It was hard not to get nostalgic for the 80s while we waited for Big Daddy Kane to take the stage for the early show at the Blue Note Los Angeles. The music mix ahead of the show stayed in the pocket of that dawn of hip-hop era, moving from KRS-One and Boogie Down Productions to Slick Rick, Eric B. & Rakim, and on and on to the early dawn.
Not really. We were back home in our PJs well before 10 p.m.
As the seats around us filled with people who grew up in the same era, Tiffany revealed she had never seen Beat Street.
I couldn’t contain my excitement and appreciation for that film. I was transported back to that time, when this art form and culture were just starting to figure themselves out. Nearly every day, I came home after school, turned on the TV, and let some new song, rhyme, dance, or experience set my mind ablaze. Each time it was something I couldn’t quite believe existed from the comfort and confines of my suburban upbringing. Breakin’ and its sequel were the more popular breakdancing films, by far, but Beat Street was more real and, despite that grittiness, more magical. No one pop locked on the ceiling or made a broom dance on its own, but the dance crew battles featured the most thrilling moves I had ever seen in my young life.
That’s what got me to put cardboard out on the driveway and try backspins, windmills, and crabwalks before devolving into the worm or the popping and tutting I was much more adept at.
I encouraged Tiffany to seek out the film before looking around again and watching people silently mouth the words to another rap classic.
By the time BDK hit the stage and put on his energetic one-hour set backed by an excellent live band, I was wistful for that time some 40 years ago when I was experiencing these sounds for the first time.
Nostalgia’s a liar, though.
I’m reading Jonathan Kaufman’s When America Roared. It is a sober assessment of what many consider the most influential decade of the 20th century, defining the parameters we live in during this first quarter of the 21st. Through individual profiles, he reminds us that while hip-hop was rising, so were the Federalist Society, AIDS, massive deregulation, and Rush Limbaugh. Americans were retrenching into cruelty towards each other while solidifying a society that valued the corporation over all else. So, while it’s fun to be in a jazz club with other gray beards doing the Robocop, the Wop, and the Cabbage Patch from our chairs, no, I wouldn’t want to go back to that time.
Hell, we’ve been remixing those greatest hits ever since that other throwback to the 80s came down that gold-plated escalator to announce his bid for the presidency in the mid-2010s.
Hip-hop celebrated its 50th anniversary just a few years ago. We share similar timelines.
“It’s a trip being the same age as old people,” Tiffany said.
“Better than being the same age as dead people,” I replied.
“What a blessing to be here,” one of our seat neighbors said.
What a treat to see this street music we love so much be treated with such care and reverence. What a delight to be surrounded by so many Black and Brown faces enjoying this in a way we likely couldn’t have imagined when we were those kids flipping and flopping on broken-down boxes in whatever neighborhood we called home. I don’t need to wish to return to a time when this music was seemingly the only way to know what was going on in our communities. Instead, I’m grateful that those of us in that room made it this far and that our teen idols are reaping the rewards and performing in such a lovely space decades later.
So when Kane prompted us all to participate during one of the several call-and-response moments in his set, we roared, too.
Hip-Hop!
Don’t Stop!