This story is not going to be what you expect. But let’s go ahead and rewind my cassette tape back 30 years….
As a child growing up in a devout Christian household, it’s obvious I wasn’t allowed to listen to music with cursing. This soon became a dilemma for my obsession with rap music in the early to mid 90’s. I wasn’t aware of how much profanity a lot of my most coveted rap albums would have. Since BET and MTV were my main sources for keeping up with the latest rap tunes, I just heard mostly clean versions.
In 1991, I was at the tender age of 8 years old and didn’t have much of a problem acquiring the music I wanted. The first cassette I bought with my allowance was A Future Without a Past by Leaders of the New School. I was captivated by their “Sobb Story” music video with Busta Rhymes, Charlie Brown and Dinco D riding on a tandem bicycle and hood of a car, snapping their fingers as they told their stories. Not to mention, the hazy choir vocals in the background of the beat had me mesmerized.
I was also obsessed with “Summertime” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince after they debuted the music video at the end of an episode of The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. I waited for that video to come on every day on Video Soul and Rap City until I recorded it on my VCR to watch over and over again.
I didn’t have to convince my mother to buy the Homebase album. The Fresh Prince was the cleanest of them all. Well, luckily she didn’t overhear the track with the one time he “kinda” cursed in a song: “You saw my blinker, Bitch!!!”
What the hell does this have to do with Luther Vandross?
Hold on, I’ll get to that.
The holiday season was the best time for me to get new music. Every year I would give my mom a Christmas wishlist divided into four main sections; video games, music, action figures and movies. She usually got me one of each, so my sections were listed in order of what I wanted most. The music section was always the longest because there were so many great rappers/groups for me to choose from in the 90's.
That year I put N.W.A near the top of my list. But after I opened my presents, my mom felt the need to tell me exactly why she didn’t buy it. Apparently she asked the music store clerk about the group.
Mom: “Solomon, do you know what N.W.A stands for?”
Me: “Uh, no. What?”
Mom: “NIGGAZ with an attitude.”
Whoops! At that point, Mom only listened to gospel music. The only thing “secular” she had left was a small collection of tapes from the 80’s like Anita Baker, Whitney Houston and of course, Luther Vandross. Her tapes were stored in a carrying case in the back corner of her closet just collecting dust. She was an old-fashioned square, so you can imagine the look on my mom’s face when she saw the Niggaz4Life album title that I was totally unaware of. So yeah, no N.W.A for me.
The tape she did end up buying me was MC Breed & DFC, which was also on my list because of the infectious single, “Ain’t No Future in Yo’ Frontin’”. It’s funny because the album actually turned out to have quite a bit of cursing on it. Luckily, I played it in my headphones first. Somehow the album cover was missing the one thing that soon became the bane of my childhood existence….
DUN DUN DUNNNNNN!!!
By 1993, I kept seeing the Parental Advisory warnings on the bottom corner of almost every damn rap tape I wanted!!! It pissed me off knowing that I couldn't buy the tapes because of them. But at the same time, I became fascinated with it because it looked so cool! It made the tapes even more enticing to me.
The G-Funk sound exploded with Dr. Dre and Snoop Doggy Dogg becoming the biggest figures in mainstream rap music. I didn’t know it was being called “gangsta rap” nor did I care. I just knew it sounded goooood. The first time I heard “Nuthin’ But a “G” Thang” blasting from my cousin Dejo’s boombox, my body froze. The melody of the bass line made my brain melt into a puddle of pure bliss.
Me: Yooo! Who is this?
Dejo: It’s Dr. Dre.
Me: My goodness, I need this now! Please dub it for me, Dejo. Please. Please. Please!!!
Dejo: A'ight boy, chill! Damn.
Rap music was becoming so offensive to conservative ears, by the time that song came out, my local radio station stopped playing rap altogether. Frankly, I didn’t care because I never liked listening to the radio anyway. I was totally fine with my own personal playlist of cassette tapes.
My favorite mixtape for that year was made by my play-cousin, De’Wayne. I spent weekends at his house every few months. It was my favorite place to go because De’Wayne always had all the best video games and rap albums. One summer day, he played me the classic “Chief Rocka” by Lords of the Underground and I had the same reaction as the first time I heard Dr. Dre from Dejo. Again, the bass line had me hooked along with the jazzy horn riff to top it off.
De’Wayne was getting ready to dub a tape for me with “Chief Rocka”, but there was one problem. He realized that he was out of recordable cassettes. He owned mostly CDs and there was no such thing as recordable disks or “burning” yet. I didn’t own a CD player anyway. So, De’Wayne started sifting through a batch of old tapes and picked one out.
De’Wayne: We’ll just record over this.
I was very confused at first. For those of us who grew up during the age of cassette tapes, it was common knowledge that you couldn’t record over major released (pre-recorded) tapes. The record button on a cassette player wouldn't even push down unless you used a blank cassette brand like Maxell and TDK. But my play-cousin was about to show me something I didn’t know.
There were two indentations at the bottom ends of every pre-recorded cassette that I never paid attention to until then. De’Wayne took a sheet of paper, tore off two small pieces, rolled them into little balls and stuffed them into the indentations. Voilà… the tape was now recordable. My 10 year old mind was bloooooown!
I watched De’Wayne in awe as he used a pencil eraser to rub out all the pad printing on the beige-colored cassette tape. He colored both sides with a bright blue marker and drew a big title over it in black that read: “FRESH FOR 93”. I think I made him record "Chief Rocka" several times in a row so I didn't have to keep rewinding it. Another gem on the tape I played often was "Funky Lemonade" by Chi Ali.
By the end of that year, Snoop Doggy Dogg’s highly anticipated debut album, Doggystyle, finally dropped and I just had to have it. Unfortunately, I didn’t know when I was going to get to see De’Wayne again. But then came an opportunity. I was going to spend a weekend at my dad and his wife’s house, and I knew my older stepbrother had it on CD.
As I packed my things, I searched everywhere around my place for a blank cassette to bring with me. But there was none left. I didn’t want to record over anything I had, and I was worried it would be too suspicious asking my mom to buy me some blank cassettes before getting dropped off. Just when I was about to give up, I went to my mom’s closet and then… Bingo!
I remembered Mom’s discarded collection of secular tapes that she no longer listened to. My eyes widened as I opened the carrying case and pulled the first cassette tape out: Give Me the Reason by Luther Vandross. I felt like the cleverest evil genius in the world, rubbing my hands together with a sinister grin. Doggystyle was going to be mine!!!
On the way back home after getting picked up from my dad's house, my mom's soulful gospel music filled the car as I held that Luther Vandross cassette case next to my walkman, blasting Snoop Doggy Dogg in my headphones with a big smile on my face. That 10 year old boy looked like an “old soul” with his mid-80's Luther tape.
You would’ve thought my Walkman was playing:
“Lately love keeps keeping me wake at night / Tossing and turning, my love / Wanna kiss, wanna hold you so tight / Ooh, but I wonder love / Whether you know or not / When you just hurry away / Leaving me laying there in shock”
But my Walkman was really playing:
“To all my niggaz and my bitches / And my bitches and my niggaz / Wave your motherf*ckin' hands in the air!!! / And if you don't give a f*ck, like we don't give a f*ck / Keep your motherf*ckin' fingers in the aaaair!!!!”
Nowadays as a musician and adult in my late 30’s, I have the utmost respect and love for the late Luther Vandross’ legacy of classics. But what I personally learned from him as a 10 year old child obsessed with rap music in the 90’s, had little to do with his discography. By finding out a way to record Snoop over my mom’s old Luther cassette, I learned that there’s usually a way to work around my limitations by using the things I already have when I want to accomplish something. And that lesson has been the foundation of my career.