The little brown tape deck.

I'm not even sure when I got it. Probably for Christmas or a birthday. At some point I was given a gift that would be my new best friend. It was a cheap little brown tape deck. This tape deck would allow me to do things I couldn't do before. I would be able to record some things. More important though, I could play music whenever I wanted to. I didn't have to put on a record any more. I didn't need my parents permission to play music with this new device that would never leave my side. At times I did record with it. I still have a tape somewhere that has my mom and her sisters playing scrabble on one of their "Sisters weekends". What an amazing gift. I would listen to many albums on this tape deck. There is one that stands out though. For my birthday one year my Aunt gave me a gift package of the New York City Breakers. Breakdancing was a newer art form back then, and this crew was one of the best. In the set was a poster, some cards and more importantly, a tape. This tape would be my introduction to the world of rap. A lot of people were very turned off by the idea of rap in the beginning. I couldn't have told you why then, but I loved it. The beats, the words, and the style just made me feel good. As I got older I realized I loved this form of music because it was basically poetry set to music. This tape had many different artists but the one that stuck out for me was RUN-DMC. To this day I love their music. Back then I just loved the way they spoke to me. "Two years ago, a friend of mine asked me to say some MC rhymes so I said the rhymes I'm about to say, the rhyme was def and it went this way". I loved it. It was exciting, and new. Rap has changed quite a bit since those early days, and to be honest I'm not such a fan of a lot of the new stuff. Back then it was about telling stories about where you came from. Now it's more just bragging. That tape would get worn out in my tape deck along with another album from a little group called Cool and the gang. It was titled "Emergancy". I loved that album. I would listen to the song Cherrish and think of the girl that I liked at the time and picture myself singing it to her. I guess that little brown tape deck did more than just play music. It helped to tell stories. Now I have stories to tell of my own.