In That Empire State of Mind

New York, concrete jungle where dreams are made of

There’s nothin’ you can’t do

Every time I sing karaoke, this is my ballad. I’m as in tune as Cameron Diaz in My Best Friend’s Wedding, but I belt out Alicia’s refrains with the impassioned gusto of a Limoncello-soaked Italian crooner. I imagine that my jeans and basic tank are actually a breast-skimming, sequinned jumpsuit and that my pearl studs are fierce gold bamboo door-knockers. I rap the Jay-Z lines with intensity, throwing ninja stars and doing Back-Up-Off-Me hands with every beat. I’ve got flow. I’ve got swagger. I’m legend enough for Queen Bey to want to bear children with.

Yeah I’m out that Brooklyn, now I’m down in Tribeca

Right next to DeNiro, but I’ll be hood forever

It’d be pushing it to say that these lines apply to me. I’m a middle-class Korean-Australian girl; as urban as Urban Outfitters (harboring similar quantities of unicorn sweatshirts and Grumpy Cat paraphernalia), and as chill as Eliza Thornberry mid-asthma attack. I’ve visited New York exactly once, for 5 days when I was 11 years old. I chased squirrels in Central Park, hid amongst the Beanie Babies in FAO Schwarz and vomited after stuffing myself with peanut butter-flavored sweets at Dylan’s Candy Bar.

I used to cop in Harlem, all of my Dominicanos

Right there up on Broadway, pull me back to that McDonald’s

Took it to my stash spot, 560 State St.

Catch me in the kitchen like the Simmons’ whipping pastry

I can’t pretend to know the city’s gritty side (until I googled the lyrics I didn’t even know you could cook crack; the closest anyone’s come to offering me drugs is slipping me Pez in the playground and beta blockers pre-spelling bee), and yet this song resonates with me. It’s about Dreaming Big and Living Large, while remembering where you came from.

I’ve always been one to romanticize places and to yearn for the big city. I moved from Canberra to Sydney (Australia’s “big smoke”) because I imagined life there to be flashier and faster-paced. But New York — that glistening metropolis of success and excitement — stands as a world unto itself.

How many times have I imagined myself as Jessica Alba in Honey, the sweet but street-wise New York dancer with the rippling abs and heart of gold? And that scene in The Devil Wears Prada where Anne Hathaway steps out in thigh-high leather Chanel boots and glamazon glory? I’m one of the million girls who would kill for that job. Growing up I yearned for the Manolos and panache of Carrie Bradshaw, the borderline incestuous friendship group of Friends, the meet-cutes and intrigue of every Meg Ryan movie ever made (culminating in an Empire State Building rendezvous, naturally) and the flighty insouciance of Audrey Hepburn in Breakfast at Tiffany’s.

Much of what I aspired to I now recognize as vapid and ridiculous, and yet I still believe in the magic of a place (or at least a frame of mind) where anything is possible. And so for 4 minutes (less if I’m ejected from the bar for disturbing the peace with my caterwauling) I rap my heart out…

One hand in the air for the big city

Street lights, big dreams all looking pretty

No place in the world that can compare

Put your lighters in the air…

Written by Elodie Cheesman