JENNI D. • GET RICH OR DIE TRYIN’

I was writing raps at 19-years-old, sitting at my mom’s desktop computer. For as long as I can remember, music has been the thing I turned to whenever I needed an outlet to express myself. It is funny, because I used to think I could sing (I could and cannot) and when I would write songs, I would write them with a singer’s voice in mind. Oddly enough, when I first heard this one rapper’s music that had many of the qualities I appreciated, I got sucked in. He was handsome and talented. I shouldn’t have even been thinking about him in that way, because I was so young but I couldn’t help it.

50 Cent’s Get Rich or Die Tryin’ came out in 2003 and that’s what ultimately compelled me to tell my own story through poetry and music. At the time, my mom was married to my brother’s father at the time, and that was the only album that he would play. Morning, noon, and night he would play that album; and I would see the music videos on TV when I came home from school. The first song I remember having everybody in a headlock was “In Da Club.” Seeing how people would react whenever that song would come on sparked something in me, because I knew I wanted to make people feel the same way. I can’t even remember that much from 2003, I was seven or eight, but that is when I knew. That album sparked the writer in me and awakened the performer and artist I ultimately want to be. Eighteen years later, I’m Jenni motherf****** D, so I would really have to give that credit to Get Rich or Die Tryin’.