Meditating to Dead Rappers

I really like listening to dead rappers.

It is partly because I like their music, but the being dead part is also important.

Death is the only thing that stops us from just whinging about how hard life is.

The more we can be reminded of death, the less likely we are to be lil’ bitches about how cold it is today or how sore our collective backs are. The Stoics called this Memento Mori, what we now call death meditation.

When wisdom is thousands of years old it usually means you shouldn’t change it, but I believe wisdom should be adapted to its time.

This is where the dead rappers come in, what I like to call Memento Mori Music.

Why can’t I be mindful while listening to Biggie talking about money, hoes n clothes?

*I pause briefly to envision Seneca head-bopping to Big L*

This is what Big Mindfulness don’t want you to know. Doing a 20-minute meditation focussing on your own death sounds fucking hard, but you know what sounds like a vibe?

Putting your headphones on and blasting Smells Like Teen Spirit, thinking about how incredible it is that a 27-year-old can leave such a lasting impact on the world.

Instead of the Stoic practice of thinking about your own death in a quiet room, you can do it on a dance floor surrounded by people.

You can tap your foot to Marvin Gaye while waiting in line, wondering how a father can shoot his own son.

The second lesson I take from bumping the beats of the deceased is that there is no end-state of success.

We spend a lot of energy thinking about that time in the future when everything will be in its perfect little box.

That our happiness is somehow waiting for us sometime in a mythical future where we have more money or more of something we can’t define today.

The dead rappers I listen to often died at the peak of their careers. Mac Miller, Biggie, Tupac.

We might have many bright days ahead of us, but we are never guaranteed to live them.

Sometimes I find myself awaiting a future where I will be happier. Sometimes I justify the sadness of today because soon all will be well. I remind myself that all these creators were there, they had money and fame and adoration, but they fucking died.

They had their own struggles that I will never appreciate. It reminds me that no matter how much success I achieve, I’ll always have suffering, so I might as well get better at dealing with it today rather than imagining a world where it goes away.

Biggie died at 24. Twenty-fucking-four.

His album Life After Death was released a few weeks after he got shot and immortalised him.

That album is full of absolute bangers, songs he wrote knowing that people would listen to them long after he was gone.

What he could never have known is when he was going to die. That’s one of the few things Biggie and I have in common. We can’t know when we will die.

This is the final lasting lesson of Memento Mori Music; creating is the only way to guarantee a life after death.

Yes, it is true that we change the direction of the whole world each day. By smiling at someone on the street you impact the universe in ways you will never know.

But after you die, you are reduced to an echo. You are found in the memories of the living and occasionally transmitted.

It is only by creation that we can live forever. Don’t get that sentence twisted, I do not mean heaven or an afterlife, I mean that by creating we immortalise parts of our soul.

Voldemort has his seven Horcruxes; maybe you have a child. For now, I have 34 Substack articles and couple podcast episodes. These are all a part of me.

Time capsules of what I once was, or currently am. By issuing them to the world, I live forever.

Sure, most people won’t care about what I have to say, but I will exist to be revisited. Revisited in my own words, not interpreted through fading memories.

Many of my favourite authors died long before I was born, but they are born again as I turn their pages.

I can choose to believe the same will be true for me, even if it is a hopeless dream.

I am not Camus or Orwell, but I can perhaps die with a slight smile on my face knowing there’s a non-zero chance of someone in the distant future reading my words and thinking damn, maybe if I begin to create I can be like Jords was someday.

Non-zero, what a beautiful concept.

Listening to dead rappers reminds me of the non-zero. Every time I step into a car or walk into the doctor’s office, the non-zero chance of death knocks at the door.

It is certain that I will die, but through creating, I have a non-zero chance of living forever.