Memories Museum (3)

I am the child of memory. Those things that you remember are often amazing and surprising sometimes. For example I remember riding in the back of my mom’s ‘piece of crap’ (her words, not mine) Oldsmobile listening to Michael Bolton tapes and Anita Baker heavily. I think that where I first learned to love everything and everyone in music. It might even surprise you that I know the words to Fleetwood Mac songs as well as rap lyrics.

This was her way, although she’d never said it, of making us (that is, my sister and I) eclectic people. I like to be so bold as to think that it works.

But music has always been tied to memory. You tend to remember the good albums.

Case in point…

School days were interesting. In elementary the school was right around the corner. Except for the days where it was raining my sister and I walked to Francis Bartow Elementary without fail. And in the same way we walked home, weather permitting.

Middle school was a bit different.

I had to catch the bus to George W. DeRenne Middle School, waking up at about six in the morning. The bus ride there was a silent affair because I doubt anyone of us on the bus were morning people.

The ride back was a totally different affair.

We shared the bus with high school students from Alfred E. Beach High School. They brought the bus to life in the afternoon.

Them and the radio.

The radio stayed on the local hip-hop radio station in Savannah.

E93 or 93.1

It was there that I started to get my hip-hop education. I heard the greats like 2Pac and Biggie. I mean, you cannot have a hip-hop station without them. Then I got introduced to the regions and their differences.

My first Southern hip-hop from Georgia was OutKast.

That was quickly followed up by YoungBloodz.

The song that I heard was “85”. Something about the beat just invaded me as if they’d walked into my cerebellum. It was amazing, everything about it. The chorus and Cutty’s voice on it.

I know you’re waiting for Daddy/It won’t be long, shorty/Be patient ‘cause he’s coming for you/Dirty on 85...

Big Boi’s feature just seemed to accentuate things so perfectly. Seeing him outside of OutKast was weird to me at first but I loved it all the same.

My favorite part was this one:

Now I’m scraping the wall/ Shorty ain’t got on no drawers/Now I’m breaking the law/ Trying to get with this broad/I don’t know what it is/But shorty fine as hell/The slum type that I like/Straight from ATL/Shorty yeah

Humming it now makes me smile to this day….