Tuesday, November 16, 2004

When did you fall in love with Hip hop?

She was old school, when I was just a shorty
Never knew throughout my life she would be there for me

on the regular, not a church girl she was secular

Not about the money, no studs was mic checkin her

But I respected her, she hit me in the heart.........


But she was there for me, and I was there for her
Pull out a chair for her, turn on the air for her

and just cool out, cool out and listen to her


Common - I used to Love H.E.R
I was reading Nahmix's blog this weekend on hip hop and somewhere I saw a mention of that line from the movie Brown Sugar and thought to myself that's a nice question to ask.

So to all you hip hop heads holla back and let me know When did you fall in love with Hip Hop?

I'll go first. Back in 86-87 my older cousin lent me two old hip hop tapes. It had tracks like Roxanne Roxanne, Hard Times, Freaks Come out at Night, Five Minutes of Funk and Fly Girls (track that Jay Z jacked for a duet with him and lil'kim on his second album). I remember being intrigued by these guys talking so fast and rhyming. I remember rewinding over and over to catch the words to Roxanne Roxanne. I was hooked. I wasn't immersed in the culture since I was still living in Barbados back then but something about the beats and the words appealed to me. Man I killed those tapes, copied them, killed the copies , copied them again. It was crazy.

After that I taped every hip hop song off the radio I could find for the next two years and I remember the first actual hip hop album I bought was LL's Bigger and Deffer back in 87. I've been through the Good (conscious lyrics in the late 80s early 90s) the bad (the bling bling, the rampant misogyny) and all the in between but I'm still in love with hip hop and I'll even make the probably rare claim that its been a positive influence on me.

6 comments:

Angry Dog said...

Hmmm, I would have to say I fell in love with Hip Hop during the Gangsta era, where you had folks like NWA, Run DMC, etc. spouting mad lyrics. Lost my interest in hip hop when Ice Cube decided to mix gangsta rap with metal...Body Count, Cop Killa, and KKK B*tch just never did it for me. Regained my love for hip hop with the coming of BTupac, Biggie, Dr. Dre, Snoop Dog, Bone Thugs, Wu Tang clan. And yes, even that crackhead thiefin' punk DMX helped to rekindle my love for the music!

{arf,arf}

The Humanity Critic said...

I first fell in love with hip hop in 1979 when my older brother and sister bought the 12 inch of SugarHill gangs "Rappers Delight". Just thinking about that now is funny because they both hate hip hop now. When I first heard it it was so fresh and new, and that is one of my first memories because at that time I was in Kindergarden. I also recall my parents blasting it as "noise" and saying "it wouldn't last". Boy were they wrong, Long live Hip Hop..

chrome said...

ahh I remember the those days of kurtis blow, fat boys stuff like that. What really wrapped hiphop round my dome was krsone. criminal minded baby. many afternoons were lost taping radio shows. the first nwa song I heard was "express yourself". I knew str8up the west was gangsta. westside!! What am I bumping these days? a bit of everything. ol' madlib stuff, theodore unit 718, g-unit. and some jill scott cos we be like that. one thing always gets a play every now and then. midnight marauders. rip dirty.

Jdid said...

KRS one cemented raps hold on me. I heard My Philosphy before I heard the Criminal Minded album. Matter of fact I thought they were all from the same album for about a good 6 months. Regardless I fell in love with that stuff.

Matt the Hat said...

I was given a tape way back when. But on it was a mix of Rock classics by such arists as Rossetta Stone, Sisters of Mercy, Fields of the Nephilim and so forth. The result was that my early years we filled with moody melodic tunes and introspective lyrics.

So I never fell in love with Hip-Hop (although I had lyricly flirted with it and one stage prior to the realy cool tape).

Anonymous said...

Bwoy, I think my age showing bad! (Blushing!) Dr. D.