We are officially into taking listener submissions which, as a matter of policy, means my good luck guinea pig, Justin Castelli, gets first go.
I knew he’d send a rap song, I just didn’t know he’d pick “Juicy.” And as a song that perfectly depicts an aspect of American life, I have to admit that I didn’t see it at first.
But, discussing it with my co-host for this series Joseph Moore, I talked myself into a whole new understanding of this song. If me at a middle school dance in ‘94 could see me now… (“You grew the bowl cut out and kept it, eh?!” “Well, yeah, but then - it was gone for 30 years, but we just grew it back, fun right?” “yeah, and, what are you eating, I didn’t know we’d ever clear a buck twenty” “Oh kid, let’s skip that topic”).
What if it all was a dream.
The American dream - where we talk about all the real life you’re supposed to live through, to work your way up, on the ladders and paths to success, but what if they don’t work the way people tell you they do?
This is where the song finds me now.
I hear a kid flexing on making it. I hear all the documentaries and stuff since he died, still so tragically, still so young, where his mom tells stories about him, and corrects lines for how they didn’t have it so bad, and all she wanted was to keep him off the streets he was idolizing in all the ways.
Two dreams under one roof for how things would play out.
The kid doesn’t go school or fancy college. He goes corners and trouble. But the music he’s obsessed with, from the radio shows (Mr. Magic!) to the joke songs (Rappin’ Duke John Wayne!), to the party jams he hears adults play (Mtume!) and the flow + word play (Big Daddy Kane!).
I see all that and I see the work. I see the effort it represents, even though it feels effortless, and nobody with a gradebook or a ruler would say “this counts” on any normal success metric.
But it does if you do something with all of it.
When Joseph and I talk about the American dream aspect of this, the aspirations and manifestations and visualizations and Justin describes it to us, Joseph is quick - and right - to point out how in Biggie’s hands it’s a story about how there is no middle. It’s dreaming of the glory and then getting all the glory.
What I hear when I play the song now is all the work that went in, that nobody else recognized at work, that turned into the success.
I didn’t know but now I know. I’ll take this reminder about how more counts as “work” than what the average person labels “work.” That’s the most important work because it makes us the most different, the most special. That’s BIG work.
How great is spending some time talking about music and figuring this out when you don’t know direction it will go in?
Such a great pitch from Justin - wait until you see where we go next, but in the meantime, all new Cultish Creative Music Club is up for you to watch:
