I love old school hip hop. It's pretty much part of the sound track to my growing up years, starting from about the age of 8 or 9 or so, and in some form or another continuing to this day (although a lot of the new hip hop out today I can't listen to for a variety of reasons like the lyrics, the disrespect of women, etc.) So anyway, am listening to 1.fm Jamz and this guy is mixing old school hip hop. Wow, definitely bringing back memories.
When I was growing up, I pretty much listened to house, R&B, hip hop, and various other forms of dance music (freestyle readily comes to mind), and the occasional top 40 or rock song. At that time, I didn't like much of the hair metal bands that were popular in the 80's. And I say this because I remember a cousin of mine used to go crazy over that Deph Lepard song "Poor Some Sugar on Me", she thought the lead singer was so cute/sexy lol. And I just kinda went "yeah whatever".
As I got older, my husical tastes expanded, and now I pretty much listen to everything, and I really do mean that. A story I'm reminded of is when I was in The Gambia in 1999, and I was at someone's house and Youssou Ndour came on the radio, and I literally stopped in mid-sentence and asked, "Who is that?" My first thought was "wow that guy has an incredible voice". And the answer I got was "oh that's Youssou Ndour, you don't know who he is?" Oh, no, I didn't, else I'd not have asked lol. But the question was asked as though I'd just landed from Mars or something. I seem to recall the person mentioning how Youssou was even popular in "The West", and I mentioned, "well I just wasn't listening to any stations that would play him I guess". Although it does occur to me that Youssou worked with Peter Gabriel and the song "In Your Eyes", where Youssou can be heard singing in the background, got (and still gets) quite a bit of airplay here in the US. However, in the 80's I didn't really listen to too much Peter Gabriel. I was too busy probably blasting LL Cool J or Lisa Lisa and Cult Jam, or something like that lol.
And no offense to Peter Gabriel, "In Your Eyes" is a perfectly good song, but I still don't think I like it, even though Youssou's singing on it. And that "Seven Seconds" song is even worse! I can't stand it! It has "crossover" and "syruppy pop" written all over it. But I ain't mad at Youssou, I mean get your money any way you can, and those huge hits probably allowed him to do a lot of other things. But personally speaking, I'll take the hardest driving mbalax any day, rather than the stuff he produces for the so-called "Western"/international market. And this doesn't mean that some of that stuff isn't good either, I'm just saying, I like the stuff he produces for the "local" market better.
And I also love Thione Seck, although ever since I heard that song on a Senegalese radio station praising Yahya Jammeh, or he seemed to be as my comprehension of Wolof is far from remotely good, I mean, once you get me past yes, no, thank you, and the odd word hear or there, that's it I'm done. But anyway... I was sitting at the computer at 2 in the morning, in a chat and listening to the radio, and it was really late and I shoulda really been in bed, but anyway, Thione Seck came on the radio, I heard that familiar voice, the song even sounded nice, but then I heard Yahya Jammeh's name mentioned and I can't remember what else, but then I was like "huh?" What the Heck?
So anyway, I still like Thione Seck's music, and again, I'd prefer what he produces for the local market rather than what he produces for the "international" audience.
Although with both Youssou and Thione I do like Youssou's Egypt album (which I refer to as my "recovery" album, as it was out around the time I'd just gotten divorced from my first husband and was rebuilding up my mental and spiritual strength after escaping domestic violence), and I also like Thione Seck's Orientation album. I find them both to be very beautiful and they still get rotation in the car, on my computer, or on my mp3 player.
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