Something Different

As a kid growing up in a predominately Polish, Italian and Irish part of Queens, New York, the only music you listened to in the late 70's was The Ramones, Led Zeppelin, Dio and Iron Maiden, with a dash of Sex Pistols and Clash [although at the time if you listened to British punk you'd get your ass handed to you, so you had to do this discretely and only with like minded peers]. All the kids in the neighborhood wore jean jackets with the sleeves cut off, if you were really "in" you would have a painting on the back panel of the jacket. Being the artistic kid in the group I would do the paintings (my specialty was skulls, a la Grateful Dead's Skull and Roses).

I remember my brother who is 4 years older than me, coming home one day with a stack of vinyl. Donna Summer, Chris Cross ... sorry, I meant Christopher Cross (we differ greatly in musical tastes) and this new group called Sugar Hill Gang. He proceeded to play Rappers Delight ... it was like nothing I'd heard before. At the time I didn't know what to make of it, musically it was pretty simple, but the rhythm was infectious and the lyrics were insane ... 

i said a hip hop the hippie the hippie 

to the hip hip hop, a you dont stop 

the rock it to the bang bang boogie say up jumped the boogie 
to the rhythm of the boogie, the beat 

I remember almost wetting my pants laughing at that song, but then something happened ... it stuck ... I couldn't get it out of my head. Although, I can't say I started listening to Hip Hop from that day on, I did gain an appreciation and respect for the old skool rappers like Kool Keith, Big Daddy Kane, Run DMC and of course LL. Too bad my jean jacket didn't fair quite as well as Hip Hop.