Music That Defines Our Memories
My cassette singles...no reason to get rid of them after 27 years. Continuing chronologically through my hip-hop cassette single rewind, I now find myself in 1992. At this time, I was almost exclusively purchasing hip-hop or R&B/Pop (e.g. Prince, Mary J. Blige) cassettes and CDs. I was listening to other music beyond these genres but … Continue reading Classic Hip-Hop Cassette Single Rewind – Part 2
My actual cassette singles that are the subject of this post, pulled out of storage, and performing together for one night only. The introduction of MP3s and music streaming services have made it unquestionably easier for consumers to hear their favorite songs whenever they want. Billboard even tracks song streams as a metric for determining … Continue reading Classic Hip-Hop Cassette Single Rewind – Part 1
Prince frames his left nipple so perfectly here. Prince's Lovesexy, also known as "the album where Prince is naked on the cover," indeed came about quickly. Primarily recorded in a two-month burst from December 1987 and January 1988, Lovesexy was the response to Prince's "spooky electric" period in late 1987. There's been speculation about what caused this period … Continue reading Prince – Lovesexy (1988)
"6 'n the mornin' police at my door. Fresh Adidas squeak across the bathroom floor." N.W.A.'s Straight Outta Compton gets a lot of credit for pushing gangsta rap to the mainstream but anyone who followed west coast hip-hop in the late 80s knows that Ice-T's 1-2 punch of Rhyme Pays along with his title song … Continue reading Ice-T – Rhyme Pays (1987)
"The future of the group is in doubt." For the hip-hop group Public Enemy, the summer of 1989 brought controversy ("controversy in the rap world"), unwanted publicity, and public apologies. It also saw the group dismiss one of its original members, the minister of information, Professor Griff. Griff served as a public mouthpiece for P.E. … Continue reading Public Enemy – Fear of a Black Planet (1990)