The following call and response is real simplistic, but guaranteed to get any party jumping!Call: Aint not party like an old school party cause an old school party don’t stop! Response: Aint no party like an old school party cause an old school party don’t stop!Call: Heeeeey yoResponse: AlrightCall: Heeeeey yoResponse: AlrightCall: The roof, the roof, the roof is on fire!Response: We don’t need no water, let the m########### burn! Burnmotherfucker, burn!Now that has to be a mean ass party anytime you encourage themotherfucker to burn, while you’re still inside the building! Damn!This past Independence Day celebration, I had the privilege and pleasure to bear witness to and participate in the ultimate old school party. The Fourth of July weekend festivities at the Essence Music Festival in New Orleans were remarkable. There were many artists in the building, but there were two in particular that I would have paid the whole price of admission to see by themselves. The first individual goes by the phrase, not moniker, but the complete phrase of Ladies Love Cool James and the other is simply referred to as “The World’s Greatest Entertainer.” One once bragged in his raps “I’m only sixteen and make more than your pops.” And if that didn’t hurt feelings as I’m certain was intended how about when he said, “If you think you can out rap me, yeah boy I bet. I aint met a m########### who could do that yet.” The other artist in reference, The World’s Greatest Entertainer, well he’s just recognized as the original human beat box. Did you see how nonchalantly I stated that.Though obviously, anytime someone is referred to as “the original” in anything, that’s big s###!Wouldn’t you agree?As to be imagined, I excitedly entered the Superdome to find my seat (though I was on my feet for most of the time) as a deejay viciously scratched what LL menacingly rapped as a cocky young teenage antagonist to the whole rap game, “LL Cool J is hard as hell, battle anybody I don’t care who you tell.” At the same time, the big screen monitors steadily flashed the covers of Mr. James Todd Smith musical catalogue dating back to his 1985 debut.I was twelve years old when LL’s first album basically opened the doors to or some may say, kept the doors open at Def Jam Recordings and I was already in love with the music thanks to Run-DMC and Jam Master Jay.As a child, I was a b-boy standing in my b-boy stance, with my mug broke down, just because. This was during the time when I readily appeared wearing the same color Adidas that DMC liked to wear when herocked the mic (white with black stripes), a pair of grey, black or either maroon Lee’s with a sharp crease and the black Adidas tee shirt with the white emblem on the front and back. That was the universal attire of the culture.Though the attire that I adorned on this particular evening was different, my stance stayed the same and for one night thanks to both LL Cool J and Doug E Fresh, I was delightfully reminded of the time when I fell in love with hip hop. This was the time before prison stints, tattoo tears and gun shot wounds were instituted as prerequisites for rappers, and before the commercialization of our music by individuals uninformed about our culture.Did I tell you that Doug E Fresh was in the house?Unlike LL Cool J, Doug E Fresh did not perform on the main stage. Instead he performed for his fans in a much smaller, intimate lounge setting. From the stage that he performed on, he was so close to the people that I observed one eager artist directly hand him what appeared to be his demo.Again, did I tell you that Doug E Fresh was in the house?First the legendary Fab Five Freddy was introduced to introduce the legendary Doug E Fresh to the crowd. On the stage with him, cutting and scratching like real deejays used to do, were both Chill Will and Barry B, collectively better known as The Get Fresh Crew. MC Ricky D wasn’t in the house, so everyone in the crowd happily acted as a substitute loudly rapping while Doug E Fresh did the beat box to tunes such as, “Ladi dadi we like to party, we don’t do drugs, we don’t bother nobody. We’re just two men that’s on the mic and when we rock on the mic we rock the mic, right.” That night, Doug E Fresh led us in all types of popular tunes from the eighties. Hell, he even had us delightfully singing along and partying while covering seventy black sitcom theme songs. The party was already in full swing mode when two additional special guests took the stage to everyone’s delight to perform one of their smash hits from 1988. The group was Kid-N-Play and the song they performed was Rollin With Kid ‘n Play. And yes, they did their dance. Aw man!People partied that night. It was reminiscent of what we use to do, which was simply have fun. No fights. No disrespect. No violence. No b#######. When the gentleman who was standing next to me in the tight venue accidentally stepped on my shoes while he was “busting a move” I didn’t get angry with the young man and he wasn’t too tough to apologize. Nor was I too tough to accept his apology. Obviously we were both having too much fun to be upset about a miscellaneous mishap.So on a night that Doug E Fresh proclaimed to his audience that we would remember for the rest of our lives, some people did The Wop, while others did the “original” Doug E all while partying along with him, after spending the earlier part of the evening partying it up with Uncle L. Me, I just stood in my b-boy stance with my mug broke down, bobbing my head, remembering, rejoicing and recalling the time when I first fell in love with hip hop. I was completely zoned out until I heard Doug E Fresh scream “Heeeeey yo” which immediately made me smile and respond in unison with everyone else in attendance by simply answering “Alright”! Oh what a night.What last occurred that made you recall falling in love with hip hop?
