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

By Kate Taylor • On Health And Wellbeing

Art­work by Jay Mor­ally — Founder of Art Col­lect­ive @seduced_by_art

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.

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Kate Taylor

Kate Taylor is a Lon­don based writer whose Interests are based primar­ily on music and art and also the philo­sophies and polit­ics that accom­pany them. In addi­tion she has an Msc in psy­cho­logy, has worked as a ther­ap­ist, and paints abstract art pieces.

About Kate Taylor

Kate Taylor is a London based writer whose Interests are based primarily on music and art and also the philosophies and politics that accompany them. In addition she has an Msc in psychology, has worked as a therapist, and paints abstract art pieces.