What often gets misunderstood culturally among people is representing and showing love to one’s own culture and background. Some take it as disrespect, disregard, or downplay of their own, which, in some cases, is true. But more often than not, it is for uplifting and encouraging of their culture. It can be displeasing if taken literally, however, if we get the deeper meaning and intention as we should, we can see that we actually can relate to it. Because there are more similarities between humans than there are differences. We may not have the same interests and rituals as people in South America, let’s say, but we can feel for them. Pain, suffering, joy, disgust, anger, empathy… these are the things that we have in common as human beings. And when handled the right way, empathizing with others flourishes our own.

Hip-hop is a great example of this. What started in New York in the 70s spread to other areas like California, Bay Area, Texas, Miami, and so on. And then eventually to the whole world. It is no denial that there was competition, an unhealthy kind in some cases, however, on the grand scale, it is far from the truth. More people are better because of hip-hop than there are people who are not.