Raw words

I'm listening to a rap CD created by a delivery driver at the catering company where I'm interning. His name is Derrick, he's 32, and he grew up in Inglewood and dealt drugs and eventually ended up in prison. A few times. His last felony conviction was 8 years ago, though, and that's how he was able to get this job. The company only looks back 5 years into a person's history.

So the music is about messing up in life, being in prison, getting out, the girl who didn't wait, turning things around, "polishing vowels," searching for salvation through flow. It's called Influents.

This is real life
This is not rap
This ain't rap
This is just a lesson of real life
Peaceful days turned into stressed-out nights

Derrick lives in an apartment on Skid Row. He's started a record label, incorporated it and everything, and is saving up to buy a computer so he can produce music. He spent $700 recently to buy a keyboard worth $3,000, put up for sale on Craigslist by a pastor who didn't need it anymore. Derrick converted to Islam in 2000 and has thought a lot about religion, society and politics.

He doesn't know it yet, but he is about to be fired. Today, according to his furious supervisor, he was late to a couple of deliveries in Santa Monica and unreachable by cell phone. Apparently his last day will be Friday.