I recently watched Breaking a Monster, a documentary by Luke Meyer about the band Unlocking the Truth, made up of three 13-year-old black kids from Brooklyn who started a metal band that rapidly skyrocketed to success. The film tracks Malcolm Brickhouse, Jarad Dawkins, and Alex Atkins during their first year as the youngest ever signed band with Sony Music. Theirs is obviously an exciting journey — getting a record deal at such a young age would be a momentous event for any group of teens, let alone ones from their background. Yet much is also said in the quiet moments amidst the cacophony — killing time on the tour bus, sitting around the dinner table or doing kick-flips in the backyard. We get a nuanced tour through the sometimes suffocating worlds of success and childhood alike, and what happens when they are lumped atop each other. Watching the film, what spoke to me most directly were the many similarities to my own childhood — growing up as a black nerd, deeply into metal and video games — and how my hobbies reflected the course of my own life. …continue reading on Medium