It was Onyx...

I always listened to my discman when I was riding with my parents. Perhaps it was my way of zoning them out when we were in the car together, but I really love music also so any chance I could get to listen to music of my choice, I took it.

I remember one day towards my latter years of high school when I was probably about 17 or 18 years old, I asked my friend Dave if I could borrow one of his hardcore rap albums. I liked hip-hop to an extent, but was mostly into aggressive metal and hardcore music, so when I asked him to bring me a rap album, I wanted the most hardcore, angriest one he had. He brought me Onyx "Shut 'Em Down."

I got picked up from school by my stepfather that afternoon. It must have been February or March because there was a lot of snow on the ground, but it was sunny and fairly mild. It was about a 15 minute drive home from my school, so I put on my headphones and popped the disc into my discman. From the intro into the first song "Raze it Up," I will always remember listening to this album for my first time. I had never heard such vile, dirty hip-hop in my life. Sure, I was familiar with older Onyx stuff like "Slam" and other groups like Gravediggaz and Wu-Tang as well as west coast gansgsta rap of the early-mid '90's, but this album was some of the angriest stuff I had ever heard. Even compared to a lot of the metal bands I was listening to, this was pretty aggressive.

I remember listening to this opening track and rewinding it several times before I even got to the next song, sitting in the passenger seat of the car. I remember distinclty the mounds of snow with sunlight gleaming off of it, and whenever I listen to this track or the "Shut 'Em Down" album, I think of that type of weather even if it's in the summer time. And nowadays when I am driving I like listening to the album during the winter months to bring me back to that era in high school.