Robots, Rap, and Planet Rockertron - A Short Story

Decades after folks had arrived on Mars, only to find no lifeforms there, a new planet was discovered. This time it was named by independent AI robots who found their way to the new planet through space travel. This new planet was called Rockertron. 

Rockertron was solely for new communication, creativity, and a place where people and robots could express themselves non-mechanically. No drums, you could not enter; no style or charisma to bring, you could not enter; if you could not perform at least one break dance move, you could not enter. This was daily life on Rockertron.

Rappin' was an essential element of life on Rockertron. Planet Rock, the old school rap/hip-hop song, was the anthem of the planet. Most beings who found their way to Rockertron woke up playing Planet Rock. The day was set to this futurustic sound that has lasted eons as an energetic, movement creating sound. 

Freestyle rapping was breathing. If you could showcase phenomenal freestyle abilities on Rockertron you were heavily regarded, immensely respected. Babies were born with new ways of flipping metaphors and similes. Rockertron provided us with a way out of the common lives we had lived on planet Earth. The imagination ruled. Create or die! was a constant chant on the growing planet as many of Earth's outcasted artists and thespians found their way to Rockertron.

The other day, while I was walking down Dope-ness Avenue in the city of Rhyme And Reason, I heard a young lad flexing his lyrical abilities. This is what he said:

I'm super superb/with the verbs/
I'm light years/passed your ears/
Speak, say something' clear/
No one claimin' to be magical/
Or poetical comes even near!/

Rockertron exposed the youth and young adults who were being overlooked and unnoticed in school. It was a planet, but it was also a platform for new ways of engaging and educating the young. A student could flow in class or make a beat on their desk and not get kicked out or reprimanded. Actually, if a student did so in a profound way, their parents were called to the school and awarded medals for encouraging and empowering their child to be inventive and creative.

On Rockertron robots where spinning on their backs, emulating Egyptians with King Tut styled moves, and playing drums behind humans who spit spoken word off of their slick tongues. Love Jones was shown weekly at lounges, parties, and clubs. As a part of college curriculums, college students put on poetry Slams to defend their dissertations. Robots and humans were falling in love with one another; Rockertron reached that level of love and universal commitment to a merging world of technology, touch, and respect.

If we are to learn from the future, we have to invent what our futures will look like. We must place ourselves in the future and send back the visions and sound waves that exist there in order to guide our present. The body and the mind are vessels containing everything we want and dream of. We are all databases for the documented futures we see coming. If we want to destroy the past and be the architects of our futures we have to let go of old ideas and the inventions that have done us harm.

Rockertron offers this for us. An existence where there are no restrictions is where we should be heading to and striving for. If anything, our youth need it! They will inform us with inventions, technological advancements with brand new rhyme schemes where they rap and sing, and develop brand new rhythm patterns that will reshape our existence. 

We are the stewards of a better universe when we combine sound, rhythm, and technology. We are challenging the status quo because we own the copyrights of our imagination. No politician, corporation, or Supreme Court judge can take that away from us on a planet like Rockertron!

In the middle of galaxies we will naturally cultivate communities that are engaging, beautiful, fruitful. Millions of Rockertrons will exist in those foreseeable places. Rockertrons will give birth to other Rockertrons. One heartbeat will be felt by the next. A new beak dance move will influence the other causing a galactic revolution we will all appreciate and benefit from.