Sinatra and Young Rapper Timothy Williams

[Michael Stuart Kelly]

Sinatra and Young Rapper Timothy Williams

Here's a young rapper who claims he is hearing Frank Sinatra for the first time.

With shopping malls, stores, and so on constantly playing background music, I don't know how true that is, but it's reasonable to believe he's listening intently to Sinatra for the first time.

His reactions are so interesting and positive, this video is making the rounds in O-Land Facebook.

Here is his Facebook page: Timothy Williams. On YouTube, he has a channel of reacting to songs, so I looked at what else he's done. I only skimmed back 3 months or so. Before this Sinatra song, he seems to have stayed with repertoire suited to young rapper culture with some rock and roll thrown in. (There might be other stuff. I didn't look deeper than a superficial skim.)

It's kinda funny that this song, "I've Got You Under My Skin," is the first one he tried out of Sinatra's. (He's done several more by Frankie since--the video above is from mid-September.)

In normal rap culture, skin color and the social culture that arose from it are defining foundations (even with white rappers and rappers of other races).

So black inner city American social culture is part of this young guy's worldview. Then he started doing a deep dive on Sinatra with a song about going beneath the skin to a more universal story where the feeling is just as intense as anything in his experience. And there are many forms to sing about it that anyone can feel and understand.

We all groove, baby. We all get hit hard by love. Every damn one of us. It doesn't matter what's on your skin. So when you find folks who do their way well, go with it and flow with it.

Williams didn't talk about any of this the way I just did, but I have no doubt this message hit him like a torpedo gliding through the cultural waters and exploding on the critical spot in his subconscious.

He loved it.

Very cool watching him.

Michael