When I see a young man with a bold tattoo of the word “NOW” in the style of spraypaint on the back of his neck, complete with the “O” in now shaped like a peace sign, I know that peace and now-ness must be of extreme dedicated importance to that person. Tynan Whalan rocks that exact tattoo, and has a great story to it.
Whalan is a 19-year old liberal arts student from Massachusetts who now lives with his two best friends in a modest Brooklyn apartment. The green and black tattoo is usually covered by his hair that is so long he needs a headband to keep it out of his face, and he wears two necklaces at all times: one with a leather pendant complete with an engraved peace sign, and the other a crystal wrapped in wire. All of his clothes are baggy, especially his signature tye-dye t-shirt. His shoes are bamboo Tod’s worn so often that his sock toe peeps out of the front. Tynan is a rapper.
Tynan and his best friend Sam Eckstein have formed a music group they call Technicolor Lenses early last year after meeting at the dorms during their first year of college and realizing Sam’s guitar mends well with Ty’s lyrics. After listening to their erotic noises stirred with lyrics that preach about opening yourself up to the world and mentioning women being goddesses, I felt like I had a sense of what these guys were about. The minute I started talking to Ty in person I realized that I had not gotten to know him through his positive lyrics and voice, he’s much more than that. As we were about to begin the interview I asked him if he was comfortable with his 5 friends being in the same room. He looked at me as if that was the strangest question in the world and said, “Man this is my family!” His energy flows into open space, his entire body emits contagious enthusiasm.
When he’s not performing, he goes to local hip-hop shows to hear what other rappers have to say constantly meeting people along the way. Or doing homework, of course. His hope is that the world will prove itself to be less superficial than it seems. Tynan is something different and he seems to be just as aware of it as I am, as he greeted me with a huge smile while placing his arm on his partner Sam saying,
“Yo! We doin’ something y’all ain’t neva seen before!”
“Things are not the way they seem,” he said. “I mean especially with me because I don’t look like a rapper you know?”
I assumed there would be talk about the hip-hop game, how most rappers never even made it to college, how rap holds the stereotype of being only about sex, drugs, and violence, and of course the elephant in the room; most rappers are black. The confidence that Ty carries about these aspects, almost a silent claim that that is all irrelevant, is what makes him different. I met Ty at t a Hip Hop show called “Black Sheep” in the Lower East Side. He was by himself trecking from Brooklyn just to hear and absorb the energy of other artists like him. Unlike me, he was on the list. And unlike me he was front row center, appearing as though he didn’t notice that there wasn’t a single other white male in the entire concert hall. Tynan doesn’t believe hip-hop is about Black American culture he believes it’s about the expression that forms the culture.
“That’s just how it is,” he said referring to our experience at the Black Sheep. “But once I start expressing myself I’m showing you who I am and whoever can get that will understand.”
Technicolor Lenses has not yet made it into the mainstream in the world of hip-hop, but they have performed at the same venues as some of the most aggressive artists like Immortal Technique. Ty writes his own lyrics, lyrics that make him seem like he innately knows something that we have all yet to learn. His biggest influences are Eminem, and the Dalai Lama.
“Amongst dark skies are seen stars from river-side benches of your urban avalanche; As roaring mechanisms travel from nowhere to no where to we don’t know where; What and why do I know it; Smoking poetry smeared on street signs indicating direction; As grafitti communicates universally on these old walls.”
At twelve years old, Tynan wrote his first rhyme inspired by the rocky atmosphere in his house caused by a divorce between his parents. It was an aggressive piece, he says, somewhat like the way Eminem sounded when he first started. He learned about hip-hop as a form of expression from his after school counselor, someone he still keeps in touch with to this day. He doesn’t curse in any of his current music, the only mention of women is their beauty, and violence never appears. As he speaks about the way he got started writing rhymes, raps, and poetry, it becomes obvious that this isn’t anything except a way to take heavy thoughts out of his head and make them heard.
“I’m trying to reach out to people who are seeking something, and can receive it through the music I’m making,” he said. “And that goes anywhere from the highly intellectual individual to someone who hasn’t been exposed to the things that are most important in life. It’s not like I’m an educator or a teacher, I’m more just sharing.”
New forms of congruent influence from teachers to students
To prude movements within the fluids of cruelness
The makers of money time faith and hope with popes hung on ropes
Crusades of calls from lyrical parades
Gridded masses in formation making information
When he first started, at 12 years old, he was raging with frustration. Now he wants people to know that those aggressive outcries can transform into a consciousness if you channel them creatively. Both aggression and expression have affects on peoples lives, positive versus negative. Tynan uses his own experience as an example of how drastically things can change in a positive way through his personal hero, Hip-Hop itself.
“Hip-Hop means awareness,” he said. “It’s an awareness movement. ‘Hip’ means awareness, ‘Hop’ means movement. If you’re aware of what’s inside of you and you use the movement to express it, it can be a really powerful tool.”
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