Written circa: 1999
I’m fourteen. It’s 1991. I’ve dropped out of school. It’s winter time. I get a job filing documents at a law firm on K Street. Rap music, graffiti, fake ids and club life consume me. I meet a girl. My boy, just released from jail, is staying with her. They may be boyfriend and girlfriend. He’s not sure. Neither am I. One night, she grabs me and gives me my first kiss. My boy is there. I look at him. He shrugs, and I spend the next two weeks taking the train to her house in Takoma Park.
At the Takoma stop, the smell of oils—sandalwood, cherry and coconut—laze in air. The source is an oils vendor just outside the station’s entrance, on the very edge of the sidewalk. On his table, next to the sticks of incense and the vials of oil, a tiny radio blasts reggae. Its single speaker can’t keep up with the music’s power. Up close there is only distortion. Melodies compete with the crackle and fuzz. Farther out, a block down, even two, the songs stretch out. Voices clear. Melodies resume. I hear songs I know. Sister Nancy. Foxy Brown. Little Lenny. Red Fox. Yellowman tells me daily that “nobody move nobody gets hurt.” I smile when they play, and when I’m out of sight, my steps take on whatever bop the songs offer.
I hear new songs, too. Rhythms I’ve never heard. Voices that are unfamiliar. The thick patois. The fast chanting. They mesh, voice into voice, beat into beat, and create a chain of unidentifiable sound. Distinguishing the songs seems insurmountable and not worth the effort. Second and third kisses are more important, and my attention only lasts as far as the speaker can carry the songs.
A week passes, maybe more. Some days I stop to speak to the vendor. Others I nod my hello. He does the same. And I realize that I have begun to absorb the music. I can hum melodies, and the boundaries of songs, where one ends and another begins, have fenced in. Most of the voices, though, remain indecipherable. Only one refuses anonymity. I know it immediately and begin to will its presence each time I exit the train. Some days it happens, and for the song’s duration, I forget about forth and fifth kisses.
I ask the vendor to name the voice. He doesn’t, but tells me, “Come tomorrow.” When I return the next day, no words are given, just a Maxell tape. The word Sugar splays the plastic casing in thick, sloppy black marker. I thank him. He smiles, puts a fist to his chest and nods. I begin my walk. The smell of incense and oils drift up and off the tape, and this smell, in combination with the scrawled name, make it feel authentic, something to be handled delicately, an artifact that confirms my own place within the city. When I turn the corner, out of view, I insert the tape into my Walkman, press play and start the 6 block walk to Georgia Ave.
The video above is the first song on that Maxell tape. The 1000s of records, 45s and mixes that have followed all come from it.
-L
