Going Way Back!

Nas Dawud   

  So the other night I’m watching the movie.” Trading Places,” for like the one hundredth and who knows how many times. One of my favorite scenes in the movie is when Billy Ray is in jail talking cash shit about his bitches and the broke phone in his limo. Unimpressed and tired of listening to his obvious bullshit claims, two big burly "Barry White looking" brothers decide step to him advising, “It ain’t cool being no jive turkey so close to thanksgiving.

                                         

      One of the reasons I never tire of that scene has everything to do with the use of “Jive Turkey.”  As a kid when I heard someone preposition and action or claim with "jive;" i knew that shit was being broken down to the very last compound. Watching the movie this last time got me to thinking about other old phrases and colloquialisms from my youth I find myself wishing were still in use.

     From the early Hip-Hop lexicon one of the colloquialisms I miss the most is “sure shot.” Many of the first generation Emcees incorporated this phrase into their rhymes. Even some second-third generation crews like, GangStarr,Nice n Smooth, and the Beastie Boys used it. But alas, this concise and perfectly braggadocios Hip-Hop boast appears to be no more.

     An what happened to “Fresh?” Now days when cats use fresh it primarily denotes that their sound or gig is on an old school vibe. Which when you think on it for a second is a bit of an oxymoron, yes? But for whatever reason fresh didn’t survive and remain current in the Hip-Hop lexicon the way dope did. I guess there is no real explanation why some things make it and others don’t, but for me, fresh is doper then dope.

    Bite, Biter, Bit ,and Biting, sadly has also become largely extinct in the current Hip-Hop vernacular. The use of this varying term leaves no room for ambiguity. That shit is is a straight declaration that the culprit is disapprovingly straight eating off the accusers shit. To be accused of biting in Hip-Hop culture is to be perceived as committing blasphemy.

    Now on some just ole cool lost shit. I remember when cats dapped up by asking you to” lay some skin on me, on the black-hand side,” shouts of “Right On!” Conversations would open with “say blood?” And end with an emphatic“can you dig it?”

    Or even better, remember when folks referred to each other as Soul Brother or Sister?  Now this is not to make a judgment or imply other terms of recognition don’t have their time and place. But the reference to others as Soul Brother or Sister elicits a sense camaraderie, pride and certainly endearment, but it also implicitly recognized the unity in struggle. Not to say that a certain troublesome word doesn’t also imply endearment and a certain sense of connectedness. But currently  this troublesome words' employed usage gives the impression that it is the hedonistic capitalistic American materialistic money chase that unifies and not liberation from it. There is a reason James Brown was touted as "Soul Brother Number One" and not “Ni@#a number one," ya dig?

     Maybe it is my age and maybe like the many before me I too often view the past and my generation through rose tinted glasses. But it seems to me that there is a genuine lack of creativity today in everything from our educational system to the arts. Too often today’s lexicon seems to lack imaginative cleverness or even the couching of illicit subject matter with intimation. Far too much seems in your face reality TV "rachetness."Or maybe I am just becoming old and out of touch as my babies keep reminding me.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eZekLIdcwLM