When I Fell in Love with Music

I didn’t fall in love with music on a stage. I fell in love in the passenger seat, watching my mama harmonize with Jill Scott like she wrote the song herself. Those early mornings, she’d drive me to school or swim practice with a CD collection that could teach a master class in soul. Jill, Fantasia, Maze, Alicia Keys, Maxwell. She wasn’t just singing, she was feeling. You could tell by the way her tone changed mid-note, like she was releasing something. The lyrics weren’t just words; they were truth, emotion, memory.

And me? I was just a girl in the passenger seat, studying her the way some people study textbooks.She probably doesn’t know it, but I learned emotion from her, how to let it out, how to feel it fully, through music. Sometimes moms don’t realize how much their rhythm becomes ours.

Years later, I’d be on the school bus, headphones in, crying to Jill Scott’s Honey Molasses. Not heartbreak, just emotion. 

Music made me feel heard, seen, powerful.

Depending on the day, it’s a full-body release or a quiet reminder that I’m still here. My mom’s soundtrack became my blueprint with Golden for confidence, Happy Feelings for joy, and Playing Possum by Maxwell for love.

Then came Kendrick. My first concert. Outdoor venue, Texas heat, mud on my sneakers. Nobody cared because when Chapter Six came on, every single person in that crowd closed their eyes like they were in church. I’ll never forget that. That kind of communion. Shoutout to my friend Kimi, we survived that night on adrenaline and lyrics alone.

Then Kanye showed up in my world. Say what you want, but Through the Wire was proof of genius. To rap through pain, literally, that’s devotion. It told me he wasn’t here for a moment; he was here for generations.

Going back to my senior year, my world expanded. Tyler, The Creator. Paramore. The Killers. Fall Out Boy. My best friend Caitlyn cracked open a whole new genre for me, a little rebellion, a lot of distortion, and every bit of freedom I didn’t know I needed. Then came Lady Gaga bleeding through her costumes across the stage, theatrical and fearless.

All of it, the soul, the hip-hop, the rock, shaped the way I listen.

I’ve always been drawn to production first, lyrics second. Vocals matter, but I care more about how the beat moves. The beat tell me where the emotion lives. The bassline says what the artist won’t.

Songs that still give me chills? Chapter Six by Kendrick. I Wonder by Kanye. Me and My Bitch by Biggie.The second hald of FML by Kanye West. Four tracks that prove feeling can sound different but still hit the same place.

The real turning point came the night Travis Scott dropped Utopia. I was dancing around my apartment, blasting it loud enough to test my neighbor’s patience, when I realized something....Ya'll, I was taking notes. Writing actual critiques about production, lyrics, flow, emotion. Not because I had to, but because I couldn’t not. 

It hit me: I don’t just love music. I study it. I argue with it. I live in it.

And that’s when The Interlude was born.

This isn’t just another music blog, it’s a community for those who hear differently. For the ones who catch the hidden sample, the shift in bass, the emotion behind the ad-lib. I’m not here to be nice about music. I’m here to critique it as a lover of flow, as someone who knows that production is poetry too.

If The Interlude had a sound, it’d be 10 Piece by Wiz Khalifa and Curren$y, smooth, steady, confident. A vibe that doesn’t ask permission to exist.

This one’s for my mama, the woman who unknowingly taught me that music isn’t just heard, It’s felt.

And that feeling? That’s what keeps me here, between the lyrics and the life, right in the middle of The Interlude.

I hope you love The Interlude, the way I love music.