Passin' Me By
Wait, no ... I did not really pursue my little princess with persistance
And I was so low-key that she was unaware of my existence
From a distance I desired, secretly admired her
Wired her a letter to get her, and it went ...
The first time I heard that track I was blown away, and every time I hear it I still get goosebumps. The whole concept of it summed up my lackluster interactions with the opposite sex throughout high school and the first two years of college. Ironically, that verse was to later end up describing my first real experience, too, years afterward.
As I often do, when I get into a "missing the old school" funk, I pulled out Vinroc's [of the X-ecutioners DJ crew] Reconstruction Volume 1 mixtape (er, CD), by far the best DJ-mixed compilation of classic hip-hop tracks I've ever heard. On the ride to work this morning, I made it through the first five tracks. As always happens, frickin' full-body shivers just ran through me at the start of every track, bringing back so so so many memories of my life back then.
After a beautiful splicing together of about thirty samples from various songs on the intro, Vin starts with "Passin' Me By" (can any true hip-hop fan deny the feeling you get when hearing that opening scratch-and-organ combo?), deftly moves on to Arrested Development's "Everyday People", heads back to New York with The Artifacts' graf anthem "Wrong Side of the Tracks", smoothly flows into the Roots' classic "Distortion to Static", then melts into Common [Sense, back then]'s smooth-as-butter "Resurrection", the title track of what was arguably his best album.
With each new track, I found that the volume wasn't quite high enough, and would turn the dial a bit more. It was thirteen minutes of hip-hop bliss, and the grin I had plastered on my face as I walked into my office must have made my co-workers wonder whether I'd just won the lottery or had actually gone insane.
And I was so low-key that she was unaware of my existence
From a distance I desired, secretly admired her
Wired her a letter to get her, and it went ...
The first time I heard that track I was blown away, and every time I hear it I still get goosebumps. The whole concept of it summed up my lackluster interactions with the opposite sex throughout high school and the first two years of college. Ironically, that verse was to later end up describing my first real experience, too, years afterward.
As I often do, when I get into a "missing the old school" funk, I pulled out Vinroc's [of the X-ecutioners DJ crew] Reconstruction Volume 1 mixtape (er, CD), by far the best DJ-mixed compilation of classic hip-hop tracks I've ever heard. On the ride to work this morning, I made it through the first five tracks. As always happens, frickin' full-body shivers just ran through me at the start of every track, bringing back so so so many memories of my life back then.
After a beautiful splicing together of about thirty samples from various songs on the intro, Vin starts with "Passin' Me By" (can any true hip-hop fan deny the feeling you get when hearing that opening scratch-and-organ combo?), deftly moves on to Arrested Development's "Everyday People", heads back to New York with The Artifacts' graf anthem "Wrong Side of the Tracks", smoothly flows into the Roots' classic "Distortion to Static", then melts into Common [Sense, back then]'s smooth-as-butter "Resurrection", the title track of what was arguably his best album.
With each new track, I found that the volume wasn't quite high enough, and would turn the dial a bit more. It was thirteen minutes of hip-hop bliss, and the grin I had plastered on my face as I walked into my office must have made my co-workers wonder whether I'd just won the lottery or had actually gone insane.
posted by GregP at 11:32 AM
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