I ran inside, eager to discuss my discovery with my uncle, Reg. He’s three years older than me, always has been much more like a big brother than an uncle. And he had every record known to mankind. R&B, Soul, Disco. So I ran in like I was putting him onto something.

As more and more of this music made its way to wax, Reg’s record store forays yielded an ever-increasing assortment of rap music. The pale blue record jacket with the multi-colored, Dr. Seussian spiral coming out of the middle – the unmistakeable trademark of a Sugarhill Records single, became a staple. It was a “brand” in modern day marketing parlance – you saw them colors you copped it. Sugarhill Gang. Funky Four Plus One. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Sequence. But if ‘Rappers Delight’ was the big bang, the hip hop universe experienced its most dramatic expansion in those early days, with Sugarhill Records followed by all kinds of labels – Enjoy, Disco Fever, Profile… And Reg copped it all. He never had a desire to be a dj, he just loved music. And made sure he had it first.

The Early Days

Thanks to my uncle’s stacks of records (and my relentless sneaking into his room when he wasn’t there to make tapes when he wasn’t home), I was the man. I always had the flyest tapes, cuz I was devoted to my craft. I did the math, carefully calculatin’ how many jams I could cram on each side of a 60 minute purple Certron. Do I use the four-minute radio cut, or the eight-minute extended disco mix? Okay, That’s The Joint is gonna bat lead-off, because I love me some Funky Four Plus One. Gotta throw the Treacherous Three on there. Kids sweated me something fierce on my sixth grade class trip to New York – dope music evidently trumps ‘smart kid’ in the complex hierarchy of black youth’s social interactions. Consequently, I kept a hand close to the volume knob, milking the EverReady C’s on my box for all I was worth, knowing I was only the joint until the batteries ran out.


(btw, i'm writing this as i go along. so the editing is rough, and there'll prolly be some shit i hate, in retrospect). i'm just trying to map my personal history through hiphop, where the music been and where its going...



peace & blessings,

x.

"I'm on the Zoloft to keep from killing y'all." - Iron Mike