Track review by Jessica Brant
It’s not until the progression of the track jolts your chest that you fully feel the effect of this Hillsboro, Texas MC’s grim but head-bumping track, which is accompanied by a true to life visual.
The Deep South solemn slur in J’Moris’ rap envelops you in the way that a tragic love story does. You’re invested in the characters, their lives, their dreams. When you know where the outcome is headed, you still feel devastated even though you saw it coming. That’s how I feel listening to J’Moris tell his story. But I don’t feel bad for him. I feel alive for him, alive inside his memories even though they might be torture.
Tucked away from the glib smooth talking of his rap persona is a harrowing narrator who recounts what it is like growing up in the streets with a drug-addicted mother. Accepting the hand he’s been dealt, the MC humbly asks God to watch over him despite the hardships he’s been through. Hard lives can create hard people, but in order to survive you have to learn to sit in the acceptance of your own truths, a treading theme of the video.
In one chilling line he reveals, “Growing up I never had shit…dreaded life so I grew my hair out…trying to ride above the street life and take the path of the curb.” Not everyone is afforded a life of luxury. Not everyone is going to own a big house and a fancy car. Good things happen to some but not all. But how you translate your truth into an existence beyond circumstances, beyond class, beyond a number, a name or a societal group think, is how you tell a story to others that allows you to cement a legacy.
Real artists choose artistry because they want their stories to live on even after they’re gone. What makes J’Moris stand out from other rappers is that he lives what he’s writing and he feels what he’s writing. I don’t think many other artists attempting to fiercely compete in an industry comprised mostly of assembly line Fetty Waps and Lil Yachtys can say the same.