There is a reserve in Jason Rodriguez's chiseled face, a stony edge that serves as a wall. It keeps people from getting too close.
If anything can break through the wall, it's music - specifically rap music. Ask about his lyrics, and his handsome face breaks into a rare smile.
Though he now takes pleasure in making music, that pleasure is derived from pain, including from being homeless at times when he was growing up with his mom, who died when he was 6 or 7.
"Once you lose that [connection], it's like you turn cold a little bit because you know that nobody in this world is ever going to really care about you like your mother," Rodriguez said.
He remembers crying when she died, but he didn't really understand her death.
It's like the past is what I live,
And the future is what I think of,
Growing up and getting green is what I wish, 'cause
Struggle is what I come from . . .
It wasn't until years after her death, around seventh grade, that the impact of his loss hit him.
"I don't know what it was, I remember sometimes, I was in my room. I would scream in my pillow. I would cry. I had these things that nobody knew was going on, but just me.
"My life was just hell."
. . . Poverty, and being poor on the streets,
Lonely - long nights my mama hold me,
Got to keep your head up,
That's what 'Pac said
Yeah, you was a crack fiend,
But you loved me . . .
Rodriguez started writing poems in fifth grade. A few years later, the poems became rap lyrics.
Toward the end of ninth grade, he started hanging out at a church-run gym and took up boxing, another passion.
"It's a passion. I want to pursue my boxing, my music, and I want to have my education," he said. "If I was stable, I could do all three and then some."
Whatever he does with his life, he can't picture himself living paycheck to paycheck, making just enough to cover bills each month.
"I never see myself being an average person," Rodriguez said. "That's what keeps me motivated. That's my inspiration, not wanting to be average."
His music is a reflection of the life he's lived, he said.
"I found a way to present my emotions and to get them out."
. . . Until the day I die, I would never blame you,
'Cause what doesn't kill you
makes you stronger.
I was born and raised in the streets, not even in a hospital.
I was born on concrete . . .
The lyrics of his song, which he set to the beat of Biggie Smalls' "Juicy," are based on fact, he said.
One of the most vivid memories Rodriguez has of his mother is a night they were walking around the Norris Square neighborhood. He was 4, maybe 5.
"I mean, like, me and my mom, we really were homeless. We were walking around here. I remember one winter, we didn't have nowhere to go. And it was snowing.
"We were on 3rd and Diamond, at a friend of hers' place. And we actually slept on the porch that night. I remember bits and pieces. Stuff like that."
When his mother's friend returned home, she let them inside.
"I remember that night vividly," he said. "I remember that night."
