Jose Zabala Beltre

Eng. 101
Literacy Narrative

Growing up I was always into music. From waiting on my favorite artist to drop new

music, to just looking for new artist to listen too. That always gave me something to do. I can

remember even before me being an active music lover myself, my mother would wake up the

whole house early morning on the weekend to all her favorite songs. Singing along with the

music as she cleaned up the house and got our days started. Weekends consisted of baseball for

me as a kid, playing on AAU team with some of my best friends. Our games would be all over

the state and surrounding areas, so our drives always involved music being played all over the

bus. To get us ready and motivated for our opponents, music brought us together as a team and

always gave us a since of brotherhood. After does rides we would go into games with a sense of

confidence and readiness to take on the world. I think that was the moment I realize that music

was deeper than just feeling good, but it was a soundtrack to my life.

Ever since then I have used in that manner, my love for music comes from within. It has helped

me through all kind of situations like dealing with break up, when I been at happiest, loss of a

loved one I have made it through it all mainly because of music. By making personal connection

based on the emotions coming from the songs. This reason the reason why music drove me to

live performances. Hearing and seeing an artist in their rawest form bringing all their music to

life. It doesn’t matter how many times you go on your phone and find your favorite song and hit

play, its never the same like a live performance.

So the older I got I made it my priority to attend all of my favorite music acts live. My first

concert I ever went was drake at toads place in 2009. At the time it was very early in his career
coming all the way from Canada, but he was signed to my favorite artist of the time lil wayne. At

the time that cosign was all he needed to reach the masses since, lil wayne at the time was the

hottest artist out. Nevertheless, his performance I remember was not all that good or long but as a

16 year old kid I was hooked from start to finish. I sang along, I jumped around and I danced

through out that whole show. I think I lost like 5 pounds that night from all the sweating I did.

Even my voice was almost completely gone, that night was amazing.

After all the memorable events I been too from Made in America, Broccoli fest, Lollapalooza,

Astro fest, Governors ball, to even SXSW fest, my favorite has to be Rolling Loud. Even though;

the other shows were great shows nothing compares to the rolling loud line up and show it self.

Hip hop and R&B are my favorite genres so I could be speaking bias, but all the best live

performances and legendary moments in the last 8 years all have come from the rolling loud

stage.

Rolling loud 2018 didn’t disappoint that was by far the best festival I ever been too in my life.

It’s a 3 day weekend event with 100 Hip Hop and R&B act hitting the stage on different days.

Day 1 walking into Miami Garden Stadium for the event was insane. Sitting in line anticipating

what comes, gave me goosebumps in a good way. Heart racing, palms all sweating not knowing

what you would experience on the other side of the gates the build up was like nothing I had ever

experience before. It was also the first time my best friend had been to a festival, so she was new

to all does emotions racing through her body; nevertheless I could tell she was excited. As we

walked into event you could just smell the concession stands cooking all kinds of food that made

your mouth just water. At first our focus was on the food until we heard xxxtentacion taking the

stage, so we ran. It was complete chaos, we looked like heard of sheep running towards the

sound of his voice. We were glad to see him perform especially that being the last time he ever
did, because of his untimed passing. One thing about rolling loud is so many people performing

at once because of the way the stages are set up. There are 3 stages an artist had different time

slots. The most legendary moment of the night by far was meek mill. He came with a different

energy, his stage presence and the show he put on included him playing all his greatest hits while

driving a 4 wheeler on stage. The first day of rolling loud couldn’t have been better, except for

one detail my friends seem lost in everything that was going on.

Don’t get me wrong she had a great time but if you never been to a festival you honestly

wouldn’t know what to expect. Its like being in a different world because its is on community

once you walk through those gates. The atmosphere from the alcohol to a bunch of other thigs

consumed will have people act out of the ordinary. We saw people mood and energy change

drastically especially being at the festival under the sun for 9 hours outside so if you’re not

prepared for that you definitely wont make through the day. You see people passed out while

other offer help, you see people that just over party to the max the whole time in the mosh pits

doing the craziest things. Then you have people like me that just sit back relax and enjoy the

show, but that’s all from experience.

So when we got back to the hotel that night we regrouped. We took nice long shower to wash

away that first day. Then we went to this steak house we wanted to go to the minute we got to

Miami, so we sat there and had dinner and just talked. She brought up all the things going on at

the festival while we were there that she didn’t understand a that point. From where she wanted

to stand to watch the show and how she wanted to be more aware of her surroundings. That first

day we saw a bunch of fights among people because the closer you get to the stage the less

personal space you have. That was one of the major things she was concerned about, as well as

the weather factor and how long you would have be on your feet for. I know she felt it because
after that first day the minute we got in the car on our way back to the hotel she took her

sneakers off immediately. This were all things she wasn’t aware of and honestly, I didn’t discuss

with her because I thought she would know; but boy was I wrong. The dinner table at the

restaurant became more like the strategy table on how she would go about the next two days left

of rolling loud festival. I sat there and offered all the help I could give and I made sure she knew

we just had to look after each other. We walked out of dinner feeling like we would take on

anything thrown our way.

The next 2 days that followed we enjoyed all the performances at rolling loud and the

environment that came with it. Being at festival is more then just going to a place to listen to live

music, it involves mental and physical strength. Without the experience of going through it

personally.