LHS Winter Break Proves Productive for Budding Rap Artist

It was the first week of winter break at Libertyville High School and Arooj Ahmad had an epiphany.

Already making a name for himself in Libertyville—and the community at-large—with his fashion line, VOLUME, the LHS junior decided to enter the rap world. He wrote a rap song, "Crown," which he produced with a friend, LHS senior Jake Michelotti. 

"Basically, it just came to me," said Ahmad. "Winter break is the time when we're all free. It's like one of the lines, 'Two weeks, tryna reach new peaks.' You can do things that you can't normally do because you're bogged down with classes. You get to do things like read books and exercise."

The song, he said, is essentially an extended metaphor, with skiing and snowboarding representing the idea of reaching a goal. There's even a Gatsby reference for the bibliophiles. The song ends with a single word, crown, which represents reaching the goal.

"That's the literal, and then you can decipher your own interpretation of the message behind it," said Ahmad.

While Ahmad has eclectic taste when it comes to music, listening to everyone from Bruno Mars to The Notorious B.I.G., he knew the song needed to be in the rap genre.

"It needed to be rap. Rap is just so straight-forward," said Ahmad. "I can just say things and as long as they rhyme, they'll meet the message. It's really direct."

He and Michelotti put "Crown" together in just one day. As Ahmad described it, "Jake shows up at 9:30 and we were done at like 5. We got that done in a single session."

They used software to put the song together and shared the song on SoundCloud.

"I think it reached what it needed to be," said Ahmad. "It's only 2:40, and it still gets everything that I needed to say on this track across."

He's thinking about writing more songs, but he doesn't want to stick to just one genre. 

"I want to diversify a little bit," he said.