I decided to pursue the path of the emcee in my late teens/early twenties, around the same time I starting experimenting with hallucinogens like psilocybin and LSD. It took some practice and experience to achieve the level of linguistic skill I preferred to start performing live, however once I did there was never a lack of confidence or extreme anxiety prior to or during a performance.
About 3 years after I started rapping ( around age 22), I formed a band with a few other extremely talented musicians we called, State of Mind for a short time. We played year 1 of a festival called Nomadic Roots. We ended up getting the sunset set slot, which was beautiful, our performance was well received, and felt amazing as we did it.
Shortly after that show, our band broke up, and all the members individually went on to create they're own bands with other musicians, and we are all still active in the music world today, and successful to one degree or another. Much love to my former band mates, I am glad they all found success and fulfillment in music.
I am originally from northern Virginia, just south of Washington, DC. Being an emcee in that area was extremely challenging. No one really supports hip-hop there (at least not the kind of conscious hip-hop I dispersed). Despite this, I still pushed hard for success in hip-hop in Virginia, even after the break up of State of Mind.
Now for this next part I won't get into too much detail because it is hard to talk about. I basically met someone who kind of took my energy away from me. I don't know if it was intentional or not, but the result remains the same either way. Also about a year after that, I discovered I could no longer enjoy tripping any more. Every time I tried, I would get incredibly upset, for the entire trip (usually a minimum of several hours if not all day and night). To this day I still have not tripped since then without loosing it and feeling extremely sad. Sorry for being cryptic, I just do not want to elaborate further on that.
After that, combined with the fact that I had nearly zero support, I reluctantly retired from hip-hop and tripping for several years and started to pursue other interests. Since my other two major interest were Cannabis and wire wrapping jewelry, I quickly discovered that the area I lived in wasn't going to support any of the things I was interested in. That's when @alchemage convinced me to move to Portland, OR, 3000 miles away from where I grew up. That was in 2013.
I have now been living in Oregon for over 4 years, and I have never had such a drastic improvement in my quality of life. I ate better, had consistent work and pay, a place to live, and most of all, wire wrapping, conscious hip-hop, and especially Cannabis were greatly supported by the community I was a part of.
Things were great for a while. I had a job in the Cannabis industry, which I had dreamed about for many years. I was actually getting somewhere with wire wrapping, people loved my art. Then one day I decided to go to my first Music festival on the west coast called Monolith, where I attended an Ancient Sol show, a former hip-hop jam band out of Portland. They were amazing. Later that night I had the honor of meeting up with Erin Miller, and Talilo Marfil (Talilo being the lead emcee in Ancient Sol) of RLM (Real Life Music, a Portland record label) and spit some of my rhymes for them. They loved the messages I was delivering, and that was stuff I created years before I ever moved to Oregon. That experience is ultimately what made me decide to get back into writing hip-hop. I have written some awesome stuff since then, and after a little practice, I was right back into spitting out flames. The creative writing part I haven't ever had a problem with.
Despite having success with writing rhymes again, and for once having a strong support system in that regard, I still didn't have that divine spark of energy I had when I first got involved with hip-hop in my early 20s. A lot of people told me I was just getting older, and the energy difference I was feeling was just a result of the hormonal change that peoples body's goes through every seven years. Although this sounded rational and plausible to me, deep in my heart I knew this was not the real reason.
Whatever the reason was for me losing my fire energy (lets just call it that), I am more concerned about how to get it back. This is where I have encountered my roadblock. When I perform hip-hop live now, it doesn't feel the same as it used to. There is a lot more anxiety and a lot less confidence, even though that may not be apparent to others when they hear me live, as I do my best to mask the feeling inside and push the divine energy though my vocal cords despite how I really feel, when it used to be fun and exciting. I should be excited for upcoming shows, but these days I just feel more nervous than anything. This also extends to my personal life and general social interactions. I used to approach groups of people and just start talking about the most amazing things. Every time I would go to a festival, I would approach every single campsite and introduce myself. Now I have those thoughts but can't always vocalize them correctly, and have more social anxiety preventing me from fully expressing my truth to everyone. In turn, most of the time I keep it inside, and don't say the things I am thinking, unless I am among VERY close friends.
Standing on the brink on finally releasing an album I have been working on for over 10 YEARS, I still lack the fire energy I once had. I recently met another emcee who is about the same age as me that still has that fire energy that I used to, and it really made me think about what is going on with me internally. I have altered my diet to much better foods and water, and that has helped somewhat, but I still don't feel like I used to. I think that getting my fire back is something that is directly related to being able to trip comfortably again, which I also am at a loss for how to do. I am considering doing DMT again for the Divine Moment of Truth I am seeking, but mostly I hope to get insight from some of you. If you have had any sort of similar experience please share in the comments. The goal of this article is to get responses to help me revive my fire energy. All I want is to feel like me again... 100%. These days I feel overworked and underpaid at my job, and have very little free time to work on my projects.
I appreciate your time, thank you for reading, and I hope to hear from you.
Blessings.