(no subject)
I'm working on the yearbook for the summer program at which I've been employed for the past three weeks. Of course, my Picture It! program is acting all fucked up. Of course. Dammit, I wouldn't have survived the past three years without my Picture It! It's how I morph into the colors of th'rainbow, lassies! It's also how I got the one and only Micah 'Ship!!1! desktop in the world. Yes, I 'ship couples I create. Shut up. And God. My life is sad.
Speaking of bitter, bitter tears, my sister and I were looking up cherished acts of yore on youtube last night, and it seriously depressed the shit out of us. I mean, music videos consisted of chill people who wanted to sing getting together in a warehouse (Paul's words, RIP) or in someone's house and feeling the groove. Women were only dressed like hoochies in context, like at a beach party or something. There was no bling, in fact, everyone looked broke as hell. The dudes, the ladies…all people you'd rub shoulders with on the N6 or on the R train. And the music itself was way better, because people rarely sampled older cuts. These days, you get clearance to steal someone else's beat after…what is it, five, six hours? I will never stop looking down my nose at everything produced in the past decade, [snobbery] sorry [/snobbery].
The thing that saddened us the most was watching the 3T video.
Now, okay, this may go without say depending on how long you've known me, but between 1995 and 1998, my heart belonged to one man and one man only. No, not Jesus, better. That's right: Michael Jackson. So let me just get that out of the way as a testament to my loyalty of all things Jackson (and the sad part? He still totally owns it. Well, kind of; Michael Jackson between 1969 and 1984 owns my heart. Otherwise…bleh). Nonetheless, my heart has been in the Jackson family's name for well over a decade now.
Keeping all this crazy shit in mind, it perhaps goes without say that I was the second or third person on earth who knew when 3T first hit the scene (and this was before the internet, that's how deep the MJ love was). One of us bought the single from Walgreens (back when a sistah could roll up at Walgreens with ten dollars and peace out with three cassette singles…those were the days, y'all) and we rocked it. We rocked it. But the sad thing is that while we were playing the tape, we were playing them. We ripped on those dudes so hard. I'm not sure why. Especially the one with the dreds. Yes, Taj was the butt of every other joke back in '96. I think we considered Taryll the "cute one," but as we were watching the video last night we realized…hey, they're all cute.
And then we were like, oh, hell.
Wait! Allow me to throw in a brief aside here. Eleven years ago my sister took a summer course or something at Brown, and in her class was a dude from Cali who actually went to school with someone in 3T, or all three of them, something. And I remember being crunked as hell because that was, like, four degrees between me and MJ!!!!1! So yeah. Nothing came of that, natch.
What's the moral of this story? I'm not sure. But why didn't 3T blow up? MJ was producing their music, and even though his music sucked circa '96, "Anything" was just about the sweetest song ever. Sung by three cuties. Descendents of musical royalty, even. But no one cared. And their only fans used to rip on them like they owed them money. It just made us very sad and nostalgic. Because I'd trade in any musical act today for 3motherfuckingT. Please believe.
And I'd trade damn near anything to see the return of music videos where everyone was at a barbeque, having a good time, and just feeling the sweetness that was New Jack Swing.
And can I just pat myself on the back for remembering K-Ci's outfit in Jodeci's "Let's Go Through the Motions" video? That's like 14 years' worth of data recollection right there. I'm awesome.
Now if you'll excuse me, I'm off to reminisce about the summer of '97, when all that mattered was the J5's ABC album (on tape, o'course!) and early-nineties-era Madonna.
And KTU, which will always be the radio station that owns my soul, although Philly's got some hot stations, too.
You know, Philly is awesome. It's too bad that THIRTY-SEVEN FUCKING PEOPLE got shot over the weekend. And 232 people died from gun violence so far this year. Well that was as of yesterday. I'm sure that number has doubled in the past twenty-four hours.
Say what you say, but this is the worst decade since…since…I don't know, the forties? The fifties? Not the sixties, though. The sixties were the shit. And I only say this because of The Monkees. I'm not basing this assertion on factual evidence or 14 years' worth of data recollection or anything like that. Just The Monkees.
God. My life is sad. No, it's not, but here's my point. You really can't go back. Tito's three boys, looking all cute and singing that banging song while their uncle wasn't 100% batshit crazy yet? Totally in the past. New Jack Swing, and black people in the music business who weren't about degrading one another (for the most part) and singing some really awesome hooks? Totally, totally, totally in the past. All of that is gone, and it's really sad, because I feel like I didn't cherish it enough while it was the present. Sob.
Oh, well, off to work on this yearbook for tomorrow's future...