Back in those days, kicks dropped during the week. Often on a school day. It was hard to be the first to flex a new pair of shoes. Two friends of mine cracked the code. In middle school, I had a friend whose dad worked at Foot Locker. I’ll never forget sitting in first period Science class and I see Frankie walk in with a pair of Jordan 6 Carmines on his feet. I had never even seen the colorway. The Infrared had come out In February of 1991. I knew the silhouette, but I had missed this colorway completely. Here he was rockin’ em on November 11th, 8:15am. The morning they released…. His dad would put the transaction through the register at 10:00 am when the store opened. But Frankie was flexing em THAT morning.
Read moreCUNNINGHAM, MCNABB, VICK, HURTS...
Randall, Vick, McNabb, and Hurts. 4 decades of game-changing QB play out of Philly and the Eagles are 1 win away from winning another championship for the city. As we all prepare for the Eagles to match up against the Chiefs, I wanted to go back through memory lane to watch old highlights of the Eagles’ greats.
Read more2022 RAP ALBUMS OF THE YEAR
I listen to a lot of rap music. I talk with people who like rap music I might not be up on. I try to keep an open mind and just appreciate good music . Don’t need to push songs into genres and sub-genres anymore. This is rap and hip hop music that I loved from this year. And if there are any songs released before this year that’s my bad… I make exceptions for some tracks that I help fill out the particular vibe I’m trying to capture. Hope you enjoy!
Read moreGETO BOYS "AIN'T WITH BEING BROKE"
I ain’t with bein broke!
Like my boy Willie Dee from the Geto Boys said, “I ain’t with being broke!” Needed to get this one off of my chest. Been in debt most of my life and I’m now starting to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Most of us are in debt because straight up it’s just expensive to live. Rent blows, gas is high, inflation is real, and even with all of that, you gotta just ball out sometimes right? Well that’s where I’ve gotten into trouble. Follow me as I tell my get rich quick schemes that have got me into nothing but trouble.
Read moreSABU AND ROB VAN DAM
In the late ‘90’s, professional wrestling had gotten a bit stale. Sure I watched WWE Monday Night Raw as well as WCW Monday Nitro but they just weren’t keeping me engaged like back in the day. Even as a wrestling fan I was starting to lose interest since wrestling wasn’t really the coolest thing to talk about in high school. So a few of my friends and I kept our love of wrestling on the low. Nobody needed to know that I painted my face at a WWF taping years back or still played with wrestling action figured here and there. But then around 1996 I started hearing about a 3rd professional wrestling league called Extreme Championship Wrestling. I have no idea how I heard about ECW because there wasn’t YouTube at the time. ECW was mostly heard by word of mouth through hardcore wrestling fans. To get my hands on ECW matches I had to hit the internet message boards and buy VHS tapes off of strangers all over the US. And that’s exactly what I did.
Read moreTHE LIVING LEGENDS - PART 2
It was the summer of 1999 and it was around 4am at a rave somewhere in Orange County, California. Drum & Bass music was bubbling on the underground scene and raves were where you’d go to do a bunch of drugs and watch live performances from both new emerging acts and already established artists on the independent scene. Raves always had very positive vibes as everybody came to party and listen to good music. No fights, no beef. I would go to these shows with my normal group of music homies (shout out to The Creatures!) and while we loved music, we weren’t big Drum & Bass fans. And while Drum & Bass was the main focus at these raves, there were also underground hip hop acts who would perform on the hip hop stage. There would typically be several stages at these shows and often there was a good hip hop room which is where you would find us.
Read moreDJ SHADOW - ENDTRODUCING
If you could only bring 3 albums to a deserted island, which would you choose? It’s such a touch question for me because sh*t… Only 3 albums?? You have to be strategic here. You’re only going to hear these 3 albums for the rest of your life so they need to be ones you obviously won’t get sick of. Then they have to be 3 albums that likely don’t fit in the same genre so you have 3 different vibes.
Read moreMERCH NOW AVAILABLE
So what is Mid90s? I still don’t know but I’m honing in on something that I think will be big. The clothing launch is now live on the site and so I need to start flipping it. But now that I have this gear, I don’t even care about the cash. I mean, I do but at the same time, I just want to hook up the crew. That’s what it was always about to me. Building a brand that embodies the friendships my childhood friends and I have kept strong for over 30 years. So when I come out a shirt, you ain’t gotta like it cause the hood gone love it.
Read moreMID90s "THE SUMMER DRIP"
Today I will be officially be launching my online store so I need to drop a mixtape right alongside of it right? These are all of the songs that I’m really feeling right now. Most of them are pretty new but I have some from 2020 as well. Hit below for the videos and I have the Spotify playlist down at the very bottom. And to kick things up a notch, I threw in some classic Deion photos because…. shit… I don’t know. I just found these and had to share them with y’all!
Read moreJONNY EMPIRE "THE KID"
Who is Jonny Empire? A couple of years ago I couldn’t have answered that question because I didn’t know him. Last year, I met Jonny through a website called PlaylistPush where aspiring artists like Jonny Empire can pay for their songs to be heard by playlisters like myself. In the good ole days, musicians would be heard by local/national DJ’s playing their songs on the radio. If you got big enough, you could get your song on rotation on MTV or BET. But in order to get this radio/tv play, you needed to be signed to a record label who had an A&R who would fight to get you play. And sometimes pay to get you play through a process called payola. But nowadays, radio and TV is a thing of the past as the majority of music fans hear their new songs from the DSP’s like Spotify, Apple Music, etc.
Read moreKENDRICK LAMAR - SECTION.80
Section.80
Kendrick had all kinds of buzz around him but still hadn’t hit the mainstream yet. But I was trying to get him heard. For anybody I knew or encountered who was a hip hop head, I wouldn’t stop talking about Kendrick. And then on July 2nd, 2011 he dropped his mixtape Section.80 and the rest was history. This mixtape was all that me and the homies (what up Stro, Lito, and Alan!) would bump on our long drive to work. There were so many dope tracks on this project. Within a week we already knew our favorite verses and our carpool trips into the office turned into Section.80 performances because that’s about all that we cared about the summer of 2011.
Read moreEVIDENCE - UNLEARNING VOL. 1
Unlearning Vol. 1
I always wondered if I’d ever grow out of my love for rap music but little did I know that ears would just evolve over time. While I may not be seeking the same vibes I was back in the day, I’m still forever on the hunt for dope sh*t. But there still are those few veteran emcees that I will always peep when they drop something. Off the top, I can think of that list as Royce, Roc Marci, MURS, Elzhi, Blu, Phonte, and last but not least, Evidence.
Read moreFIVESPACE RECORD STORE
I really miss the days when I could go to Tower Records and spend 2 hours in their record store digging in the crates. Sometimes I had enough for a CD or a cassette tape and other times I just went there to browse and look at the front and back of albums. I would sit on the ground and read magazines, put their headphones on to listen to new releases and just kill time in the place I loved most.
Read moreANDRE THE GIANT HAS A POSSE
Today would have been Andre the Giant’s 75th birthday. In celebration of his big birthday, I asked the card artist LunchMade to create a piece that tied in our love of old school wrasslin’ along with some Obey elements as the two go hand-in-hand. What came out of all of this is great. A solid front and back which picks up different elements and solid layering along the way. I supplied LunchMade with the concept and he ran with the rest. If you did this kind of 1/1 art, this card is currently up on eBay for the next week. I have a good feeling that this is going to do really well. The card art movement is real y’all. Lots of dope artists flexing some of their cool ideas to create that fire. I’ll ask my bro who all of the card art legends are so he can provide a list for all of you to follow. In the meantime, I’m gonna go back to staring at this fresh Andre card!
Read moreMY MIND'S PLAYING TRICKS ON ME
Shout out to the Geto Boys for the classic track, “Mind Playing Tricks on Me”
I’ve had many ups and downs mentally for as long as I could remember. When I was younger they weren’t something I shared because it just wasn’t a common conversation amongst friends and family. These struggles have brought a lot of self-doubt into my thinking and have made me worry about anything and everything. Then, they’ve also left me depressed, paranoid, and super emotional at times. Along with that, I’m hyper-sensitive and have an anxiety disorder that has kept me on a mental roller coaster for the past 5 - 10 years of my life.
Read moreRAZOR RAMON - SAY HELLO TO THE BAD GUY
While some of my favorite wrestlers of all-time include Ric Flair, Ravishing Rick Rude, Sabu, Rob Van Dam, Owen Hart, The Million Dollar Man Ted Dibiase, and Chris Benoit; Razor Ramon is right at the top of the list. The swag was next level and he had one of the best finishers of all time, The Razor’s Edge.
Read moreBEAVIS AND BUTT-HEAD
Beavis and Butt-Head originally came out when I was in 7th grade back in 1993. The first episode debuted on MTV on March 8th, 1993 and I was already watching a lot of shows on MTV at that time so of course I was going to check out this new animated show. 1993 was also the year that I got into Metallica so to see Beavis rockin’ the shirt resonated with me. It aired at the 7pm time slot which meant right after dinner for our household. My mom would be washing dishes in the kitchen, my dad would be off to their bedroom to watch TV and I would be watching Beavis and Butt-Head in the living room. My hand on the remote ready to change the channel if my parents were nearby because Beavis and Butt-Head were labeled as a bad influence in the media.
Read moreDD172 - 24 HOUR KARATE SCHOOL
Ski Beatz
Back in 2009, Dame Dash started an art collective known as DD172 which brought together a lot of dope rappers and producers. Ski Beatz was behind a lot of the beats on the releases from rappers like Curren$y, Mos Def, Murs, and more. There was some good music that came out of DD172 that I wanted to shine some light on. I also wanted to go back to detail how Ski Beatz and Dame Dash linked up back in the day.
Read moreSTRICTLY BUSINESS AND YOUNG BLACK BROTHA RECORDS
In the late 80’s and through the 90’s there was a producer in California who was right behind Dr. Dre in quality of beats. While Dre was holding down Compton, Khayree was producing and starting record labels up in Vallejo, CA. He founded Strictly Business Records and Young Black Brotha Records which brought the world artists like Mac Dre, Mac Mall, Ray Luv, Young Lay, and Dubee aka Sugawolf. In this story I was through a brief history of both Strictly Business Records and Young Black Brotha Records.
Read moreMF DOOM - OPERATION DOOMSDAY
Rap fans from all around the world were crushed to hear about the passing of rap great MF Doom. He was a mysterious emcee and producer who had been putting in work since the early 90’s as Zev Love X in the hip hop group, KMD. His brother and bandmate Subroc was tragically killed in 1993 while KMD was prepping their 2nd album. Later that week, KMD and Zev Love X got dropped from their record label. After disappearing for a few years, Zev started popping back up on the scene as masked rapper named MF Doom. Doom, real name Daniel Dumile, then took the rap world by storm through classic albums, Operation Doomsday, Madvillainy, and MM.. Food. Doom stayed relevant in rap for just about 30 years which is remarkable. This is my ode to one of my favorite rappers of all time, the great MF Doom.
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