Defsounds

I was in love, I cant lie. I remember the day it became essential to my soul. I was in my boy’s “Kwane” room and as usual he and I were creating our own label and making up play artist to work on them. We would create three to four artist give them name’s Bio’s and then start writing the songs for their albums. I remember on that specific day I was working on a group called 911 and for whatever reason I just couldn’t think of anything to write for there album. I remember sitting on the bed groaning in frustration and tossing my pad to the side, I was ready to just give up on the whole concept of the album.

After letting me sit and be lazy for about five minutes Kwane snapped me out of my procrastination and suggested we listen to this new tape he got earlier today. There was nothing else to do, and as far as I was concerned, writing this album could wait so I agreed. It was some new rapper, a guy that I had heard about on the radio a couple of times but never really listened to, his name was Biggie Smalls, and the album was “ready to die”.

Sixty minutes of Pure Fire by the end of the first side of the cassette I was so inspired amazed that all I could do was just sit with my boy Kwane and wonder aloud why I had never heard him before. Every song from beginning to end was just so much better than anything that I have ever heard, but there was one song above all others on that tape that was able to shoot me with the cupid arrow that would make hiphop and I musical soul mates, forever connected..

Notorious B.I.G: Juicy

“It was all a dream I used to read Word Up magazine” for you true hip hop fans and even the casual one’s you know that line can come from only one song Juicy. Kwane and I must of played that song a million times, but it just never got old to me, hearing his lyrics, what he had to say, and what he went through made me feel like I could relate to him, I could hear the emotion in his lyrics and it made me respect his story and want to support him so he could continue to succeed. By the time we went through every song in that album I was hooked, in my young mind I felt that if I could connect with biggie so easily through his music, and hear his story, then I should explore other artist, hear their stories and look for that same connection through their lyrics.

Before you knew it I was engulfed in this thing we call hiphop from 94-99. I must have just engulfed myself in hiphop, Kwane and I would take turns buying the newest albums, if we didn’t have the money to buy the albums we would just record the songs when they played on the radio. Hot 97 and The Source was the end all to be all at the time. Since we couldn’t afford to buy the source all of the time we would go to the library and read whatever issues they had there. It seemed like everyday I learned something new about hiphop, and everyday my connection with it grew stronger. Through some of the hardest times in my life, hip hop was always there for me. There were times when all I really had was hiphop.

I remember the sad day’s when I was a prisoner in my own house, the only escape I had was my music, I lay on my back stare at the ceiling and just let the music flow through me, Too Shorts “back in the day” “2Pacs keep your head up”, and the notorious B.I.G. “suicidal thoughts” were some of the songs that help me through my tough times. When I wanted to hear about the struggle, all I had to do was pop in my N.W.A cassette. Not every story was the same, but I could understand and respect everyone because they all had something unique to say and they all had their own way to say it. Some artist spit fast like Jay-Z (when he first came out) or some spit with a calculating flow, so you would be forced to pay attention (like Rakim), some rhymed with intelligence and Vocabulary, while others kept the profanity and bravado at an excess. I ate slept and breathed hiphop it was all that I ever needed to get through the day’s. For me 94-99 was the golden age, but just like any relationship things began to lag a little bit.

I remember the first time I really stepped away from hiphop, it was after I had heard a song which I felt just had no point (sipping on some sizzurp) after all of these years of hearing songs and lyrics that challenged me mentally and made me think about life and the culture that I lived in, hip hop was beginning to play to a whole new beat. Everyone was a killer, or extremely rich. I went from being able to listen to a hole album from intro to conclusion and loving every song, to hearing albums where the only thing I liked was the singles. I guess my love just got obsessed with the money, hiphop went from just trying to get people to hear her voice to shooting for every dollar possible. I felt as if I didn’t know her anymore.

When she first entered my world, her she defined the lives and creativity of so many artist, and now in my eyes at the least she was just a reflection of a good marketing plan and strong singles. There was a time when rappers were judged by their lyrical skill, content, delivery, and flow, but now a rappers skill is based on their record sale’s, you can be a rapper who never wrote your own song, who never spit a hot sixteen, and as long as you could make a catchy hook and sell records you were in there. A love that I once thought was only shared between myself and hiphop was now being whored around for everyone to get a taste of. Lyrical trains of no skill and content were being ran through her and it was ok, my love almost faded.

I still love her, I always will its not something that I can just turn off. Hiphop is my first and last, the alpha and omega, she has changed in ways that I may never respect and understand, she may have lost her way, just like I did at times, but throughout the changes when things seemed grim she always fount a way to reach me. I almost turned my back on hiphop it just seemed like the love that we had before was gone, and that she had changed to much for me to accept, but like other relationships, the promise of improvement kept me here. So now that the relationship is once again on life support, I sit here and have to ask myself, do I still love her?

Erik B. & Rakim: Paid In Full