The Beginning

Hey there guys. SO, I'm going to tell you my first true hip hop experience. I was a freshman in high school. The year was 1989. Where I lived was a small rural area with about maybe 5,000 people in a three county radius. A lot of farms and rednecks blaring country music or classic rock if you were lucky. Hell, I had to listen to George Strait on the way to school all while smelling the stench of my dad's cigarettes. I forgot to mention that I also grew up on a 30 acre farm out in the middle of nowhere, so good music was at a premium. I always had the radio (or sometimes anyway, because my punishment for getting in trouble was to have my music confiscated. Great living with a Bible thumping parent). I remember the sounds of Janet Jackson, New Edition, Madonna, Tears for Fears, you name it. As long as it wasn't country, I probably liked it. I had heard Run DMC, LL Cool J, and the Beastie Boys, but hip hop really hadn't grabbed me quite yet. I was just an r&b and pop loving teenager. I had no idea what I was in for.
I'm riding the bus to school one day and there's a kid with glasses that's new and kind of a geek like me. He always sat in the middle of the bus and never talked to anyone. However, he always had headphones on. This went on for a couple weeks and finally I just couldn't take it anymore. I literally got out of my seat and sat next to him and said "Hey you never talk to anyone and you've always got headphones on. What the hell are you listening to?" And he says to me "I'm not sure you're ready for what's on the tape." To which I replied, " Try me." So he rewinds this tape and passes his headphones to me. I hear a moment of silence while the tape is running at the beginning, maybe a tad bit of hiss, and then "You are now about to witness the strength of street knowledge" followed by a beat that was nothing like anything I had ever heard before. And then came "Straight outta Compton, crazy motherfucker named Ice Cube, from the gang they call N***** with attitude!!!"
The whole time, I'm thinking, holy shit dude.
As I said, I was just a country kid and this was on some otherworldly shit compared to anything I'd ever heard.
The thing was I liked it.
There was something so visceral and raw about it.
"Fuck Tha Police" had a similar impact on me. "Fuck the police comin straight from the underground, a young n**** got it bad cuz I'm brown, and not the other colors the police think, they have the authority to kill a minority."
All I knew was I loved this kid Ice Cube. He was just raw but so incredible on the mic.
Every day when this kid Mike got on the bus, I would run up to him and say "Hey, you bring the N.W.A. tape?" He stopped bringing it after a while. He would try to put me on to BDP or EPMD, two acts I love today, but at that point, all I wanted was that N.W.A. shit.
So little by little I would get tapes from acts on the west coast, like Ice-T, The D.O.C. or Too Short, or even Naughty by Nature or Arrested Development, but N.W.A. is where it all started for me. It was crazy because after being into hip hop for several years, I still never thought to buy a CD or cassette copy of Straight Outta Compton.
Fast forward to 1998. Nearly 10 years after hearing N.W.A. for the first time, I'm in a record store on Troost Avenue in KCMO (if you don't know, its right in the hood). I'm browsing through cassettes with maybe 10 or 11 bucks in my pocket, and I come across this tape labeled "The N.W.A. Legacy 1988-1998". I literally nearly had a heart attack right there. I had just enough money to buy it and it had all the N.W.A. classics, along with Ice Cube, Mack 10, MC Ren, and the whole west coast gang. Needless to say, I played that tape so much that the writing didn't take too long to peel off the tape. I also eventually got Straight Outta Compton and N*****4Life on CD and my collection was much better for it.
And that, my friends, was where it all started.