Yesterday I was nine Again Listening to Just Ice’s “LaToya” and “Girls I got ‘em locked” By the duo of Super Lover Cee and Cassanova Rud And I was instantly transported Back to Hip Hop circa 198life When I used to hide in the basement with my Black transistor radio with bent aluminum antenna Jutting from side pocket Electrical tape sticking to my fingers Where the battery back used to be 107.5 WBLS Mister Magic’s Rap Attack Drowning out ‘Wash the dishes’ chimes And ‘empty the trash’ threats by The Gestapo residing in the capitol building… Upstairs…
See, when I was nine My spider-senses tingled with every scratch of vinyl Floating through airwaves I fell into the weather-beaten grooves Stuck to Red Alert’s fingerprints Dangling from Sweat-laden participles Metaphors and Rhythm-laced prepositional phrases When ho was a chant Not a title
I came years after Vietnam But fully aware of war And it’s impact on my community I mean who could forget the war for supremacy Between the super powers Queens and The Bronx Generals Shan and KRS Led armies with superior firepower into Demilitarized zones And Hip Hop came out victorious
And who could forget the War of the Wor(l)ds Between Busy Bee and Kool Moe Dee
Party rockers and Lyricists converged And the outcome was King Rakim And the mighty run DMC and their Queens Empire
All of a sudden I was nine And Hip Hop was too I was new and she was naïve But we were happy holding hands On the way home from school We were both shy to the world But intimate in our space At home In the basement Double a’s dying and being reborn in flashes of instance Lines and verses memorized like Anglo counterparts And their Hip Hop of Shakespeare and Goethe
I know I’m not nine anymore And the last quiz I took In Hip Hop 101 Was many Black Moon’s ago…
But my nephew is nine And Hip Hop isn’t anymore…
I wonder if he too looks to the basement And studies
these sections flew off the screen at me. > >See, when I was nine >My spider-senses tingled with every scratch of vinyl >Floating through airwaves >I fell into the weather-beaten grooves >Stuck to Red Alert’s fingerprints >Dangling from >Sweat-laden participles >Metaphors and >Rhythm-laced prepositional phrases >When ho was a chant >Not a title
4. "RE: Yesterday I was nine" In response to Reply # 0
Time where does it really go? or do we just repeat cycles
"keep pennin till the earth birth's your rightful seed then nurture it wit more ink..." ASIEM "Kuun fiyah Kuun" Quran (Be and it is) " A writer takes his pen to write the words again that all in love is fair" Stevie Wonder