mIsFiT B-side

Why are you trying to classify it? This is music for all humanity, from me. ~Utada, “Animato”

I know the answer now.

Someone told me once: the reason why I am not a part of that “beautiful whole” I mentioned before is because that life wasn’t meant for me. I’m not supposed to fit into that puzzle.

I’m supposed to be that kid who runs down the up escalator—just because she feels like it.

I am not my hair, my height, my clothes, my words, my college, or my shoe size. You try to put me together based on your faulty vision and superficial tendencies. But you can’t see inside of my soul.

I’m like Solange, not Beyonce. Mainstream is not what I strive for. You wouldn’t find my album in the Pop section. That just makes it more special, a gem waiting to reward those who are diligent enough and brave enough to look.

So don’t label me. You don’t know my genre. I am Lupe Fiasco, Daft Punk, Tye Tribbett, Utada, Panjabi MC and Buraka Som Sistema—the world’s most diverse mixtape.

You see, my name’s uncanny similarity to Ebonics is only a coincidence. I may have brown skin but my mind is colorblind. I’m fluid motion, gliding between cultures with the greatest of ease.

I answer to an Authority higher than that of humans. And if He tells me to, I don’t mind subtracting myself from you who run with the crowd. After all, mine is a difference that is not deleterious. And I’m trying to impress him, not anyone else.

At the end of the round, I am living proof that there’s more than one way to kill the game.

I hope that you come to celebrate your difference, that you realize your potential as an outlier. I refuse to say “outsider” or “outcast” because the others are outside of what makes you who you are, and because God would never cast you out.

(this is probably not my best piece, but I wanted to get it out there anyway).