Music is an anomaly! These days, I'm a connoisseur of many different genres. It wasn't always that way though. I fee like we all go through our different phases. I got a white mama (you remember on MadTV, "That's my white Mama!"... lmao!) Sorry... so my mom is white and pops is a brova! lol...
I got a lot of cuzzos on my pops side who are older than me. So I remember being around them listening to different Rap and R&B from like the early 90s era, watching House Party and shit. Moms ain't really get down with that stuff, neither did dad really. They were on their smooth jazz shit! I remember hatin that shit... and pretty much most the stuff my parents (especially mom) would play! I feel like it was a lot out of rebellion; she would never let me play the shit I wanted to hear in her car! It's like if I can't hear my shit, then fuck yo shit!
When I got older (middle/high school) I was tryin to hear that DMX (Ruff Ryders), Jay-Z, Luda, Outkast... I don't know, I had a mix of conscious and ignorant in there, probably more ignorant than anything. But it ain't really matter, if it had the sound of hip hop my moms wasn't really tryin to give it a chance. In some ways I don't totally blame her. I always tell the story about this one time we were out in the backyard and we wanted to hear our music back there. So we're blasting Jay-z Vol.3 through the whole house so it'll make it's way to us outside. Of course mom gotta come in the house on "Jigga My Nigga". She came outside and, in the whitest voice I've ever heard, was like "Jigger my nigger???" lmao!
Will said it man, "parent's just don't understand!" But I will admit, I wasn't much of a critic of the shit that was infiltrating my domepiece. I was more of the lemme just listen to what sounds good, what's poppin type. I got the attention span of a damn fly, so just give me a good beat and I'll drift off into my own world. There were songs and groups that I would give more thought too though. One of my favorite tracks ever is Tribe's "Find A Way." I can never forget when I heard that line "your name is out my mouth like an ancient chant." Oh man! I was like "WORD yo! That's how it should be!" Recognizing our ancestry and that I, being a descendant of that line, deserve nothing but the utmost!
I can't listen to that shit and not feel a certain type of way! That's what it is... music means so much to us. I'm at the point today where I still like some ignorant shit, I won't deny that, but it's a mental dilemma. When new shit comes out I'm usually just thinking, you can't be serious with this shit! People really just don't care! I'm still guilty of getting swept up in a dope beat or ill sound, but then at the same time I'll be shaming myself because I can't get down with the words behind it!
I'm not getting what I feel is needed from music these days. What I need and what I feel like we all need. There's so much shit going on in our world and so few of our "artists" are talking about it. Lil Wayne, Soldier Boy, Young Jeezy, this Drake guy! PFFFFFTTT!!! I don't really know who's popular right now, but I imagine they're among them. They don't talk about any of the shit that is plaguing their own people! I've recently been pushing myself to go backwards. I need some Sankofa in my life!
I love old school rap. I won't sit and front like I know mad old music, but you know how you can meet a person and don't know them well and just know they have a good heart? And then every time you bump into that person or see them out at a party or something it's just all love? That's my relationship with old school right now. I know it has that heart, that substance I need to hear so I'm seeking it out as best I know how. And I know it ain't all the same and also that everything that's out right now isn't all trash (Q-tip, The Renaissance). I'm just now in a place of assessment.
I wouldn't tell anyone not to listen to something because it has a negative message (I happen to LOVE 2 Live Crew!). But you gotta realize the shit that's goin in your head! Enjoy it if you want, but don't blindly defend the shit like it's good for you!
So..... that's a little about me. There's definitely more to come. I just wanted to start out giving you a very minute rundown of my musical life's transitions. I feel like music is going to have a lot to do with what I spout about on here. You'll surely also be in store for my rants about race relations, popular culture, language maybe, and whatever else I feel like is pissing me off at the moment.
You have been warned, so that's all for now...
Peace and LOVE!
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