When we first met Joseph, he was minding his own business. He was sitting all the way at the end of the subway car in an isolated niche. I couldn't see his face, but he was peacefully enjoying the train ride home. I wanted to take a gamble and talk to someone whose face I couldn't see or innately build a bias for. The train car was quite crowded and we were nearing the end of the line, so I eventually fought away the anxiety of talking to a stranger and introduced myself to Joseph. And Joseph was a gem hiding in that little nook of the 'el' car.
Joseph works in warehousing at the moment, and we caught him on the Red Line heading home from work. Honestly, I felt that Joseph was a bit skeptical of me at first, but he lit up when I asked him a certain question: - what's your dream in life?
Joseph said that his dream wasn't anything concrete, but that it was music. He loves music! He loves listening to it, going to shows, thinking about the lyrics of it, and he even writes his own music! His favorite kinds of music are R&B and rap. He's not a big fan of newer artists, but he likes to keep in touch with his "old school" roots. He's inspired by Tupac, Biggie Smalls, R. Kelly, and Michael Jackson and the raw passion and emotion they put into their music.
When he was talking about his music, Joseph's face was absolutely beaming. He would smile this pure, radiant smile, and just listening to him talk about how the music made him feel would make you smile too! He told us that he especially enjoyed seeing live DJ's who would use music that he especially liked. At that moment, Joseph said, "while the DJ's spinning, the music seems to make us alive."
No comments:
Post a Comment