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Wednesday, April 10, 2019 // The Statement
BY JOE JUAREZ
The young rapper:
rapping to sucess
Y
o, wassup folks!!! It’s $KingJ$ (rapper name) and I’m
gonna write about how and why I started rapping.
Back in 7th grade, I met a new teacher. The class-
room was filled with 31 students, and I wasn’t familiar with
any of them except for two friends. I was anxious about not
knowing anyone, so I kept away from most conversations.
However, the teacher was nice and supportive about students’
writing, and she made us do easy homework.
During third quarter, the entire class had to do a presenta-
tion about huge events that happened around the world. There
were a few options to present. One that I chose was rap lyrics
because it was one of the easiest to do. Since I was nervous and
thought people would judge me, the teacher let me present it to
her privately after school. The topic of my rap was Hurricane
Katrina. Talking about something sad and serious made me
feel like I was showing empathy. She told me the lyrics were
good and gave me a C or a B, but I don’t remember exactly
what grade I got. This kinda motivated me to do more lyrics
like this.
In the summer, I made some more rap lyrics and posted
some of them on Instagram. I got a couple more likes than I
expected. I also showed my online friends and they said, “Yo
that’s fire bruh.” I started listening to other artists such as Lil
Skies, Logic, Juice WRLD, XXXTentacion, Tekashi69 and
Marshmello, and they motivated me to be more positive, so I
started writing lyrics with positivity. I grew up being Catholic
and knowing God would protect me from the bad things that
could happen in my life or to the people I love. These rappers
and my religion inspired me to make better lyrics.
I also rap in Spanish because I’m learning it, and if I try to
make lyrics in Spanish I’ll learn it faster. My parents are Mex-
ican and always speak Spanish to me. I talk to them in Eng-
lish, but if I talk in Spanish, they’ll be proud of me. After a trip
from Canada, they bought a CD filled with songs that were in
Spanish, and I thought it was cool when they had rap mixed
with Spanish lyrics. It had a happy-mood type beat and the
song was in fluent Spanish. The song was talking about forget-
ting the people who hate you, and starting to live life the way
you want to. This was the first song I heard from the rapper
Farruko. From this moment, I started including Spanish lyr-
ics in some of my other songs.
The way I make my lyrics is by giving myself more energy.
This one time, I was in a boxing class and I was thinking of
some topics to rap about. Instead, I started thinking of some
lyrics, and it was like freestyling in my mind. I then realized
that if I have adrenaline flowing faster, I have more energy to
think of words and rhymes. I memorized the lines and went
back home and started writing them. The song was called
“Manifesto” and it was about some of the things I do to make
the bad things go away.
The next one I wrote was inspired by the song by Roddy
Ricch and Marshmello called “Project Dreams.” One of the
lines I heard was “got 25 thousand on me” I think. I started
thinking about how I would get more money if I worked hard-
er. Sometimes, I would work so hard that I would need a break,
and I took breaks by trying something new or doing a hobby.
One of those times was when I was in my room on a Thursday
night, studying for a test for history that I was anxious about.
I would be worried about studying all the information or get-
ting a bad grade on the test. I would go take a break in the liv-
ing room, hang out with the family, or take a walk outside and
feel the fresh air. Here are the lyrics:
These were two of my song lyrics that express my feelings in
a way. I like rapping because it’s basically poetry and poetry
rhymes.
Put a beat over it, and there’s straight bars.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY JOE JUAREZ
Writing with Ashley
BY ASHLEY REYES HERRERA
A
few days ago, when I woke up, I went to the kitchen and my mom was there with the radio playing “The Middle.”
I took a peek through the gate, and there I saw my dog Sully. Sully is small and has light fur, big eyes and a cute
little nose. She also does not like getting flipped on her belly.
I saw her dancing. She was shaking her head and tail
up, down, right and left. Then, I went to the kitchen and
turned off the radio. Then she saw me and stared at me.
When she was staring at me, I felt like she was a little ner-
vous because I was watching her. I also felt like she was
mad because she kept on staring at me for a long time. I like
to dance, too, but not in front of people.
I opened the gate. Then, I picked up her blue ball and
threw it. She went to get it, and when she came to me, I put
my hand in front of her. She dropped the ball in my hand.
After this happened, I took a nap and I dreamed about
Sully’s talent and that she would be a good avi dog. She
could be an avi dog that lives in the mountains and protects
people from avalanches.
O
ne day, when I was at school, my teacher
handed me a Scholastic News because we
were picking partners and doing our work
with each other. I choose my best friend, Jasmine.
When we opened the Scholastic News to the first page,
we saw some facts about George Washington. We both
read one, and I read that George Washington did not
actually want to be president. He did it anyway, even
though he did not want to. The next fact that Jasmine
read was that he got really sick a lot. He had lots of dis-
eases so that is how he died.
I
t was the day of Halloween, and my teacher told me
and my class that we could dress up as what we would
be wearing on Halloween. After school, I put on my
costume and went out trick or treating. Outside, it was
very dark and the houses were spooky. Lots of people were
dressed up in different costumes. I saw a man in a creepy
clown costume. He was wearing a hat on his head that was
all black, a red suit, and googly eyes on his glasses like a
creepy mad scientist clown. I was on the sidewalk, and there
were fog machines so I couldn’t see anything. It made me
feel like someone was coming after me. I like Halloween
because I like getting the chance to dress up.
ILLUSTRATIONS BY ASHLEY REYES HERRERA
Thinking about green
technology from my
school bus
BY OGI VASSILEV
D
ear Humanoid Beings of The Universe,
Okay, before I start, I want you to think — should
we make green technology to prepare for a world with no oil,
or make green technology after there is no oil? On March 11,
2019, I was reading an article about green energy technology
and how we could transform the world into a much healthier
one for my generation. Lately, I have been looking out from the
window of my school bus at the world outside and seeing that
our cars, trucks and other vehicles are making our happy blue
world into a depressingly dark one. It scares me to think that I
could encounter really bad catastrophes, live with unhealthy
animals, or have to breathe through a gas mask, knowing that
the past generation did this to me and future generations.
I don’t believe it’s too late to change the vision of a depress-
ing dark world into a blue one. We could create new materials
that are soft and cheap, but still really strong. We could create
new plants, and maybe even new creatures! I know, it sounds
like something that is too far into the future, but we’re so far
with using technology that, when you think about, it’s not an
impossible dream.
I’m that typical fantasy nerd who’s always sitting in the
corner thinking about new fantasy things.
Some things that I’ve thought of are
exoskeletons for people who maybe
don’t have certain limbs, robots that
could work similar to the Hulkbuster
from Infinity War and other weird sci-
ence fiction things.
Anyway, as
I was saying, we
could use
the sun’s ener-
gy to power the
sonic thrust-
ers in rockets
and
propel
them to new gal-
axies, or
even new parallel worlds. Worlds that
have never had a single war. Worlds
where there is always peace and dino-
saurs were never extinct.
Like the Swedish 16-year-old Greta
Thunberg, a climate change
activist who inspired me to
stand up for the environment, I will hopefully live on this
planet for 85 years. It will be my parents and elders who will
decide how my generation will live in the future. Finding out
about Greta was a great moment because she motivated me to
fully open my jar of thoughts. The first time I saw Greta was
on screen while watching CNN 10 in school, and I felt like
that typical superhero who discovered their superpower. I felt
this way because I knew I wasn’t the only one with a desire to
want to skip school and go in front of the White House to yell,
“BUILD GREEN TECHNOLOGY NOW!”
Anyway back on track, let’s talk green technology — you
know that cheesy Sprint Wi-Fi ad with the giant robot tell-
ing you only the good things about Sprint? I’m not doing that.
What I am doing is telling both bad and good things about
green technology. So, some bad things about green technol-
ogy is that it is too expensive. It uses so much money that
maybe taxes will be raised and famine may start to occur
in unexpected places, and that might cause some problems
with the government. Also, the thing that most bugs me about
renewable technology is the question of it just shutting down.
What if all the technology shutdown and we stopped having
energy? We would have no fridge, no stove, and most of all, the
car you drive to get that amazing bag of Flamin’ Hot Cheetos
you wanted to get would not work.
Green technology is good…and bad, but hey, what’s to
lose when we are running out of oil? This means I won’t
have gas to cook that secret recipe my mom’s been telling
me about. You know, lets come back to the question in the
begin-
ning: Should we make green technology
and prepare before there is no oil, or
make green technology after there is
no oil? In the meantime, let’s think
about how we’re going to save the
future generations from the biggest
villains
like famine, disease, loss of respect, global
warming, polarization and most of people’s ignorance to
this fatal problem that might conclude the human race.
So before you finish reading this article and start play-
ing on the Doodle Jump app, just think that one simple
change in the industry world could change the world.
Sincerely,
The Future Generation
ILLUSTRATION BY LANCE MCLAIN
Over the past month, The Statement
worked with three 826michigan students
to produce the articles on this page. The
students pitched and wrote their own sto-
ries, drew their illustrations, and helped
lay out their page for print. Please take
your time reading these works by promis-
ing young writers, the vanguard of narra-
tive journalism.
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Avi dog
George
Washington
Halloween