Birthday Post: Age Ain’t Nothing But A Number

I’m a big man but I’m not 30 yeahhh watch me get merky!!!

Right so today is my 27th birthday!! I am now 3 years away from the big 3-0!

But let’s take a step back here and not think too far ahead. About 2 years ago I did a vlog about the quarter life crisis. Funnily enough around that time I did have a quarterly crisis. I had left university not too long before with all these dreams and hopes, but felt unfulfilled in the direction I was going in. I felt that time was running out. I was moving away from being a young man with the world at his feet to a maturing one. At least that is what it felt like.

With young entrepreneurs making things happen and becoming millionaires, I suddenly realised that I was heading nowhere special fast. I was working for one of the largest tech companies in the world, but did not feel like I was working towards what I was passionate about.

In between that time I went on a rollercoaster ride in the hopes that I would find a true sense of direction. I am still on that rollercoaster ride, but it has taken until now for me to truly focus. As the end of 2016 approached I made a decision that my true dream and focus was music. Not poetry, not inspirational speaking, not hosting, not running a business, but being a music artist.

It took me so long to make that my one thing. To make that the most important thing. Over the last 10 years I have seen the effect of putting my dreams to the side. If you are starting a business you can’t focus hard on it for 6 months or maybe a year and then stop, the business will fail. Dreams are no different.

I was almost embarrassed to say I wanted to be a music artist and that is it. To cut all sources of retreat and say yes that is the thing. Following a creative passion can often be seen as silly until the results start coming in and it becomes respected. Prior to that it is often frowned upon. Furthermore, saying that I wanted to be a “rapper” was even more frowned upon. As a result, I always supplemented this dream with other dreams to give it some weight. To give myself the impression that I am more than “just” a rapper.

It took me until recently to be comfortable with saying that being a music artist is exactly what I want to do. It also took me a while to be comfortable with being the age that I am and pursuing a career as a music artist. In the “Rap/MC” world, the industry is seen as a young mans game. MC’s ridicule older MC’s as past their time. This led me to think about my music career as one with a ticking time bomb. I felt as if every year that went past was another year further away from my dream.

27 is a funny age it is far enough from mid 20 and close enough to 30 make you feel like you have entered the next age realm. But age is just a number right. I still feel like I am in my early 20s and although I am technically quite mature. I still feel like a big kid, to be honest I hope that never changes.

But the most important thing to me at this moment is to not put an age limit on when I should achieve my dreams by. To truly be in this for the long haul I cannot put a time stamp on it. I cannot fall into the trap of thinking that my time is running out. These are the lies that society feed us. Rick Ross released his first album when he was 30, he is now 41 and still making music.

The first sentence in this post is a lyric by Jammer who points out a statement made my Hyper MC proclaiming that he is a big man, 30 in fact. This was over 10 years ago when Grime was in its infancy. If Hyper can proudly say he is 30 in a genre that is full of young teenagers and still make a resurgence over 10 years later then there is no excuse to not go for your dreams.

Age ain’t nothing but a number.