Plugged In

One of my favorite movies is and will always be Brown Sugar. Taye Diggs and Sanaa Lathan star in a romantic comedy, but the twist of the movie is if the romance in question is with Hip-Hop itself or a woman. In Brown Sugar, both Diggs and Lathan are childhood friends whose lives have revolved around Hip-Hop, and they develop feelings/admiration for it and each other over time. The movie also dives into the struggle between commercial hip-hop and purest of the art form. My favorite parts of the movie are when Diggs and Lathan ask the question ‘When did you fall in love with Hip-Hop?’ to each other and different artists throughout.

Below is a clip from Brown Sugar where the question is asked to Hip-Hop legends like Pete Rock, Black Thought, Jermaine Dupree, Common, Talib Kweli and more.

I think the answer to the question tends to reveal a lot about the person answering. I fell in love with Hip-Hop around 2004. I always had a general love for music from growing up in a musical household. My parents played every type of R&B, Neo-soul, Soul, jazz or Gospel song you could think of, and my mother was even familiar with some Tupac and Dre Dre. Although I liked them all, I never really felt attach to a specific type of music until I saw the video for Jesus Walks by Kanye West on 106 and Park.

I remember around this same time I was gifted a Tupac greatest hits album and College Dropout from a friend. The first time I listened to Tupac it felt like the music was speaking directly to me. ‘I Ain’t Mad At Cha’ was the song and not only was it catchy but it felt like he was describing the neighborhood I was growing up in and the people in it. I love a lot of his more introspective music at the time and used it during an odd time in my own life. At this point, I could feel a small connection to rap but it wasn’t until I listened to college dropout that everything changed for me.

Kanye West is from the Southside of Chicago like myself and in the earlier half of his career that was undeniable in his music. He was a pioneer of different style not only in music but fashion as well. At a time when ‘Gangsta Rap’ was all that was accepted in the business more or less, Kanye chose to stay true to himself and his own story. That feeling I got listening to ‘I Ain’t Mad At Cha’ only amplified when I heard songs like Drive Slow, Jesus Walks, We Don’t Care, All Falls Down and more.

Below is a clip from the Netflix documentary Jeen-Yuhs center around Kanye West and his rise.

Although I was a fan of R&B, Jazz and Rock, I had never felt what I felt listening to Hip-Hop. Listening to albums like Graduation, Late Registration, College Dropout felt almost like a surreal experience. Hip-Hop embodies a lot of the elements from these other genres so it always felt familiar. I liked that you didn’t have to have the voice of an angel or play an instrument to perfection to tell a story. In Hip-Hop all that was required to participate seemed to be a point of view. There’s an artist out there telling every story you’d like to hear and when I realized that, I fell in love with Hip-Hop. In a lot of ways, it saved my life. So to whoever may be reading, when did you fall in love with Hip-Hop?