Last night i saw the movie Crash with friends. I have to say, this is one of the best movies i have seen in a long time. it impacted me in many ways, and it is something i will be thinking of for a long time.
i am open for discussion about it, but right now i just want to post to say that people should see the movie.
Sunday, May 22, 2005
Tuesday, May 17, 2005
three t-shirts (scroll down)
holler. its been a while since i last posted. things have been very busy for me. Every time I get the opportunity to blog, i start trying to think of somethind that will be deep and impactful. but then i give up becasue i realize that those things just have to come in their time. (eventually the next music review will come out, i've just come up on a cache of hot new music via my brother in Albq.)
anyway, here is something superficial but i really want to share it. I was asked about my 'guilty pleasures' Well, hip hop clothing and t-shirts is one of them. I love, LOVE conscious, artistic t shirts that display images and words from classic and underground hip hop culture.
here are a few key spots in the LA area
The Globe in Pomona- probably the best hip hop shop i have seen out here, thorough in its underground, electro, reggae, clothing, graffitti and b-boy merchadise
El Mercado
Imix Bookstore in Eagle Rock Home of Divine Forces Radio on 90.7 KPFK, and a center of Indigenous/Chicano politics, education and spirituality.
Workmens Outlet- one in Hollywood and one in Montebello. Dope.
Basically anything made by Exact Science ClothingI cant even describe how much i love this stuff.
Anyway, here is a sample of what you can get me for my next birthday:
anyway, here is something superficial but i really want to share it. I was asked about my 'guilty pleasures' Well, hip hop clothing and t-shirts is one of them. I love, LOVE conscious, artistic t shirts that display images and words from classic and underground hip hop culture.
here are a few key spots in the LA area
The Globe in Pomona- probably the best hip hop shop i have seen out here, thorough in its underground, electro, reggae, clothing, graffitti and b-boy merchadise
El Mercado
Imix Bookstore in Eagle Rock Home of Divine Forces Radio on 90.7 KPFK, and a center of Indigenous/Chicano politics, education and spirituality.
Workmens Outlet- one in Hollywood and one in Montebello. Dope.
Basically anything made by Exact Science ClothingI cant even describe how much i love this stuff.
Anyway, here is a sample of what you can get me for my next birthday:
Saturday, May 07, 2005
you were a dark horse
sniffing breath of cold mesa air
always outside of your people
and the smell of burning sage
yours was the shrub oak
and the juniper
sweet smelling prayer
lifting your hands filled with
life-mud and singing
to greet the dawn
your tears were drops of the deer's blood
sacrifice to your memory
a lament for the mountain stream
that every winter went into icy death
and you moved into solitude
i dont cry over you
your spirit became a drumskin,
streched tight and lovingly over
the hopes of your people
we make your music
sniffing breath of cold mesa air
always outside of your people
and the smell of burning sage
yours was the shrub oak
and the juniper
sweet smelling prayer
lifting your hands filled with
life-mud and singing
to greet the dawn
your tears were drops of the deer's blood
sacrifice to your memory
a lament for the mountain stream
that every winter went into icy death
and you moved into solitude
i dont cry over you
your spirit became a drumskin,
streched tight and lovingly over
the hopes of your people
we make your music
Monday, May 02, 2005
Review #1 - Back in the Day
*** This post has been in the works for a while. Actually, it is the trial run of an idea that I hope will take wings and develop into a long term mainstay of the L.A. basin urban ministry blog culture. Ok, well maybe not, but that would be cool. Thanks to Tina and some others who gave positive feedback on my last foray into music review writing, I have decided to begin writing regular (or as regular as I can) music reviews.
Reasons:
1. I love music, I have obscene amounts of it, and if I had not chosen the better life that Jesus offers, my life would be absorbed by the minutia, trivia, eclectica (is that a word?) of every genre and sub-sub-genre that I could devote my time, money and energy exploring/discovering.
2. I love letting people in on worlds that I and my close friends/musical kindred spirits enjoy—albeit from a rather elitist position. I want my friends of all walks of life to be able to understand what it is that has compelled me, beyond reason, to accumulate so much material and knowledge about something that to many is just entertainment. Feel me on this. I’m letting you in on a little piece of Me.
3. I love to write. Reviews are just another genre that I am excited about reviving my talents into the service of. (Please note in the last sentence that talking about review writing was another opportunity for me to use the word ‘genre.’ We music types love to use that word because it makes us feel like we know what we’re talking about.)
Seriously though, I write reviews for my high school newspaper, and its been a while.
4. Admit it, you want me to.
I hope that this will be a cool thing for people to read. Part of my purpose in doing this is not to make a bunch of articles that are only accessible to music snobs. My reviews will provide background info, and will not be strictly confined to the musical aspect of the songs/artists I am reviewing. Being the true historian/social scientist that I was trained to be, I will connect songs/artists/genres to the wider political, philosophical, social, folk, economic, spiritual context out of which they come. This will add some depth, hopefully, and pique the interest of people who thirst for the answer to the question “What does it all mean, anyway?”
So, without further adoo, here is my first review.
Ahh…back in the day…. You know that feeling. That feeling you get when you think back to a time when things were simpler, care-free—almost serene in its youthful exuberance. It is more than a feeling, more than a collection of memories. It is a philosophical reflection on a time and place that you came from. A time and place that was yours, and it was good.
When we say ‘back in the day’ we mean something different than when we day, ‘back when…’ or ‘a long time ago.’ You took algebra back when you were in 8th grade. You read Charlotte’s Web a long time ago. But you rocked tube socks with the 3 red stripes and a polo with the alligator on the front back in the day. You sent notes in Language Arts class to your middle school crush back in the day. You first heard that one song, the song that all your homegirls and you would dance to through high school when it was just you and them and one of you had just found out that the guy you liked was in love with a girl you hated—back in the day… Back in the day is a state of mind--almost, I would venture to say, a culture.
I was reminded of this the other day when I went into Jason’s apartment and saw Arturo and Juan, two youth from our neighborhood, listening to the song “Back in the Day” by Ahmad. My first reaction, as is always the case when I hear a song that connects me so much to my past and is such a fixture in my music pantheon, was pure glee. Immediately after that, though, I was surprised. It is not a song that I would have expected to come out of the heavily 2Pac-Baby Bash-Thug Imitator saturated speakers of our group of youth. But then I realized, no—this is “Back in the Day.” This song, regardless of its mid-90’s dated-ness, is expressive of something much deeper and connected to the experience of our youth than your average booty-shaker club joint on the radio.
It is probably not accurate to say that Ahmad’s song brought this phrase or its mentality to the mainstream. Like many aspects of hip hop culture, ‘back in the day’ originated in the murky, untraceable past of a culture and a movement that was always in a state of recreating itself under the radar of national, media, or mainstream attention. In our generation, this phrase is only one of dozens to have been wrenched from the hip hop lexicon into mainstream vernacular. Aggressive commercialism and the American fetish for things ‘ghetto’ (read: ‘authentic’ Black culture) have thrust many cultural forms and expressions into more widespread (mis)use.
Nevertheless, the spirit of ‘back in the day’ survives, wherever people get that smile, look up into the distance and think back to that one time…
It was summer, 1994. West Coast rap was firmly on top. After several years in the 1980s and early 1990s of pushing through an era of eccentricity, creative plurality and self-definition, West Coast hip hop was finally beginning to have a definable sound all its own—for better or for worse. West Coast rap had begun mainly as an imitation of East Coast party rap. There was a playful, carefree vibe—but also an unpolished, less sophisticated and nuanced sound as compared to the New York scene, which was already old enough to have an ‘old school’ by the mid 80’s. By the early 1990s, West Coast rap had diversified, but its character, its essence, had yet to be defined. You had the proto-gangster stylings of Ice-T and King Tee. You had the Tribe-Called-Quest-esque, but grittier poetics of the Pharcyde. And from the Bay Area, you had artists as diverse as pimp-a-listic Too Short, the raucous and playful Digital Underground, and the glossy, Rick-James-jocking crossover hit, MC Hammer.
Depending on who you ask, this was either the golden age of West Coast rap, or the dark ages. In any case, everyone agrees that with the rise of gangsta rap, everything would completely change.
N.W.A. released Straight Outta Compton in 1989. Dr. Dre, Eazy E and Ice Cube would all later become definitive and crucial influences in crafting the California sound and blowing it up for the whole world to hear: G-funk. (ironically, Dr. Dre, the father of G-Funk, had started out with a really pathetic Gheri-curl-ass-80’s-glam-funk-wannabe Rick James-pseudo hip hop group called the World Class Wrecking Cru—a fact that would later haunt him after he had a falling out with Eazy E and Eazy used it to seriously ‘bag’ on him on record) Anyway, by 1994, G-funk was certified platinum bling bling—rap sales skyrocketed and a generation of suburbanites was exposed to the lifestyle of gang violence, misogyny, 40’s, blunts, and all that drama in the LBC. Most of all, Cali was King.
This was around the time when I began listening to hip hop, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic(the quintessential and most defining G-funk record) had already been out for a couple years, and I had missed that wave. However, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s debut, Doggystyle and Warren G’s Regulate: G-Funk Era were bangin. Also key at that time was Bone Thugs & Harmony, the brainchild of Eazy E. There were even a few Bay Area acts that were contributing their own flavor to the rise of Gangster-funk.
It was 7th grade for me. I was immersing myself as much as I could in this new, gritty wave of creativity washing over from the West. One day, I forget when it was exactly, this song came on…a little different from the rest, but immediately I loved it and I knew it would be with me for a long time. I never actually learned who the artist was until years later, but the mellow 70’s style groove and the smoothly-finessed sentimental chorus had me hooked:
Back in the days when I was young
I’m not a kid anymore
But some days I sit and wish I was a kid again…
The chorus was repeated, and then an awkward teenage-like voice came in with a story- like flow talking about what it was like to be just a little kid growing up in South Central.
Ya’ll remember way back then,
when it was 1985, all the way live
I think I was about ten….
First of all, this was not G-Funk. It may even have been G-Funk-lite (a-la Montel Jordan or Coolio), but who knows. The character of this music was not hyper-masculine posturing, or smoky, bass heavy cruising music. It was summertime barbecue in the park music. It was kick it at the crib with your homies music.
I liked it. It was something to chill to, something I wouldn’t be ashamed letting my parents listen to. The beat, I would find out 8 years later in my record-collecting phase, was a straight sample from a 1978 Teddy Pendergrass soul ballad, “Love T.K.O.” Just this year, I discovered that the version I heard in ’94 was actually a remix of the original version, which used an even more smooth, youthful sample from a Staple Singers song. But more than all this, the song gave words to a feeling, a mindstate that I was just beginning to understand.
I'm still back in the days, but now the year is '87
'88 that's when my crew and I were in junior high
In 7th grade, I hated school (wish it'd blown up)
No doubt I couldn't wait to get out (and be a grownup)
But let me finish this reminiscin’ and tellin’
Bout when girls was bellin tight courderoys like for the boys
basket weaves, Nike Cortez, and footsie socks
And eatin pickles, with tootsie pops
And it don't stop, I'm glad cuz when J.J. Fad did”Supersonic” it was kinda like a sport to wear biker shorts
or, to wear jeans and it seemed like the masses
of hoochies, had “poison” airbrushed on they asses
Dudes, had on Nike suits, and the Pumas withthe fat laces,
cuz it was either that or K-Swiss
The song depicts an idyllic, almost serene image of what growing up in the hood was like—all the trouble you would get into as a kid, all the styles that were popular, the music that was popular at the time. At the end of the song, Ahmad (the rapper) reflects on how he has moved up and out of the ghetto to a more successful life, but he misses those days….
But, didn't always have clout,
used to live in South Central L.A.
That's where I stayed and figured a way out
I gave it all I had so for what it's worth
I went, from rags to riches which is a drag but now I'm first
So Ahmad and The Jones' is on our way up
Yup, we said that we was gonna make it since a kid
and we finally did, but
Sometimes I still sit there reminescin
Think about the years I was raised, back in the days
In the years since then, the essential message and lyrics of this song ring even more true than they did to me as a wide-eyed 7th grader in 1994.
The back in the day ethos is one that arises out of hip hop, out of urban culture in an attempt to express one of the many contradictions of American life in the inner city. I think it was aptly expressed by Coolio on an album interlude—“As much as I hate this muh-***, Love this muh-***!” In other words, the hood is no place to be, but when you really think about it, you gotta love it. It was the place that raised you, the place and the people that taught you what to be, and what not to be. It is the place where you had all your self-defining experiences—where you got bullied, won games, laughed at your friends.
When I transferred from the urban public schools to a private school on the other side of town after 9th grade, the meaning of back in the day became ever more clear to me. In the polished and proper world of higher education (or Christian community) it was refreshing and soul-nourishing to throw on that old song and think of those days when you had no responsibilities and didn’t have to take things so seriously.
I really think, though, that the meaning of back in the day is not confined strictly to those who have moved up out of the hood. I think for many of us who are re-locators in urban ministry can resonate with the idea of leaving an idyllic past home to pursue a life of discipline and maturity. Of course, we have chosen to leave a lot of brokenness behind, and it is not good to dwell in the past. But c’mon—you gotta give love to where you came from. You gotta pour some out for the homies. You gotta remember that one time you acted a straight fool….
For me, back in the day is an ongoing thing. As a pilgrim, I have left many places behind me, and being the sentimentalist that I am, I have the need to commemorate, in some way, with someone, the events, emotions, people, styles, music, laughs, loves, mistakes, joys of the past. This song brings me back to that place. It reminds me that I love to go there, love my history, love reminiscing. I do it by remembering the music I was listening to at that time. I do it by remembering what we were wearing, what things we thought were cool. I do it by reflecting on how far I’ve come from those antics, attitudes and anxieties that made me a kid. Working with youth and in education has made me appreciate the back in the day ethos a lot more. In them, I see myself, how I was when I was their age. Often, I am even a little jealous of the fun they have, the small things that they worry so much about. But I think that working in education is a good fit for someone like me, because on the one hand I can be young again, re-living a lot of the joys and dramas that made childhood great, and on the other hand, I can lead and guide and teach children to become whole, mature, healthy adults.
Here is a selection of hip hop songs that also, I think, embody back in the day:
Lighter Shade of Brown- “Homies”
Digable Planets- “Where I’m From”
Crown City Rockers “B-Boy”
Nas & 2Pac- “Thugz Mansion”
Nas- “Memory Lane (Sittin in the Park)”
Chief Kamachi, Rashed & DJ Revolution- “Forever”
Notorious B.I.G.- “Juicy”
Common “I used to love H.E.R.”
Lauryn Hill- “Every Ghetto, Every City”
CMA- “Windows”
Stevie Wonder- “I wish”
WAR- “Summer”(not hip hop, but by far some of the best music ever laid down about back in the day, and period.)
Reasons:
1. I love music, I have obscene amounts of it, and if I had not chosen the better life that Jesus offers, my life would be absorbed by the minutia, trivia, eclectica (is that a word?) of every genre and sub-sub-genre that I could devote my time, money and energy exploring/discovering.
2. I love letting people in on worlds that I and my close friends/musical kindred spirits enjoy—albeit from a rather elitist position. I want my friends of all walks of life to be able to understand what it is that has compelled me, beyond reason, to accumulate so much material and knowledge about something that to many is just entertainment. Feel me on this. I’m letting you in on a little piece of Me.
3. I love to write. Reviews are just another genre that I am excited about reviving my talents into the service of. (Please note in the last sentence that talking about review writing was another opportunity for me to use the word ‘genre.’ We music types love to use that word because it makes us feel like we know what we’re talking about.)
Seriously though, I write reviews for my high school newspaper, and its been a while.
4. Admit it, you want me to.
I hope that this will be a cool thing for people to read. Part of my purpose in doing this is not to make a bunch of articles that are only accessible to music snobs. My reviews will provide background info, and will not be strictly confined to the musical aspect of the songs/artists I am reviewing. Being the true historian/social scientist that I was trained to be, I will connect songs/artists/genres to the wider political, philosophical, social, folk, economic, spiritual context out of which they come. This will add some depth, hopefully, and pique the interest of people who thirst for the answer to the question “What does it all mean, anyway?”
So, without further adoo, here is my first review.
Ahh…back in the day…. You know that feeling. That feeling you get when you think back to a time when things were simpler, care-free—almost serene in its youthful exuberance. It is more than a feeling, more than a collection of memories. It is a philosophical reflection on a time and place that you came from. A time and place that was yours, and it was good.
When we say ‘back in the day’ we mean something different than when we day, ‘back when…’ or ‘a long time ago.’ You took algebra back when you were in 8th grade. You read Charlotte’s Web a long time ago. But you rocked tube socks with the 3 red stripes and a polo with the alligator on the front back in the day. You sent notes in Language Arts class to your middle school crush back in the day. You first heard that one song, the song that all your homegirls and you would dance to through high school when it was just you and them and one of you had just found out that the guy you liked was in love with a girl you hated—back in the day… Back in the day is a state of mind--almost, I would venture to say, a culture.
I was reminded of this the other day when I went into Jason’s apartment and saw Arturo and Juan, two youth from our neighborhood, listening to the song “Back in the Day” by Ahmad. My first reaction, as is always the case when I hear a song that connects me so much to my past and is such a fixture in my music pantheon, was pure glee. Immediately after that, though, I was surprised. It is not a song that I would have expected to come out of the heavily 2Pac-Baby Bash-Thug Imitator saturated speakers of our group of youth. But then I realized, no—this is “Back in the Day.” This song, regardless of its mid-90’s dated-ness, is expressive of something much deeper and connected to the experience of our youth than your average booty-shaker club joint on the radio.
It is probably not accurate to say that Ahmad’s song brought this phrase or its mentality to the mainstream. Like many aspects of hip hop culture, ‘back in the day’ originated in the murky, untraceable past of a culture and a movement that was always in a state of recreating itself under the radar of national, media, or mainstream attention. In our generation, this phrase is only one of dozens to have been wrenched from the hip hop lexicon into mainstream vernacular. Aggressive commercialism and the American fetish for things ‘ghetto’ (read: ‘authentic’ Black culture) have thrust many cultural forms and expressions into more widespread (mis)use.
Nevertheless, the spirit of ‘back in the day’ survives, wherever people get that smile, look up into the distance and think back to that one time…
It was summer, 1994. West Coast rap was firmly on top. After several years in the 1980s and early 1990s of pushing through an era of eccentricity, creative plurality and self-definition, West Coast hip hop was finally beginning to have a definable sound all its own—for better or for worse. West Coast rap had begun mainly as an imitation of East Coast party rap. There was a playful, carefree vibe—but also an unpolished, less sophisticated and nuanced sound as compared to the New York scene, which was already old enough to have an ‘old school’ by the mid 80’s. By the early 1990s, West Coast rap had diversified, but its character, its essence, had yet to be defined. You had the proto-gangster stylings of Ice-T and King Tee. You had the Tribe-Called-Quest-esque, but grittier poetics of the Pharcyde. And from the Bay Area, you had artists as diverse as pimp-a-listic Too Short, the raucous and playful Digital Underground, and the glossy, Rick-James-jocking crossover hit, MC Hammer.
Depending on who you ask, this was either the golden age of West Coast rap, or the dark ages. In any case, everyone agrees that with the rise of gangsta rap, everything would completely change.
N.W.A. released Straight Outta Compton in 1989. Dr. Dre, Eazy E and Ice Cube would all later become definitive and crucial influences in crafting the California sound and blowing it up for the whole world to hear: G-funk. (ironically, Dr. Dre, the father of G-Funk, had started out with a really pathetic Gheri-curl-ass-80’s-glam-funk-wannabe Rick James-pseudo hip hop group called the World Class Wrecking Cru—a fact that would later haunt him after he had a falling out with Eazy E and Eazy used it to seriously ‘bag’ on him on record) Anyway, by 1994, G-funk was certified platinum bling bling—rap sales skyrocketed and a generation of suburbanites was exposed to the lifestyle of gang violence, misogyny, 40’s, blunts, and all that drama in the LBC. Most of all, Cali was King.
This was around the time when I began listening to hip hop, so it will always hold a special place in my heart. Dr. Dre’s The Chronic(the quintessential and most defining G-funk record) had already been out for a couple years, and I had missed that wave. However, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s debut, Doggystyle and Warren G’s Regulate: G-Funk Era were bangin. Also key at that time was Bone Thugs & Harmony, the brainchild of Eazy E. There were even a few Bay Area acts that were contributing their own flavor to the rise of Gangster-funk.
It was 7th grade for me. I was immersing myself as much as I could in this new, gritty wave of creativity washing over from the West. One day, I forget when it was exactly, this song came on…a little different from the rest, but immediately I loved it and I knew it would be with me for a long time. I never actually learned who the artist was until years later, but the mellow 70’s style groove and the smoothly-finessed sentimental chorus had me hooked:
Back in the days when I was young
I’m not a kid anymore
But some days I sit and wish I was a kid again…
The chorus was repeated, and then an awkward teenage-like voice came in with a story- like flow talking about what it was like to be just a little kid growing up in South Central.
Ya’ll remember way back then,
when it was 1985, all the way live
I think I was about ten….
First of all, this was not G-Funk. It may even have been G-Funk-lite (a-la Montel Jordan or Coolio), but who knows. The character of this music was not hyper-masculine posturing, or smoky, bass heavy cruising music. It was summertime barbecue in the park music. It was kick it at the crib with your homies music.
I liked it. It was something to chill to, something I wouldn’t be ashamed letting my parents listen to. The beat, I would find out 8 years later in my record-collecting phase, was a straight sample from a 1978 Teddy Pendergrass soul ballad, “Love T.K.O.” Just this year, I discovered that the version I heard in ’94 was actually a remix of the original version, which used an even more smooth, youthful sample from a Staple Singers song. But more than all this, the song gave words to a feeling, a mindstate that I was just beginning to understand.
I'm still back in the days, but now the year is '87
'88 that's when my crew and I were in junior high
In 7th grade, I hated school (wish it'd blown up)
No doubt I couldn't wait to get out (and be a grownup)
But let me finish this reminiscin’ and tellin’
Bout when girls was bellin tight courderoys like for the boys
basket weaves, Nike Cortez, and footsie socks
And eatin pickles, with tootsie pops
And it don't stop, I'm glad cuz when J.J. Fad did”Supersonic” it was kinda like a sport to wear biker shorts
or, to wear jeans and it seemed like the masses
of hoochies, had “poison” airbrushed on they asses
Dudes, had on Nike suits, and the Pumas withthe fat laces,
cuz it was either that or K-Swiss
The song depicts an idyllic, almost serene image of what growing up in the hood was like—all the trouble you would get into as a kid, all the styles that were popular, the music that was popular at the time. At the end of the song, Ahmad (the rapper) reflects on how he has moved up and out of the ghetto to a more successful life, but he misses those days….
But, didn't always have clout,
used to live in South Central L.A.
That's where I stayed and figured a way out
I gave it all I had so for what it's worth
I went, from rags to riches which is a drag but now I'm first
So Ahmad and The Jones' is on our way up
Yup, we said that we was gonna make it since a kid
and we finally did, but
Sometimes I still sit there reminescin
Think about the years I was raised, back in the days
In the years since then, the essential message and lyrics of this song ring even more true than they did to me as a wide-eyed 7th grader in 1994.
The back in the day ethos is one that arises out of hip hop, out of urban culture in an attempt to express one of the many contradictions of American life in the inner city. I think it was aptly expressed by Coolio on an album interlude—“As much as I hate this muh-***, Love this muh-***!” In other words, the hood is no place to be, but when you really think about it, you gotta love it. It was the place that raised you, the place and the people that taught you what to be, and what not to be. It is the place where you had all your self-defining experiences—where you got bullied, won games, laughed at your friends.
When I transferred from the urban public schools to a private school on the other side of town after 9th grade, the meaning of back in the day became ever more clear to me. In the polished and proper world of higher education (or Christian community) it was refreshing and soul-nourishing to throw on that old song and think of those days when you had no responsibilities and didn’t have to take things so seriously.
I really think, though, that the meaning of back in the day is not confined strictly to those who have moved up out of the hood. I think for many of us who are re-locators in urban ministry can resonate with the idea of leaving an idyllic past home to pursue a life of discipline and maturity. Of course, we have chosen to leave a lot of brokenness behind, and it is not good to dwell in the past. But c’mon—you gotta give love to where you came from. You gotta pour some out for the homies. You gotta remember that one time you acted a straight fool….
For me, back in the day is an ongoing thing. As a pilgrim, I have left many places behind me, and being the sentimentalist that I am, I have the need to commemorate, in some way, with someone, the events, emotions, people, styles, music, laughs, loves, mistakes, joys of the past. This song brings me back to that place. It reminds me that I love to go there, love my history, love reminiscing. I do it by remembering the music I was listening to at that time. I do it by remembering what we were wearing, what things we thought were cool. I do it by reflecting on how far I’ve come from those antics, attitudes and anxieties that made me a kid. Working with youth and in education has made me appreciate the back in the day ethos a lot more. In them, I see myself, how I was when I was their age. Often, I am even a little jealous of the fun they have, the small things that they worry so much about. But I think that working in education is a good fit for someone like me, because on the one hand I can be young again, re-living a lot of the joys and dramas that made childhood great, and on the other hand, I can lead and guide and teach children to become whole, mature, healthy adults.
Here is a selection of hip hop songs that also, I think, embody back in the day:
Lighter Shade of Brown- “Homies”
Digable Planets- “Where I’m From”
Crown City Rockers “B-Boy”
Nas & 2Pac- “Thugz Mansion”
Nas- “Memory Lane (Sittin in the Park)”
Chief Kamachi, Rashed & DJ Revolution- “Forever”
Notorious B.I.G.- “Juicy”
Common “I used to love H.E.R.”
Lauryn Hill- “Every Ghetto, Every City”
CMA- “Windows”
Stevie Wonder- “I wish”
WAR- “Summer”(not hip hop, but by far some of the best music ever laid down about back in the day, and period.)
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)