Chris Harbem  

Today I noticed that a lot of hip hop singers, rappers, are back in the music scene in the US.

Their presence made me think of my childhood days of growing up on the hard core east side of Baltimore.

Where I lived it was so easy to know the difference between what was good and what was not, because the worse, or the baddest, was in your path EVERY DAY.

My moms was the type to try, so we moved out of the hard core east side hood, into a hard middle class west side hood where I had a choice to be hard or to try to learn more about other cultures, even those of people whose skin color was different than my own.

I tried to learn more, and I did.

I ended up in a mixed University after starting college at 17, completing my schooling by 21.

I chose the music business as my field, but I could have chosen law or even medicine.

After getting started at age 15 with more public performances as a percussionist and entertainer, and at age 18 making my contributions to music productions I expected to be given a chance to explore my talents and grow, but record labels only called my house about 13 times within a few years. No offers were made.

It's rough watching New York kids with a smaller outlook on life; less knowledge from schooling, less formal training, less character building street life experience get opportunities simply because they come from New York.

My fraternal family was from New York, and I was practically raised by them. I even visited the city a few times.

My maternal grandmother lived on Mount Street in Baltimore in an area known as Sand Town.

There the rats run the streets just as much the gangsters. A woman with 8 kids who was the grandchild of a slave could not do much, but she moved her kids to Baltimore from the eastern shore of Maryland so that they could do more.

Melvin Williams was the biggest gangster in the area and my mother and grandma knew him personally. One of my uncles was killed who was in Melvin's original crew. I saw a picture of him in Melvin's "American Gangster" movie special.

A family learns after having two of their family members get killed in the violent streets of a city, so I grew up around people who had taken to God, which was common with southern blacks.

All I remember from being in the Sand Town hood, however, is all the rats; the gangsters and the rodents.

Watching a rat go from poor and starving to driving a nice car and wearing nice clothes was like watching one of the other rats, or rodents, get a rocket to fly him around.

As an adult when I see all those Hip Hop artists on television riding in nice cars and wearing nice clothes  all I think about is those rats in sand Town flying rockets.

Where I come from it was so easy to know the difference between what was good and what was not, because the worse, or the baddest, was in your path EVERY DAY.

Chris Harbem