Friday, April 13, 2018

Very Important Biracial: Logic


Montgomery County, MD has always been foremost amongst my happy places. It's been a blessing growing up here, in one of the country's most diverse and generally liberal areas, and in these volatile times, I've tried to regain that sense of comfort and joy, which led to me revisiting the music of a hip-hop artist that goes by the stage name Logic.

Even though I'm not a rap fan, I was inspired to hear the tunes of a black/white biracial rapper who was also from Montgomery County and could possibly speak a bit to that experience in general and particularly from an area where our population is seemingly sparse. Upon my first listening,  I was quite impressed with a style, that although influenced by elders of modern hip-hop such as Kendrick Lamar, had its own unique twist and some lyrics to which I could relate, while also speaking to the wider human existence.

Although the life of Sir Robert Bryson Hall II, born in Gaithersburg, MD to a white mother and black father, was puncuated by a great appreciation for music, it was also marked by his mother's severe addiction issues and racism towards her own mixed-race son, which fostered deep issues of identity and other trauma. This in turn has been reflected in Logic's artistry, primarily regarding his background and having grown up in such rough circumstances. Beginning with his self-titled mixtape debut in 2009, to two gold and one platinum-certified studio albums, up to his most current work, his seventh mixtape, Mr. Hall is taking lemons and turning them into deftly poetic lemonade.