A True Band of Brothers

Growing up in the south side of the Chi, he was never included. His parents moving him to suburban Arizona only cemented his title as “the whitest black person I’ve ever met,” in his peers’ eyes. Fifteen years old and searching for belonging, for meaning, he walked to his neighborhood record store.

He had just left school where he was on display – the only black student in a school of close to two hundred. Walking the quiet, upscale suburban streets, the cops would stop him "to make sure everything was okay." Arriving at the store and wandering through, he watched the tolerant masses clutch their purses and move away. He was searching for anything that would take him away from his status quo.

He passed the section marked Country, made a right at the Rock, and located a small rack marked "Rap/Hip-hop." Hidden between the Dres, Snoops, and Notorious B.I.G.s was an album titled "Like Water for Chocolate." The cover – a beacon reminiscent of Harlem Renaissance – intrigued him. It struck a chord and reminded him of a time that the old folks talked about that he could never connect to. Without any indication of the contents of the album, he dug $16.95 out of his pocket.

Vibing, he walked home. He had new music. Something different. Throwing the new disc in the deck, he had no idea what he would experience. The album floored him. He stayed up until four a.m. listening over and over. With each new track, he was pulled in by the beats, cadence, metaphors, stories, and concepts. He heard the sounds of generations before, but repackaged. Jazz, the old-school shit his dad used to talk about, mixed with raw energy, emotion, and rap.

The artists he had heard on the radio, he liked their music. Dre and Snoop brought a change from the monotony. But Common changed everything. Back in the "Rap/Hip-hop" section, he looked for names he'd never heard before. De la Soul, Dilla, Slum Village, Questlove, DJ Premier... Every Tuesday after school became his salvation. He would trek to the record store and spend his entire paycheck. The artists spoke to him individually. They each told him a different story, a different piece of what his people were going through. Returning home, holing up in his room, he kept his ear to the speaker like he was scanning a transistor radio – searching for signs of life. He found it.