I’m a 58-year old white woman who played Run DMC Public Enemy and DJ Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince on my FM radio show when I was a disc jockey in the 1980s.
In the 1990s I marched to the beat of Queen Latifah singing “U-N-I-T-Y.”
That was the extent of my love affair with rap music.
So when I checked out of the library Life Lessons from Hip-Hop- it was an unlikely contender for the best self-help book I’ve ever read.
The rappers who were interviewed said things that mirrored how I’ve felt in their own words.
So I bought the book to read again. To get readers to buy the book I’ll quote the prime insights from 2 Hip-Hop artists.
Please I implore followers to listen to what they say.
I respect any artists who use their emotional energy to tell stories that can move readers listeners and audience members to action and compassion.
In Big Sean: Talk to Someone
“I realized that the only way somebody can affect how I’m feeling is if I give them permission to make me feel like that.”
In Pharrell Williams: Be Empathic
“Empathy is the skeleton key to any room…It’s the number-one thing we need before love. Because if you have no empathy, then you can’t even get to why you should love someone else.
That goes for the one you marry, the one you hate, your parents, your children, strangers.
If you have no empathy, it’s not possible for you to like and definitely not possible for you to love.”
Left of the Dial 