Hi Def Herm

I just have to clear this up…TRAP MUSIC IS GOOD.

A lot of people that are not southerns can’t understand why this musical art form is popular or why it has such a following. Before you can understand it you have to gut the source of it’s root.

As far as southern culture, we do everything slower and have an unyielding loyalty to the things we love. It is unparalleled to about anything except for the devout love you get from a pet upon arrival home. So when it comes to the “grind” of life it is quite parallel to the sense of Trap Music.

Example, Young Jeezy probably has one of the largest followings as far as Trap Music goes. With his “Trap Or Die” slogan or his “Snowman” character you automatically take the connotation of “work” being drugs or “hustle” the actual selling of the later. But if you take a deeper look into it their is a deeper meaning behind the wording.

Before I break down the logistics of this, let me give you a little background of myself. I am southern born and bred in the suburbs of Houston, but have lived in both Philly and in Chicago in my life. So I have a lot of southern culture but understand and accustomed to Mid-West and East Coast philosophy being that predominately my whole family is from Chicago. So I was raised within a southern culture but with views of a Mid-Western ways.

But I digress…..

But I really didn’t UNDERSTAND the real process of the “grind” until I was in college.

I grew up in a middle class family and played sports and along with my scholastic ability was able to earn an athletic and scholastic scholarship to play college football. 

So seeing my background it would make you think I would gravitate towards the traditional “backpack rapper” or lyricists. Which I listen to too, but that Trap Music is motivation.

As I was leading into earlier, with Jeezy just as with Slim Thug, Pusha T, or Rick Ross (at this point) the “grind” pertains to ANYBODY that is trying to “go out and get it”. “Trap Or Die” is a way of life more so than a slogan. “Trapping” in a literal way is a lifestyle but figuratively its just saying WORK FOR WHAT YOU WANT, HUSTLE FOR WHAT DRIVES YOU; MOTIVATES YOU. The “grind” is the root of all Americans in this economic state. The hustle, the aspiration, the wanting of a better existence, the fact of aim for “living” instead of existing.

So everytime you hear these southern rappers talking “trap”, selling drugs, “grinding”…think of it in the terms of your life and insert whatever your busting your ass working for in place of “grinding”. Whatever you sell or your craft in your occupation in place of “trapping”. The fact you wake up before everybody else and work harder than all else than you in your craft or that you out perform and constantly keep improving in place of “hustle”…and see if you don’t respect the craft and enjoy the music or understand it without having “blinders” on.

If you can’t understand it in these terms you never will….

Just something to meditate on.