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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.
|

Avi dog

George 
Washington

Halloween

