Tuesday, August 30, 2016

The Geto Boys "s/t"

My first year of college I lived in a dorm style apartment building.  There were 5 bedrooms on our floor with shared kitchen and living areas.  One of the guys that lived there was on a basketball scholarship.  Because of the tight living quarters we became friends.  Some of the other players from the team would hang out in our communal living room and our floormate would lug his stereo out there and they would all laugh, argue and listen to rap.  I was reluctant to hang out with them, my past experiences with jock culture weren't very favorable.   But they were all cool with me and I won them over by drawing them as they lounged on the cheap sofas.   One of them used to bring clippers and shave elaborate designs in their tightly cropped hair and like some rite of initiation they shaved tribal - like designs under my mop of curly hair (it's true, I was had hair).  I came home after a long night of washing dishes at an Italian restaurant and the were all huddled around the stereo bobbing their heads and periodically grunting sounds of approval as they listened to the debut #getoboys album.  The album had just come out that year and one of the guys had a tape of it they were given by a friend.  I enjoyed it alot and had the guy dub me a second generation copy.  I eventually lost that tape but years later I heard "mind of a lunatic" on a mix tape in a friend's car and soon after bought myself a proper CD of the release. It was 1990 all over again.  I immediately liked the Geto Boys because they were like the death metal of rap. Vicious cartoonish lyrics that would turn off most people.  I was sold.
  Though I'd like to listen to this right now I'm going to be a typical dad and wait until my little parroting children aren't around. These personal censorships still kind of surprise me. But then I don't need Noah reciting "let a ho be a ho" on his first day of school next week.

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