My Personal Music Culture

Hey, I'm Karan Bhatt, and I am a freshman at Converse University as a part of the co-ed transition. I like to think Converse chose me to come here rather than the other way around because I am an E-sports athlete for the school. I compete under the title "Valorant", a 5v5 tactical shooter with about fifteen different agents with their own diverse abilities/powers. My goal with Converse University is to pursue a further education in the field of computer science and use the athletic opportunity to make connections in the E-sports industry.

The journey to Converse University was not a tedious one as I've lived in Charlotte, North Carolina since I could form memories. I've seen south Charlotte grow from a small area with few places to go to, into a busy suburban area with supermarkets, restaurants, and the addition of apartments into the area over housing. I, of course, love the area I grew up in but I am excited for a change in scenery and a little distance from the everyday traffic in every area of Charlotte.

I cannot go without music in my life, especially while I am doing any sort of work. I have a very specific genre of music, hip hop. I enjoy the upbeat, fast paced, and more lyrical style that hip hop brings with it. My current go to in the beginning of a playlist has to be "Family Ties" by Baby Keem and Kendrick Lamar. This song, which was actually released recently, has such a good mix of flows in it from both Kendrick and Keem. It also has a good mix between Keem being hype and just rapping with subtle meaning to his lyrics and then Kendrick coming in and bringing in a more meaningful bar. It is a Goldilocks song for me because I love being incorporated into the mind of the artist and the creation of the song, but also enjoy just vibing with a song and not really paying attention to it. But, at the end of the day I am just a huge Kendrick Lamar fan and this feature means that he will release his own singles soon, so “Family Ties” will be on repeat until then.

On the topic of lyricists, NF is definitely my favorite artist at the moment. Everything NF writes has a meaning behind it and there is always substance to his songs, whether it is about his own personal life or about the industry in general. Additionally, I found NF prior to my trip to Europe, more specifically France and Spain, in around 2018 before travel was a literal death wish. Safe to say that I was blasting “Perception”, an album NF released in 2017, on every chance I could get in between destinations. Indirectly this led to me having a more personal link to “Perception” and almost every song on it. I could pick any song from the album and I could probably relate it to a memory of the trip. For example, “Intro III” was the main song I would listen to on train rides and flights. The album is more of a time capsule for me and I feel way more connected to the album because of it.

Ironically on the other side of the spectrum I cannot really enjoy or even really listen to Bollywood music. I have grown up around it, as it is everywhere in Indian entertainment. I do not know how to really describe it to someone who is not familiar with the language but it just feels repetitive. It feels like there is a standard structure of music that each song uses and that is what they have stuck to for years, leading to popular songs, but very very repetitive ideologies. Lyrics are very important to me in a song and Bollywood has one message they always repeat and never stray from, the idea of love. There is almost always a love interest in any Indian movie you watch and accompanied by it is a choreographed dance/song that goes along with it. Watch one of these music videos and you have the idea of 90% of what Bollywood music is.