“Don’t tell Mom.”
As a ten year-old, when your older brother walks into your room and utters those words, you not only take heed, you also immediately get excited. Younger siblings instinctively want to be included in whatever the older kids are doing, even if they rarely understand it. I was no different.
He was sixteen at the time and the thing we couldn’t tell our mother about was in his hand. Two things, actually. A pair of cassette singles, housed within cardboard sleeves rather than the hard plastic case that were reserved for full albums. They were the first two singles from Public Enemy’s third album, Fear of a Black Planet: “Fight the Power” and “Welcome to the Terrordome.”
Back then, album rollouts lasted for months, so a single would be released long before the album hit stores. There was no streaming, of course, so if you really liked a single and didn’t want to wait until the LP was released to own it in order to play it whenever you wanted, you had two choices: sit patiently with your index and middle fingers hovering over the play and record buttons of your boombox just waiting for it to come on the radio so you could dub it; or buy the single.
My brother was a massive P.E. fan, so he had purchased both singles. “Fight the Power” had come out in July, 1989, as it led the soundtrack to Spike Lee’s classic Do the Right Thing while “Welcome to the Terrordome” came the following January.
It was now April of 1990 and earlier that day I had tagged along with big brother when he went to the local mini-mall and bought the cassette of Fear of a Black Planet. The singles, which we had listened to on the way there, were now replaced by the full tape on the way home. Since he no longer needed them, he was now offering them to me.
Thus began my first love affair.
I played those tapes over and over. These were the only two songs I had, so I listened to them incessantly, always with the volume low, constantly on edge that my parents would uncover my secret. I studied the front and back of the sleeves, memorizing the most mundane details. I was a preteen living in the far suburbs, so the vast majority of Chuck D’s incredible lyrics were lost on me, but I instantly knew how the music made me feel.
To this day, those two songs (but especially “Terrordome,” which I preferred back then) will randomly pop into my head several times per week. They’re my first musical core memory. It introduced me to a culture and a way of life. They set the foundation for a hip-hop superfan.
Thanks, big bro.
Christopher Pierznik is the worst-selling author of nine books. His work has appeared on XXL, Cuepoint, Business Insider, The Cauldron, Fatherly, Hip Hop Golden Age, and many more. Connect on Facebook. Please feel free to get in touch at CPierznik99@gmail.com.
The Passion of Christopher Pierznik 