THE AWAKENING

The Awakening
My earliest thought of hip hop was the best moments of my life. It was in the late 1980’s thru the early 90’s with my sisters and little brother. It’s when MTV actually showed music videos. It’s when Ed Lover and Doc Dre had “Yo MTV raps” on lock along with Fab 5 Freddy. It’s when I wrote lyrics to all the hip hop songs I loved on the radio and memorized them. It’s when I would barely watch television and would just listen to the radio. It’s also a time when people could go out dance their ass off in a public place without worrying about getting in a fight or just being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

In the late 1980’s early 90’s I watched my sisters listen to old school rap. It filled them with joy and energy. It stood out in my mind because I don’t feel the love for hip hop music as much today like it was back then. I remember when the worst word in a rhyme was the “N” word. I don’t consider my-self old school at all but I respect those that paved the way to my passion for radio and music.

Off the top of my head I remember listening to Naughty by Nature, New Edition, Janet Jackson, Michael Jackson, and my favorite Bell Biv Devoe. But what made the person I am today has to be dancing. I stood in front of the television and repeated all the latest dance moves that I saw in music videos. I even watched “Club MTV” with Jodi Whatley- “wubba, wubba –goodbye”. I dreamed of being a fly girl on “In Living Color”. Almost all the dance shows I had to watch, The Grind, Dance Party USA and of course Soul Train. Movement and music made me so happy and I was good at it! It had a lot to do with Jamaican culture since we love music, food and dancing.

On the weekends at home with my sisters, we turned off the radio and had dance contests. I loved to sing so I lip sang off the radio and rapped too. I dreamed big I wanted to be famous like Queen Latifah or Moni Love or any famous strong black woman. My sister (who is no longer with us R.I.P) named Esie just got a radio for Christmas. It was the newest kind of boom box that was small and had dual cassette decks. We all loved this radio because we recorded off the radio and also dubbed albums. Yes, this was before CD’s became popular. I wasn’t rich but my family didn’t live in the projects either. But I grew up knowing the value of money. When I couldn’t buy tapes, I recorded music off the radio like I saw my sisters do. One day we jammed out to our own freestyle.

We sat in my sister’s room and we recorded over one of my old Teddy Ruxpin story tapes. You may remember when you place pieces of tape over the holes on the top of a cassette, you could record over, and well maybe you may have been too young or not even born yet. Anyhow, this day was the best day of my life. My oldest sister Carla heard us rhyming in a circle and joined in. She was the brain-iac of the family and very conservative. Well not really but that how I thought she was. We went around making up our own lyrics or any rhyme from a rap song with me and my lil brother beat boxing. To my surprise my oldest sister joined in with this

“My name is Carla D and I can rhyme I am so fresh, I am so fly!”

We all kept going because we were recording but she continued on rhyming a few more lines. When we ended we all clapped and laughed because she surprised us all. Right then and there I realized that hip hop music brings the best out of people. You don’t have to be from the hardcore slums of New York City to rhyme or be respected. I look at artists from the past like, De la Soul, Moni Love, Cool and the Gang as some of the artist that did not sell drugs or violence to make their records sell.

I remember my sister Carla telling me

“Rap used to be about having fun and dancing while showing your skills. It was about respect and not competing to sell the most records.”

“Your generation changed it to gangsta rap”

Even though I was about 9 or 10 years old, I still listened to what my sister said about my generation. She was talking mostly about me listening to Naughty by Nature and Ice Cube. I couldn’t help it, I liked thug music. But I understood what she was talking about when it came to lyrical content it had changed and it always will.

Fly Girls In living Color