#token (rapper)

Here is the preview of Fr. Rossi’s homily on Happiness by Token:

Hopkins Mass Homily

 “Happiness”

by 

Token

 “Show me where Happiness is”

 The first time Ben Goldberg rapped in public he was 13 years old. 

 It was July 1, 2012, and Goldberg was part of a swarm of 30 or so kids who intercepted Hopsin, a Los Angeles-based rapper who had just finished performing at a local club. 

 While Hopsin signed autographs, Goldberg stepped forward.

 “Yo, I’m going to rap for you,” Goldberg told him.

__________

 This wasn’t a premeditated decision. 

 He didn’t weigh the consequences of embarrassing himself in front of someone he idolized, not to mention a crowd of his peers. 

 But Goldberg, who had already given himself the stage name Token, was confident. 

 It was as if he had spent the last three years building to this — countless hours in his room, pen to pad, constructing intricate rhyme patterns. 

 Hopsin was known for the complexity of his rap “flow”. 

 Goldberg thought he’d have to appreciate his style. 

__________

 “You chumps know it is dumb. Hoping / this young Token / for fun won’t split you, cut open / I come roaming / with a lyrical gun loaded. . . . ”

 The crowd fell silent, Hopsin included. 

 It felt, Goldberg would later say, as if he were onstage.

 When Goldberg was done, Hopsin offered affirmation and advice. 

“I see what you’re doing, and it’s sick,” he told him. 

 “You have the techniques, but sometimes take it slower and kind of steez it out a little bit — and have some fun with it.”

__________

 It wasn’t as if Goldberg had any doubt about his path before that point, but he recalls this moment as galvanizing. 

 “That night was the night of my life for years,” says Goldberg, now 19. 

 But there’s been competition for that title lately — much of it in the past 2 years.

 In October 2015, Goldberg’s entry to a rap video contest went viral, ultimately tallying more than 2.5 million views on YouTube. 

 In April 2016, he had another viral hit: a six-minute-long performance on the influential Sway in the Morning hip-hop show on Sirius XM that was so powerful it moved a co-host to tears. 

 Then in September of last year, he released a mixtape, “Eraser Shavings,” which reached number 3 on the iTunes hip-hop charts and made it into the top 40 overall. 

 His work caught the attention of Mark Wahlberg, who helped him land a guest spot on a November episode of the “Wahlburgers” reality show and a role as a college kid in the movie Patriots Day, released last December.

__________

 Goldberg also had the opportunity to tour for the first time in 2016, doing several solo dates in France and Switzerland — two places where one of his viral hits got heavy play. 

 Then, he played more than 20 dates in the U.S. 

 This time, he was an opening act. The headliner: Hopsin.

 “He doesn’t remember that night,” Goldberg says, laughing. “I reminded him many times.”

__________

 From an early age, hip-hop was a therapeutic for Goldberg. 

 Even as a first-grader, he was getting suspended from school for yelling at his teachers and fighting. 

 “He had this explosive anger,” says his mother, Leslie. 

 At home, he’d have an episode — screaming, throwing things — and then retreat, horrified about what he’d done. 

“He would go into his room,” she says, “and you could just see in his face that he was crestfallen. 

 He’d ask, ‘What’s wrong with me?’ ”

__________

 Goldberg went from therapist to therapist and was eventually diagnosed with depression and anxiety. 

 He was also slow to read, and doctors identified a language disability. 

 And, yet, as he continued to work on his word skills and composition, writing became an outlet. 

 “When he started writing, you could see he used it that way,” says his sister, Madeline, who is five years older. 

 “He’d blow up, try to say something, and if he didn’t have the right words, he would go to his room and write.”

__________

 It worked. 

 “I don’t think I realized, holding this pad, this is the answer — this is the reason why I don’t feel bad anymore. 

 But subconsciously, I knew it, and that’s why I kept going back to it,” he says. 

 “Honestly, at some points, it feels like it’s all I have to get this negative energy off of me.”

__________

 Soon, Goldberg’s diary-like writing turned into poems, and the poems turned into raps. 

 He started recording himself when he was 10 years old, using GarageBand and rhyming over beats playing from the computer’s speakers. 

 They were self-therapy sessions set to music. 

 “I was basically hiding them from everybody, because they were for me,” he says. 

 But one day, a friend found them on his computer and pushed him to create a YouTube channel and upload them. 

 After some protest, Goldberg relented, releasing his first song — him rapping over the beat for Lil Wayne’s “Drop the World” featuring Eminem. 

 His MC moniker at the time was his initials, BDG (Benjamin David Goldberg). 

__________

 “When I got my first positive comment on YouTube, I was like ‘This is what I need to do for the rest of my life.’” 

 “The fact that somebody could like something that I love to do so much, it’s like 

‘That’s it — that’s what I’m going to do. There’s no question.’”

__________

 And that’s where his song “Happiness” comes in.

 It’s the first track released from his first major project “Eraser Shavings.” 

 It was released on the 23rd of September 2016.

__________

 “Happiness” is an emotional Hip Hop track that is sure to pull on the heart strings. 

 Before the release of this track, Token took to social media.

 There, he said,“ This video I got is next level, man….

 “I’m showing you guys a part of me that I never put out there before.”

__________

 This song presents some insights into Token’s life at home and his family’s history with depression. 

 It’s about two teenagers.

 A boy who has no friends and seems to have nothing going for him

 Ironically, it’s also about a girl, approximately the same age, who appears to be perfect in everyone’s eyes, but, in fact, is in the same state as the boy.

 Through their stories, Token airs his feeling towards mental illness and the affects it has on him, his family and other people. 

 It asks the big question, “What is happiness?” 

__________

Goldberg says in the song,

 Sometimes I just am feeling down

Sometimes I just feel no one will ever understand

Sometimes I wanna cry

Sometimes I want to crush my family's so-called medication look in their eyes

And tell them they don't need it as long we just have each other

But then sometimes I watch them suffer

I just wonder where happiness is.

 But, I think he answers this question by the way he’s been living and working.

 What’s he been doing?

 He’s been reflecting on his life, finding out what his talents and abilities are, and then disciplining himself to develop those talents further.

__________

 We as Christians can add one more element to that equation: God.

 We can ask God to help us think about and consider who we are, who he has made us to be, and then pray that He will help us acquire the disciple needed to expand those talents.

__________

 Token says, “Happiness ISN’T as easy as "happy life = happy person” and “sad life = sad person.” 

 “There’s a lot that doesn’t meet the eye…"

 He certainly is correct there.

 It takes hard work and patience.

 And it takes help from outside ourselves.

 The psalmist is right on the mark this week: