Chance The Rapper's Engagement Proves That Your Wife Can Change Your Life
The first time I heard Chance the Rapper was in the dorm room of a former classmate. My friend and fellow hip-hop head raved on and on about how Chance created the project that we were listening to while he was on a 10-day suspension in high school. I was extremely intrigued and continued to follow his work. When he released AcidRap in 2013, I realized that the young artist had reached a point of darkness in his life.
He talked about depression, substance abuse, and his continuous effort to make his family happy, all topics with which 20-something-year-old black girls are very familiar. It was then that I realized that he was destined to become one of the dopest entertainment professionals of our time, but it wasn't until he released Coloring Book that the world truly saw his full potential.
He was eloquently able to tell a story of addiction, love, and fatherhood on a hip-hop project with Gospel influences, which was something that no artist has effectively done before. My mind was blown by the fact that he had gotten T-Pain and Kirk Franklin on one song dedicated to giving God the glory for allowing him to overcome life's burdens and reach his ultimate pinnacle of success. I realized that something about Chano had changed, and now, we know that the change we saw came from his one-day fiance, Kirsten Corley.
Storytime. A thread on how I met my wife. pic.twitter.com/Qi0DWRZF0r
— Chance The Rapper (@chancetherapper) March 6, 2019
Yesterday, news broke that Chance the Rapper proposed to his longtime partner and mother of his 2-year-old daughter at a family cookout and the footage will give you all of the feels. While their baby daughter pranced around the yard living her best life in the cutest little swimsuit, Chance got down on one knee and said this:
"Make me a man and be my wife."
He later confirmed on Twitter that she said "yes," and now we're just waiting on a date and an invitation to the reception, sis. Chance and Kirsten are proof that your wife can determine the trajectory of your life, and Chance made sure to choose wisely and put a ring on it. He even dropped some hints before he popped the big question including this cryptic caption that he wrote in an Instagram post birthday post for Kirsten's birthday in May:
"From the beginning beginning to the end end. You are my oldest and best friend. You are responsible for everyone of the most wonderful things in my life. I'm forever grateful that God made me find you, and even more grateful that you made me find God. Forever and ever babe."
After reading that, it clicked for me. Coloring Book was released in 2016, nearly three years after meeting Kirsten and only months after the birth of his daughter. The dark, solemn place that Chance was in when he recorded Acid Rap was replaced by the faith and triumph that he felt when he found Kirsten and she encouraged him to find God.
By no means am I suggesting that any relationship is perfect, but if it doesn't help you grow, what's the point? Someone told me once that if you don't feel closer to God after being loved, they probably weren't doing it right.
With the help of his future wife, Chance manifested every one of his dreams.
Although I definitely wish I was the one walking down the aisle with the 25-year-old hip-hop star, I'm super happy that Kirsten and Chance found one another. It's not everyday you find a love that is productive and grows your spirit, but when you do, the harvest will be more than you can imagine.
Featured image by Rob Kim/Getty Images
Taylor "Pretty" Honore is a spiritually centered and equally provocative rapper from Baton Rouge, Louisiana with a love for people and storytelling. You can probably find me planting herbs in your local community garden, blasting "Back That Thang Up" from my mini speaker. Let's get to know each other: @prettyhonore.
Smile, Sis! These Five Improvements Can Upgrade Your Oral Hygiene Instantly
This article is in partnership with Sensodyne.
Our teeth are connected to so many things - our nutrition, our confidence, and our overall mood. We often take for granted how important healthy teeth are, until issues like tooth sensitivity or gum recession come to remind us. Like most things related to our bodies, prevention is the best medicine. Here are five things you can do immediately to improve your oral hygiene, prevent tooth sensitivity, and avoid dental issues down the road.
1) Go Easy On the Rough Brushing: Brushing your teeth is and always will be priority number one in the oral hygiene department. No surprises there! However, there is such a thing as applying too much pressure when brushing…and that can lead to problems over time. Use a toothbrush with soft bristles and brush in smooth, circular motions. It may seem counterintuitive, but a gentle approach to brushing is the most effective way to clean those pearly whites without wearing away enamel and exposing sensitive areas of the teeth.
2) Use A Desensitizing Toothpaste: As everyone knows, mouth pain can be highly uncomfortable; but tooth sensitivity is a whole different beast. Hot weather favorites like ice cream and popsicles have the ability to trigger tooth sensitivity, which might make you want to stay away from icy foods altogether. But as always, prevention is the best medicine here. Switching to a toothpaste like Sensodyne’s Sensitivity & Gum toothpaste specifically designed for sensitive teeth will help build a protective layer over sensitive areas of the tooth. Over time, those sharp sensations that occur with extremely cold foods will subside, and you’ll be back to treating yourself to your icy faves like this one!
3) Floss, Rinse, Brush. (And In That Order!): Have you ever heard the saying, “It’s not what you do, but how you do it”? Well, the same thing applies to taking care of your teeth. Even if you are flossing and brushing religiously, you could be missing out on some of the benefits simply because you aren’t doing so in the right order. Flossing is best to do before brushing because it removes food particles and plaque from places your toothbrush can’t reach. After a proper flossing sesh, it is important to rinse out your mouth with water after. Finally, you can whip out your toothbrush and get to brushing. Though many of us commonly rinse with water after brushing to remove excess toothpaste, it may not be the best thing for our teeth. That’s because fluoride, the active ingredient in toothpaste that protects your enamel, works best when it gets to sit on the teeth and continue working its magic. Rinsing with water after brushing doesn’t let the toothpaste go to work like it really can. Changing up your order may take some getting used to, but over time, you’ll see the difference.
4) Stay Hydrated: Upping your water supply is a no-fail way to level up your health overall, and your teeth are no exception to this rule. Drinking water not only helps maintain a healthy pH balance in your mouth, but it also washes away residue and acids that can cause enamel erosion. It also helps you steer clear of dry mouth, which is a gateway to bad breath. And who needs that?
5) Show Your Gums Some Love: When it comes to improving your smile, you may be laser-focused on getting your teeth whiter, straighter, and overall healthier. Rightfully so, as these are all attributes of a megawatt smile; but you certainly don’t want to leave gum health out of the equation. If you neglect your gums, you’ll start to notice the effects of plaque buildup, which can irritate the gums and cause gingivitis, the earliest stage of gum disease. Seeing blood while brushing and flossing is a tell-tale sign that your gums are suffering. You may also experience gum recession — a condition where the gum tissue surrounding your teeth pulls back, exposing more of your tooth. Brushing at least twice a day with a gum-protecting toothpaste like Sensodyne Sensitivity and Gum, coupled with regular dentist visits, will keep your gums shining as bright as those pearly whites.
Why Do Millennials & Gen-Zers Still Feel Like Teenagers? The Pandemic Might Be The Reason.
There’s nothing quite as humbling as navigating adulthood with no instruction manual. Since the turn of the decade, it seems like everything in our society that could go wrong has, inevitably, gone wrong. From the global pandemic, our crippling student debt problem, the loneliness crisis, layoffs, global warming, recession, and not to mention figuring out what to eat for dinner every night. This constant state of uncertainty has many of us wondering, when are the grown-ups coming to fix all of this?
But the catch is, we are the new grown-ups.
As if it happened without our permission, we became the new adults. We are the members of society who are paying taxes, having children, getting married, and keeping our communities afloat, one iced latte at a time. Still, there’s something about doing all these grown-up duties that feel unnaturally grown-up. Enter the #teenagegirlinher20s.
If there’s one hashtag to give you the state of the next cohort of adults, it’s this one. Of the videos that have garnered over 3.9M views, you’ll find a collection of users who are overwhelmed by life’s pressing existential responsibilities, clung to nostalgia, and reminiscent of the days when their mom and dad took care of their insurance plans.
@charlies444ngel no like i cant explain to her why i had to buy multiple tank air dupes from aritzia #teenagegirlinher20s #fyp
The concept of being a 20-something or 30-something teenager is linked to the sentiment of not feeling “grown up enough” to do grown-up things while feeling underprepared and even nihilistic about whether that preparation even matters.
It’s our generation’s version of when we ask our grandmothers how old they are and they simply reply with, “I still feel 45,” all while being every bit of 76 years old. In this, we share a warped concept of time while clinging to a desire for infantilization.
Granted, the pandemic did a number on our concept of time. Many of us who started the pandemic in our early or mid-20s missed out on three fundamental years of socialization, career development, and personal milestones that traditionally help to mark our growth.
Our time to figure out and plan our next steps through fumbling yet active participation was put on pause indefinitely and then resumed provisionally. This in turn has left many of us hanging in the balance of uncertainty as we try to make sense of the disconnect between our minds and bodies in this missing gap of time.
Because we’re all still figuring out what the ramifications of being locked away and frozen in time by a global pandemic will have on us as a society, there really is no “right” way of making up for lost time. Feeling unprepared for any new chapter of life is a natural rite of passage, pandemic or not. However, it’s important to not stay stuck in the last age or period of life that made sense to us because self-growth is the truest evidence of personal progress.
So whether you’re leaning on your inner child, teenager, or 20-something for guidance as you fill the gap between your real age and pandemic age, know that it’s okay to grieve the person you thought you would be and the milestones you thought you’d hit before you ever knew what a pandemic was. If there’s anything that the pandemic taught us, it’s that we have the power to reimagine a better world and life for ourselves. And if we tap into our inner teenager as a compass, we can piece together our next chapter with a fresh outlook.
Sure, we’ve lost a couple of years, but there are still some really amazing ones ahead.
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Featured image by Stephen Zeigler/Getty Images
