EdNC. Essential education news. Important stories. Your voice.

Search ednc.org

So much promise

Share this story

Our republishing policy

EdNC is a nonprofit, online, daily, independent newspaper. All of EdNC’s content is open source and free to republish. Please use the following guidelines when republishing our content.
  • Our content must be republished in full. If your organization uses a paywall, the content must be provided in full for free.
  • Credit our team by including both the author name and EdNC.org in the byline. Example: Alex Granados, EdNC.org.
  • If republishing the story online, please provide a link to EdNC.org or a link to the original article in either the byline or credit line.
  • The original headline of the article must be used. Allowable edits to the content of the piece include changes to meet your publication’s style guide and references to dates (i.e. this week changed to last week). Other edits must be approved by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
  • Photos and other multimedia elements (audio, video, etc.) may not be republished without prior permission. Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you are interested in sharing a multimedia element.
  • If you republish a story, please let us know by emailing Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected].
Please email Hannah Vinueza McClellan at [email protected] if you have any questions. This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.

Canonical tag

Please include the following canonical tag in the <head> of the republished story.

<link rel="canonical" href="https://www.ednc.org/so-much-promise/">

HTML content

This includes the title, byline, content, and tracking pixel required for republishing this story.

Copy & paste HTML
This story is tagged:

This song details the life story of an academically gifted teenager from Raleigh, North Carolina. The protagonist’s opportunities were ultimately squandered due to life circumstances, lack of opportunity and support, and the allure of street life.

The song, “So Much Promise,” seeks to help the listener understand what events led to the culmination of tragedy within the life of the protagonist. The story is told through my eyes and within the framework of various nuanced lenses.

I rap with a tone of guilt due to my lack of presence in the life of the protagonist. I rap with a tone of regret for what has happened. And I rap with a tone of frustration because I know what the protagonist could have become had he continued on his previous path.

So take a listen — and try to see what I see in Raleigh, North Carolina every day.