Jason Rodriguez - The Moose in the Closet: NY Report and The Passion of the ’88: There Was Nothing Wrong With ‘87

First off, just wanted to say New York was fun. Saturday night I went to Hanley’s with my family and we had some food and sang some karaoke. G and some other cats met us there. I did James Brown’s I Got You (I Feel Good), Elvis’ Hound Dog and Love Shack with G’s friend Katherine. Afterwards we went to Moonshine where we stayed until 4:30AM. I went home and promptly threw up. Sunday night G came over and brought his PS2 and Dance, Dance, Revolution dance pad and me, G and my sister danced the night away before watching the Sox put the hurting on the ‘Stros. Good times – we sent to house off nicely – my last couple of days in the building I grew up in.

I got some great pictures that I can’t wait to scan in and share, too. I think next week’s stories are going to be me explaining pictures I found this week provided I could wait that long to show them.

Story time….

______________

There really wasn’t anything wrong with ’87. Seriously.

1987 was a good year. KRS-One, arguably one of the top-3 MCs of all time, got together with DJ. Scott La Rock, arguably one of the most promising producers of all time (he was shot and killed in 1987, unfortunately, well before his prime), to produce Boogie Down Productions’ Criminal Minded – the first non-mix tape hip-hop cassette I owned for longer than a day.

I listened to hip-hop before that. I remember when I was around five or six years old and the older kids on the block would break-dance on cardboard boxes to the fresh beats of Melle Mel or Grandmaster Flash. I was always too young to join them but I loved to watch them. They used to avoid me, though – I wasn’t allowed to cross the street by myself so they’d pick up the cardboard and boom-box and cross the street, force me to watch them from afar.

I idolized these kids. They probably weren’t even that good but I used to watch them do their thing with nothing but love in my eyes. I used to beg my mom to rent Breakin’ from the video store almost every day because I wanted to watch it and learn the moves. I didn’t know the names of the moves (still don’t) and I didn’t know the names of the MCsthat they played (now I do) but I was fascinated by it – as a kid it just seemed so rebellious.

My parents were kind of cold towards it. It was a new language, a new culture. They’d hear me call a friend a Sucker MC and had no idea what I was saying. For my sixth or seventh birthday my Titi Denise bought me Beastie Boys’ License to Ill. I put it on the tape deck and my Titi Sophie overheard a mention of LSD, told my father and my father promptly took it away – that was the end of hip-hop albums for a little while. In 1986 when Run-DMC couldn’t be pushed aside (mainly because they were recording songs with Aerosmith, one of my father’s favorite bands) my parents started to become a little more open to this “hip-hop” thing and allowed me to start listening to it.

I’d get illegal mix tapes down on Fulton Street – my mom would walk me up to the dude that was selling and let me pick out the ones I wanted which in retrospect must have been pretty funny to see.

By the time 1987 came along my parents accepted the fact that I wasn’t going to be listening to Diana Ross or the Beatles, at least not until I was older. My cassette collection started to fill up with tapes by Run-DMC, the Fat Boys, Beastie Boys, BDP, The Furious Five, LL Cool J, Heavy D, Kool Moe Dee and a bunch of other people that are considered the legends in hip-hop today (I even recall having this extremely lo-fi recording of a Kool Herc and the Herculoids session from the 70s although I don’t remember what it sounded like).

It all had an innocent vibe to it, too – almost novelty. The hardcore feel on most of these albums was battle-rap like. People talking about being the dopest MC, stuff like that. BDP’s Criminal Minded was something a little different – there were occasional lapses into more violent lyrics – but for the most part it wasn’t the kind of shit that inspired violence.

It was good time, 1987. Hip-hop was building up steam. It was building a culture, infecting the mainstream. There was a buzz about it in our neighborhood – it was OUR music. There’d be articles in the papers about it; rappers would make appearances at their local block parties (I mean, seriously, could you imagine someone like Eminem playing a block party now?). We became possessive of MCs, even the lyrics at the time portrayed this feeling of ownership:

Manhattan keeps on making it, Brooklyn keeps on taking it
Bronx keeping creating it and Queens keeps on faking it

Were there any old school LL Cool J songs where he didn’t say Farmer’s Boulevard? It’s funny; today Robin always makes fun of how possessive I am of Brooklyn. I’m a well trained and domesticated male and yet if someone tells me they’re from Brooklyn, I’m the first one to shout, “BROOK-LANNNN”. I think it all dates back to this feeling – this style of music that was made just for us and inspired pride in our roots.

That’s what hip-hop was – it was all about who was the best MC and where they came from. It was about break beats and the ladies. And all the while it was seeping into our language and culture, evolving, growing into something that none of use ever saw coming.

So, like I said, there was nothing wrong with 1987.

It just wasn’t 1988.

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NY Report and The Passion of the ’88: There Was Nothing Wrong With ‘87

Monday, October 24, 2005

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