I’m slowly but surely trying to educate myself at the University of Getting Jiggy With It. I am but a naive student in the art of 90s hip hop and I don’t pretend to be even a whiff of a connoisseur. But damn, one thing I can tell you is that I can’t get enough of the old masters.

‘A Tribe Called Quest’ is my main obsession at the moment. Not only are their lyrics crazy catchy, flowing as smooth as ice cream when you leave it a bit too long to defrost, but the samples they use are both weird and wonderful. My current favourite is the famous, “Can I Kick It?”, which Lou Reed apparently raked in the profits for because of the group’s sampling of his song, “Walk On The Wild Side”. Whoever saw those dolla bills, the listeners are definitely the winners in this situation because we have the pleasure of hearing Q Tip educate us with the “funk fuzz”. One line that has to be repeated: “Wipe your feet really good on the rhythm rug”. Who thinks of this? They deserve a megaward.

Also fabulous is a bit of ‘Heavy D & the Boyz’. Their sound makes me wanna do the running man until I drill a whole in the floor and break the earth’s crust. I mean their name includes a Z instead of an S people! THEY ARE SO AHEAD OF THEIR TIME! Note: there is much scatting with words like “diddly”. Funky As FUNK.

Before they went a bit more mainstream, ‘Outkast’ made a huge impact on the 90s rap scene. Tracks like “Hootie Hoo” and “Aquemini” have that simple yet skilful sound combined with a tendency to take the piss out of themselves a bit that they carried nicely into the noughties. What I like about them is that they play with words without descending into total pandemonium with the excessive cussing and the rampant sexism and the general intensity of some other groups of this era. *Queue the revelation that I am actually a middle-aged grey-haired bespectacled librarian*. No kidding guys, kidding. Obviously these things go on, but really there must be a line that we can draw between badass flow and talking a bunch of pointless shit. ‘Outkast’ were damn talented whilst keeping a subtly pissed off attitude towards society in general. As the boys say themselves: “you gotta keep it innovative”.

I could literally talk about this forever, however this is but a taster of what is to come. Me and my cunning accomplice will be simultaneously schooling ourselves and spewing our opinions about the golden oldies. I for one will not shut up about 90s hip hop sooooo this page gon be filled with my own humble opinions about the era I am proud to have been birthed in (just).

Emma x

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