I remember the album coming out but I wasn't that interested in it. The Wherehouse was running a special for $9.99 and I was like "Rap without samples... I'm not sure."

So a few months later they come through town and play at The Green Circle bar in San Diego. I knew the guy who did the "visuals" for the bar and got in for free. And the music write from the UCSD guardian encouraged me to go.

I had never seen a picture of The Roots at that point - I just knew one of the two MCs didn't tour.

DJ Greyboy was playing records for a while before the group came in.

This is what I then saw: 6 black dudes walk up on stage (The Roots?) and the rapper grabs the mic and starts singing "Shimmy Shimmy Ya" and sounds EXACTLY like ODB. I was like (as a white guy) "WTF? Is ODB here somewhere??" and scanning the stage for ODB.

Anyways the show proceeds (no pun) and we're all blown away - especially at Rahzel. Like - wtf was that?? The Hip Hop 101 segment was spot on, and I was like "Now he sounds like BiG Daddy Kane."

Anyways, the next day I went and bought the CD.

And it took me YEARS to find the full record on vinyl in a non-bootleg form. (And I sent that copy to someone as a gift and it took me another few years to find another.)