Keeping a car in the city is expensive and annoying.
But often necessary, so you pay the Suck Tax (ayo) and keep it moving.
Sometimes you find joy in the pain, like when the traffic cam ticket comes with a night vision screenshot so ill you tell your wife it’s “Sicario coded.”
On the rarest of occasions, thanks to a precise combination of coffee scheduling, radio tuning and congestion pricing, you may even transcend to a higher plane of existence hitting all greens down an empty 7th Ave as Beenie Man croaks WOAH NA NA NA NA NA NA, WOAH NA NA NAAAA NA NAAAA NAAAA…
Because even in darkness, there is light.
In this case, dedicated jiggy oldies station 94.7 The Block, a never-ending melange of blazing hip-hop and R&B from approximately 1995 to 2005, with a little wiggle room on either end.
On most trips, it is the only thing playing in the car.
I appreciate all The Block’s mixmasters deeply; DJ Kharisma blending “Just Another Case” into Little Shawn “Dom Perignon” while I one-hand a freshly toasted ‘n buttered sesame bagel is a mortal lock for Top 5 mornings of the year.
However, Max Glazer’s Champion Sound remains my favorite two hours on the station by a wide margin. Not because MG is the homie (he is) or a legendary DJ (more on that in a minute).
His strictly riddim programming means Elephant Man’s ‘03 anthem “Pon De River Pon De Bank” — real badman nuh wear people pants — will hit my emotional NOS button with the force of a thousand Dom Torettos.
I loooooove dancehall.
Especially the body-movers in The Block’s chronological purview.
From school dance bangers and Black Moon mashups to early Ding Dong and the collected works of Tony Matterhorn, these records hit my heart (and waist) like none other.
It’s no coincidence the back half of this timeline Venn diagrams with my own baby DJ days, copping Diwali and Book Shelf doubles from Rock & Soul and Federation Sound mixes from the original East 7th St Turntable Lab.
What a time to be alive a Photoshop blending layer!
At some point in that rookie season, already deeply enmeshed in the Hollertronix universe, I took Diplo to a NYU Caribbean Student Association party (go violets) where Vybz Kartel was performing in a pristine white suit and enormous studded belt buckle.
Max was behind the decks; Wes recognized him, snuck his way backstage (profoundly on brand), and a day or two later this “Pon Di Floor” precursor was born when Vybz rhymed “Maybach” with “Pat Sajak” while recording dubplates in an airport hotel room with a towel over the mic.
All this name dropping is going to ruin my Clarks, so I’ll save the time I DJed a Sunglass Hut in Herald Square with Sean Paul (and Cory Kennedy lol) for another post.
Like Nasir said, “it was an uncanny era.”
Look how stacked this was!
It’s not as if any of these artists stopped being good.
Their output just ebbed and flowed, morphed and fragmented like everything else in the world. Vybz went to jail for thirteen years!
There were subsequent highlights for sure — I’m looking at you, Popcaan — but fewer and fewer supermassive, unifying crossover moments like the ones still ringing off on FM radio twenty years later.
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Dembow and reggaeton and afrobeats have grabbed the baton and run with it (to say the least).
I still get enough Jamaican mp3 promos to stay current on whatever Chi Chi Ching is up to, even if it never makes the radio. Meanwhile, the blowout bass of “Yo Bunny” on actual, non-throwback airwaves gets me mashing the gas as much as any oldie.
We just need more of it!
Feels like we’re in the middle of an ‘00s moment anyway.
Everything is expensive and annoying.
Vybz is back (praise Jah) but so is that good ol’ “Mission Accomplished” malaise. Could do a whole recession pop bit here, but c’mon, you have access to the same doomscrolls I do.
Mixtapes are dead. The TTL storefront has long shuttered.
Congestion pricing may be destined for a sound bwoy bureill itself.
But Coolie Dance shall wine forever…
Playlists updated!