I didn't own one either, unless you wanna count the lil Fisher Price joint that I could swipe from my younger sisters room:
I did have a dual cassette boom box of my own that I got for Christmas when I was 14 or 15 and by the time I was back in school at 16 I had a walkman. Back then I was taping shit off the radio, but when I got that Eric B and Rakim joint I made a copy on cassette using my folks' stereo on my day off while they were at work. I bought significantly more tapes than vinyl back then (something I stated maybe a week or so ago in the Physical Media thread), and I kept them in my room. If I played any rap shit out loud in my room, it was usually the positive shit like BDP, Rakim, Public Enemy, KC Flightt, and others so if moms came in my room and heard it she wouldn't trip over it.
So, lemme get this straight: y'all had a Walkman but never bought tapes??? Y'all ain't sneak to buy shit and hide it in your rooms??? 'Cause I know my moms found my Too $hort and 2 Live Crew tapes that I had bought when I was 16, listened to them, and confiscated them telling me I didn't need to be listening to such "filth". A week later I swiped them back from their room; she hid them in a dresser drawer.
As for what single did Raekwon drop that y'all listened to? Dunno, I was still in Metro Detroit in them days, and, yeah... Glaciers of Ice and, particularly, Ice Cream was in rotation on the radio out this way; Ice Cream being the more popular of the two.
I can't speak on y'alls listening and purchasing habits in the souf back then, but I do find it odd that y'all wasn't buying your own tapes in those days as teenagers.
Most teenagers (girls) brought 'singles' which was 1.99 a pop, they would buy an album if it was their favorite artist, like your TLCs, Aaliyah's, Immature, etc.
That's why your single could go Gold or Platinum alone and outsell your album because we used to buy singles off that album, or dub the shit off the radio, the cheap way..
I said sneakin because at 9, 8, your average black kid living in the middle class wasn't listening to rap music unless they had older siblings or cousins and even then they had to sneak because most black parents weren't listening to that shit.
I can say I came from the lower class, and those rules didn't apply because you'll be outside playing or in the yard and you'll have that 16 year old kid who has that 19 year cousin or brother trying to hook up their cassette deck and they'll be bumping the music outside, while everybody is outside playing or watching them hook the shit up in the yard or along the street curb....so you'll hear the music then, but to say in your mama house, you blasting that shit all willy nilly, all hell nah lol, not in the south, that church going mama aint having that shit... lol
Most teenagers (girls and boys) weren't buying Toni Braxton, Peebles albums your Tony Toni Tone, your Anglea Winbush,etc albums in the 90s,
Grown R&B music was for your parents, we just heard the shit on the radio when we had to ride in the car with them and shit, in the 90s, we were more so on the kid/teen rap and Snoop Dog., Kris Kross, ABC Like the shit is deep.
Hard core rap wasn't in the homes of your average black household unless you was around that environment. Snoop, 2pac, for your average homeowner black was like the basic hardcore rap that was heard by someone under 13 and that shit was heard on the radio, unless they had older siblings.
You wasn't walking in a black house and hearing your Lil Kim Hard Core album being played lol
Hell her poster when she came out, you couldn't have that shit all in the open all willy nilly at school.... Now you may can, but in the 90s, we treated that shit at school like it was the front page of Playboy lol.
It comes off as me hating but I'm not, that's why you see in interviews NOW that southern artist or folks from the south will say, man we really weren't on your Jay-z and Nas of the worlds in real time.. or your Raekons... etc.
I think dude has a nice album, all I'm saying is that shit wasn't played in the Southern region or West Coast region in real time
