Finally, last week was my first real session of my course within a prison, at which point seven medium-security inmates with integrated into our class of fifteen college students. After discussing my uneasiness about using musical interests as a sort of icebreaker topic amongst the group, I was feeling pretty anxious when the topic came up. To my surprise, music did not prove to be a dividing factor among us (Instead, sports did. There was much rivalry about which baseball or football team to support) but as a casual mid-ground for conversation. I think that generally, most of us were able to anticipate our classmates’ responses as to musical preference prior to actually hearing them voice their opinions, and only a few times were we caught off-guard by interesting, unique musical tastes. Our professor fessed up to preferring Tu Pac over all rap artists, a few of the inmates shared their like for popular hip-hop artists such as Lil Wayne, and other students surprised us with their interest in classical, country, and sometimes even jazz music. With such an immense variety of musical tastes within a small classroom housing only twenty-three people, it would have been very hard to let these differences stand between us. Our group allowed these differences to bring us together and generate discussion. I spent a good amount of time comparing Brand New to a mile-long list of other bands they occasionally remind me of to give others an idea of how they sound. All in all, this conversation about music leveled the playing field and brought us all together, if just briefly, in the same world of pop culture. We made small talk surrounding the recent Kanye West/Taylor Swift/Beyonce controversy at the MTV Video Music Awards and our professor jokingly boasted, “Beyonce won hands down.” This entire conversation was very humbling and unbelievably fair; it was able to alleviated any tension which may have existed within our classroom and made us all classmates equally, rather than college students and prison inmates respectively.
Now, I must admit I didn’t even watch the VMAs this year, but this entire fiasco has gotten so much coverage, that if you wanted seen the video by now, it’s time you do. I’d like to hear your opinion on this as well. What do you think about artists publicly picking and choosing favorites? What is your reaction to Kanye’s statements?
Post by Jillian Polak - Meet Me
A 21 year-old, full-time student at The College of New Jersey, majoring in Journalism/Professional Writing with a minor in Women's and Gender Studies. At TCNJ, she is a Co-Chair for CUBRat and is responsible for booking small-scale, intimate shows as part of a free concert series at the College.
