NYC. It’s the mid to late ‘90’s. The Jiggy era is fading. The Rawkus and Okayplayer movements are on an upward swing, redefining the culture of the city and also, the world. Native Tongues part deux. Somewhere in between social circles resembling Juice and The Wackness, I find my first firm teenage identity as a thoroughbred hip-hop head. Tagging walls, rhyming on park benches, hitting up open mics, practicing Shammgod moves, collecting rap promo stickers to put on my notebooks and binders, and listening, listening, listening to the music of the city.
I believe music can save lives, especially young folks’s. It’s certainly one reason I make music today. Whatever hardship I was going through at the time, the music I was listening to made me simultaneously escape it while also helping to make sense of it. Ages 14-17, I’m watching artists like Mos, Kweli, Common, The Roots, Bilal and so on play at venues like Tramps, Wetlands and The Nuyorican to crowds of maybe 40 people at half past midnight because, well, that’s how it was. They were underground and unknown, not the millionaire movie/TV stars they are now. But they shaped my ears and so much more at this time. This jam right here was on the B-side of the 12” single. I actually had it because I used to collect vinyl. I first heard it on Bobbito & Stretch’s radio show though. I taped it on to a cassette and played the shit out of it, rewinding it each time because, well, that’s how we did it. “Hard to sleep in the city that don’t…” Yes, indeed, but… in the restlessness, there was a tenderness.
