A Few Days that Changed Music

The latest issue of Blender Magazine has a featured called "100 Days That Changed Music". They claim that if you subtract the moments within their list that "you'd have no mp3s, no LSD, no hip-hop."

From what I could see, they did alot of thinking and research to pull it off. Which I respect completely. I've wrote a couple lists like that in my day, and let me tell you, its not the easiest thing in the world to do. However, after reading through the Blender list, I still didn't feel like I could relate to alot of it. I know the world is bigger than my living room, but still.

So...I decided to share a few days that I think music effected my life. Feel free to add and comment.

April 29th, 1995
This is the day that I bought my first tape, with my own money. The album was Mobb Deep's The Infamous. I had plenty of Hip Hop tapes, albums, songs, etc in my possession by then, but most if not all of it was stuff I either dubbed or "borrowed" from older relatives or friends who had parents cool enough to buy cussing music for them. I bought the tape from Camelot Music at South Dekalb Mall. I was surprised that they let me buy it since it had the Advisory sticker on it. But I think this was around the time that people stopped caring about those stickers and just started selling explicit music to whoever had $10+ in their pocket. If you own this album, then you know that it was worth the money.

February 13th, 1996
This is the day I went out and bought 2Pac's All Eyez On Me, the morning it came out. I got the jump on all of my friends at school because I was serving a 3-day suspension at the time. Which meant that I could catch the bus/train to the record store and get it before everyone got off from work/school. I took the long way home so that I could play Books 1 & 2 on my walkman. To this day, I still think that Book 1 is better. Care to argue Dre?

July 19th(?), 1985
My dad took me to the Fabulous Fox Theatre to see my first live concert. It was New Edition, Fat Boys and Whodini. I don't remember much besides the girls screaming when New Edition come out and the lights shutting down when Whodini did "Freaks Come Out at Night." I still have the souvenier banner and hat in storage somewhere.

November 9th, 1991
Ok, I have a correction. This is actually the day that I went out and bought my first tape with my own money. I walked from my cousins apartment to Wal-Mart to buy Ice Cube's Death Certificate* album. He said he heard that the tapes were alot cheaper there than they were at the record store. Cool. I take my 11-year old ass in there, go to the Rap section waaaaaaay in the back, grab the tape, pay for it, and go back to my cousins' crib. When I get back, I rip the plastic off and pop it in the radio. For about 6-hours, we was listening to that tape playing TechmoBowl thinking that Cube had went clean and stopped cussing in his music. Then, one of my cousins older friends came over with his Ice Cube CD that he bought from the record store. When he started playing his, I realized that I had been bamboozled.

September 13, 1996
I had fell asleep on the couch. For some reason, I was very tired that day. So tired, that I called in faking sick to my job (Cub Foods, bagger). I had a dream that a BET News Brief came on saying that "rapper Tupac Shakur is dead at age 25." Come to find out, it wasn't a dream, my sleepy ass just didn't realize what I had just saw. Pac had died shawty, on Friday the 13th at that. Later that night my homeboy Shomari called from his job washing dishes at Picadilly screaming "YOU HEARD ABOUT PAC!" Then he called again later on saying he was parked outside my house and had something that I really needed to hear. When I hopped in he turned the radio up loud as hell and a fie ass piano riff came blaring out the speakers. It was 2Pac & the Outlawz "Made Niggas" from the Supercop soundtrack. Me, him and my other friend Brandon rode down South Hairstion to Memorial Drive and up Candler Rd. playing that shit back-to-back-to-back. Mainly because we thought we owned the last 2Pac song ever to be recorded and released. Boy were we wrong.

The Entire Summer of 1997
These aren't days that I'm proud of, but this is when I had my little klepto stage. Me and some friends had found a way to break the security plastic off of the tapes and CDs at Blockbuster Music. I like to think that I was more than just a common theif, I was stealing with a strategy. I was stealing stuff that I wasn't sure I wanted to spend money on, kinda like how downloading is now (damn, I guess that is stealing). I pretty much stole stuff by Bay Area artists not named E-40, Spice 1 or Too $hort and underground Memphis stuff that didn't fall from the Prophet Family tree. I wound up with some gems like 3XKrazy's Stackin Chips and the Nothing To Lose soundtrack.

August 19, 1999
I was moving into my new dorm room for my 2nd year of college, and my new roomate had spent his summer in Texas. While we were organizing the room, he popped a naked CD into the radio and I heard a jumbled voice saying something like "bitch in the trunk." I didn't know what the hell he was playing, but then I heard organs and a high-pitched voice saying "hollluup, smoke som'men bitch." I asked him, if it was the new UGK and he said yeah. It actually wasn't but, this CD he had would go one to become known as the infamous Dirty Money bootleg. The sound quality was bad and alot of the songs sounded unfinished. But who cared, it was some new UGK, that shit was just gonna have to do. Later that month, my roomate felt like treating himself to the last of my Hawaiian Punch and honey buns while I was away. So I helped myself to his CD.

???? ??, 1987
My father was taking me to school one morning and he was playing a song with some dude asking "How Ya Like Me Know?" I thought it was the greatest thing I ever heard in my life. Then he showed me the album cover and from that point on up to a couple year later, I swore Kool Moe Dee was the coolest mo-fo walking the planet.

July 4th, 1984
The date might be a little off, but, all I know is that I got a whupping for touching my fathers record player. There was a bunch of people in the house at the time too. He was playing "Five Minutes of Funk" by Whodini, and I went touching the needle trying scratch like Jam Master Jay. I don't think I touched that record player in his presence again until I was well into my teens.

January 2nd, 1987
Me and my family had just gotten back from visiting family in Pittsburgh for the holidays. I was unpacking my stuff in my room and some mystery tape ended up in my luggage. I put the tape in the deck and I remember Salt-N-Pepa's "Ill Take Your Man" coming out loud as hell. About a week later my cousin Keith called asking if I took his girlfriend's tape by mistake, I guess I did.

February 14th, 1998
I got this girl to come over my house before my parents go home. I was gonna try something with her. I had a tape made and everything. It had some Jodeci, D'Angelo and shit on there. We got to like 1st or 2nd base and then fucking Mystikal came out of nowhere like THE MAN RIGHT CHEA!!!! The mood was ruined and the girl left soon after. Later that night, I found out why that shit happened. My little brother was just pushing record on the radio whenever something good came on, not thinking to see what was already in the deck.

I could go on and on forever....I think I'll end this list here.

*edit made 7/20