Music and Gender

     It hurts me to admit this but I did not come from a very music oriented family life nor do I play any musical instrument myself. My family has always been more sports oriented and more intrigued with outside activities rather than the musical arts. My dad grew up playing tennis and football, he played both in high school but did not take it further than that but he was the men and women's tennis coach over at Limestone University. My mom was a dancer in her academic days and was very talented but was drawn to tennis in college where she was the manager of the women's team which is where they met each other. I played a lot of sports growing up including baseball, soccer, basketball and swimming but I loved tennis way more than the other sports so I fully committed to that when I turned 12-13 and I have been playing competitively ever since and have enjoyed every moment. My brothers also played tennis alongside me for a time but they branched out to other sports in high school. My 19 year old brother played baseball and football in high school but committed to football where he ended up playing at Newberry college for a while and my youngest brother plays volleyball and tennis at the high school he attends. 

    

 (This is my stepmama who also plays tennis) 

    I am a very consistent listener to the Reggae genre and my Spotify playlist is very versatile and diverse if I do say so myself. It consists of mainly male artists and singers but there are a few songs that are sung mainly my females or that have women singing alongside the man. One of the prime examples of a female artist that is very near and dear to my heart is Rita Marley, the wife of the late Bob Marley. She was apart is the very popular singing group known as the I Threes who sang alongside Bob Marley in almost every one of his musical pieces. She is the inspiration behind the song "Waiting in Vain" and "Stir it up" where Bob sings about her and how important she is to his life and overall style. Without her inspiration and words of wisdom Bob Marley would not have been the man we knew him to be and a lot of his music would be missing a key factor in its beauty. Rita Marley was a key influence in Bobs life and she was the main backup vocalist for most of his music, without her the music would not have the same angelic effect that it has on people today and her and the group that she was with are to thank for that. 

    Another one of my more popular artists in the Reggae genre is Koffee, she is a Jamaican singer, songwriter and guitar artist who got extremely popular when she came out with her hit single "Burning" in 2017. I did not hear the song until last year but once I heard it I was hooked immediately, it is a true work of art and I put in on my playlist almost as soon as the first chorus came on. I haven't listened to many other female singers in this genre but I do not steer away from them whenever one of their songs comes up while I am listening to music. I think in this category of music women are overlooked by the amount of male artists out there and all the music that they come up with, but it does not mean that they are less talented or do not work as hard as anyone else. I appreciate whenever I hear a great song that is mainly sung by a female and it shows that anybody who is passionate enough and is willing to put their story out there for people to see is worth listening to and enjoying.