Shades of Grey: Yet Another Piece of the Puzzle Falls into Place

If you know me, you know I've never been secretive about my love for old hip-hop. By old we're talking about what I would point to as the "Golden Era of Rap," the period between Raising Hell & The Chronic. I wasn't loving Run DMC @ 1st, but when I was in 8th grade, I scored a copy of LL Cool J's underrated masterpiece, Bigger & Deffer. I saw LL on SNL in October of 1987, when he performed "Go Cut Creator Go." At the time, I had no clue that it would change my life. Afterwards, I drifted between an interest in hip hop & an interest in hair bands, but, thankfully, the hip hop won out. A few years later, I had the opportunity to see LL cool J in concert @ Joe Louis Arena. He was touring w/ a slew of smaller artists including NWA, Big Daddy Kane, Slick Rick, De La Soul, & MC Lyte. Although the gang warfare inside the arena made us leave a little early... to the sound of police in street clothes w/ baseball bats & brooms sticks telling us to get to our cars... I was sure that was the life for me. I got heavily into the political stuff being released by the Jungle Brothers, BDP, & most specifically, Public Enemy. This influence lead my friend Marques & I to start our own group along w/ a kid from down the street whose father hooked him up w/ a small mixing "thing" so he was our DJ. I think he went by Matt D... as his name was Matt & his last name began w/ D.Why am I taking this walk down memory lane? Because last night, after a completely unrelated conversation w/ Solstice & Aiden about balls & ball sacks, she refused to believe that I was ever in a rap group. She thought there was no way in Hell I could ever have been cool enough to be in a rap group, when in fact, I was never cool enough to avoid such ridiculousness. Obviously, it's not like we had a contract... or ever actually performed, be we had dreams & we wrote a shit load of songs. I only wish I could remember a couple of them. Oh, & in case you're wondering... Marques went under the Nom de Mic, Question Marq. Mine? A Plu$$ of course. It had less to do w/ my GPA & more to do w/ the fact that we fancied ourselves some sort of PE influenced group out there spreading positivity... of course.

And check back tomorrow for "The Ball Sack Story." (Yes, it has something to do w/ the Tigers' tragic loss yesterday evening.)