DANJ! Presents Winter Six: 1991 (A Ni**a Remember Them Muhfu**in’ Dances, Bwoy…)

01/15/2010

Aight, so… it was a lil’ quiet around here this week. I had to take a lil’ time to recharge the batteries, and now shit’s back to life. And with that, DLT90s continues with the 1991 edition of the Winter Six series.

The winter of ’91 was a different thing. I was in sixth grade, back around my old neighborhood, known as “The Lake”, after moving away a couple years prior. I was back chillin’ with my friends from elementary school, but wasn’t going to the same middle school as them. My time in Westport was a suspension-filled experience, so I ended up going to an “alternative” school with all the niggas with “behavioral and emotional problems”. Either way, I still looked forward to Fridays- because even though I didn’t go to the middle school, I could still go to their dance every week (and I went to damn near every one). Rest of the time, I was in my brother’s room, either recording music off the radio or “borrowing” his tapes. It was around this time that I started something that eventually became one of my most recognizable traits- being any and everywhere with my headphones on. Here’s some of what I was listening to:

Read the rest of this entry »

8 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B, My Life, Winter Six, Young Youth | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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Youngest In Charge

07/31/2009

NOW… when I was speaking on the jumpoff point for the Hip-Hop Soul movement the other day, I was remiss to not ALSO mention a certain DJ who also had a strong influence on it taking shape. Ron G was a teenager and reppin’ the Polo Grounds Projects in Harlem, New York. In ’91, he dropped a tape that spread like crazy, entitled “Mixes #1″. The thing about this tape that stood out was that he blended R&B tracks with hip-hop beats for the entire 90 minutes, continuously, with three turntables. Before that, DJ’s just included blends as part of their tapes, but never based a whole tape around them. After that tape, he continued dropping them, and ended up becoming the top mixtape DJ in NY.

I’ll admit, at 11 years old in Baltimore and not yet up on the mixtape scene, I didn’t hear those at the time. But once I caught on to them (around ’92-’93), Ron G was one of the DJ’s whose tapes I copped. I liked the blend tapes the most, because I thought they were creative and I’d always  get amped off the combinations that the DJ’s would come up with. Actually, hearing those (and the movie Juice as well) sparked my own interests in spinning. Something about hearing stuff like Phil Collins’ “In The Air Tonight” mixed with a hip-hop track just made me wanna do it myself someday.

But back to Ron. As time went on, his tapes got so popular that the homie Puff Daddy saw a vision for the R&B artists he was working with… thus spawned the sound of Mary J‘s 411 album, and the rest is history. After a while, Ron not only did blend tapes with instrumentals, but his own beats, and eventually he started producing and remixing tracks for artists in the industry. He’s worked with Michael Jackson, Boyz II Men, J.Lo, Fat Joe, R. Kelly, Lost Boyz, and Mary J. herself, among others. Today, he still does mixtapes, in addition to producing and spinning all over the world.

Mixes1

With respect due to Ron G, aka “The Youngest In Charge” as he called himself then, here’s the tape that in many ways got the ball rolling for what later became the new sound of R&B in the ’90s. No stone is unturned here- not even Otis Redding‘s “Sittin’ On The Dock Of The Bay” (check out G co-signing on the “whistling part”). Enjoy!

Mixes #1 (1991) NOTE: don’t mind the “tape hiss” either- that’s just authenticity. Ha!

Side A

Side B

-D!

11 Comments | Classic Material, DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheMixtapes, For Promotional Use Only, Hip-Hop Soul, Nuff Respect Due | Tagged: , , | Permalink
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Cause The Boyz N The Hood Are Always Hard…

07/15/2009

boyz-n-da-hood

Today would be my uncle Dwight‘s 49th birthday. He passed last month, and for whatever reason, I wasn’t able to mourn about it. The first things that popped in my head were all the fun stuff that I remembered him most for. One of those was how I used to ride around with him when I was younger, in his blue Z28 with that same Led Zeppelin tape on his dashboard for years. Sometimes, we’d go to the mall, Pizza Hut, or the movies. My most memorable ride to the movies was in July ’91, the Saturday afternoon after Boyz N The Hood came out.

cubecubafish

It’s a classic no matter which way you watch it (stay away from that TV-edited version though). However, I can say from experience that seeing it in B-More‘s most hood-ass theater (Harbor Park!) TRUMPS watching it on DVD or TV by far. It was packed seat-to-seat, and the “crowd participation” was almost as entertaining as the movie itself. Everybody loved Ice Cube‘s character Doughboy, we all laughed at Little Chris‘ jheri-curl, and some people genuinely seemed sad when Ricky got killed. Also, you haven’t gone to the movies until you’ve seen niggas cheer like it’s the Super Bowl when the dudes who killed Ricky got their come-uppance.

DoughboyMonsterDookie

There’s been some “hood movies” since Boyz N The Hood that have been more violent and less message-heavy, but I feel like BNTH is still one of the most real. It showed different sides of each main character, which is a lot closer to truth than those movies where everybody in the shit is just keepin’ it gangsta 24/7. You had the ones who were always into somethin’, and then you had the ones who wanted to do more than what they were around. There were the parents who looked out for the best interests of their son, and then there was the mother who showed blatant favortism with her sons. The “good guys” of the movie weren’t good ALL the time, and the “bad guys” weren’t bad ALL the time.

ricky!

The characters didn’t just pop up in the movie from jump, doin’ hoodrat stuff with their friends. BNTH showed them growing up and HOW they grew up. It showed how Doughboy’s mother (and yo, I HATE her) literally told him he wasn’t shit, so he had no respect for women when he got older. It also showed how a kid like Tre could only get babied by his mother but so much before he eventually had to be influenced by an older male (and that’s something that I personally understand). No dis to the MANY movies that followed, but BNTH wasn’t just about violence and gangs and guns- it was more fleshed-out than that.

dough

And on top of that, it’s entertaining as hell. As “poignant” as it gets credit for being, it also doesn’t ignore that other stuff that makes it worth watching. You get humor, you get sex, you get quotables. You even get a lil’ bit of rap beef, when Doughboy’s crew beats the shit out of the crackhead wearing a “We Want Eazy” t-shirt. At the time, Cube had his issues with Eazy-E and the rest of N.W.A., and I doubt the shirt was just a coincidence. Even scenes that aren’t all that relevant to the movie have their moments- like when Monster says “watch me shoot this muthafucka” and then it turns out that he’s playin’ Duck Hunt. I didn’t think people in the theater were EVER gonna stop laughin’ at that shit, and neither was I.

singleton

Add all that to the fact that it was done by a rookie director, with a mostly-unknown cast, on a young-ass budget, on location in real areas of South Central L.A. The homie John Singleton gets love forever for this movie, because he took the little bit that he was given and made it great (and if THAT ain’t some hood shit, what is?). It’s movies like this which make me proud enough to do this blog- I don’t have to write about it in revisionist form and put myself in that place, because I WAS in that place. And I loved the whole fukkin’ two hours.

Things To Remember From Boyz N The Hood:

1) A pill ain’t gonna keep your dick from fallin’ off. 2) Black cops hate niggas too. 3) Best way to get ass that’s been eluding you is to throw wild punches at the air and cry. 4) Catholic girls are the biggest hoochies. 5) When niggas are riding around with a shotgun looking for you, you don’t belong in an alley playing a scratch-off game.

Music From Boyz N The Hood:

Ice Cube “How To Survive In South Central”

Compton’s Most Wanted “Growin’ Up In The Hood”

Tony! Toni! Tone! “Me & You”

KAM “Every Single Weekend”

-D! (Happy Birthday, “Chuck”)

16 Comments | Classic Material, DanjLovesTheMovies, My Life, Nuff Respect Due | Tagged: , , , | Permalink
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Summer Seven Series: 1991

07/01/2009

T2

OK, so… DanjLovesThe90s gets back to normal. Truth told, I almost wanna go in on ya man Joe Jackson for that ol’ bullshit he did, but the homiechick Jia pretty much summed it all up. I’ve also gotten my thoughts together on Mike’s passing even more than I had the other day. But what’s said is said… and now, the Summer Seven Series continues on with the year of 1991.

In ’91, I was going through the pre-teen motions and starting to have all kinds of different interests at once. The summer was pivotal for me because I ended my school year being comfortable in my youth, and by the start of the new one, I was about being what I thought was mature. I became less interested in cartoons and video games, and more conscious about my haircut being on-point and having the right shoes and clothes. Even more importantly than those concerns was the reason why they were so important to me by then: who else but the chicas.

90sheader

If I could’ve, I would’ve tagged along with my older brother all the time, because I wanted to emulate him. Everything he and his friends did just seemed like the way to be, so I was aiming to do as they did. But I was only 11, so I mainly hung with people my age and talked about stuff that none of us knew jackshit about. One funny story I recall was being on the phone with one of my friends, as he told me that some girl had jerked him off earlier. Not knowing what it meant, I said (loud as shit in front of my mother and sister) “She jerked you off? What’s that?” After I was told to get off the phone, my brother laughed his ass off and told me what it was.

“Yooouuung and duuumb” (c) Ving Rhames.

savknee

Even with these changes going on, I still maintained one of my interest from the “kid years”: wrestling. I watched that shit faithfully- and I don’t just mean catching it on the weekends. I mean USWA on Monday, Global on Tuesday, AWA on Wednesday, UWF on Thursday, and ending with WWF and WCW on Friday and Saturday. Actually, I watched a lot of TV whenever I wasn’t out tryin’ to get into whatever I thought I was getting into. I was also crazy about the movie Terminator 2: Judgment Day, which went super-hard- especially with the liquid metal T-1000 and Young John Connor (effeminate as he was) rockin’ the PE shirt.

’91 was a transitional period, with me in the middle of being a kid and what my perception of “growing up” was. It’s that time you look back at a few years later and realize you were way out of your league, and nowhere near ready to be grown up just yet. At the time, though, all I knew is that I wanted to dress like my brother and that I looooved titties. Everything else was still sorting itself out.

doo doo

The Danj! Summer Seven of 1991 (in no particular order):

Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince “Summertime”: Do I uhhh… even need to explain this one?

EPMD feat. LL Cool J “Rampage”: Erick and Parrish collab with Uncle L on what’s still one of my favorites from their best album, Business As Usual. E sounds totally bored, but P and L murder it… as does DJ Scratch on the cuts. Slow down, baby.

Another Bad Creation “Playground”: Mike Bivins‘ boys keep rockin’ with one of those records I still enjoy the shit out of, although I prob’ly shoulda BEEN stopped liking at my age.

Boyz II Men “Motownphilly”: Biv scores again with a group that made their debut with this song and went on to be the biggest male R&B group of the decade.

2 Hyped Brothers & A Dog “Doo Doo Brown”: Put yourself in my position- it’s the summer of ’91, you live in Baltimore, and your sense of hearing is intact. You couldn’t have avoided lovin’ this shit if you wanted to. Shoutout to Frank Ski.

Brand Nubian “Slow Down”: A rap song that denounces money-hungry promiscuous women, and it was actually a hit. What’re the chances of that happening again?

Hi-Five “I Like The Way (The Kissing Game)”: At the end of the year, my music teacher always had the students do individual “Lip Sync” performances on tape that we’d be graded on for the final quarter. This is the song I chose. And no, I don’t have that video- HA!

’92 comes on Monday. AND IN CASE YOU MISSED IT: Summer Seven 1990

-D!

6 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B, My Life, New Jack Swing, Summer Seven Series, Young Youth | Tagged: , , , , , , , , | Permalink
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The Genesis (Intro)

06/01/2009

airbrush

“Whatever music you was listenin’ to when you first started gettin’ laid is always gonna be your favorite music!“- Chris Rock

I wish I could start off by telling some elaborate story of how I contemplated and formulated some grand idea for this blog. Closer to the truth, I suddenly decided that I’d create one and then wondered what in the hell I could base it around. After giving it (very) brief thought, I decided that the thing I’m best at talking about is the thing I love most: the music I grew up on.

Props to movies and TV (which I’ll also be covering), but music was THE thing for me, first and foremost. As a child in B-More, I grew up in a house where the radio STAYED on. At 8:02 a.m., I got dressed for school with music in the background. At 3:57 p.m., I’d come home and hear it before I got in the door. At 7:45 p.m., I came in from playing outside to the sounds of whatever song V103 was playing. As a result, it was only a formality for me to become hooked on music myself. By ’87, I’d taped so many videos, my upstairs neighbor referred to me as “Video King”.

I loved (and still love) a lot of ’80s music of all genres, but I REALLY got locked in during the ’90s. It was the decade in which I not only listened to music… I also made it, spun it at parties, read about it, wrote about it in my school newspaper,  talked about it, and simply LIVED it.  I woke up and went to sleep to it. I got smoked out and intoxicated to it. And YEP, I even got laid to it. There’s music of other genres that occasionally struck me, but the Hip-Hop and R&B of that decade was (as they say) the soundtrack of my life during the coming-of-age stage.

I’ll be quick to admit, I’m not as crazy about it as I once was. I’ve long ago reached that point that most adults eventually reach, when they’re nowhere near the fans they were at say, 15 or so. I do feel like there are some things SORELY missing from today’s Urban music that shouldn’t be. On the other hand, I’m not as concerned with “mourning the death” as are many who prefer to ride the lame-ass “Hip-Hop Is Dead” train. If it is, in fact, dead- I’d rather do just as they implore us to do at funerals: celebrate the life.

Annnnd so, here is DanjLovesThe90s. I hope that you find it entertaining, reflective, celebratory, critical, comical, and anything else it happens to be depending on the entry. Whether you were a Hip-Hop Head or an R&B Swinger, a pre-teen or an adult, East Coast or West Coast… this is for those who either remember the decade fondly or are curious as to what was so great. I plan to chronicle not only my youth, but that of many others like myself who experienced some of these things firsthand. From calling up videos on The Box to seeing Menace II Society in the theater, I will be speakin’ on it.

In honor of the jumpoff, here’s 10 to grow on (if you want ‘em, click ‘em). For the record, I coulda gone a lot harder than this, which I will in many coming entries. Butt In The Meantiiiime…

LL Cool J “Around The Way Girl” (1990)

The Notorious B.I.G. “Guaranteed Raw” (1991)

Mary J. Blige feat. Grand Puba “What’s The 411?” (1992)

Snoop Doggy Dogg “G’z Up, Hoes Down” (1993)

Aaliyah feat. R. Kelly “At Your Best” (Remix) (1994)

Faith Evans feat. Puff Daddy “You Used To Love Me” (Remix) (1995)

Crucial Conflict “Hay (Smokin’ On)” (1996)

Christion “Full Of Smoke” (1997)

Mya feat. SisQo “It’s All About Me” (1998)

DMX feat. Drag-On, Jadakiss, Styles, & Eve “Ruff Ryders Anthem” (Remix) (1999)

13 Comments | DanjLovesTheHipHop, DanjLovesTheR&B, Fun Facts, My Life, Random | Tagged: , , , , , , , , , , , | Permalink
Posted by Danj!

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