An Ode to youth, Hip Hop, and exploration – a personal reflection
Hip Hop was my first music ‘choice’ as a fledgling coming of age teen. I’ve always grown up in a musical household that was crazy eclectic. Examples of sounds wafting through the air on my dad’s LP Player included The Rolling Stones, Bob Seager, Men at Work, and Jaluka – not to mention our regular playing of Alligator Records Best of Records every Christmas. Please make sense out of that menagerie!
But Hip-Hop hit differently. I found it myself. It meant something to me on a primal level. I remember going to the record store to buy Das EFX and breaking that album from overuse. Listening to Erik B and Rakim’s Mic Fiend on repeat and being transfixed on the beat. And being mesmerized when I heard for Beastie Boys Check Your Head for the first time. It was a vibe. And I was hooked.
Now, the troubling (for some) fact remained that I was an atypical outside member of the culture. In a way. Well, that is just to politely say I was a white kid who wanted to occupy space dominated by Black and Hispanic kids. But, I was also a kid with international heritage, inner city bonafides, and not afraid or intimidated by the false premise that the ‘other’ is necessarily bad and to be feared. I felt at the time that I could claim a place in this culture I loved – and that participation interest would be honored if it was honest and pure. Much to my hope, I found a lane and never looked back.
So that participation happened in earnest. I did……graffiti incredibly poorly (I was NOT good – but the crew I hung with the most did bestow me with the tag name Codi – so that shall be my moniker and I’ll push it with pride), wore the clothes (I had a preference for Cross Colors), went to the abandoned building parties along an old Lake St in Chicago, and never once ran into negative pushback. Maybe because I didn’t ever fake the funk. Getting called ‘while boy’ when I went to buy my Cross Color Jeans from Ford City Mall back in 1992……fair. Push back from other teens that mocked my style and interest – fuck em. They weren’t my people anyway. I found my people when I attended countless basement parties or participated in in-person weed-infused meetings with Upski as he was pushing the seminal Bomb the Suburbs book on teen activist action. I retreated into my own head when I traveled on the CTA to high school, listening to whatever Hip Hop I could get my hands on (I have clear memories of listening to RawBreed, The Pharcyde, Tribe Called Quest, The Chronic and others as I wound through suburban streets on the 421 bus to get to school). What an odd musical background as the view outside the window changed from the urban streets to suburban thoroughfares.
And, as it turns out, there were and are plenty of other people like me. That is why I truly embrace Hip-Hop. I see and believe that the culture and its vibe is an inherently universally embracing ‘thing’ with inclusion as a core tenet. The music gives a sonic force to on-the-ground stories that matter – and though I cannot claim any level of ownership to many of the stories told, the sonic delivery of the stories allowed me access to better understand others and broaden my capacity for knowledge, empathy, and concern.
And all of this is why I’m so excited to be involved with this launch of 8trackz. When I was a teen there were ‘zines that covered the space and I loved and looked out for them. Where is that today for the new generation? 8trackz tells the stories I wanted to read about then – and hopefully this approach can resonate again with a younger generation. As I look forward to the 8-issue planned pilot arc I can’t wait to see what resonates with a new generation of Hip-Hop heads as well as how it tracks with the OG’s in the space.
Hip-Hop and its related culture can mean a lot of different and important things to many different people – and all are welcome under our umbrella. The culture only benefits from honest participation from everyone – in any form one feels confident to give it.
Codi