Everybody's story starts somewhere, right?
Some of my first real memories were from around 1984, when I was 8 years old living in Japan.
Being a young kid, abroad, my parents had me watching regular American kid cartoons, like Bugs Bunny, Popeye, Tom & Jerry, Wile E. Coyote & The Road Runner, Captain Caveman, The Smurfs, The Snorks, Winnie-The-Pooh, Inspector Gadget, Peanuts, Sesame Street, movies like The Dark Crystal, The NeverEnding Story, and Japanese animated stuff too like Voltron, Kinnikuman, Ninja Hattori-kun, Doraemon, etc ...
Like most kids my age, I absorbed the music my parents played in a second-hand fashion.
Mom loved The Beatles & The Stones, Dylan & Stevie from the Mac. Dad was heavier with Sabbath & AC/DC, Santana & the Butterfly ... It would be another 20 years before I would "go back" & really appreciate the gravity of those bands ...
The first time I ever experienced music for myself was in 1985.
I got a Toshiba Bombeat95s Boombox the previous christmas. Thanks guys !! 💜
One sunny day that next year, as I sat by myself on the eastern balcony with no parents around staring out at the pacific ocean, a friend came up saying he had just snagged a cassette tape that belonged to his older brother, that they brought back with them from NY on their "leave", and could he "Pop it in the Booombox?". Sure.
Understand, my folks had tapes for me like casper the ghost, scooby-doo, fangface, winnie-the-pooh, mickey mouse, snoopy & the peanuts, peter pan, yogi the bear ... kid stuff.
As my friend put the tape in & hit rewind, I listened to it spinning for a smidge & then I heard the click when it stopped. He hit the play button. I had no clue what was going to come out of the speakers.
But there was no more "kid stuff" for me after that :)
What followed were tracks from the then "real-time, ongoing" NYC "ROXANNE" beef- UTFO w/ "Roxanne, Roxanne", Marley Marl & Roxanne Shante w/ "The Real Roxanne", and then UTFO's rebuttal w/ "Roxanne's Revenge"...
I had never heard anything like that EVER. This was the first time I ever heard HIP-HOP. It was the first time I ever heard any MC. It was the first time I ever heard a FEMALE MC, no less. It was the first time I ever heard BEATS. BARS. CADENCE. FLOW. SCRATCHING. It was the first time I ever learned about STORYTELLING & MUSIC being synonymous, in a "real" way. The first time I heard FOUL LANGUAGE/CUSSING on the radio :)
Now, the "message" went WAY over my head. I was 8 years old. I knew nothing about DRUGS, LIQUOR, SEX, NYC CULTURE, MCs, DJs, GANJA, BEEF, real life STRUGGLES, HIP-HOP, none of it. I was a young, sheltered kid, but the "vibe" stays with me to this day.
It was the first time I ever experienced something "REAL" on my own.
after that it was GAME ON !
I tracked down the movies BREAKIN' & BEAT STREET and saw Ice-T, Breakdancing & Graffiti for the first time. (and yes, I still have my original VHS copies 💜)
When I say I've been following HIP-HOP for 35 + years that's BIG FACTS !!
...and YES, I still have all 6 of those JUMP COMICS original KINNIKUMAN's from 1984-1985 💜
Then one day the family went to the JAPANESE BAZAAR and I found my own ROCK & ROLL
it was time for the next chapter of my musical life :)
...and YES, I still have both cassette tapes, and they still sound GREAT ! 💜
Being in Japan, we had access to "cutting-edge" technology "on the cheap" too ... around this time we got our 1st computer - a COMMODORE 64
I remember playing ZORK on floppy disk. It was like those "choose your own adventure" books... FUN !
Nintendo had already been out in Japan since 1983 ... but it didn't make it to the USA until 1986, sold with the first ever version of SUPER MARIO BROTHERS :)
We had already upgraded from the 64 to the Commodore 128 by this point ...
we were ridin' the "high-tech" "video game" wave in 1985 before Nintendo hit big ...
look at those graphics ! 🤦
I was so young I was still playing with toys ...
💜 snoopy, voltron, kinnikuman 💜
We used to go to the comic book store in Japan all the time - AMAZING !
I will never forget how one day when we left the comic book store we stopped in the TOKYO PIZZA HUT for lunch - SQUID & CORN pizza? no thanks :)
this was my beginning ... 10 years before the internet even existed
1-5-2014 book mix 2.pdf