kings of rap

on audiokarma, a forum i frequent, someone started a thread asking members to list their first album ever purchased.

for the life of me, i couldn't remember what the first album i ever bought was. but i do remember the first recording i ever owned, kings of rap. the compilation came out in 1985, and i'm thinking that i either got it for my birthday in '85 or '86, it's hard to remember as i was 6-7 years old then.

i'm not sure that tape was the reason that i spent from the late 80's to the late 90's loving what was then called rap. but i did listen to the tape so much that towards the end of the casette's life audible sound quality loss was very apparent, some would describe the tape as stretching from being played too much. who knows i was probably 8years old by the time the tape was tossed.

but i still know these tracks. in fact, years later when the notorious b.i.g. sang "remember rappin' duke, da-ha da-ha, you never thought that hip hop would take it this far". nobody i knew had any idea what this line was about. I had been playing my kings of rap tape over and over, with rappin' duke as my very favorite of all ten tracks so i was right there with biggie.

i lived and breathed rap music through high school, which ended in the late 90's. at least once a week i'd go to the warehouse music store, since they had the best selection of used cds and didn't mind that i was under 17 years old buying cds with the parental advisory explicit lyrics sticker on the front. if i could, i'd tag along with mom on shopping errands with the hopes i could sneak into a different warehouse music store than the closest one to my house.

maybe i do have kings of rap to thank for my hip hop/rap education.