Swagger Like Us

When I was younger I hated Sam Goodie and Camelot. I hated the Idea of some commercial establishment hijacking my music and charging $10 for a watered-down version of an album from an artist who put out a nice single. I loved going to small Mom and Pops stores spending hours listening to the b- sides of single being played in the store. I miss talking to the coolest guy in the city (the clerk, who may or may not have been high); he knew everything about every artist and album. He looked at me through those dope boy glasses and said, "This is the shit" and then followed it by sealing his approval with "word". He told me that I wasn't gonna like this and that and I believed him. I still spent hours in the shop going through the mix tapes under the retail shit. I would look carefully take my time and cultivate my ears to what I wanted out of an artist or group. I loved losing my day in there and you know what I ain't have to text none of my boys because they would show up there (and there was no such thing as texting). We could ague in the store over the best artist look at the posters we did not have the nerve to hang up on our walls. The music shop was the shit. It closed.


When the music shop closed I started going to Camelot. Those guys there were a piece of work. They played a selection of music overhead that sounded like the radio. You ask them about your favorite band and they look right through you. By the way I am almost sure these guys were high. Overtime I got used to going in this trap. I got used to the other shoppers and this is who you talk to in Camelot. Conversations normally went like this:

Me: Aye you heard of these guys
Shopper: yeah the boys sound like....
Me: You know ... had a show at ...
Shopper: I was there you was with ... and them you know ...
who opened for ... has a new album out
Me: Word
Shopper: Word it hot too

This was great. I now met people and got new music. since I was in the mall already I developed a mean sneaker addiction. This was to compensate for the time I had left over after I left Camelot. Yea I blame them. Fuck Camelot. Camelot then changed their name to FYE and started selling video games, magazines, and a whole lot of crap, but no mix tapes. I started going to the flea market, screw shops, swap meets, or the coliseum (what ever your hood calls this place were they sell bootleg every thing or in some cases everything fresh). The only other problem with Camelot is those prices started to climb like an adolescent into his girlfriends’ window.


I can't spend $20 on compact disc. I have to go to Best Buy. No redeeming value in getting music from Best Buy. Try Target. Fuck. Hell no I hate Wal-Mart. What's iTunes? Hey why pay iTunes. I don't get any customer service. No actual interaction with other customers. I should just download music for free off of napster, livewire, and now music blogs. I now spend more time searching and downloading music than I actually do listing and taking in the music that I download. I don't appreciate the music any more. I used to love music, but now it has been rendered as insignificant as check my fantasy football team. So much for progress. I now have more remixes to "Swagger like us" than I can enjoy. How many internet remixes of "No One" does one really need. Please stop Jonathan Davies from covering current hip hop songs. I am addicted to the download links. And no one on the corner got downloads like me.