Brown Sugar

When did I fall in love with Hip Hop?

 I don't know.

 I wish my story read like that of Sydney Shaw in Brown Sugar, but it doesn't. An exact day and an exact moment of realisation would be too far-fetched for me. My memory stretches back to a time when my cousin would want to record hip hop on my empty VHS tapes that I had saved for recording movies and series on tv. He is older than me, so his authority ruled. I was inundated with the East Coast/West Coast battles and through peer pressure and propaganda; I chose the West side as a "rap-team" I would support. And then Tupac died.

 I was on my way to school, listening to the radio and the jock announced that Pac was no more. I can't explain the shift that occurred in me. I began grieving for a man I didn't know. An unfinished poem. I later discovered his poetry in "The rose that grew from concrete" and realised that with him, it had always been about what he was saying and how he delivered it; not so much who he was dissing and the drama that evolved around all that. Rap. Rhythm and poetry. It began making sense to me.

 More than anything in Hip Hop, I love beats. When I heard Nicolay's beat to "Nic's Groove" on The Foreign Exchange's "Connected" album, I melted. And then one day on radio, I heard Little Brother's "Good Clothes". 9th Wonder is a gem with such soulful beats it's like they don't even touch the instruments that they portray; they float. *goosebumps*...years later, I got properly introduced to Little Brother and The Foreign Exchange...and Phonte. I didn't know who the boy was but I put his verses on repeat all the time. An effortless flow with a strong voice and solid lyrical content. Phonte Coleman soon put a face to something I've always battled in finding...my favourite MC. Hip Hop and I have never really had a love/hate relationship. It has been with me since I was 12, and I've never not loved it. Since the days when I saw the colourful "Hit Em Up" video on repeat everyday til my cousin could recite the lyrics and I did the beat and chorus, it has been the only constant in my life. Hip Hop has gone through so many changes, commercially, and having discovered a sound I could relate to, finally, was exhilarating. I have heard about how we should accept the change in mainstream Hip Hop. I can't. I'm stuck in a specific sound. I listen to the new music that is out there but my preference is the mellow jazzy Hip Hop. The type that feels like it is telling a story through the perfectly created beats, well-written lyrics and trance-inducing poetry. 

 So, when did I fall in love with Hip Hop? I can't pin point a date or an era. Hip Hop is and always has been the perfect verse over my heart beat. I just woke up one day and knew where my soul's home was.