the end of an era..

RIP

BET's Rap City
1989-2008

*cue nas: hip hop is dead*

people get into hip-hop in different ways. i, for one, wasn't introduced through friends (early on) or even family members; i didn't have a big brother or badass uncle to put me on. in fact, it was quite the opposite. moms caught me listening to some warren G i had recorded onto an audio tape off the radio back when i was 8 (damned if i can't remember the name of that radio station!) and just about sh*t a brick. so naturally, i knew i was onto something.
then there was "gangster's paradise" in 1996 - a song with a beat so haunting and lyrics so far beyond my pre-teen comprehension that i just HAD to dig that shit. while my peers were bumping spice girls and jock jams, i was staying up trying to hear that new ma$e song on the radio. oh, but i wish i was joking.
i guess you could say the rest is history. listening to rap music became a completely covert operation. radio recording onto audio tapes was my main method. then after we moved to japan for the first time, and i was left with craptastic radio, a new opportunity conveniently presented itself in the form of one of my BFFs, danielle. she had an extensive CD collection and somehow, had ALL the parental advisory CDs (i was so jealous!). old puff daddy, nas, DMX-- and i had access to 'em, pretty much whenever i wanted. around that time ['98-ish] came the advent of napster and my having free range to cop any song i chose (provided that i waited 45 to an hour to download it! -needless to say, i chose wisely). napster was totally the shit because my parents had no idea what mp3 files even were, back then.
but when they found out... (a quick tangent)
i'll never forget that fateful day when dad discovered my HUGE folder of rap music on the family computer. i remember awkwardly sitting with him and listening to 3-6 mafia's "slob on my knob" in addition to something equally as misogynistic by project pat, and the following discussion abt how i was degrading myself listening to "garbage like that". (what the eff tho, really? i didn't even listen to project pat and 3-6. why couldn't he have pulled up common's "the light" or something?)
after the rise and fall of napster, i somehow acquired membership to that BMG music club (remember those things you'd get in the mail? 12 cd's for $1?). now that i think of it, i really have no idea how that happened. all i remember is i was getting like 2 or 3 cds a week, anything i wanted, coming straight to the mailbox, no parental filter, paying for those junts with my babysitting dough. this is probably what planted the seeds for me to have my own insane CD collection now [that's really just sitting taking up space in my garage]. i have some classics though.
but, you ask, how was i even up on what to order? backstory to follow:
starting in '00, when we came back to LA from japan, i discovered MTV and BET. we hadn't had cable before then, so my exposure was limited to the radio. all things considered, BET was like crack for my 13 year old fix. i got outta school at 3. mom's worked until 5, got home about 6. and 2 out of those glorious 3 hours i had of total freedom every day were filled with the 4-6 timeslot of BET's rap city.
yupp, back in the days of "tha bassment". big tigger. guest appearances from jay. DMX. meth. etc. i fell in love with rap music and all its (supposed) blasphemous, narcissist, gun-slingin' and bling-blingin' ways, even if i only half-understood 'em. i learned the art of freestyle. battle rapping. old school jams. learned to distinguish between NY shit, southern shit, and west coast shit. learned what i liked. learned what i didn't like. learned of up-and-coming artists (who've now come and gone). learned of the legends, pac and big, and what they contributed to the game. moms was downtown in vegas the night pac got shot. 4 years later, i discovered why it was such a big deal.
rap city was my after school schoolin' on what would later become the love of my life.
sure, i listened to other stuff too. i was heavy into rock/metal in 8th-9th grade and i can listen to alternative rock any day of the week. but rap, well, rap was always there. always something i had, that was personal, individual, private. my own pandora's box of sorts. and rap city helped shape that. it was, for a few years, my own block of time to chill, feel like i was being rebellious, (cause i was a pretty good kid, for the most part) and soak up all that'd been sheltered from me as an upper-middle class white military brat.
so now, it truly feels like the end of an era. according to hiphopdx, rap city will be replaced by a music video show with a format similar to that of vh1's "pop-up video". truthfully, i haven't watched rap city in a good two years (at least), and i probably couldn't even tell you who's hosting now or what time slot it comes on. so i guess it's appropriate to lay it to rest.
school's out.