On Rapmotional Wellness part 1 : An Approach to leaning into Wellness as an element of Hip-Hop
I am a Clinical Psychologist. A hip-hop head. From somewhere in the Bronx til I was told I was a man, then from Southwest Atlanta over by Mrs. Winners til I was formally a man, and now to my family roots in Carolina. I am A Black father, brother, son, husband, Professor, therapist, theorist, Black navigator in search of Afrofuture star charts, believer in the human condition and healer.
It is the thin veil, barely contained between these at some intersection, that informs my understanding of, and approach to, Wellness. Emotional Wellness. The true and evolving process of being becoming mindful of the interplay between their exposure, thoughts, beliefs, practices and projection of these in total into their life processes.
I have not ever seen Wellness in others rendered from vague scraps of a task completed here or there. I have never understood Wellness to be trite or a product of happenstance or simple good intent. No. I fear that we have arrived at the point in our collected human proceedings where we are aware of the necessity of the thing (Wellness) and we are seeing many of our well meaning neighbors grasping, and handling this necessary work poorly. It is being misrepresented, misunderstood, and mismanaged. Many of our wellness workers, so believed and self declared, are spending very little time with any balanced sense of the human condition, and its frailties and inherent powers, and so they often set off with grand proclamations about how one can be well, without establishing any foundation. There is a rush to lead others into surgery, without first having taken any course resembling biology. While the focus on the need for Wellness is most certainly critical, there should be some time given over to knowing the humans that need to be well, and how resources native to them, language born in their tongue, may be used to promote and gestate Wellness within their persons.
I may feel so strongly about this as I want for this generation of children, our children, to get this right. I do not want them to carry our baggage forward. I want this freedom and personhood they so bravely project to burn brighter still, and for them to eventually free themselves from needing us for direction about their purpose and person. I want for us to assume their way, and to tear away this upper dermis, the traumatized and bowed one. There are new selves in here, selves more emotionally reflective, mature and insightful. I want for us to be more the knower and believer than the doer at the outset. I want for us to embrace our vulnerability as necessary air, and to craft the spaces where we may share it. I want that in the hands of those shepherds best suited to guide, and then for each individual everywhere, each one of us, to personally destabilize the need to rely on others for when, how and why getting Well. I want all of my community, Black, and child, and man, and woman, to live above all of this, to soar and be alive, and to eventually return and share that energy with nothing more than a glance.
We are not there, nowhere near. But there are these many tools these working tools, and so, hip-hop.
I developed the concept of Rapmotional Wellness, as I have, and we should, come to see hip-hop as the obvious human tool for human Wellness and growth that it so clearly is. Considering its reach, and robust influence, and malleability, and social and cultural versatility, We have already seen the intellectual ascension of hip-hop as the body of the culture has been filled out with hip-hop influenced approaches (#HipHopEd, #HipHopCivics and so beautiful others) crafted to forward the human condition, give voice to the vulnerable, and draw on the energy of hip-hop as the force that is so truly is.
Quite naturally, we were going to pick and claw our way toward hip-hop and its relationship with Wellness. We are here, and we should go well past saying that the relationship exists, it always has in fact, but we should, I will, suggest that hip-hop, in all of its many forms, is essential in crafting a Wellness approach for many of our emerging minds, still vulnerable now, still carrying societal and generational curses with them.
As I see Rapmotional Wellness, I conceive of it as both an educational and practical approach. We must first see how “The Message” with its griot indicating that he lived ever close to the edge, and was trying not to lose his head, was the very first of the journal entries for a community of minds newly emerging with their understanding of their trauma. In my craft, we call the practice of an individual identifying their own symptoms “self report”, and the greater the self report, the more accepting the listener, the greater the rapport between sender and receiver, the more grounded the person reporting may become. Hip-hop was giving us an early approach to reaching for our own Wellness by normalizing the conversation. Drawing those very thoughts out of our heads, and into a shared space. Chasing these down and giving them life, so that we may, collectively, see and recognize them. Ground these by speaking them out loud. Strip them of their power in the emotional ether. Write them on page, and recite them over the drum, where they may be snared and captured.
The first essential step of Rapmotional Wellness follows suit, now. For us, for our children, what we must first destabilize is our silence around being unwell or fear of being seen as unwell, and thus strengthening the tether of sickness tied round our ankles. What hip-hop allows for is a projecting out of this unwellness, a repetition of the thoughts we wish to hide from, giving them flesh and bone and sound, casting them forth and out, and stripping power from them with the sight of our words and sound of our voices. Before doing, the first approach to be Mindful of these very real human thoughts as a part of of us, know what triggers these, be mindful of how they take root, and ground them. In Rapmotional Wellness, the first verse consists of saying that you will assume the right to be well, throw off the need to justify to any gaze why you are unwell, understand for yourself why you may be, and decide how best to proclaim that part of your human experience. Whatever way you understand and see it through rhyme and writing and pattern, is how it is.
The second verse within Rapmotional Wellness focuses intently on “believe better bars.” Here, each of us crafts a verse complete with positive affirmations developed in our own voice. Here, we rename ourselves (our stage name), we craft a new self that we may access while building our Wellness, as is the way and energy of hip-hop. Craft an aspirational self, one that you may treat with unconditional positive regard, and meditate on building toward that self as a goal. The second verse begins with the notion that we are progress, not products. Here we have incorporated an understanding of our wounds and anxieties and toxic assumptions into our “Personal Noise Approach.” The PNA allows for us to cognitively reframe false and damaging beliefs into healthier ones. We shout these new beliefs out, we make these a mantra, we make this new way of believing as loud and noisy as we are able. This approach follows the therapeutic doctrine. All therapy should, by design and if impactful, disturb maladaptive belief and practice routines for the individual. The PNA sets that process up, for routine.
The third verse is psychic, and is fantasy, and is mental energy made real. Within Rapmotional Wellness the mindscape (The Lab) is where meditation and imagery take place. We begin here by selecting a mantra (relax yourself, please settle down) and quietly repeat this while engaging in a guided breathing exercise and inclusion of a beat to influence our journey within ourselves. Once we have settled into our mindscape, and settle into our lab, we begin crafting beats to overcome stressors to, lyrics to counter our anxieties, bars that speak only to positive self assessments, and paces where we may process guilt, shame, doubt and disconnection. We bring portions of these back with us, and build our mental “lab” for whatever our needs at any given life point may be.
Ultimately, Rapmotional Wellness, is yet another of the growing layers of hip-hop’s growth toward full realization. I see it as an element, no different than fashion, education, beat boxing, beat making, battle rap, MCing, DJing, breaking or graffiti artistry. These are all essential components of the one whole, complex, evolving being we know hip-hop to be.
In part 2, we will discuss the fourth verse, where we practice and engage outside of ourselves, and where we use Battle Rap, to engage that doubt and fear and shame that so anchors us emotionally. In this fourth verse we will write and rhyme about setting reasonable personal goals and being fiar with the self. We will right and rhyme about promoting happiness by understanding and accepting the human condition of loved others. We will speak of the the power of Vulnerability Bars and conceive of self-care as a series of mixtapes. Soon Come. Walk good.
