The last thing I want to do right now is write something melancholic. My manuscripts are filled with enough trauma and angst, and I’ve felt enough frustration and fear in the past week.
So, I’m going to write about how somewhere on the Internet, I might be in an obscure UK rapper’s music video.
In April 2023, I was wrapping up my semester abroad in Liverpool. My fellow Calvin students and I spent our last week in the UK visiting London.
After stuffing our faces at a bustling street market, two girls and I parted ways with our other friends. The three of us wanted a break from jumping from tourist spot to tourist spot, so we decided to take the tube to Greenwich, where we’d walk around a park that had a great view of the London skyline.
At this point, we had been on the tube several times so we already felt like pros, but I’m sure the London natives around us would disagree. After taking one line and getting on to another, we were on our way to Greenwich.
We talked through the “mind the gap” reminders as people streamed in and out of the train car with the disinterest that’s universal on public transit.
A few stops before Greenwich, two men entered the car. From their body language, they looked like they were friends, though whatever kind of relationship they had, it had to be an “opposites attract” sort of thing. One of them, a twenty-something man with brown hair, a gray sweatshirt, and glasses, could’ve easily blended in with the other commuters.
His friend stuck out a bit more. Not just because he was tall, but more because he was wearing a baggy black sweatshirt and sweatpants that were accented with a bright lime green. His clothes appeared to have been custom made, because there was green lettering etched onto the fabric. I’m gonna go out on a limb and guess what his favorite color was, because green didn’t just cover his clothes, but his teeth. Once he opened his mouth to talk to his friend, I noticed a glaring set of green grills. It was like England’s very own Machine Gun Kelly had strolled onto the tube.
But I consider myself an open minded person, or someone who at least tries to be. I wasn’t going to judge this man’s appearance.
As we flew through tunnels, music began to fill the car. I looked up, frowning. I’d never heard music played on the tube. Were they playing music from the speakers? But then I looked straight ahead to where the gray sweatpants guy had produced a video camera and was crouched in front of the green guy, who had his hood pulled up like he was seconds away from entering a fighting ring.
In the same way that I’ve pieced together a plot twist seconds before a movie reveals the killer, I realized what was about to happen.
A deep voice boomed through the speakers, rhyming in rhythm to the thrummed bass while the green man followed along, commanding the camera’s attention.
As the camera man crouched low to capture every indifferent gesture, my friends and I looked at each other with wide eyes.
One of my friends grinned as she tried to take a quick video of the impromptu music video taping, while I called on every one of my facial muscles to keep me from bursting out laughing.
The car suddenly felt more tense, more quiet, with the bass filling the car and the green rapper showing off his bravado with each shameless lip-synced line and arm movement.
Many people in the car went about their normal business, acting like the two men and their music didn’t exist. Like the subways back home, this probably wasn’t the first time someone used the tube as their stage.
But then I looked across the aisle, meeting a middle aged woman’s eyes. As the rapper bounced around in my peripheral vision, the lady held eye contact as she bit back a smile, her eyes gleaming with the laughter she was trying to suppress.
A minute or so later, we reached the next stop and the music stopped as quickly as it began. We got off at that stop, same as our music video duo, still laughing about what had just happened.
When I think back at that “you had to be there” moment, I always circle back to the lady sitting across from me, the look she gave me as she tried to contain her laughter. In a way, that interaction made my day more than the green rapper and his camera friend did.
Unlike most passengers, the lady didn’t stare at her phone indifferently, nor did she stare vacantly at a window, waiting for the music to stop.
Instead, she chose to look back at me, her face pinched with repressed laughter. I don’t know if she did that because she wanted someone to share this moment with, someone she could look at and say, “This is actually happening, right?” or if our eyes met by accident.
If it was the former, then I’m glad that she chose me to share in her stifled laughter.
Liana Hirner graduated from Calvin in 2024 with a bachelor’s in writing. She’s currently living in her hometown of Aurora, Illinois, working at a local library as she figures out her next steps. Liana’s simple passions include reading, writing long winded stories, dark chocolate, and making espresso.
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We need to find this video