Random "All Music" Play

A song comes on the random “all music” play of my computer. It’s got a real nice lilt to it, it’s even a bit sweet. I like how the rhymes roll in the beat. Who is this? It’s not one of my more popular play songs…

It’s Jimmie’s big brother; a.k.a. Felon. A connoisseur of music all the time, my 14 year old 9th grade student proudly offers up his big brother’s demo cd with three songs on it. Because I seemed genuinely interested, six months later, I get handed a copy of the full album: 18 tracks of indigenously Baltimore rhymes. Jimmie is so proud of his big brother. I remember the morning when Jimmie walks into the classroom with a spring in his step, “My brother is coming home from jail!” Another young black male incarcerated; role model and hero to his little Caucasian brother. “I love when my brother is home. He looks out for me.” You can just see the stars in his eyes.

A few months before, Jimmie, who gets up at 5am to get to school by 7:35 every morning, rolls into class 40 minutes late. After class, we ask, Why were you late this morning, Jimmie? “My mom is missing.” What? “We can’t find her. We don’t know where she is. We think she’s somewhere in Virginia. We’ve called her whole family. Nobody knows where she is. My uncle (her brother) is a computer scientist. I’m going to do what he does when I grow up. He makes a lot of money. He really looks out for me.”

Jimmie’s other hero and greatest fan is his father. His father, who is separated from his mother, and married to an African American woman, Jimmie’s stepmom and perchance the link to Jimmie’s African American big brother, role model, and hero. "My ancestors are from southern Italy. In the town where my grandfather is from there is a street named after us." His father who looks twenty years more than his age, in and out of the hospital, makes it into the school at least once every quarter to speak to his teachers about Jimmie’s behavior in class. Every quarter, I get to hear, “I love you son. You are so smart. I don’t want you to have the hard life I had. You are my shining light.”

All this runs through my mind as Felon’s beats belt from my speakers.

NOTE: names have been changed.