How an album improved my life

Flashback to my 15th birthday, Jan. 19, 2015. I was having a great day, strolling through the aisles of Target while hunting for new things to buy on my birthday shopping spree. Suddenly, when I entered the cereal section, I heard a simple yet elegant tune that changed my life.

After hearing this song on the Target sound system, I couldn’t stop thinking about it. For the next few days, I found myself singing it in the shower, humming it during tests and searching up every lyric I could remember in order to find the name of the song. Nearly a week later, I finally managed figure it out: “No Flex Zone” by Rae Sremmurd.

I soon realized, though, that the real value of the discovery wasn’t so much the song, but the artist who created it. The two brothers of Rae Sremmurd have released an entire album “SremmLife” with songs just as catchy as “No Flex Zone.”

After sharing this song to all my friends and hearing all the other songs in the album, ones like “This Could be Us” and “Come Get Her,” I decided to add much of the album’s selection to my Spotify playlist. Not only did these songs sound similar to “No Flex Zone” through their head bobbing bass drops and catchy background melodies, but they ended up being my favorite two songs in the album. Specifically “This Could be Us” is still my favorite in the album to this date, because although it remains in the hip-hop and rap genre, its unique beat and slower raps differentiated itself from the rest of the album.

Although these songs may not be suitable songs for younger audiences, they led me to discover a genre of music that has consistently improved my life and happiness in numerous way through punchy beats, fast raps or even slow tunes. Unlike other albums or music, the upbeat, rapid base of the song was something I had never truly heard before, and I immediately fell in love with it.

During times of depression or stress from school or family, I often turned to music, specifically hip-hop, to support me. Likewise, whenever I am feeling happy or excited, listening to the rapidly spewed lyrics from rappers, paired with the ear-pounding beats in the background, feels like a natural extension of my happiness, adding even more joy to the moment.

Without that shopping spree in Target, I may have never found my favorite type of music, and although my playlist is probably filled with over 600 songs, I will never forget the gems I found in “SremmLife.”