“I‘ve gotten to the point that I’ve battled with depression and anxiety issues, so that is something I try to express through music and relate to people who have similar struggles,” sophomore journalism major Cameron Neimand, said.

Neimand spent his childhood listening to Lil Wayne, Eminem and Kanye West.

“My mom [made] me listen to clean rap up until the sixth grade,” he added.

Neimand began cultivating a love for hip-hop and rap at an early age, working hard toward building a name for himself.

Music is a form of expression for Neimand.

“It’s like symbolic representation of elements of my life,” he said.

A couple of students at this university believe rappers should feel free to express what they feel passionate about.

“Rappers should rap about what they want … [and] feel free to express themselves through their work,” Fasika Delessa, a sophomore finance major, said.

Rohun Joshi, a sophomore business major also said rappers should make music that depicts authentic and tangible art. 

“Rappers should include anything in their music that they feel passionate about [and] also incorporate unique lines about a subject, not something that the rapper before them has already said,” Joshi said.

Neimand can produce a piece relatively quickly, he said. 

“If I’m really trying to get a song out and I’m working with the right people I can write the song in about 30 minutes, but it will probably take about a week or more to actually get a thing out,” Neimand said.

Neimand said the music he used to release was just about him having fun and contained no real substance. He added that he’s now at a point in his life where he’s had real-life experiences that he wants the public to hear.  

“I think what people want to hear is people being real and saying things that you think someone would be too scared to admit to but instead – like – proudly proclaiming it in their music,” Neimand said.

Neimand has had a tough time juggling his coursework and music. While he acknowledges that college has enriched his knowledge and vocabulary, Neimand finds that it doesn’t leave him enough time to focus on his music.

“School is just a distraction in the sense that I have to focus on school first and music is something that I have to pencil in the meantime,” he said.

Neimand emphasized that although music has become an activity that he  has to work to find time for, he is still making progress on his upcoming album, Cera Burns, which is scheduled to come out this spring.

“This is going to be the first work that I really believed in and what I want to put out and show people what I can do,” he said.

However, the University of Maryland is where Neimand began to really believe in himself, he said. 

“There’s this video of me rapping in the streets of College Park with all these people going crazy around me and that was super dope,” Neimand said. “It was the first time that I was like ‘I can do this.’”

Editor’s Note: The following video features explicit language. 

“Yeah I am just some white kid from Los Angeles who has had no income struggles, but I’ve been through real life situations, and I’ve been fucked up,” Neimand said.

Featured Photo Credit: Cameron Neimand inside of the Journalism School. (Josh Loock/Bloc Reporter)

Joel Valley is a sophomore journalism major and can be reached at joel.valley@gmail.com.