Armed Snobbery

The other night I was sitting around with some people that are very close to me and the night had gotten quite boring. We went through Netflix, started some films and decided they were done before they ended.

We figured we would listen to some music. We decided we would all have a selection. One by one, we would go around the room and pick a song we were thinking of.

I went first. I selected Robert Glasper's version of "Say Yes", a Floetry record he decided to recreate. As the record started, the room shared their displeasure. My annoyance rose. Maybe that's the music snob in me, screaming (in my mind) that if you don't know good music, then maybe you should shut the f*** up! Was I allowed to say that? I felt that there was nothing wrong with that. A room full of people raised on commercial hits and afraid of journeying to the mysterious other side or 'side B' as I refer to it. I comb through hours of YouTube videos, not just any videos either, those long concert versions of songs.

In a room full of musical novices. I shake my head. For LL Cool J to be added to the playlist, out of all the songs that they could of played they play "Doin' It".

Really?! And right after suggest 112's "Anywhere". I'm in love with 112 and all the work that they've put out. But I think I'm beyond those commercial hits. Way beyond.

At this point I'm in a hell of commercial songs. Back to back. I'm a music snob. I don't care what genre it is.

I don't care about color, I don't care about how the guitar is strummed, I don't care! If it's creative, please just let it move me. Just let it move the position of my heart.

That's all I ask for, and to find those you have to go beyond the side A of records.

You have to go beyond the songs you hear in the waiting room at the doctor's office, you have to beyond the songs that they play on the radio.

I go to the old records that they turned their backs on. In the midst of my rage, a silent rage as is it so happens. One of the less educated, under appreciators of music played the song Luther Vandross, "If This World Were Mine".

Then of course they cut it off for K-Ci and Jojo, I would've totally went the other way Three Days Grace "Never Too Late" or maybe some Creed "With Arms Wide Open". Anything to part me from this punishment. Anything.

Its so often how people forget the side B music but I can't. Its that same side B music in which people sample and copy from that makes the side A music.

The saying stands, you can't know where you're going, if you don't know where you're coming from. Get a map young ones. You're lost!