It’s funny how your mind can take you back. All it took for me to travel back a little was a simple, unassuming night out with some really good people. One of the friends drove and has something that really impressed me-an extensive catalogue of great music. As she drove I played DJ and set the vibe of the car. On the way back from a lovely evening I was back at that particular task. As I was perusing the amazing depths of her iPod I found a mixtape that I hadn’t heard in a about four or five months-Royal Flush 2 by Cyhi The Prynce.
It transported me back to the moment I downloaded it.
It was a late afternoon at my cousin’s place. I was working on some poetry and I downloaded it as I sat working and bending those words.
I was in love with it like I am now.
Don’t you just love that? It’s always been amazing how really good hip-hop transports you back to certain moments in time. Either that or you can be given certain feelings.
In the case of Cyhi’s mixtape many of the songs are built upon an old school sample. “Sunday Morning” (one of my favorite tracks) is a direct sample of Lionel Richie’s “Easy Like Sunday Morning”. The original song reminds me of long car trips with my mother and my little sister.
Juvenile’s “Slow Motion” has the effect of bringing back those moments. All I think of when I hear that song is the summer it came out and how hard the song hit despite (or because of) Soulja Slim’s death.
Maybe these reasons were the reasons for a lot of the things I do. Maybe it’s the reason I write as many songs as I do. Or it may be the influence behind my writing for an online hip-hop magazine.
What inspired a quiet, intelligent person like me to do these things?
The answer is simple, really.
Words and sounds.
They bind us without much effort. Their beauty often intertwines itself around our thoughts and our feelings so flawlessly that we scarcely know how we survived without it. It is the perfect symbiotic relationship, one that feeds both as either draws from the other.
Words and sounds.
Without them, we are not the same. We are not ourselves, merely just shallow shells of men and women. I thank God for hip-hop and all music, the perfect combination of words and sounds.
No comments:
Post a Comment