Anybody that knows me knows I’m into older things. I agree with Andre 3000’s verse from the “Walk It Out remix,” where he says, “I could give a damn ‘bout your car, but then I would be, if it was considered a classic, before the drastic changes in production when cars were metal instead of plastic – value’s what I’m talkin’ ‘bout.” Damn, I love value.

I devote my free time to collecting records, seeking, soon-purchasing then flipping classic cars, reading old books, watching old films and chasing women with old souls. This isn’t to sound like the hipster I inevitably will, but rather to make a case for the glory of yesteryear. It’s part of a Capricorn’s nature. We want what we can’t have, and although we always get what we seem to be after, but the one thing we can’t conquer is time. I see some correlation with Hip Hop in the marketplace there.

Of those aforementioned old black & white films that I love to kick back and analyze, my pinnacle is 1950’s Sunset Boulevard. This film comes up in many of my discussions with colleagues and rappers who dig old flicks. I urge all of you to watch it, as any film noir from the era, but this one’s la crème de la crème, homies (Hold your head, Tip).

Without spoiling anything, the film shows a screenwriter ending up by fate, living with an antiquated silent film star, Norma Desmond. Although she’s still got the paper from her glory in the ‘20s, she’s suffering the slings of being face down in the mainstream – or just ignored by the paparazzi/fame. There’s a lot at play in this film, and the script, dialog and conflicts are undeniable. In more ways than I’ll ever be able to express, this film is much parallel to my job in Hip Hop, or rather, my perception of it.

Hip Hop is all about exclusivity. In 2004, if you weren’t up on LRG Jeans, forget about you. In 2003, if you didn’t know that 50 Cent was the future, your opinion wasn’t relevant – Kris Ex was just the first writer with enough brass to get it out there. Right now, if you can't weigh in on The Leak Volume 6,000, whether you hate it or love it, you're out of the discussion. We are all about tomorrow, apparent in the many more emails I get concerning rappers “coming out in 2008” than ones who were here even five years ago. Hip Hop is a crowded room, and I’m often torn by who it is that we’re ushering out.

In 2006, I was in New York when I was a features editor for another one of these digitally-dealing Hip Hop sites, and my mentor and I went to a particular rapper’s hotel room for an interview. I’m not going to mention any names in this piece – out of respect, but I can tell you that this was a rapper whose name comes up constantly in interviews today, and somebody who has been in one of the 10 most significant groups in Hip Hop history, from the ‘90s era. The interview was a great one, both sides of my 90-minute Maxell tape was filled with information, jokes were exchanged, secrets revealed and it was a genuinely memorable conversation. As the sun set through the Midtown Manhattan hotel window, it was that very eerie feeling that many men and women undoubtedly feel at a party – it was time to go. The rapper wanted to keep talking, and my mentor and I both kept impregnating the pauses, in hopes of just getting the old up and out. Twenty minutes later, still no luck. Finally, we just left. In the lobby, this still razor-sharp icon invited us "to dinner, to get drinks, or to go to a show." We couldn’t, and politely denied it. To this day, that’s one of my few professional regrets. Not so I’d have a have a story, or get a free dinner, but because I was literally walking away from a torch-holder in Hip Hop history, with no better reason than a long ride home. Moreover, ten years earlier, and that same guy might not have even given us the time – for he would have been too busy talking to other pesky writers.

This has happened time and time again. I’ve sat in rapper’s offices, and seen gold and platinum records on the wall, from ghost-producing or ghost-writing hits that you would never expect. These are authorships that will never get released to the public, but that changed history. I’ve often wondered if the information got out there, how their legacies would be different, as would their press clippings. People are just so fickle.

There are publicists whom I deal with nowadays, whose names match credits buried in Hip Hop liner notes. They might not realize that the connection is made, but some of the greatest emcees of the ‘80s are the very people who help the new class of Lil’ and Yung [sic] get theirs. It breaks my heart just to think about, and I’ll hear them out to try to support them now, really wishing it was they who was being interviewed.

The “Where Are They Now?” phenomenon is rugged in Hip Hop. Live, and you’ll get forgotten. Die, and you’ll be immortalized on t-shirts, in verses and a growing list of fallen brothers and sisters in this. For as much as I commend the tributes from mainstream artists to Big L, I often wonder if he would have ended up in Kanye West’s “The Glory” lyrics if he wasn’t gunned down – would the same have happened to fellow amazing lyricist Percee P if he had? Continued on page 2 »