


įast forward seven years later and my biggest heartbreak is now my mother’s death. The image of Kanye in the “Love Lockdown” music video helplessly singing in that all-white house and the African tribal dancers with their bodies painted beautifully haunted me and touched me so poignantly even though the biggest heartbreak I had experienced at that ripe age was Lil Saint dying in U Got Served. I begged my mom for the sheet music, and that was exactly what I found in my stocking that year. The only thing I wanted for Christmas 2008 was the piano sheet music for Kanye West’s “Love Lockdown.” I was 11 and had been taking piano lessons religiously at that time, and I think my parents were secretly hoping I was going to come out of this a child prodigy.
