Just in time for the Brown Sugar Anniversary, I asked my friends to share their story of when they fell in love with hip hop.
In the first installment of The Day I Fell in Love with Hip-Hop: Meet Chris Cad, an amazing creative out of Philadelphia who is a WTang enthusiast and just embodies hip-hop on so many levels. She’s just dope on so many levels let’s fall in love with Chris Cad. (Insert applause)
LET’S GET ILL!
The year was 1988, I was a mere 7 years old on Christmas Day. Gas was .91¢ a gallon, Bruce Willis’ “Die Hard” was the best action thriller movie of the year.
I recall, ripping open the first wrapped box under the tree I could get my hands on. There it was a pink Panasonic, one cassette-player, with a weak ass FM radio player…(so later maxing mixtapes, became quite the challenge…LOL).
I only had access to my parent’s vinyls before this moment so getting my own boombox for Christmas was INCREDIBLE. It didn’t even matter I had zero cassettes to even play in it. I had my own way of listening to the music I wanted to now. I remember my dad saying we would go to the corner music shop in our neighborhood the next day to go pick out new cassettes.
I COULD NOT WAIT! (Now, at this point, your probably thinking…”What does a seven year old white girl, in 1988, getting her first cassette tape even have to do with hip hop?”…..but keep reading…).
We arrived at the music shop bright and early the day after Christmas. I still remember the smell of the vinyl in the shop and the bright lights shining on the wall of cassettes. My dad told me I could only get one tape. “That’s it?!,” I remember thinking, but it wasn’t as hard of a choice as a seven year old would have anticipated. I pulled out a few tapes and returned them to their slots on the wall, and then I pulled out a tape that lead to the definition of my world within music, my art, mood, and who I became influenced by as an adult. The cassette had a dude standing on top of a red car wearing a black outfit, red shirt and a red Kangol bucket hat. As I looked closer I saw the word “BAD” written in yellow letters on the cover. THIS was the tape I wanted. Something about the cover resonated with me as a seven year old. I remember my dad questioned, “LL Cool J? This is the one you want?” I didn’t even know who LL Cool J was, but I was about to. I had chose L.L. Cool J’s Bigger and Deffer album.
I remember opening the tape in the car on the ride home. I ran into that apartment quicker then I ever had, slid the tape into the slot, clicked the slip shut and hit play. The very first track I ever heard was “I’m Bad,” but the track that I was captivated by was track 9 “I Need Love.” I played that song probably 600 times just that day. (Stop, rewind, play, stop, rewind, not far back enough keep rewinding, stop, play, repeat). I couldn’t believe someone could rhyme so many words in a row and there was something about the beat of that song that just had my mind captivated. It was that day I fell in love with hip hop.
The feeling it gave me to hear another person’s story, through hip hop; through poetry, clever techniques, and over top bits of sound that makes your heart race- paved the way for the art I create, the experiences I had and have now, and most importantly the knowledge I seek.
Hip hop is a culture of endurance. A culture of elements banded together that have created an epicenter for change and expression. Hip hop Revolutionaries like LL, Rakim, Pac, Wutang Clan, Biggie, Common, OutKast, (I could go on) have paved the way for the music industry to be turned completely on its head, and that little seven year old girl who bought that tape 30 years ago- still hasn’t stopped being influenced and captivated by the one cassette tape, the community and the entire hip hop culture that has developed and spear-headed her outlook on life forever.
