The Good Ol' Days...

Let's take a trip down memory lane, shall we?

Everyone remembers when they fell in love with hip hop for the first time. You never forget the first rap song you heard, where you were at, or what you were doing when it happened. It's an experience like no other.

I was born in the early 90s. 1991 to be exact. Around that time, hip hop was still fairly young, but it was considered a "fad" by corporate America that wouldn't last long. People dismissed rap because it wasn't "real" music. No instruments at all. Just a turntable, a microphone, and two records that had other people's music on it! How could people possibly enjoy this strange phenomenon? Welp, fast forward to 2017, and here we are. You see hip hop EVERYWHERE now; it's the voice of a generation. In the words of the late great Christopher Wallace, we never thought that hip hop would take it this far.

I remember my first experience with hip hop. The year was 1996, and I was 5 years old. My father and I were riding in his '90 Ford Ranger pickup truck, and all I can remember him putting a tape in the deck and pressing play. A funky bassline came through the speakers, and the next voice I heard changed my life forever...

"Jesus! / The Notorious just, please us with your lyrical thesis / We just chillin, milk 'em, Top Billin'/ Silk and pure linen, me and Lil' Cease...."

The song was 112 featuring the aforementioned Notorious B.I.G. and Mase, "Only You". I swear I drove my pops CRAZY asking him to play it every chance I got. A couple weeks later, I had learned all the words and dance routines and my moms would pull out the video camera. But that was just the beginning, as a couple months later I saw the video for it on TV at my older cousin's house.

Finally getting a chance to match the voices with faces was monumental for me! Not to mention, BIG, Mase, and Puffy looked and sound SO COOL doing whatever it was that they were doing, dancing around the flyest clothes with a bunch of pretty girls around them. In my 5 year old mind, I just knew I wanted to be just like them!

And that, my friend...was the power of music videos. Remember way back when (I know...I'm showing my age here) when BET, MTV, and VH1 showed 'em all day long? Before they got infested by crappy reality television? For a lot of us, music videos were our first experience with hip hop.

Not only that, but we also fell in love with the music video blocks. Total Request Live. Direct Effect. Cita's World. In particular, I remember being at my cousin's or grandparents' house, rushing to finish my homework so I could catch "106 and Park" (much respect to Terrence J and Rocsi, but we ALL know that Free and AJ were the REAL hosts).

And don't let your favorite artist be on there! My and my sister had hella VHS tapes of artist interviews and performances. It was kinda like The Breakfast Club before its time.

Peep the performance from Mr. 106 and Park himself...Lil' Bow-- er, I mean Shad Moss. (As much as we make fun of this dude now, don't act like he ain't taught you how to crip walk or harlem shake. Shit, he's the reason why I grew my hair out and had cornrows in middle school).

Another favorite segment of mine was Freestyle Friday, where two emcees battled each other for the right to be called champion. Around this time, Fight Klub and Smack DVD were popular as well, so everybody at school started battle rapping at recess or at lunch (I won damn near every battle I was in, by the way *wink wink*).

Outta all the shows that aired on BET and MTV, my absolute FAVORITE was Rap City. This show probably had the most influence on why I started rapping, Unfortunately, it used to come on around 4, around the time when I came home from school (Ain't no way I was watching TV til all my homework was done. My folks wasn't playing that shit). Whenever I could catch it, I'd watch all the latest rap videos, and listen to my favorite rappers like Jay-Z, G-Unit, Snoop Dogg, and Dipset be interviewed by the host Big Tigger. At the same time, I would emulate everything about them, most notably the way they dressed and how they talked. Even today, when I watch old interviews on YouTube I pay extra attention to how they marketed themselves.

But the real ones know what we REALLY watched Rap City for: THE BOOTH. It was a childhood dream of mine to rock the booth with Tigger, so I stay writing rhymes and practicing them in the mirror in hopes that that moment would eventually happen.

In the booth, you HAD to come hard; only the best emcees came. And if you killed it, you was definitely the topic of discussion the next day at school.

Peep some of my favorites below:

Ludacris (Note: Luda doesn't enough credit for being one of the South's first punchliners. And he's still relevant to this day. That's rare.)

The Diplomats (Note: Bruh, I'll NEVER forget when I saw this! Cam'ron counting the money during his verse was LEGENDARY. And oh yeah, oversized hats and jerseys for the win. #DipsetForLife)

50 Cent and G-Unit

Cassidy

If you ain't feeling nostalgic right now, you waaaaaay too young. This was an era that will probably never be duplicated. Of course with the rise of social media, YouTube and VEVO, music video blocks became obsolete. You still see some on TV nowadays, but they're only on premium channels like Fuse and MTV2. And even then, they're on when most people are sleeping.

In conclusion, if you came of age in the 90s/2000s like I did, chances are music videos raised you, and shaped you into the kind of person you are today. I feel kinda sorry for today's kids, because they won't ever witness that "feeling" you felt when your favorite artist debuted a world premier video on "106". In those days, we're reminded of a simpler time, when music seemed to be more diverse and more fun. We ain't eem know how good we had it. But history always repeats itself, so who knows? Maybe those times will come back.

But until then, it doesn't hurt to take walk down memory lane.

Til next time,

Ghost