How I grew to love something I used to hate.

Watsky concert

I have been through many phases in my life, and a great number of these phases were accompanied by a specific music taste and often a favourite band.

The first music phase I can remember was my Busted phase. At the age of six I had taken apart the lyric booklet from their album so that I could stick pictures of them on my bunk bed with sellotape.

The next band was JLS. My favourite member was Marvin and I was convinced I would marry him one day. I was nine. I made Nintendo flip book animations to their songs on my DS and was extremely proud of a photo realistic drawing I drew of them.

Then secondary school rolled around and I was still clinging to the pop genre, displaying a strong dislike to anything not played on the radio. The new band was The Wanted and for some bizarre reason I had got it into my head that you weren't allowed to like more than one band, which resulted in me pretending not to like any of JLS' new songs when, in reality, I did.

I was so determined to stay loyal to The Wanted and not be tempted by One Direction. But alas, I failed. One of my best friends was a loyal Directioner and so I began to like them too as her fan girlish tendencies rubbed off on me.

One direction sparked a full on obsession. I learned all the facts and inside jokes and spent my time reading and writing fan fiction about the boys. My favourite member was Niall Horan, in case you were curious.

In between One direction and my dramatic change in music taste, I believe I had a brief period of liking Lawson. Oh and The Script. I was really obsessed with The Script for a while, I have three of their albums. Also Coldplay.

Now prepare yourself because I'm sure you've never heard anything like this before. When I was in my mid teen years - I liked rock. *gasp* It's unheard of! A teenager wearing all black and listening to rock? Never!

All jokes aside - yes I was one of those kids and honestly I think most of the best people were one of those kids. What better way to relieve teenage angst than headbanging and air guitar playing around your room?

The band that got me into rock is pretty cliche, but it was Linkin Park. My dad was a fan so I had heard their music before but I was initially put off by all the screaming. However as I became closer to my friends at school (now some of my most closest friends) we bonded over the fact I knew who Linkin Park were as they were very much into punk and rock. One of my friends favourite bands was Green Day and a different friends favourite was My Chemical Romance. Surprisingly, unlike before, my friends seemed to have less influence over me as I became obsessed with neither of those bands but actually grew to love Paramore, Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco. I also went through a short lived screamo, Bring Me The Horizon, phase.

By this point it became clear I had learned that I could love more than one band at a time - and I was much happier for it. However, although I now knew it was possible to like pop and rock at the same time, (I liked Taylor Swift at the same time I liked Bring Me The Horizon.) I still maintained there was one genre I would NEVER like. That genre was rap.

The rap I heard on the radio and music channels just wasn't appealing to me. Just about the only rap I remember liking was Eminem. In fact the first rap I learnt was Eminem's rap in 'Love the way you lie' - I still remember it. Another small pocket of rap I appreciated was the album Linkin Park created with Jay-Z, 'Collision course'. The album is full of mashups of Linkin Park and Jay-Z songs and because I was familiar with the Linkin Park songs, which already contained some rap, I feel it eased me into it. The songs also just sounded really good to me.

Around this time, my uncle, who also likes Linkin Park, recommended an album to my dad. The album was Jay-Z and Kanye's 'Watch the Throne'. My dad bought it on I-Tunes and It's the first rap album I remember enjoying.

Despite this I still didn't regard myself as a rap fan strangely enough. I didn't regard it as a phase and if someone asked me what music I liked I probably would have said rock or indie rock.

I really liked Paramore, Fall Out Boy and Panic! at the Disco and I shared each of them with my parents. My dad got into Paramore and my mum into Fall Out Boy. It actually started a relationship of sharing music with my parents which has led to many concerts.

I got my dad into Paramore and he took me to see them in 2013 for my first ever concert. I then got my family into Imagine Dragons and went to see them in the O2 in 2015.

Next was Catfish and The Bottlemen, my new band obsession, thanks to the funny videos of them online and countless interviews, their personality shone through and I fell in love with them. I introduced them to my dad and he also fell in love. We went to see them at the SSE arena on the 15th of November 2016. Exactly a month later we went to see The 1975 as a family at the O2.

My music taste around this time was very much indie and indie rock, however at the this time I also discovered Watsky and Childish Gambino.

I finally considered myself a rap fan after fighting it for so long. I was won over by Watsky's clever and humorous lyrics. His music, while rap, didn't sound anything like mainstream rap I was used to. Becoming a Watsky fan opened me up to listening to other rap - like Childish Gambino. Gambino's music sounded much more similar to the mainstream rap, yet it maintained the same clever lyricism.

I began to appreciate rap a whole lot more once I realised that, in my opinion, most of the rap you hear on the radio and on music channels, isn't good rap. It frustrates me that the bad rap is what gets popular in the mainstream because it discourages young people, like me, from liking rap. If the only rap you hear is repeating lazy rhymes talking about nothing in particular you're so much less likely to become a rap fan. When I realised not all rap is like that, my eyes were opened. Rap can be poetry. Clever lyricism and rhyme can be used to portray important and meaningful messages or to tell a story. Just like that I fell head over heels for the genre I swore I would never like.

After listening pretty much exclusively to Watsky and Childish Gambino and again accepting that I was a fan of rap now. I found Brockhampton and K-pop, more specifically BTS and NCT.

Now at first glance K-pop and rap may not seem to have much cross over - but they do. And if you're still struggling to see it - you don't know K-pop very well. Most every K-pop group has rappers within the group (the rap line) , and a large number of them create and release mix tapes and individual rap music. The likes of which are very good and satisfying to listen to. The sheer skills some of these rappers have is breathtaking, one reviewer of 'August D' even said 'okay so he has gills', blown away by the speed of Min Yoongi's rap flow.

As for Brockhampton - I love them so much and everything they stand for. Honestly, whats more awesome than a band of rappers? Again they have clever and meaningful lyrics. and they touch on so many topics such as, mental health, sexuality, race, rape culture and drug addiction. When I found out one of the friends of the band Kevin Doan nicknamed 'Kpop star' was a big fan of BTS, I just about lost my shit. Since then I have found that there are so many K-pop fans that also like Brockhampton and its quite literally one of my favourite things.

For me, rap gives me that same feeling I used to get from rock. Wanting to go crazy, jumping around my room, shouting the lyrics at the top of my lungs, even if sometimes its just by ear since I don't speak Korean.

Overall this is what my music journey has taught me; You are allowed to like more than one artist / group at the same time, its not a competition. You are allowed to like more than one genre of music at a time. The mainstream representation of a genre is often only a tiny piece of it. You don't have to understand the language in the songs to enjoy the music.

Most importantly; don't let anyone tell you what 'good' music is. We all have different tastes and that's okay. The world will always benefit from more open minds.

Kaitlyn, 5th October 2018