel guilty or embarrassed when somebody sees what they’re listening to.

Nobody needs to blindly love every type of music, but there’s a necessary level of respect that people should have for each other, even if their tastes differ. The purpose of music is to inspire emotion and provide entertainment; it’s not a competition to see whose music is “cooler.”