Let’s go back 30 years to 1995. Or just go back to the Mid90s as a whole. Rap was major. It was all over your TV, magazines, radio, etc…. it was everywhere… Bone Thugs were out here reppin Cleveland and Do or Die were Po Pimpin all over Chicago… It wasn’t hard to see that this rap game could be wherever you lived. Everybody has a hood and everybody had stories and rap gave them a platform to express themselves with what they’ve seen with their own eyes and what the OGs have told them. Let’s just throw out a Bone video and now hear me… In the Mid90s, the only Cleveland I knew was of the Indians/Guardians (big ups Kenny Lofton), the Bengals (shout out Carl Pickens), and the Cavs (Harold Miner dunk contest?) but I knew nothing about the Cleveland streets… That’s why these Bone Thugs music videos were so cool to me.
And with Do or Die, I just knew Chicago was the home of Jordan but I also knew that Sammy Sosa went from hitting nothing to like 30+ bombs per year… I knew about the Chicago streets from Home Alone but that gave me zero perspective. That’s why Chicago rappers like Do or Die and Twista and Crucial Conflict had me so invested in what Chicago was really like. Were they really out here po pimpin and spittin more game than a mouthful of poker chips?
The Geto Boys owned what I thought about the 5th Ward Projects in Houston but what was Port Arthur, Texas like? No idea… But show me Bun-B and Pimp C and I had to learn more… I had to hear more… I needed to hear these artists paint murals about their city in audio form over production that just sounded amazing to my ears.
Sacramento had… actually the Sacramento Kings were pretty garbage. But I still wanted to see what was up… What were those Sac-Town-2-Mac-Town-2-Everywhere-Back-Down streets really like?
We all knew everything about Los Angeles and New York but other cities were ready to shine. Do you realize how much good music dropped back then? Music that everybody were bumpin in the streets… bumpin on the streets… just steady bumpin… So there were tracks that never hit your radar… groups that never hit your radar… like fam… do you really know Tommy Wright III??? Dawg… Go listen… Princess Loko… don’t sleep on this… seriously.. go listen.
So many cities had something to say. Some cities had some cash… Some cities were in the middle of nowhere… They all had stories I didn’t know about. I had these movies in my headphones at all times so I was forever chasing new shit to go on a whole different adventure. And that’s why I love this music so much… these cassettes so much… these artists so much… they are Picassos to me… Yeah… Picassos… you think I give 2 shits about Picasso? Nah… give me some E.S.G. “Swangin’ and Bangin’” straight out of Houston, TX and I’m looking at that track like a 1/1. There’s no price tag on an E.S.G. cassette tape… you just gotta have it and vibe with it in your possession… you’re holding greatness. So that’s it… Go try to get E.S.G.’s Sailin’ Da South on cassette… or just save the $70ish bucks and just watch the video and stream… just go listen fam… there is so much good rap out there that you missed…
and why not just throw a few more at you while you’re out here…