Who Is Tauran Wyse's Dream?

Jay z once said, “Identity is a prison you can never escape, but the way to redeem your past is not to run from it, but to try to understand it, and use it as a foundation to grow.” This is essentially what Tauran Wyse did as he discovered his gift for rapping. With each obstacle he overcame, he started to understand the man he was supposed to be. And with the help of music, he has figured out how to become that man.

Tauran Wyse was raised on many different types of music genres, but the one that stuck out the most was hip hop. A mixed kid raised in between Mocksville and Winston-Salem, North Carolina, that always had a passion for writing and music, had transformed a gift into a dream of wanting to be a big rapper. The most pivotal years

From old school hip hop, soul, to funk, jazz, or even some pop like Michael Jackson. These genres and many more were brought to his attention because of all the different people who he was around. Growing up in Winston-Salem and Mocksville, Tauran always had radios that he would play music off of. He would let his surrounding peers influence him lightly, but let the situations that he had been through determine what he listens to. Tauran didn’t have but a few friends because he moved all around the city of Winston-Salem. This caused him to always be around his family. Whenever his mother had the radio on working and cleaning around the house, she would play Al Green, Erykah Badu, or old school R&B. Whenever he was around his biological father, he would be forced into listening to “different music” such as rock. With his father being white and divorced from his mother, he wanted Tauran to listen to his “other half’s” genre of music. Tauran wasn’t really interested in this genre. From what his uncle said, “The biggest influence in Tauran’s life was his grandfather. Mr. William Newkirk.” He was an avid afro-centric music promotor. Anything that spoke on social conscience of the black community, change for the black community, or the lifestyle was his ideal

He started to write poetry about love and short stories about himself while at home. As he started to get older and build a vocabulary from reading, he would start really taking these poems more seriously. He would show all of his works to teachers and friends just to see what their reactions would be. If they said they didn’t like a certain part, he would do his best to make corrections and make it sound better. It wasn’t until his sophomore year that he realized mixing his writing with his passion for music would be his true passion overall. After realizing this, he immediately took action and spent time on his newly found passion. He didn’t really know how to use this gift “right off the bat.” It took him a whole year of experimenting with different styles and approaches to find how to truly use his gift. He never had the best headphones or his own music software, so he took advantage of his high school’s music class. The class gave him an opportunity to work in a professional studio and perform his songs. His senior year at his high school’s carnival was when he had his first performance in front of a crowd. According to his mother, “He was so nervous that he had to take a walk away from the stage until he actually was ready to do his thing, but he actually did really well with his performance. He had everyone at the carnival on