“h.o.p.e” is a song about… well, hope. It stands for Hustle On, Push Everytime, and it's a song about pushing the metaphorical rock of life's hardships and moving forward no matter what. I started writing the song one night after a really long day of trying to get all my taxes filed, and I was lying in bed going through samples on Tracklib (a well-known music sampling library in the music industry). As I was going through samples, I heard some really good contenders, but nothing matched the vibe I envisioned in my head. All of a sudden, I stumbled on a song called “Push the Rock” by Magic in Threes and Amber Woodhouse, and my fatigue from the day instantly washed away. I got out of bed immediately and went to my basement, where my home studio was, to start working on the song. After chopping it up and pitching the sample down, I knew I had to include the part that sang “Push the rock” and “Don't stop” because it complemented the direction of the song I wanted to take. As I started writing and recording the lyrics, the thought that stuck in my head was to make something upbeat and catchy, so if someone that was having a bad day or battling their demons listened to the song, they would immediately feel like they had the energy to push through their struggles and move forward. During the lyrical writing process for “h.o.p.e”, I came to realize a lot of understandings about how we as artists can figure out what we hope for and live in it. The first conclusion I came to is expressed in the first line in the song: “Fell in love with a b**** named hopeless / She never saw the wave she hopped, hoped homeless (homeless) / I hope that she never gets a moment (moment) / And I hope I make a milli in the mornin' (mornin')” Although these lines may seem like a playful choice of alliteration, I rapped them to personify hopelessness and illustrate that there were points in my life where I felt entwined with it. After experiencing how toxic she (hopelessness) really is, I want nothing to do with her so I can stay committed to the hustle. As artists, we have to lose hopelessness before we can start to figure out what we hope for, so when it's time to finally live in that hope, we are not restricted by our thought patterns of doubt. Another understanding that was realized while I was writing the song is how, as artists, we figure out what we hope for by living and expressing ourselves through our own truth. In the bridge, when I say, “Hope you know that the truth is an object / Hope you know it’s a tool I got hostage / Hope these n***** don’t know it’s a highjack,” I wanted to bring home how liberating it feels to be your authentic self, and by doing so, it will attract the right people you need in your life and push away others who were never meant to stay. Hope is a wish derived from deep within your truth, so in order to see it come to fruition, you need to surround yourself with people who accept you and also not be afraid to use that truth to get what you want. But out of everything I came to understand, the one that stuck with me the most was this: Hope shouldn’t be seen as complicated — it’s meant to be the one simple thing we can hold onto amidst all of life’s complexities. When I sang the part in the bridge that says “Relax let it find you / Lean back let it find you / Lock in let it find you / Work hard let it find you”, I really wanted to emphasize that as artists, our life experiences shape who we are, and the path to success gets clearer the more we lock in, work hard, and stay focused. Producing, writing, and performing this song helped me reflect on past life experiences and made me reevaluate what my hopes are in life. Hope is a word that gets thrown around so nonchalantly, but as I was writing the song and figuring out what I hoped for in life, there were times I sat in my studio just daydreaming about my own future and past. For example, when I wrote the second verse to “h.o.p.e.”, I wrote about an experience that had a lasting impact on me. Earlier this year, a client booked a session at the studio I run with my colleague. He was around my age, same skin color, and cared a lot about his music, just like I did. However, he came two hours late, high on a ton of drugs, and did even more during the session. When it was time to pay, he said he didn’t have the full amount. He acted like he was broke, but I knew the money he had wasn’t for me — it was to help feed his addiction. I wanted to tell him he was better than that, but I don't think he would have listened to me in the state he was in. After that experience, I knew I wanted to write about it. That was the first time I had ever had an encounter like that. I wasn’t sure where it would fit, but when I started working on this song, the story naturally found its place. Overall, as a young Black artist with influence, no matter how big or small, I have a responsibility to speak my truth through music for others and for myself. Music is the way the hope inside me speaks, and if I keep living in it, I know it will take me far.