Obscure-a** trend alert. I don’t know about y’all, but I used to rock the long socks with the primary-colored stripes on the top. If you were extra-fresh like me, you got the two different colors on the stripes. I specifically remember some pairs I had with one yellow stripe and one purple, which I would wear with a Los Angeles Lakers short set (I lived in LA until I was about five or six). To this day, something about a pair of particularly soft, particularly crisp socks even minus the stripe is still comforting. I don’t even really wear dress socks anymore, just black athletic socks. I only trust cotton.
Remember back when R&B videos actually looked like R&B videos? It seems like in recent years, too many R&B singers are trying to be rappers when they grow up, while the cats back in the 90s were trying to be Donnie Hathaway, The Dells, Harold Melvin & The Blue Notes, etc. Even in the lyrics, you hear references to playerhatin’, Cristal, American Express black cards, and all manner of nonsense you usually jsut expect to hear in a Yung Berg song or something. While art imitates life, this trend just succeeds at instantly diminishing a song’s ability to be timeless. No one’s going to know or care what “swagger” is in twenty years and a lot of these disposable songs are just going to be forgotten about…not that many of them shouldn’t be. I just really don’t want to see any more jewelry or Bentleys in any more R&B videos. What happened to…
Singing in the rain/snow/sleet/drizzle?
Singing on the stoop of a Sesame Street/Huxtables Brooklyn brownstone with your homies?
Singing in the wind with a silk shirt?
Singing with like two super-strength Duke texturizer kits in your hair?
Singing in an abandoned (but surprisingly well lit) museum/concert hall/cathedral, etc?
Singing on the yard of a Black college amongst a group of people while looking at girl/guy of interest and nobody else seems to hear or see you singing?
These all worked for my generation. You didn’t need a concept to the video, there didn’t have to be a story, and the video didn’t ever have a damn thing to do with the song. And I know damn well Tevin Campbell never picked up a football…the theme of the video was always random because the song was good enough to stand on its own. Maybe I’m just getting old and cranky, but I miss the old R&B. Not to say that I don’t like R&B now, because I do. I just wonder if I’ll feel the same way about today’s R&B that I feel about R&B in the 90s.
Anybody remember Az Yet? Anyone? This one came out in ‘97. Note typical 90s R&B staple: all-white outfits in one scene. Goes without saying that they killed this Peter Cetera/Chicago cover. This song made you feel like if you had enough buddies together all harmonizing together a cappella, it would eventually have to sound good.
Subway & 702 gave us this classic in 1995. Nothing says 90s R&B like singing in front of abandoned project housing and being (sort of) grown in matching outfits.
And because the 90s R&B wasn’t all ballads, Allure f/ nas “Head Over Heels” from 1997…wonder what happened to Allure, like how do you go from videos and a decent debut album to working at BCBG or sitting behind a desk all day? I liked Allure though…can we get a TV One special on some of these groups?
The Way-Back Machine: Every now and then, you gotta look at where you’ve been to determine where you’re going. I don’t know what this has to do with anything, but I just got through listening to “The Nature of the Threat” by Ras Kass and I’m feeling kinda deep at the moment. Damn, can I live?
"Better not be any swine in this..."
“We was together on the block since free lunch / we shoulda been together havin’ Four Seasons brunch” – Jay-Z “Song Cry”
Some of you may not remember this, but I remember going to the public park when I was a kid around noon for free lunches. To this day, that frozen grape juice is the best damn grape juice I have ever had (yes, better than the thimble full of Welch’s they give you at communion). In a lot of underprivileged areas (Richmond, CA) lunches are given out to kids during the summer to make sure they get the proper nutritional meals when not in schools. How nutritional they actually were (white bread, iceberg lettuce, etc) is questionable, but that sh*t was delicious.
