Wow, what a chance for me to stroll down memory lane.......

O.K., let me say this first-these are milestones as experienced by me, and due to many circumstances (my age now, my partying then) they may be slightly out of synch. Anywayn here goes-

Sometime in 78/79-Rappers delight came on the radio of the school bus one morning. The first time this song came on, it was so amazing, so crazy, so new, so unexpected......In L.A.. we had NO IDEA that "Hip-Hop" even existed. I'm not trying to exagerate, but to this day, the moment when I first heard Rap is still EASILY the most amazing moment of MY LIFE.

Later that year, on 20/20 (or some show like it) they did a segment on Rap music and this new form of dance called "breaking".....It was so incredible, it was like, what are they DOING in New York? New York seemed to be some kind of magical city in a far off land......

As incredible as the 20/20 segment was, it pales in comparison to when "Flashdance"(yep, Flashdance) came out. The scene when she was walking in the park, and they jammed "it's just begun", and crazy-legs and them got down........That 2-3 minutes  from that movie is what really got the West Coast going-Cat's (myself included) were breaking EVERYWHERE.

"The Message" by GMF & The Furious 5-I admit it-I HATED this song the first time that I heard it-It was at my friends house, and we were getting ready to go to a party-But that's what makes this song a milestone-It showed that rap could be used as a means of expression, and not just as a party ingredient. If you like "positive", "gangta", "Intelligent"rap, then you owe it's existance to this record. Word up.

Run-Dmc-Yo, the good news is, that there is a crew, not 5, not 4, not 3, just 2.....Before theese guys, rappers wore costumes, and just seemed in general like people that you really couldn't BE. Then came Run-Dmc, with Lee's and BIG BEATS. What I mean is, Sugar Hill had a houe band, and all these producers, when all of a sudden, here come these guys with a drum machine, wrecking shop......Run-Dmc showed that ANYBODY with talent could rap-No coatumes needed....

"Wild Style"-I stood in line for 3 hours in Westwood to see this movie. The movie was so raw, and we were so hungry for Hip-Hop....Tagging in L.A. began......(holla, Chaka)

Eric-B is President-Rakim. Let the James Brown sampling begin!! Rakims voice, style and delivery were groundbreaking, not to mention the fact that Eric B started a 5 year landslide of James Brown based songs....

Yo! MTV Raps! This was THE show to watch! ALL of the freshest, dopest videos, plus guest appearnces, not to mention the Ed Lover dance....

M.C. Hammer! Hold up, let me finish....By the time Hammer came on the scene, rap was getting pretty dull, let's face it; the songs were starting to look the same, and the videos DID all look the same. Mammer came on the scene and pumped some new life back into Hip-Hop. All of those videos during the "golden Age" of rap owe Hammer some props....Also, he was the first Rapper to REALLY make some money, and on his OWN terms...Jay-Z, Puffy, Nelly, they all benefitted from Hammer. Yep, Hammer.

Vannilla Ice-Psyche!

BDP-KRS ONE took the whole "positive rap" to a new level-"Why is that" challanged a lot of people to dig deeper into their history books-And for those of us that were already doing it, well, now we had some jams to play that backed up what we were doing!

The Beastie boys. A lot of people seem to feel like these guys somehow dissed rap-How? By rapping about stuff that they liked to do? They picked up where Run-Dmc left off as far as globilizing rap.

Yo, Bum Rush The Show!-Public Enemy. Ask most people what P.E.'s first jam is, and they will say"bring the noise", and they would be WRONG! They had a whole album before that.They took what KRS ONE started to the next level-Fight The Power!!

NWA-FINALLY, the West Coast speaks..Me and my friends used to sit around and TALK about rapping about L.A. life, and dressing like L.A. cats, but these guys DID it...Who knew that Hip_Hop could come "straight Outta Compton'?

The Chronic-To me, this is easily the most important rap album ever....The production skills of Dre, the introduction of snoop, bringing melody back to rap....This album was and is just too much....After this album, they should have stopped making "gangsta rap". This album said it all.

OK, roger that...