At A Moments Notice...

So…when did you fall in love with hip-hop?

The first time I sat down to watch Brown Sugar I was upset with Sdot, so I watched it alone, just as he done a week earlier. I forget what the argument was about now, but I’m sure it was something serious since we’d always watched new additions to our dvd collection together. Anyway, I popped the movie in, straddled my popcorn and hit play. I had heard so much about this ode to hip-hop I couldn’t wait for the shit to start. Hip-hop, the bastard child of the world—or like Erykah once professed: the love of my life—had a love song and a love story all of its own; finally, the black sheep of the family had grown up.

Believe me, I wanted to love it. I wanted to embrace it, I wanted to lose myself in it like I had done in 1996 with Love Jones and 1999 with The Best Man. These movies in my humble opinion redefined black cinema; and it didn’t hurt that my girl Nia Long was in both flicks representing to the 9’s in all her sexiness. But Brown Sugar left me wanting something…something more…something real. To be honest I just didn’t get it. Maybe it because I was mad at Sdot; maybe it was because I was tired of seeing Sanaa Lathan and Taye Diggs in every other black progressive movie that hit the silver screen. From The Best Man to The Wood, to Love & Basketball to Disappearing Acts to How Stella Got her Groove Back to Brown Sugar. Every where I looked these two were representing me and my supposed way of life and I was tired of it. Once you’d seen one movie, you’d seen them all, and Brown Sugar seemed to be a bad carbon copy of every last one of them.

Just when you think you know everything about hip-hop it finds a way to surprise you, and reminds you why you fell in love in the first place. Last night for whatever reason Sdot and I popped Brown Sugar in and decided to relive or maybe re-capture a lost moment. And you know what, I loved it. Yeah the story line was pretty predictable, and all the characters were playing equally predictable roles. Roles some of them had years to perfect since they’d played them since the beginning of their careers. But I felt that umph I’d hoped I’d feel the first time I watched it; that certain, je ne sais quoi…and it felt good you know? To watch a group of black actors and actresses move beyond the hip-hop ride or die routine (not that there’s anything wrong with that), to a place in the world where Mos Def and Queen Lah could practically show up trained actors and actresses in a major motion picture.

I love hip-hop, always have and always will and this movie reminded me of that. I grew up to it, it is my life. And like many generations before me I’ll probably be a sixty year old man tearing the dance floor up the moment the DJ throws on Pete Rock and C.L. Smooth’s T.R.O.Y. (aka They Reminisce Over You). Sounds funny, but I know it’s true…hip-hop will be that beat I toast to for many years. That sound that makes me swoon, and sing with joy ooh lah, lah, lah!!! And though over the years I’ve come to love jazz and all it represents I know Miles Davis, or John Coltrane or even the great Dianne Reeves could never take the place of the Notorious B.I.G. or the feeling I felt the first time I heard Salt and Pepa scream Tramp! What you call me—a tramp!

I say all this to say, I’ve found a new favorite movie. Sorry Sdot, but this one’s a repeater.

One day I always thought I would outgrow my relationship with hip-hop. I never thought it was a fad like many, but I never thought it could grow and mature. Ithought it would be an adolescent memory I'd look back on, like a crush on the captain of the football team. But I realized we had more than that. Much more. We have a history...a friendship. We listen to each other. We laugh together. We finish each other's lyrics. I don't have to pretend with hip-hop, and hip-hop doesn't have to pretend with me. ~Sidney, Brown Sugar