I have 3 blogs. I have my Don Cialini blog about whatever I feel like blogging about. I have The Peoples Beer Drinker blog where I took a stance in support of good old fashioned American Macro lager. And I also have this one as well. All 3 blogs suffer from my inability to to blog and keep it going. I’m convinced I’m a terrible writer yet most will disagree. I know, I know grammar is a different thing. With my Don blog, I have any number of topics to pick from but never actually pick one to write them out. I fear that nobody will give a fuck if I am not ranting about some bullshit for which I have become known for. I also will write in my head if you will a blog while I run, or work yet when I try and put in in actual writing it never seems as good as it was when I was brainstorming. Because of this, the Don blog suffers. My Peoples Beer was born more as a parody response to a friend of mine who has an absurd amount of beer knowledge and hates big American beer while schilling the burgeoning craft brew scene. The fact is, I don’t care enough about beer to continually make that blog worth while. Then there is this blog. a blog that started out highlighting some of the best rap verses (in my opinion of course) that one may or may not know. Then I mixed in some overrated verses and verses that just had shock value without necessarily being any good (i.e. Tim Dog). However now I feel some creative juices starting to flow as I have cycled back to the Golden Era of rap music, old school if you will. A time when you would roll into the tape/CD store and the section was labeled “RAP” and not “HIP-HOP” (thanks for the line B-Shan…it was all yours though). So, in an effort to try and make this blog something that I regularly put some time into (anything to break me of that dastardly porn habit errrrrrrrrrrr), I thought I would lay out my rap credentials so to speak. I mean what can a white kid from the suburbs really know about rap music right? Well, stay tuned to find out.
My love of rap music started when I was young (how cliche right?). I remember a friend of mine at the time (Peter Meyer) bringing over Run DMC’s “Raising Hell” on cassette of course. I had to have been around 10 years old. I remember being in complete shock at hearing the “F” word…twice but I also liked the entire tape as well. It was soon after that I had my own copy. At 10, obviously my collection of music and knowledge was slow to come. I had landed a few compilation tapes with rap music on it (although Timex Social Club….not rap sorry fellas). I scored a couple more Run DMC tapes as well as a few others. I was digging the music, but at some point I kinda drifted away as I got into all different types of music. A tragic event brought me back.
In 9th grade, I met a potna of mine, a young William Shannon. We hit it off and became pretty good friends. It was that April that the riots in L.A. kicked off over the Rodney King verdict. While watching MTV shortly after, I heard Kurt Loader talk about some rap group named “Niggas Wit Attitude” (N.W.A) looking to do a remake of their song “Fuck Tha Police”. Now I won’t even front here, I was intrigued at the song’s title and what it could possibly be like. Well, I happened to ask B-Shan about it, and sure enough here was a white kid in the suburbs who not only knew about the music but had the tape as well! He let me borrow it and I was hooked! I know my man still breaks my balls to this day that I only like rap music because of the swearing, and the swearing helped draw me in, it was everything else after that kept me hooked. Beats, lyrics, message, whatever. One N.W.A. tape turned into tapes with the likes of the Geto Boys, BDP, Big Daddy Kane, The DOC, whatever I could get my hands on. It took my parents about a year or so before I got the “don’t listen to that shit” lecture and completely ignored them. Fast forward to 1994 with graduation right around the corner, it was Gang Starr, Jeru, the Roots and more. The days of getting banged on because we hung with the minorities and listening to rap was coming to an end.
That fall, while B-Shan headed off to college in nearby Sorrycuse. We stayed in touch. He went to college, and started working full-time and married my High School Bitc…Sweetheart. Soon I was making plans to enter the Air Force and move to Dallas (where she moved too after graduation) for a bit before going in. However before I skipped town, I headed over and spent a couple weekends with B-Shan and some of his new palomine’s he met from NYC. It was there he was introduced and subsequently I as well to mix tapes. Some of my favorites were DJ Chubby Chub, Chill Will (from the East Side), DJ S&S and G-Bo Tha Pro and DJ Rei Double R (more on them two fellas in the next post). Like Ray Liotta as Henry Hill describing Mafia Life before Appalachia in “Goodfellas, it was a glorious time to be a fan of rap music. You were hard pressed to find something that didn’t have some type of redeeming qualities. Good luck trying to say that today. I would leave Sorrycuse after a weekend full of new music each and every time. Being a NY head, my musical allegiancewas with the East Coast so when I made my way to Dallas, I started spreading my knowledge and my tapes (and that’s where bitch’s started to gank my shit too but still) and I also started getting put on to other types of Rap. Even if I didn’t like it I learned about it.
By the summer of 1996 I was in the Air Force and wrapping up my Tech School. A good friend of mine there had acquired about 30 or so CD’s of rap music. They were left by his old roommate as collateral for using one of his Space A bags while he relocated to a different base. My friend never heard from him again and gave me the disks since he didn’t like rap. This was when I made the official switch to CD’s. My first duty station was Savannah GA. Lot of Southern Rap down there. It’s not my thing. Give me KRS, Wu-tang and Mobb Deep any day. I was still East Coast reppin’. I liked some other stuff here and there, but I liked what I grew up with!
In 1996 early 1997 I got my first real taste of the internet. I was blown away at all the information that was now just a couple of clicks away! That summer, while my wife was going to college in L.A. I let a friend of mine I worked with in the Air Force room with me at my apartment. His brother, cousin, and friend all came down for a week from Jersey and I let them crash with me. They paid tribute by handing over my very first computer. They had a nice racket going at Sears where they worked. The scheme would have made the Gambino Boys proud. In no time I was on rap music email lists, chat rooms, news groups etc. Being married with wifey 3,000 miles away and me being a faithful stand up guy, I spend a lot of time involved with the music.
1998 saw me do a tour in Korea. I met a guy there named Chet Wynn. Come to find out we were stationed at the same base in Savannah at the same time, just our path’s never crossed. My man was into rap and we would spend hours shooting the shit about the music, the artists etc. He did get into that southern style and the p/g-funk of the West but mostly it was all about the east. Dude used to tell me that I knew more about rap than pretty much any of the brothas he hung with. It was then I started to feel legit. I’m not going to compare it to being black and having the cops harass you and face the discrimination that blacks do, but as a white mother fucker being down you don’t get the respect. You gotta earn it and I finally felt like I was. After Korea I landed in Cali for a couple years before I ended up back where I started in Rochester NY.
Today, my hook up’s are gone for finding the good rap music. Now it’s Hip-Hop. It’s the same ole 50Cent, Jay-Z, nas (has anyone ever under performed after a great debut album like Nas???) whatever song that sounds the same. It’s made for the masses, made for the clubs. It’s depressing. If you don’t know anyone, you pretty much need a treasure map where X marks the damn spot to find something good in the sea of shit. of course this just means I’m old. Now I reminisce for the good old days of rap like my parents longed for the days of classic rock and Doo Wop. Luckily Backspin 43 on Sirius and Channel 673 (every other day) give me my old school rap fix. I still search and read about Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, KRS and wish I could go back to those days. Since I’m not Michael J. Fox, it aint happening so I’ll just keep it alive in the present.
That’s my story. It’s longer than I wanted. I’m sure I left lots out, but hopefully this helps jack my ass up so I keep this thing rollin’!
Number One Chief Rocka 