Tapia 1

Lizeth Tapia

ACE Writing 2, W18

Professor Johnson

June 15, 2018

Hip-hop to Personal Diary

The original song is by the rapper Logic. His 2017 album titled “Everybody” focuses on

recent, controversial issues in our society. The album speaks on important issues that need to be

addressed in our society, especially because many teenagers struggle with them. The music’s

genre is hip hop, which is mainly listened to by teenagers and young adults. The song

“Everybody” addresses racism and violence. Logic describes his life and his history in the song;

his great-grandfather lived as slave and watching children from his neighborhood run away from

police in fear of being shot instead of running towards them for protection. He speaks to all

communities saying that everyone is human and that everyone should be treated the same way.

He places a message in each verse of the song to describe his experiences as a person who is

biracial. Rap is believed to belong to African-Americans says Logic in the song and he notices

that people do not see him as a rapper because of his light skin complexion. Logic uses his

platform to speak on the racial discrimination and profiling that continues to be a problem in our

society. He says his skin color makes people believe that he does not understand the life of a

person of color. He argues that people in the biracial community stand on a fence because they

cannot find a place in either racial group. He wants to let his audience know that everyone is

equal. It does not matter if a person is White, Black, Muslim, Logic reminds us we are all human

with blood running through our veins.

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I wanted the audience to be someone opposite of the original audience therefore I

translated the song to a diary entry. I believe there is more intimacy in a diary entry than in

songwriting because you don’t have to think about the critiques from others. The song was heard

by thousands of people in a stadium and on the radio, but a diary only has one person that can

read its’ content. A journal is a good place to express one’s most vulnerable thoughts and

emotions. Reflection and recollection based on the day’s or week’s events goes into journaling.

Diary entries are not limited to pencil and paper, they can also be written in word processing

programs or websites that make it easier to edit the entries. “The moments [are] chosen… [to]

represent the most direct, efficient route” that allows the writer to remember them in the future

(McCloud, 12).

The style of a diary entry is simple because it is free-writing. I had to choose the parts

from the song that I wanted to incorporate into the translation but it was a challenge because I

could include everything. I choose the moments of the song that strongly demonstrated the

overall message of the song. The song focuses on personal experiences and interactions that I

wanted to show in the translation. Although I was not translating the original piece into a comic

book, I followed some steps from McCloud’s process in “Writing with Picture.” The style of the

original text followed the flow of a song, but in journaling the writing is natural and does not

have to be analyzed to understand the message. The verses in a song are thought through what

McCloud calls “the planning stage” because each is “broken down into readable chunks”

(McCloud, 11). A singer can write about his or her personal life, but because songs speak

creatively, not all the information is said transparently. I did not have to think of a creative way

to say that every race is the same, I was able to say it directly. Writing in a diary, the writer does
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not have to hide anything because no one else read what has been written, they can be as

descriptive or direct as they would like.

I had to decide if I wanted to keep the point of view from the original singer or if I should

change it to someone else. I wanted the translation to be more about a person’s experiences

within the community they are part of, so I kept the first-person point of view because it made

the writing more intimate. It was easier to write from the original person’s perspective, but added

casual language. I had to leave out the repetition in the song’s chorus because it did not feel like

a natural way of speaking. The language is more natural in the translation than in the song

because it does not say things like “Okay, I was gone for a minute but I’m back now” as an

introduction to a diary entry (Logic, 2017). I also chose to leave out the curse words because I

don’t like using them although they added a strong stance in emotional appeal. The translation is

a mix of the experiences of the singer and an outsider. The audience is the greatest contrast

between the old and new genres because it affects the language and style that is used. There are

practices “that hold communities together or separate them from one another” and the language

that is used in each genre represent this difference (Johns, 500). The audience is the community

that the message of the text is directed towards.

This translation project allowed me to learn about the process that writers take. The

writing may be in different genres but they all have a particular purpose: a recipe lists the steps to

make a pie, a newspaper informs readers of events, and a children’s book entertains while

teaching through a short story. Without doing the previous assignments where we analyzed the

conventions used in a genre, I would not have been able to write a translation. I had to read

online journal diaries to understand the methods of the writers, who used personal stories, and I

had to listen to songs in the music genre of hip pop to understand the techniques in songwriting
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from this I learned that writers turn a story into a song. The assignment where I had to write

about the disciplines in a history class helped me understand the differences and similarities in

genres that are opposite each other. Each piece of text has a purpose and message they are trying

to address and catch a specific audience’s attention.

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Works Cited

Johns Ann M. "Discourse Communities and Communities of Practice: Membership, Conflict,

and Diversity." Text, Role, and Context: Developing Academic Literacies. Cambridge,

New York: Cambridge UP, 1997.51-70. Print.

Logic. “Everybody” Everybody

McCloud, Scott. “Writing with Pictures.” Making Comics, New York: Harper, 2006, pp. 8–37.
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March 31, 2017

Dear Diary,

I feel like I should talk about something that is happening in our world. I have been experiencing

racism just like everybody else. I need to let this out.

We are forced to believe that everyone is free, but we’re a long way from being treated equally.

The government is focused on money, they don’t care about us. They are only trying to

manipulate us by not facing up to the facts.

All lives matter! If you prick a finger, the blood that pours out is the same color. A person’s skin

color hides the same color blood, everybody loves the same. Why is racism a thing in our

society? I think that everyone should treat each other with respect. What happened to treat others

how you want to be treated? I don’t understand why kids are taught about respect and fairness,

but as adults the opposite is shown. I have a black dad and white mom. I see teenagers in the city

walking around with fear in their eyes. Teens are still being killed for walking around at night

with a phone in their hand thought to be a gun. They must be careful of what they say when

speaking to police. I was taught to always address police officers with, “Yes ma’am, no sir.” My

skin color does not keep me protected from anyone. The issues that I am facing now would have

been the same even if I lived in 1717. I would be treated as a slave because of the black blood

running under my white skin. I live the life of a slave and a master. Everybody thinks that I was

born with white privilege. I am told by whites that I am not a part of their community and the

black people tell me I can’t rap because of my skin color. No one sees that I also have black in

me through my great grandfather who was whipped in the back. I live on the fence between

white and black. Race is an imagined concept that I wish I could erase. Everybody is the same,

skin color should not separate one from another.