I can relate to kids going straight to the league/When they recognize that you got what it takes to succeed/And that's around the time that your idols become your rivals/You make friends with Mike but got to 'A.I.' him for your survival." Everyone knows of Drizzy's knack for melody and his stylistic malleability. But, one of the Toronto rapper's more underrated strengths lies in his ability to contextualize both himself and others in the world of pop culture through quick bursts of incisive lyricism. Case in point, his first verse on "Thank Me Now," a cut from his debut album, Thank Me Later. At the time, Drizzy was a flashy, archetype-subverting rookie taking over with his dynamic abilities and reshaping the game forever—kind of like a certain
This can relate to me because no one knows your full potential until you show them. Roy shocking the world and never giving up due to all this hardship can relate to everyday life for everyone. Roy fell for the wrong girl at the wrong time, which has defiantly happened to me before. Roy has a good luck charm in the story, it is his bat, Wonder Boy. Every athlete has a good luck charm that gives them the power to do better. A hero in the book can be found in many other books like The Game plan and The Perfect Play. The book shows many similarities to other large sports novels but sets itself apart due to all the plot twist and
How many times in a lifetime does a person hear or been told to dream big, aim high, keep striving and believing even when everything around seems impossible or appears to be falling apart? Often these phrases are told by an influential person in one’s life. In the novel, Heat, written by Mike Lupica, 12 year-old Michael Arroyo is a little league player who has a pitching arm that throws serious heat along with aspirations of carrying out his father’s dream of him playing in the Little League World Series in Williamsport, P.A. But his firepower is nothing compared to the heat Michael faces as he and his brother, Carlos, faces day to day life as newly orphaned children following the death of their father. As they face the many difficult
According to the NCAA, only about 0.03% of high school basketball players get drafted out by an NBA team. 0.03% is such a little percentage that it is the same chance of someone getting four of a kind in a first round of poker (www.norwichcsd.org/Downloads/ ProSportsOdds.doc). With this striking percentage it is amazing to think so many young players hope to make it to the pros. In the end, regret and defeat are much too common, a theme that John Updike features in his poem, “Ex Basketball Player”. The poem's persona, Flick Webb, was surely not one of those lucky 0.03%. Flick Webb was the star basketball player at his high school. Now older, he works at a gas station, sometimes reliving his old dream by gloomily bouncing a tire by himself.
The decade of hip-hop is what some may call it. Tupac, Naz, Biggie Smalls, as well as other artists, were major contributions. Not only for the people who are trying to find their footing, but Buck as well. Throughout the book various lyrics were embedded in order to create a better understanding for its readers. In addition, this book is based upon a 90s lifestyle within Philadelphia, which included drugs, gang activity, crime, hip-hop, and havoc. Malo was directly in the center of everything, the girls, the fights, the guns. His experiences shed light towards what it’s like to as an African American individual living in or near the hood. Not everyone realizes what people go through while living there, but now it gives some readers an image of what goes on. Though times have changed, not all previous feelings
Hip hop paints pictures of poverty, violence, and thug life. Jay-Z says, “the story of the hustler was the story hip-hop was born to tell- not its only story, but the story that found its voice in the form and, in return, helped grow into an art” (Jay-Z, 18). This shows how hip hop became the voice for people living in the ghetto. The hustler’s story created a connection with a global audience that defined the life of pure struggle (Jay-Z, 18). For instance, Jay-Z was raised in Brooklyn’s drug-infested projects causing him to have a rough adolescence. He became a hustler to afford material items and help his mother pay for the bills like most teenagers in his generation. Jay-Z explains how teenagers were wearing automatic weapons as if they were sneakers. Instead of focusing on education, teenagers were worrying about adult responsibilities. Consequently, teenage roles were shifting in negative
Kanye Omari West, an icon of hip-hop, pop culture, fashion and music in general. Kanye Omari West, a person belittled against and a person subjected to a life of racism and hate. Born on June 8th, 1977, Donda West, West’s mother, always knew he was destined for greatness, but did she know her son would turn out to be the Kanye West, a man lacking the respect he deserves for transforming a big part of the music we listen to on this very day? West came onto the scene in the late nineties but didn’t release The College Dropout until 2004, an album that took everybody by surprise. Kanye West changed the gangster filled rap genre by releasing his positive, soulful debut album, changing the way rappers
it's a hot Texas Sun beat down upon my neck a fast ball whizzed past my bat and into the catcher's glove after you had another strikeout. I trudged back to the dugout thoughts of failure filled my mind of my confidence slowly vanishing. I wasn't accustomed to anything less than success before high school. I prospered in youth athletics while living in South Dakota. I had a phenomenal baseball coach to transform my robbed potential into success on the baseball diamond. Unfortunately, my father's Air Force career demanded that we move before my baseball season. Without me my team went on to win the city state championships advancing all the way to the Little League World. When I was younger my family moved to not affect my athletic performance the difficulties began I was torn from my tight-knit community in Northern Virginia and forced to adjust to life in West Texas prior to the start of my freshman year. I struggled to regain the close friends and relationships I left behind for the first time in my life.
Nothing beat the overwhelming emotion of stepping up on the pitcher’s mound and hearing the chant of my name, my heart clawing its way out of my chest. Before throwing the first warmup pitch, my mind raced through the entire season. How, as a team, we have made history winning all three major tournaments in the high school level. We had beaten many top competitors and lost plenty crushing defeats as well. My mind pondered, which situation will I be in today, glorious victory or destructive loss. This is the feeling I lived for during high school, it was my sole purpose. However, this was merely one minute of that fateful day in which I played prodigiously trying to win a baseball game.
In 2006 Drake self-released a mixtape that wasn’t the mega hits that we are used to from him today but it was able to get him foot in the door by featuring artists such as Trey Songz and Lupe Fiasco. Soon thereafter he released a few more songs to his Myspace page and even got a video played on BET’s 106 and Park. Still not many people knew Drake, the rapper. If you asked anybody, he was wheelchair Jimmy from Degrassi. It wasn’t until he lined up with Lil Wayne, that any hope for success because more than just a dream. It all started when Lil Wayne performed his song, Ransom, from his Myspace page at the 2008 MTV’s Video Music
I walked off the floor with sweat dripping from my hair. So many thoughts flew through my head that I couldn’t focus on anything. My junior year of basketball felt like it ended as quickly as a blink. It was as if in seconds we went from the stars of the state tournament to the embarrassments of it. I tried to forget the disappointment of it but it still will not leave. My desire and love to win games comes from the more apparent hatred of losing them. Junior year we had a chance to win a state championship, but we lost that chance. That was when I realized that I had one chance left to win. Senior year our basketball success would only be as rewarding as we would make it. The pressure placed on ourselves was substantial, and we faced trials on the road to success. In the end, we stood alone, crowned as the champions, not letting our chance slip away.
Through my entire life I had been playing baseball. Baseball was the one thing that consumed my life. It was a job to me, not a passion. That was the first problem that resulted in a complete 360 in my life. When I started to play baseball, it was in a way satisfying and fun. It was something every little kid did over the weekend, as the family watched them sit on the ground pick flowers and play with the dust. Something so simple that made me feel so, existential. It gave me so much, it was great. As I began to realise the potential life this game could give me at around age 9, I began to become serious about baseball. I quickly began to feel like a superstar at the local Little League. “This is great!” I thought. Running circles around everyone, people would come to the field to see MaHall’s team play. As the years grew on, leading my teams to championship games years in a row, it would come crashing down. When I was 11, I was on the Dodgers, we were the best team in the league, and we knew it. Let’s go back in time for a bit. It’s the last inning and we are down by just one. Here I go up to bat with a man on first base. As I walk up to the plate I could hear the catcher say, “oh no.” He knew who I was, as everyone did. “I’ve hit many walk offs and clutch hits before, how was this different?” I remember thinking. Well past Jonnie, here’s how it’s different, it’s the championship game,
There is little question that he came from the streets, but this had been a growing comparison among the correlation of hip hop and the crack generation. “Not only did black teenagers in similar situations relate to what Eazy was talking about, but white suburban kids fantasized about being in his situation” (Eriewine).
I didn’t have a summer because I was always in the gym or working out. No one could tell me that I wasn’t going to be better. I can still remember it like it was yesterday, sitting in volleyball practice the first couple of days. It was the last day of the week and coach was handing out uniforms. She started off with the varsity team; she started calling names of the girls who was going to be on the varsity team. On that list guess who's name was on there, mine, and guess whose wasn’t, those girls that was always better than I was. I was a three-year varsity letterman through out high school.
Throughout the movie, Dre shows his characteristics by not only what he says, but also how he act. Dre is a stereotypical teenager, he thinks he is the best, almost unbeatable. You can see this by his attitude towards new things, for example when he challenges the old people to a game of ping pong and thinks he can beat them. The director has used a great example of symbolic codes, because the way Dre dresses help us construct his attitude, that personality helped me get a message of Dre attitude towards new things.
One rainy night in November, I arrived to the church gym for my first basketball practice of the season. As I walked in the doors creaked and you could smell the gym floor. As I already heard the basketballs hitting the ground, bouncing up and down. My friends Brittany and Destiny walked in right behind me through the door. That was when we realized we were the only girls surrounded by all guys. As practice came to a start we began to run, it felt like we were never going to stop. Up and down the court as we ran suicides, you could hear the squeaking of shoes as we went from the next line back and then on to the next. Before we started scrimmaging, the two captains were boys. Brittany, Destiny, and I stood in amazement as we were the last three standing there. You could see by their expressions they didn’t want any of us on either team.