The Rhyme Suite

An origin story of how The Rhyme Suite owner’s music taste came to be.

“Who the heck is Sergio Mendes?” my mother asked in the living room of our warm Texas apartment.

Fresh off a move from New York City to South Texas, I had trouble adjusting, not only to the sweltering heat that permeated our apartment but to our new environment in its entirety. The lone Black kid in my middle school, I was always being met with questions surrounding my likes and interests and hair and skin– and taste in music. I rarely spoke about the music I listened to because I already felt out of the loop. I didn’t want my music taste, which differed greatly from that of my peers, to make me feel even more “different” than I already was. 

I was, of course, familiar with the popular music of the time, but I was secretly enchanted by Brazilian pianist Sergio Mendes and his 2006 Timeless album. A will.i.am-produced joint, Timeless was a fusion of Jazz, Samba, Alternative Hip-Hop, and Soul with features like Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, and Stevie Wonder. At the time, I didn’t understand the gravity of having featured artists of this caliber, but I’d garner an appreciation for them down the line.

Nevertheless, I have no recollection of how my mother came to find out that I was bumping his music. Maybe she heard one of the songs in passing, or maybe I brought his name up in casual conversation. But I remember in harrowing detail how she phoned my older sister and posed this same question– she, too, had no idea who he was. Looking back, I find their confusion amusing, but my 11 or 12 year old was embarrassed and feared judgment.

Despite feeling caught redhanded, I kept my worries to myself and tried to explain who he was. My answer sufficed in the sense that my mother knew I wasn’t listening to something raunchy, but she still wanted to gauge whether or not Sergio Mendes was truly appropriate for her prepubescent daughter. So there we sat, my mother and I in our warm Texas apartment and my sister on the phone from her college dorm, listening to the first minute or so of each song on Timeless. 

Upon a not-so-thorough listen, they concluded that the album was fairly appropriate. Songs like “Please Baby Don’t,” a blend of R&B and Bossa Nova featuring the vocal stylings of John Legend, seemed to pass with flying colors, while “The Frog,” a more sexually charged song featuring verses from will.i.am and Q-Tip, somehow flew past their radar. Maybe it’s because we didn’t make it to the part where will.i.am repeats, “Let’s do it!” five or so times. My mother hated the ending track, “Yes, Yes Y’ALL,” which featured will.i.am, rapper Chali 2NA, Costa Rican singer Debi Nova, and Black Thought of The Roots. She was understandably averse to a line about “freaking to the beat,” so I took it as a sign to stop listening to the song…around her. 

Thinking back on that time of my life, a time of constantly feeling awkward and out of place, it was through music that I found the most comfort. But music had been a huge part of my upbringing and a key aspect of everyday life.

One of my first memories is of sitting in my parents’ bedroom as they played a DVD recording of Israel Houghton performing live. Though each of my parents frequented different types of artists, Gospel was played the most, with the likes of Fred Hammond, Marvin Sapp, Mary Mary and Kirk Franklin – who I apparently met as a baby – constantly bursting from the speakers in our car or in our home. In addition to our Gospel CDs, my father would play classic soul artists like The Temptations, and as I got older, I discovered his love for Jazz. Eventually, I’d make him listen to the Timeless album with me– this time, in its entirety. Sexual references aside, he loved the album as much as I did.

My mother, on the other hand, was a huge Luther Vandross fan. She loved John Legend too, particularly his Get Lifted and Evolver albums. But for Luther, she had a whole CD collection with five or six of his albums in a burgundy book-like case. For an entire winter, she played albums from this collection every single night, and for some years to follow, I couldn’t even listen to Luther without feeling triggered. But nowadays, you can find me belting out the entire nine minutes of “Superstar/ Until You Come Back To Me (That’s What I’m Gonna Do)” like I, too, fell in love with you before the second show.

My love for writing, music, and writing about music has dominated a large portion of my life, but it began with the desire to actually become a singer someday. In my early years, anyone who knew me knew that I could hold a note or two. With some technical training and consistency, it could have become a viable career option. But around the time of the Timeless debacle, I had abandoned the singing part of loving music to become a more intentional listener of music. Much of that can be attributed to my parents and their decision to always have music playing. But Sergio Mendes and the Just Dance franchise are also a huge reason why.

I wouldn’t go as far as saying that I was a gamer back then, but if I wasn’t doing homework I could likely be found playing on my Nintendo DS Lite Pink or my Wii, particularly Style Savvy on the former console and any assortment of Wii Sports Resort games on the latter. If I was in a dancing mood, I was playing Just Dance 2 or Just Dance 4. With Just Dance 2, you could find me killing the choreography to “It’s Raining Men” by The Weather Girls or “Hey Ya!” by OutKast. 

However, my favorite song to dance to came off of Just Dance 4. The song was “Mas Que Nada” by Sergio Mendes and the Black Eyed Peas, the opening track on Timeless.

It was something about the intermingling of Samba, Hip-Hop, and the Just Dance choreography that cultivated pure dopamine in my adolescent brain. So after more than a few intense, nearly euphoric dance sessions with the song, I took note of the name Sergio Mendes and decided to give the entire Timeless album a listen, which I downloaded to my iPod touch. I can neither confirm nor deny that this was done through the proper channels. Legality aside, this would jumpstart my propensity for discovering new music and serve as the foundation of my love for Jazz, Soul, Hip-Hop and R&B music. Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, Stevie Wonder and Q-Tip were just featured artists at the time, but as I entered adulthood, they became a part of my all-time favorite artists. If I were to have kids someday, it would likely be one, or all, of these artists that would be seared into their memory after an album of theirs was played for an entire winter. If those kids are anything like me, they’ll later grow to appreciate them just like I did with Luther Vandross.

Nonetheless, nothing good lasts forever. My Wii would start becoming less and less functional, meaning I could no longer play Swordplay on Wii Sports Resort or amass points as I swayed my hips to “Mas Que Nada.” However, my mother and I would come to discover the Adele station on Pandora radio, which led to a brief phase of playing her 19 and 21 albums like there was no tomorrow. Thanks to this station, I was able to discover other singers and grew fond of Amy Winehouse and Corinne Bailey Rae, artists whose music still brings me comfort during times that are flooded with uncertainty.

On the cusp of teenagedom and high school, I traded in my Samba flows and British Soul singers for Frank Ocean’s Channel Orange and Hip-Hop. In conjunction with the Odd Future alum’s “Super Rich Kids,” “Thinkin’ Bout You,” and “Sierra Leone,” I found myself tip-toeing my way through Nas’ discography. Having been featured on a couple of Amy Winehouse songs, I was already familiar with his wordplay and was excited to become acquainted with a New York rapper’s music. “The World Is Yours” and “NY State of Mind” would resonate most, though I was only comfortable playing the clean version of the latter song. 

At this point, I was already hip to Drake’s “Hold On, We’re Going Home,” which had been extremely popular around the time of my “Sergio Mendes Phase,” so I decided to give his If You’re Reading This It’s Too Late mixtape a listen. I knew in the first 15 seconds of the opening track, “Legend,” that I’d be stuck on his music for awhile. In fact, it was because of Drake that I went from (alleged) pirating and sketchy music apps on my iPod Touch to the premium version of Spotify so that I could listen to Views in high school. I’d eventually outgrow my Drizzy phase– a decision that, in hindsight, was both warranted and ahead of the game– but it was because of him that I was officially ushered into the “Streaming Age of Music,” which grew my musical taste in ways that I would have never imagined. 

That said, Drake was not a lone wolf in my music library. In addition to Nas and Frank Ocean, the soundtrack to my early teenage years was comprised of Chance the Rapper, OutKast, and J. Cole. I lived and breathed Chance’s Acid Rap mixtape, and I was already familiar with OutKast’s “Hey Ya!” thanks to my time with Just Dance 2. But I was now obsessed with songs like “B.O.B,” “Ms. Jackson,” Rosa Parks,” and “Southernplayalisticadillacmuzik.” When it came to J. Cole, I was already a fan of his songs with Miguel, another artist with a few tracks in the rotation. As far as I was concerned, “Power Trip” and “All I Want Is You” were the way to fuse R&B with Hip-Hop. But Forest Hills Drive was something different. From “Wet Dreamz” and “A Tale of Two Citiez” to “No Role Modelz” and “January 28th,” I was enamored by the way he could ride a beat and construct rhymes. I refer to this as my “All-Around Hip-Hop Phase,” where each of these artists would play through my purple headphones every single day. I became more and more obsessed with each listen.

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This phase ushered me into high school, where I would have considered myself a “Hip-Hop-Head” of sorts, but I now know that I was barely scratching the surface of all that Hip-Hop could represent. Even so, I felt cool for once. I still felt awkward as a lone Black face amongst a sea of people who could not even begin to understand how their microaggressions and assumptions about my background made me feel, but Hip-Hop made me feel cool because it made me feel seen. I didn’t always relate to the things my favorite rappers talked about, but their bravado and rawness was more than relatable. As I started getting more into Hip-Hop, I’d come to appreciate the artistry even more.

I’d eventually outgrow the “All-Around Hip-Hop Phase,” as I was no longer listening solely to the aforementioned rappers. But I never outgrew Hip-Hop as a whole. Smino, Saba, Noname, and GoldLink were among the first class of rappers to enter the conversation, and to this day, they can still be found within my various playlists. 

Now a high schooler, an avid Spotify user, and the owner of an iPhone– not an iPod– I came to discover The Internet– the band, not the network– and grew particularly attached to the individual discographies of its members. I’d use SoundCloud to listen to Steve Lacy songs prior to the release of “Steve Lacy’s Demo,” and Syd’s Fin would remain a staple amongst Solange’s A Seat at the Table and Kehlani’s SweetSexySavage. I would also find myself getting into classic A Tribe Called Quest songs like “Electric Relaxation,” “Bonita Applebum,” and “Check the Rhime,” along with Erykah Badu’s Baduizm. Thanks to their features on Timeless, I was already privy to the capabilities of ATCQ’s Q-Tip and Ms. Badu. I’d circle back to the entirety of their discographies during college, but my love for their music began to bubble beneath the surface of my subconscious long before I hit the Yard on Howard University’s campus.

I’d go in and out of a number of phases throughout high school, but it was in college that I breezed my way through the discographies of people like D’Angelo, Prince, and Janet Jackson while studying for Political Science assessments and crafting articles for my journalism classes. I’d garner a further appreciation for Hip-Hop and its various players, ranging from people like Bahamadia and The Lady of Rage to Trina and Megan Thee Stallion, while genres like Soul, Funk, Soft Rock and East Coast Hip-Hop would become occasional fixations. I even tried to learn what exactly differentiates “Contemporary R&B” from “Alternative R&B”– I’d say Alternative R&B utilizes more reverb and synthesized basslines to produce a light, airy sound, while Contemporary R&B pulls more of its production from classic Soul, Gospel, and Hip-Hop. 

When my favorite artists would start touring after a temporary halt from the pandemic, I’d find myself at nearly all of their shows. Victoria Monet, Beyonce, Leven Kali, Ravyn Lenae, Smino, JID, Ari Lennox, Coco Jones, and Fana Hues are a few of the many artists I’ve seen in the past couple of years. My love for music and culture writing would be more than cemented by the time I graduated, leading to numerous articles via school assignments, traditional journalism outlets, and eventually through the launch of The Rhyme Suite.

My journey through music can be attributed to everything from what was trending at any particular time to the artists my family and friends recommended. But when I think back to the moment where I began to take control of the music I listened to, curating my own understanding of all that music could be, it started with Just Dance 4 and “Mas Que Nada” by Sergio Mendes. His 2006 Timeless album planted seeds that would later sprout into a deep love for numerous artists and genres of music. I’m sure that I would have come to discover those artists without it, but if the vehicle through which I embarked on this journey was a bicycle, Timeless functioned as the training wheels. 

This reflection barely scratches the surface of all the artists who I’ve come to love over the years, and as time passes, I’m sure that more artists will have their own distinct phases and fixations. But if nothing else, my journey through music reminds me that  music has always been my safe space, my distraction from the toil of the world and my reminder that you can never fail when you are truly dedicated to your craft.

I see music as a non-linear occurrence, a transcendent force that can be experienced at any moment and at any time. Whether I’m bumping an album from 1958 or 2006 or 2024, the elements that connect one era to another are endless. Fruitful. Timeless. I will always be thankful to the artists whose music I have leaned on and to the varying forces who have shaped my journey. It is thanks to them that this life thing is just a little bit sweeter.