SWAG: The Story of a Geek Who Loved Hip Hop Culture

Jocks, nerds, hipsters, geeks...

The list of high school caricature categorizations goes on and on. I didn't fit into any of these pre-fabricated identities when I was in school. I don't think most people do. But I suppose if I were forced to choose you could say I was a bit of a geek. Okay, okay, a lot of a geek. I had a core group of close friends, and we'd sit together at lunch and discuss all things Lost or Pirates of the Caribbean. We'd even quiz each other on Lord of the Rings trivia and as far as I was concerned, both Johnny Depp and Orlando Bloom were my husbands-to-be. And while most can assume, that yes, all of these things are very geeky, there were significant parts of me that didn't fit the stereotype. Two major hiccups in my geek DNA that are ever present in the fiber of my being: I love rap music and I adore the NBA.

"Huh?"

That's the typical response I get when anybody discovers this about me. And to some degree, I get it. rap music is often times offensive and borderline aggressive, two things that are definitely not me. And then there's the NBA, and coming from a girl who's never been much interested in playing sports, that obsession can come a little as a shock, too. They're like puzzle pieces that don't fit, and similar to some complex enigma, these pieces have always been difficult for me to try and explain. My mom did once. She said that I "must've been a young black boy in a previous life" but aside from that loving explanation only a mother could give, I never sought to find an explanation for my odd attraction. 

That was, ironically, until I read Decoded. The heavily praised Jay-Z autobiography I'd received for Christmas (It was Jay-Z, of course I asked for it for Christmas, how could I not). 

If you have yet to read Decoded, you probably haven't had the pleasure of discovering that this book is more like reading three books in one. Apart from life stories, it's also a lyric anthology and a dense telling of the history of rap music. Mix those things together, and you basically get Jay-Z's description of how hip-hop not only saved his life, but shaped him to become the man that he is today. He goes at great length to describe how hip-hop and rap music is much more than those common misconceptions people make about them. He describes hip-hop as an art. He describes hip-hop as a lifestyle. And at the heart of this lifestyle is one word: swag.

Defined loosely, a person's swagger is the way someone carries themselves either through their appearance or their personality. Put really simply, it's self-confidence. And as I flipped through the pages of Decoded, I realized that this was the answer to all of those baffled looks. This was the missing link. How could a young lady love both rap and basketball? Because they were oozing with swagger, that's how.

Boom. Suddenly, my world made sense. When Kobe took a fadeaway jump shot over Ray Allen minutes after Allen had just become the NBA's all-time 3-point shooting king, that was swagger. When he stuck his tongue out Michael Jordan style after making that shot, that was swagger. And when Kanye or T.I. or Kid Cudi spent the duration of an entire song rapping about how cool they were, that was definitely swagger. And that was at the core of my attraction. Through contact of the senses, their confidence and self-assuradeness became mine. For a young geek, the energy and the excitement felt amazing. While many of my high school peers were insecure and self-aware, I was just...happy. I am just happy. And I'm quite sure that I have those two little "hiccups" that I've held close to my heart ever since, and the swag that comes with them, to thank for that. And knowing this, I finally feel like I've unlocked that age-old mystery.

Or maybe I was just a black boy in a previous life...
But even if that were the case, I bet my swagger was still off the charts.