Back In The Days When I Was A (Pre-)Teenager

Last fall, Lupe Fiasco faced some ire from the rap community after flubbing a performance of an A Tribe Called Quest song during the VH1 Hip Hop Honors show. The event sparked a series of exchanges where Lupe defended his error, while at the same time fueling rumors of a mini-feud between he and A Tribe Called Quest (which Q-Tip quickly squashed). The gist of Lupe's response was:

"I did not grow up on ATCQ....I grew up on gangsta rap..."

Ignoring the fact that his arguments were weak and that doing some research preceding his NATIONALLY TELEVISED (!!!) performance would've been a good idea, I see where he's coming from.

Lupe and I were born a year apart and both grew up in the urban Midwest, and I personally can't recall hearing much of Tribe either, outside of "Scenario". We got plenty of Dr. Dre and Snoop Dogg, Ice Cube, Scarface, Tupac, Biggie and TONS of Bone Thugs-N-Harmony, though. Outside of the latter two performers, anything originating in the east was not very prevalent in our neck of the woods. Though A Tribe Called Quest were playing a part in the "golden age" of hip hop, gangsta rap and g-funk were still what the kids wanted to hear in an early to mid-nineties Midwest. Basically, if it wasn't hard it didn't really get played. Apparently some guy named Nas and this group of people calling themselves Wu Tang had released good albums, but we sure as hell didn't hear much about it.

I've yet to find any solid reasons why so many important east coast albums were under the radar where I grew up, though the upside is that I can approach these albums now from almost a blank slate. Despite being unfamiliar to my ears until recently, The Low End Theory still feels nostalgic, like an old friend reminding me of all the good times. Three mentions of the Arsenio Hall Show, a jab on the size of the Winan's family, yes y'allin', girls named Tanya, referring to sex as "knocking boots" as well as the use of other such slang terms that I haven't heard in a decade. Yup, this is pretty much the perfect embodiment of the 90's for those of us who weren't associating with crack dealers but liked listening to the music of those who were.

This is one of many east coast hip hop albums I missed out on the first time around, and there's a lot more to discover. Perhaps Lupe's started to do the same in the past year.