Blackmoon, ‘The Source’ 06/30/2008
Posted by Vaughn in Journals, Mass Media, Street Culture.comments closed
JAY-Z ONCE spit, “What More Can I Say?” That’s kind of how I feel here. In November of 1993 I knew not much about hip-hop history, and I had no real perspective, being in elementary school, but I was beginning to listen already — influenced by The Box (now in the UK), BET Rap City and most importantly the older heads from around the way and school. It is weird to look back and see that time now, documented.
I just scanned this in. It comes from a stack of old The Source magazines a friend kicked down to me a while back. It’s a review of Blackmoon’s seminal Enta Da Stage, an album that traces the beginning of (the now pejorative) “backpack-rap” for me and many of my closest friends. There are even lines by Buckshot that reference skateboarding and in at least one video treatment, he in fact, wears a book bag.
What’s particularly amazing, looking back, is that The Source was always getting it right while being what we call “shady with it.” They held back the “classic” five mic belt from Blackmoon, instead handing them four; which many a classic hip-hop album has received from them. If you look, just below Blackmoon’s review is one of of Heiro’s own, Casual, who also dropped a classic that year, also garnering four mics.
If you go back through your The Source stacks (if so fortunate) you will see this pattern: garbage got garbage, a great record got its due, but almost no one was given the classic “five mics,” outright. It was earned. The last person to garner the honor was Biggie Smalls for Life After Death and that was done so, posthumously. (Before that was Nas’ Illmatic.) There was a moment when hip-hop journalism mattered and held itself to an extraordinarily high-standard. Let’s hope that somewhere along the way as it has been watered-down, someone finds it in a full and consistent way again.
View a larger scan [Here]
‘Me and Aircraft Models’ 06/30/2008
Posted by Vaughn in Aviation, Journals.comments closed
WHEN I was younger I regularly built model aircraft. (It’s probably why I have a love for the technical.) I would read about aircraft and then go to the hobby store and discern between thee or four models of the same jet, based on color scheme and the bases they came from—their decals meaning more to me than to others, I think. (I always opted for the ones that came from the Western bases and the Pacific Rim where I grew up. And, yeah, I was nerdy enough to know how to tell.) It was important for me to always get the F-4 from Clark with the “PN” (for Philippines)* on it, because at some point, I was probably hearing the actual version of that plane or watching it, or touching it during air show season, or milling around at the base exchange with one of its pilots in my presence.
I grew out of my model planes, sadly. Where they once used to hang from my ceiling with clear fishing line; years upon years later, I have no idea where any of them even went. Where hours of inhaling glue fumes, sanding down pieces and my dad helping me replicate NATO region specific camo patterns with spray paint, Testor’s model paint, my Jane’s (the most important reference site you most likely never heard of) defense books and detail brushes, now disappear into the ether. What I have is memories, now. Memories of me going to the hobby store or the toy store and buying these intricately detailed models, with their boxes so well chronicling the aircraft’s history, and getting back home to see them in about a thousand pieces, it seems, and knowing it was going to take a couple of weeks for me to see it come to life. Oh, and besides my memories I have this Flickr pool.
*Referenced: Clark, AB, Philippines F-4 Phantom II
