“NOT FRAGILE LIKE A FLOWER, FRAGILE LIKE BOMB” A COLUMN BY KATE TAYLOR

The world as Kate Taylor encoun­ters it, Views it, hears it, fears it, and loves it. As Jean Paul Sartre stated, “Hell is oth­er people”. The proof of the pud­ding is in the eat­ing. I decided that I would chart my recov­ery, plus that of the world around me, and our read­er­ship. Let’s see what we find!

This is a time of fresh starts for me. I have been on a jour­ney, and it con­tin­ues ad infin­itum. That jour­ney can be a lonely battle at times and as I sit here alone late at night, I admit, I am lonely. Very lonely. That is a very vul­ner­able thing to admit at times but I’m sure it echoes and resounds, the intim­acy of it often unspoken but I find what helps is shar­ing and writ­ing. The inspir­a­tion­al words by Anne Frank, in her fam­ous quote as she hid from the Nazis, says it more elo­quently than I could say. “I can shake off everything as I write, my sor­rows dis­ap­pear, my cour­age is reborn”.

I am a writer and I find cath­arsis as my words hit the page. I have just left hos­pit­al after four months of recov­ery for an epis­ode of my men­tal health con­di­tion, and the hard part is now. Get­ting back into life, into the world. I would like to share that jour­ney with you in a reg­u­lar column. I chose the title, a quote often attrib­uted to Freda Kahlo, to show the strength we har­bour even when it may appear the oppos­ite. This holds even more strength due to the recent Inter­na­tion­al Women’s Day.

I also want to show the con­cur­rent growth in I am Hip Hop magazine and try to engage more people on a per­son­al level. They have touched my life and I want to illus­trate the heal­at­ive power of music and con­nectiv­ity. I came across the magazine by chance, I can’t really even remem­ber my intro­duc­tion, but it has been a beau­ti­ful inclu­sion in my life.

I remem­ber laugh­ing once because Rishma shared exper­i­ences and where people react with shock that an Indi­an woman was edit­ing a Hip Hop magazine. The same applies to me. The reac­tion I get when I say I write for a Hip Hop magazine being a Jew­ish girl from North Lon­don is usu­ally one of bemuse­ment and shock.

But these assump­tions, when we truly think about it, go against the grain about what Hip Hop was con­ceived about in the first place. Hip Hop  was seen as a social move­ment to give a voice to the voice­less and also break down bar­ri­ers regard­ing ste­reo­types and social struc­tures.  I love all music. And I think that the music I love all has a place here no mat­ter what genre because it is about open­ing up to dif­fer­ent voices and air­ing ideas which oth­er­wise would not be heard, be it on a big­ger scale, polit­ic­ally or on a smal­ler levels just express­ing emotions.

I am Hip Hop magazine has helped me in so many ways. My men­tal health has improved so much just through the con­fid­ence that see­ing your work pub­lished and the raw truth I have some­times shared being accep­ted rather than rejected.

As Oliv­er Sacks said “the mind has a great­er capa­city for music than words alone”. I wish to share the soundtrack to my recov­ery, my jour­ney, my obser­va­tions that say more about writ­ing in just a few minutes. So the track at this moment that speaks aloud about my past struggles with addic­tion is by Colic­ch­ie Drug called Addic­tion. Raw, hon­est, brave. But it’s mes­sage shows that shame and the taboo around these issues by jump­ing feet first, it allows oth­ers to feel more safe in artic­u­lat­ing simply that which both has blown me away and on a less­er level taught me daily know­ledge that I nev­er thought I’d find.

So this first column to me, admit­tedly I was so happy to have a struc­tured role in this magazine and was quite excited but then the con­fid­ence dropped. I have writ­ten in the past but I was dev­ast­ated to have to leave what I loved so much, my dream gone and I nev­er worked again, not for 15 years. I am not money ori­ent­ated. Music has quite simply saved my life, if there is no going back, for instance when my fam­ily split up I was dif­fer­ent. I was so dev­ast­ated yet I didn’t know how to express how I felt. Now through music, I am on a jour­ney to find myself and that will be life long.

“And those who were seen dan­cing were con­sidered insane by those who could not hear the music” (Friedrich Nietzsche).

I would love, via this, for oth­er read­ers to send in com­ments on music that is touch­ing them so we can engage more per­son­ally with our readership.

Get Involved! Tweet us your com­ments @iamhiphopmag1 or email us.