YOU DON’T STOP! Part-I

I was making mixtapes before mixtapes were mixtapes. Here me out!

I don’t remember the exact year. Must have been somewhere around 1982-1984. I was living in West Seattle near the South Seattle Community College and attended Frank B. Cooper Elementary School - before it transformed into the Youngstown Cultural Arts Center.

One year for Christmas, my grandfather bought me a cassette tape recorder with a built-in radio and microphone. During morning cartoons, I would place my tape recorder microphone up to the television speaker and record my favorite cartoon theme songs onto cassette tapes. I was absolutely captivated by the opening song to Star Blazers - Space Cruiser Yamato. Even to this day it’s still nostalgic to me and gives me goosebumps. Especially the song from that soundtrack, The Universe Spreading to Infinity.

Around this same time, I started listening to Rap Attack on 1250 K-Fox with DJ Nasty Nes. My tender ears were exposed to probably more then they should have at that age, but the sounds were so raw, fresh and captivating that I couldn’t stop listening.

I’ll never forget hearing an early raunchy song from Sir-Mix-Alot (or was it Arabian Prince?), whose chorus lyrics I will not repeat here! The hook still echos in my head to this day. “Boy get those nasty thoughts out ya head!”

Inspired my best friend’s older brother Baby Ray Bell, who was a part of the Seattle City Breakers, I also took a short lived stab at breakdancing and called myself “Sir-Break-Alot.” I remember tagging that name on a stop-sign near my home and being ridiculed by the neighborhood kids as nobody took me serious.

My first stage was my mom’s fold-up sewing board in the living room. I’d rehearse dance routines on it in custom Hip Hop outfits she made for me, absolutely certain I was operating at a level my classmates couldn’t even comprehend. I wore those fits to school expecting instant respect. Instead, I got roasted for wearing clothes from the future. “So fresh and so clean!”