I had a dream last night that I was walking in my old neighborhood of Washington Heights, around good ol’ Ellwood Ave. The backstreet of Ellwood Ave. though, where only ppl that knew the dudes on Ellwood, were allowed to walk. I was being offered weed from chubby Asian dudes in basement alleys, but I clenched my fist and felt a $20 bag in my hand, so I knew I was good. As I kept walking I saw dudes playing street football and chicks were lined up on the sidewalk chattering, gossiping, hanging out, as they usually did. There was Jessamyn, a girl from my high school. She didn’t even live in my neighborhood, but here she was on Ellwood in my dream. Weird.  She looked more like a pre-teen though, and skinnier, too.

I seemed to walk into a dead end, which magically appeared, so of course, I pulled out my cellphone to fake a phone call (like most people do when they’re embarrassed), and I turned around to walk back in the direction I had just came. I noticed I had in fact passed some sort of exit, which somehow spat me out on the corner of Fort Tryon Park, across the street from my old block, Hillside Ave.

I put away my phone as I approached my block, when all of a sudden I was back inside my old apartment on Bogardus Place, but I was with all of my friends and somehow there was a movie theater-type room in my house, where we were all watching some sort of a commercial/preview of a rapper that was down with the Hit Squad. I can’t remember the name of the rapper (Rusty Jux? – not the Duck Down Recordings dude), but I did get this overwhelming feeling of nostalgia in my dream, while watching this clip. The commercial had all of the rappers from that era in it, bigging up this one rapper (not me) and it was like a montage of comments, from different famous rappers. I remember Erick Sermon, LL Cool J, etc., were in the commercial, among others. In one shot, someone commented on the rapper and was immediately jigged jail-style for some reason, by the rapper.

Yes. This was an odd dream. Most of my dreams are becoming more and more vivid, since my baby was born. Probably because my sleep pattern has changed so dramatically. I’m writing this post because I came away with such a feeling of love that I had for the hip-hop in that past era. So, I decided today that I’d post a few of those wonderful videos/songs that made me appreciate hip-hop so much way back when. Personally, I think pretty much all of the signed “famous” rappers of this generation suck. You don’t have to name rappers of today to me, to defend this generation’s rappers. I don’t care who you name. Nobody today, in my opinion, is saying anything dope, or new, or inventive, like rappers back in the day. The anticipation people felt back then when a Hit Squad member was dropping an album, or a buncha rappers from different labels jumped on a track together back then, will never be felt again. At least…not from anyone rapping today that’s signed. I know a lot of unsigned rappers that are ill…but, shit ain’t like it used to be. And I know, things can’t stay the same or be how they were, but I just don’t think it’s gotten any better.