The First Hip Hop album I bought was Dj Jazzy Jeff and the Fresh Prince - "Parent's Just Don't Understand." I must have been 7 or 8. That was the beginning. Fresh Prince was the first cool rapper out there. He made simple songs that made a lot of fucking sense. "Girls of the World Ain't Nothing But Trouble", "Parent's Just Don't Understand", "You Saw my Blinker Bitch". It was the late 80's, Rakim had begun to show the way and KRS and Boogie Down was holding it down, but I wasn't on those guys yet. Fresh Prince was talking about shit that was on my level at the moment....and he KNEW WHAT THE FUCK HE WAS TALKING ABOUT. Don't get things twisted with you know...Men In Black remixes from 80's songs and you know Wild Wild West..Wild Wild West....yeah that shit was wack. But when Prince was in his prime he was a Genius.
This isn't gonna be about how Hip Hop has lost its way, or we need to get back to this era, or how Lil Wayne has ruined Hip Hop. Frankly I'm tired about hearing about the good old days. They were good. They were great. The 90's shaped us. It was a marvelous rotten decade that will live in infamy. But who is to say what they meant? Did the ruin us and make us rotten as well? We're talking about the OJ Simpson Era here. We was gettin AWAY with shit!!!! We was killing white bitches and they boyfriends and getting away with it. We had come to a point in our history where we had the money to be equal in the blind eye of the law. We had rappers who were actually shooting police and getting away with it. Getting bailed out of jail for 1.2 million dollars by a record company. Out of all this madness there was something beautiful going on. Music - Hip Hop and R&B especially - saw a spark that burned hard for years. To this day....This is gonna be about the effect the music had on our generation. The good and the bad.
to be continued.....
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