Week 5 Story: Pac's Guide to Music

Pac's Guide to Music

One day Kendrick was casually walking home from school listening to his rap music as usual when he saw an all-black note book laying on the side of a bench. Being curious Kendrick gradually walked over to the book and picked it up noticing the first page to say, “Pac’s Guide to Music”. Kendrick knew he had to be home soon so he just put the book in his back pack and began making his way home again.

When Kendrick got home and was done with his chores, he decided to flip through the book some more. Kendrick couldn’t believe his eyes as he began reading. The book started with how to set up the perfect song and then lead into songs that “Pac” had written. Kendrick being a huge fan of rap music realized that this book was his golden ticket to success. Kendrick thought he had found his calling and way to get out of the town he knew would lead him to a poor lifestyle. He knew that this book was more of an art rather than a guide of making music.

Kendrick started to study the book for hours and hours each day. He did his best to memorize every word on the page. He even realized that in the bottom right corner of each page of the book said, “Thug Life” and that is how he started living his life. He learned how to put syllables and rhyme schemes together to where he could start writing his own rap music. Kendrick practiced and practiced making music until he got the confidence to perform in front of others. Everyone thought Kendrick was a genius and encouraged Kendrick to enter the rap battle that was coming up.

So, Kendrick gathered the courage and money to enter the Rap Battle being held at the shelter nearby.

Feeling pumped and ready to go Kendrick showed up to the venue only to see that his first opponent’s name was “Pac”.

“There is no way this could be the same guy” Kendrick thought to himself.

Well the time had come when Kendrick was to battle where he went to the stage and saw “Pac”. He was standing there confident with a clean bald head, his shirt off, and the biggest smile across his face as if he knew he was going to beat Kendrick.

The DJ held a coin flip to decide who went first and Pac won.

“Let’s hit em up, I’ll go first” Pac said as Kendrick slowly began to realize what he was in for.

The beat dropped and Pac began rapping what seemed to be the best verse that Kendrick had ever heard. It was just like the style of rap that was in the book he had found. At the end of the verse, Pac ripped his shirt off only to expose his giant tattoo of “Thug Life” written crossed his belly.

A illustration of the words "Thug Life" found on Pixabay. These words are tatted on Pac's belly in the story. 

Once finished, Pac walked over and gave the mic to Kendrick but without anyone hearing he said, “Keep the book”.

Kendrick was in shock as if God was speaking to him. As the beat started Kendrick was completely silent and the only noise for what seemed forever was the beat.

Kendrick just shook his head in disbelief with what had happened forced the words “I need to work harder” as he handed the mic over to the DJ.

Author’s Note:

This story is based off “The Jackal and the Crocodile” written by Cecil Henry Bompas. In “The Jackal and the Crocodile” a boy loses his books to a Jackal who goes home to read the books. A crocodile over hears the jackal reading the books and asks for the jackal to teach his children how to read and write. Agreeing, the jackal tries to teach the baby crocodiles but they just can’t seem to learn any of what he is teach so the jackal gets mad. Getting so mad one day he decides to eat one of the baby crocodiles, and doing the same with each new day. The adult crocodile nervous of losing his children then asks to see his kids where the Jackal tricked him into thinking they were all fine, but the crocodile decided to hide and make sure this was the case. The crocodile saw that only one child remained so he saved his baby crocodile and ate the jackal. Although this story is very different, the idea of the book being taken by someone else and that person being fooled was the main aspect of my story. I wanted the jackal to be symbolized by Kendrick, and I wanted Pac to symbolize the book/crocodile in a sense. Overall in this loose interpretation, I wanted a modernized story of a book leading to one’s downfall yet I wanted there to still be hope for Kendrick in the future unlike the Jackal.

Bibliography:

Folklore of the Santal Parganas by Cecil Henry Bompas (1909). The story "The Jackal and the Crocodile" can be found here.