Hip Hop and Mindfulness: J.Cole’s KOD.
I get it. Mindfulness and meditation can be boring. I wasn’t always the biggest fan of it either.
So I had to be real. If I couldn’t stand it as a youth, why would I expect the youth to stand it when working with me? Enter hip hop.
J.Cole, photographed by Stephen Leonardi
When J.Cole released his album KOD in 2018, something inside of me shifted. I was working a job that drained me, angry at capitalism and its pull on everyone around me, and was looking for the purpose in my life (which I knew revolved around people, but couldn’t pinpoint just yet). Then I heard the opening introduction to the album - I was riveted.
This is the album that propelled me to formalize my mindfulness career and business. It taught me that I could combine all parts of myself into one whole when engaging with my career path, and authentic self. That’s why it was so important for me to combine mindfulness and hip hop for the classroom.
KOD starts with a simple premise:
A newborn baby has two primary modes of communication
Laughter, which says, "I love this"
Or crying, which says, "This frightens me, I'm in pain"
Life can bring much pain
There are many ways to deal with this pain
Choose wisely
Everyone single one of us is represented by this newborn baby, and we react in similar ways when we feel love and pain. While we love to experience love and its affiliated feelings and sensations, we don’t hold the same reverence and amicability for pain. KOD explains this through our penchant for substance abuse.
Pain can be defined in a variety of ways. I like to think of it
as discomfort that we feel in the body, the mind, and for some folks, in the spirit or energy. This can be a feeling of nausea in the stomach, the clenching of our jaws during stress, or even goosebumps on the back of the neck when encountering someone who gives you “a bad vibe”.
Pain can also be called suffering, as it’s known in Buddhist and Hindu circles. While this suffering might sound like a negative thing, it doesn’t always have to be. We can view suffering as something communal (which, incidentally, is helpful in decolonizing our wellness) as everyone on this planet deals with some sort of pain. This is pain that we all go through, so we need not try to hide it. We can meet our suffering and the suffering of others with kindness, compassion and love.
KOD defines our need for mindfulness and meditation quite succinctly - we must “choose wisely” when dealing with our physical and mental discomforts. Mindfulness is a method by which we can deal with this pain. When we meet our pain, wounds, or discomforts, we give ourselves the opportunity to enter those wounds with love and kindness. When we choose other avenues, like substances and substance abuse, we don’t meet our wounds - we numb them instead. Too much numbing and the body begins to recognize this numbness as your default mode and settles into it too comfortably. If you like to get high, or drunk and find yourself endlessly craving the experience that both substances produce for you, it might be time to “choose wisely.”
Students in my hip hop and mindfulness session learn the basic history, definitions and science behind mindfulness and meditation. We use the conversation about being present to follow along with the lyrics in KOD. We have a guided discussion about the lyrics, the music, and key themes that we pick up on throughout the album. We discuss how the ‘characters’ in KOD are feeling, what sensations the characters are going though in body and mind, and what tools they’re using to numb these feelings and disregard their pain. I love this combination because we take mindfulness, music analysis, and critical thinking, and satisfy a variety of teacher expectations while listening to hip hop.
Most students come alive when doing group work with their peers - and listening in on their discussions is always eye opening. The youth I’ve been able to work with are so introspective, and are able to discuss the music of KOD from multiple viewpoints. While I give each group a series of questions to help guide their discussions, they often take their group work even further. I leave each session in awe of their inherent mindfulness and knowledge.
Making Mindfulness Intersectional Again.
The mindfulness and meditation business in North America is often very white adjacent, even while it draws on Pan-Asian practices and knowledges. I abhor that. By introducing hip hop and mindfulness history into these sessions, we broaden the horizons of mindfulness and what it can be in Anglophonic places, and pay homage to these roots. Mindfulness through Hip Hop becomes a decolonial act - one that I’m very excited to be a part of.
KOD is part of the reason I decided to become a wellness practitioner. This album taught me that I could bring all facets of my personality to the work that I do. I’m so honoured to be bringing mindfulness and hip hop together while supporting students as they learn about how to incorporate mindfulness into their lifestyles.
Choose wisely.
The above images share snippets from our session - students study the album and its lyrics, analyze the key themes of the album, perform mindful exercises, and learn about how humans manage or disregard their pain. We come full circle when we work with different mindfulness practices to manage or “deal with this pain”.
