I’m currently writing this as ohbliv — a Richmond, VA beat-making legend — plays in the background on my harman/kardon portable speaker that was once wireless until my college roommates decided to leave it plugged in 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
Now, it can only play if it’s plugged in.
Yes, that was more than three years ago.
Yes, I’m still tight.
But that’s beside the point.
Hip-hop just celebrated 45 years.
Birthed at a house party on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, Bronx, New York — a bastard child of jazz, blues, soul and funk — to now being the most popular genre on the planet? What a time.
I still remember my first encounter with hip-hop.
My family was living in Ghana at the time and we were making our way back from our weekly retreat to Labadi Beach, a local beach on the other side of town.
Sandy-butted, tired and blackened by the sun, I laid my head on the window, my eyes fluttering to sleep.
“I won’t deny ya, I’m a straight rider, you don’t wanna f**k with me…”
My eyes shot open.
Then the sinister piano chord came in.
I was hooked.
My eyes shifted to my dad in the driver’s seat nodding and rapping along with the mysterious MC blaring from his crisp 2001 Durango speakers.
When the equally haunting “oooo’s” faded out as the song came to a close, I asked, “Who’s that?”
Smiling in the rearview mirror and looking at my eyes bulging from its sockets in amazement, my dad said “Pac!”
This began my journey into the rabbit hole.
Many a-days, I would spend sneaking into my dad’s big black linen CD case — everyone had one of these back in the day — chockfull of hundreds of classic records and pop them into my SONY CD Player.
Of course at seven years old, I didn’t understand everything I was listening to. But, I would I play them over and over and over again until I knew the lyrics verbatim.
Cuss words, vulgar language and all, which typically resulted in stern “what did you just say’s” from my mom.
And a pop in the mouth if she heard me repeat the forbidden lyrics.
More than 15 years later, I still have the same bugged-eyed fascination for hip-hop as I did as a snot-nosed listening to “Ambitionz Az A Ridah” for the first time.
Mind you, nowadays I have to sift through a sea of face-tattooed-colorful-haired-xanny-induced MCs to find talent. But, hip-hop is very much alive today.
Hip-hop — I thank you. The world thanks you. God thanks you.
I’ve got to end with this — the cliché question all hip-hop heads ask…
In order:
- Pac
- Nas
- K. Dot
- Ye
- Ghostface
BABL 