"Broken Dreams" JOHN TRACY

Everyday, before I go train at the park, I watch a highlight video of professional soccer players to get me inspired and motivated to workout. One day I watched this video called “Christiano Ronaldo vs. Lionel Messi Skill Battle”. It was a skill video featuring a different song for each of the two players. The song played for Ronaldo was a remix of pop songs. Messi’s song was a hip hop/rap song called “Broken Wings”, by Sik World. When I got to the park I could not get the song out of my head. It felt as if the lyrics of the song were personally speaking to me and my brain was subconsciously trying to figure out what they meant. I thought that the reason his lyrics spoke to me so much is that I am always alone when I train and Sik World makes his music by himself.

Sik World was born in Chicago, Illinois. He was a rapping prodigy because he started rapping when he was seven years old. Growing up, life was tough on him, he was cheated on by someone he cared about and later diagnosed with anxiety depression. All the tragedies in his life is what inspired him to write his songs. His songs express how he feels about society and his own life. In an interview on upcominghiphop.net, Sik World says that what keeps him motivated to write music is when people tell him that his music has helped them through tough times. Perhaps the reason people feel this way is because they struggle with similar challenges. Sik World started making music when he was 16. “Broken Wings” is by far his biggest hit. This song can be heard in several soccer Youtube videos as background music. Sik World uses loaded language and allusion throughout the song, “Broken Wings”, to convey the message that you must withstand society's standards and be who you are to pursue your dreams.

21 year old rapper, Sik World uses allusion in his top hit song, “Broken Wings”, in order to express the message that to pursue your dreams you must withstand society's standards and be who you are. In the second verse of the song, Sik world begins to allude the listener by stating something in a nonliteral way. The verse is, “ I got Broken Wings, but still flyin, with a loss of faith, and I’m still tryin (‘Broken’,1).” Sik World alludes to broken wings and flying, which is ironic because if your wings are broken you cannot fly. The artist is trying to say that he is hurting in life but he is still alive and grinding through the pain. This reveals the theme because society will hurt you but you have to continue.

One powerful way Sik World expresses the lesson that to pursue your dreams you have to withstand society's standards and be who you are through loaded language. In the first verse Sik World used words that allude the listener. But in the second verse he uses loaded language to communicate to the listener that he is serious when he raps, “Thats real an F*** how you feel ”(‘Broken’,4). He raps “Thats real” after telling the listener who he is and then he says “F*** how you feel”, to show he does not care how society feels about him. Sik World also uses the f-word to communicate a negative attitude towards others' feelings about him. This reveals the theme that to pursue your dreams you must remain undamaged by life’s standards so you can be who you want and do what you want to do.

A unique strength of Sik World's “Broken Wings” is it’s ability to emulate the rapper’s life and point of view. A verse that proves this strength is the ninth verse,

“I sat home buildin’ my craft

I had a dream I’m pursuin” (“Broken”, 8)

This part of the verse made the song a lot stronger because it shows what his daily life was by describing where he was and what he was doing. It also showed that he valued his dreams when he said, “I had a dream I’m pursuin’“. One thing that could have made this song more interesting is if he added more background details of his life. An example of this is:

“ They said that I can’t

Took out the t an to a t

An killed it “ (“Broken”,6)

This verse should have mentioned why they hated him and why he did not care. This would have made the listener more confident in his lyrics because they would want to emulate him and learn how to deal with people not believing in you.

Sik World uses allusion and loaded language in his smash hit song, “Broken Wings”. These tools conveyed the message, that in order to pursue your dreams you have be yourself and not let society dictate who you are. This song is relevant to my own life because I always try to be myself and also try not let others' actions interfere with what I strive to do. I recommend that in life you follow your own path so you don’t end up following other people’s dreams.