Outta Here…by Tone Tank
This song is off one of the first hip-hop CD’s I ever purchased. I was 13 or 14 and was kicked out of my house after a night of hard drinking with my boy Vinny, who was older and some other older kids. I remember them playing me Biohazard and Onyx collabos, there may have been a video of the same variety. I think I smoked some PCP laced weed (unknowingly) and drank more than I could handle (in fear of being considered a lightweight) and stayed out to like 7 in the morning, getting kicked out by my pops at 8, returning to the party spot, to find the older kid who’s house it was smoking a joint on his corner. I never thought to ask him why he was still hanging around outside after a night of partying, but we went down to Looney Tunes, the local record store, and I had a decision to make. It was a toss up between Ice-T’s ‘Home Invasion’ or KRS-One’s ‘Return of the Boom Bap’… I chose the latter… I wonder what would have happened if I had bought the Ice-T album. Would it have had some serious effect on my life? Who knows. But the real question is: Why would I buy a CD if I was kicked out of my house? Where did I intend to play it? My CD player was at home in my house.
I did get back in my house later that night, but that was one of many drug/alcohol fueled incidents that led my parents, with help from the P.I.N.S. program, to sign me in to a behavioral facility for children… (Brunswick in L.I. for all you psycho-ward aficionados).
That’s life.
But anyway this song reminds me of that turning point in my youth, when I started messing with graffiti… not on the subway, like KRS says, but I was getting ‘chased by cops almost everyday’, but not in the Bronx, in Long Island… but somehow it still spoke to me. For years I had my own video for this song that would play in my head, picturing a young KRS chillin’ with Rakim at rooftop parties, living in a group home, battling other MC’s in the shelter… I like my video better the actual video, but I was too young to direct videos at that time and it probably would have cost at hundred times more than this one, which I wouldn’t have been able to swing a budget like that even if I hoarded all my lunch money for a year.