Throughout my childhood it was a tradition that while at the beach every night the parents would sit outside and drink and the kids would play hide and seek tag. There was a stereo that was consistently playing Bob Marley and other beach favorites. I can remember hiding in holes we had previously dug during the day and listening to Bob Marley and truthfully feeling happy. The beach was the only place my parents listened to Bob Marley, so af-ter a few years I began to associate Bob Marley to the beach. This is how my love for Reggae music began. What started off as a simple association with my vacation soon turned into a passion in itself. I began to listen to Bob Marley outside of my vacation because if I closed my eyes I could almost convince myself that I was at the beach hiding in the sand. Soon after this, I began to listen to his music simply because I enjoyed the songs. I started using his music not as a time machine, but as a way to relax after a long day. I listened to what he had to say in his songs and I realized that another reason I enjoyed his music was because he was a peaceful man and he shared his happiness through his songs. In high school my extreme likings of Bob Marley lead me to explore further into the genre of reggae music one night. I dis-covered the band, Dirty Heads. After just one listen of their song, “Stand Tall”, I had two epiphanies. The first was that this band is phenomenal and the second was the realization that I was not just a fan of the reggae genre but it was my favorite genre of music. The way that one reggae song sounds similar yet so different to all of the others is a tremendous aspect of the genre. I listened to more of the Dirty Heads music and eventually found many other reggae bands that night that I still love to this day. The reason I think I have grown to love reggae music to such a huge amount is that it is similar to my personality. I tend to try and live my life in a very simplistic way, but I also want to enjoy it and I will try almost anything. I am a realist, but I’m not afraid to dream. Reggae is similar because in its basic form it is the sim-plest form of music; it is repetitive and usually contains a steady beat and almost sounds effortless. The lyrics tend to be about enjoy-ing life and are easily relatable.

There are two things that I am certain about that I love in life, the beach and music. I have known for years that I want these two things to be a part of my life for the rest of my life. Luckily, as a child I was raised by a family that not only could afford to take annual vacations to the beach, but those vacations were forced upon me. We still take our annual 2 week vacation to Long Beach, North Carolina and we go on these vaca-tions with our best friends, the Silinskis. I have been best friends with Bryan Silinski for as long as I can remember and our families are just as close, even though we live 8 hours apart. I can share anything with him without feeling judged and we always find a way to have fun. So obviously, two best friends who only get to see each other 2 weeks out of the year are going to create some unfor-gettable memories, and every year we did just that.

“The way that one reggae song sounds similar yet so differ-ent to all of the oth-ers is a tremendous aspect of the genre.”