My Love Affair

with music began earlier than I can ever remember. As a child, I can remember my daddy rushing home with an armful of albums, turning on the room length custom designed stereo and listening to every cut on the album. Those days were so sweet. No logging online to find the lyrics. They were right there in the album and I knew every lyric to every song by the end of the evening. One of the best nights was the night we played "Never to Much" by Luther Vandross. I still remember laying in the floor listening to "A House is Not a Home" and the feeling that Luther's voice gave me. My daddy had every album under the sun. From Earth, Wind and Fire to Minnie Ripperton. Issac Hayes to Jody Watley. The Stylists to Motowns Greatest. I listened to each and every one. My affair continued on through my tween years as I began to become addicted to the music of tunes like "Roxanne Roxanne, Parents Just Don't Understand, and one of my all time favorites "A Fly Girl". I manage to know every lyric to every song I listen to more than 4 times. Funny thing is, you would have thought at some point I could have conquered math just be turning it into a song. My love for music has saved my life so many times. During my teenage years when my heart was broken by the chump of the month "Can You Stand the Rain" played each morning as I got dressed for school. "A Teenage Love" by Slick Rick seems so long ago, but played until it literally broke in my walkmen on the way to school. As I finally began to develop a tiny bit of body in high school, I lived in airbrush baggy overalls and actually thought BBD and LL Cool J were singing "Poison" and "Around the Way Girl" about me. During my young pregnancy Cheryl Pepsi Riley's "Thanks for my Child" sometimes got me through those first few months as I wondered what would happen over the next few years. After I delivered the twins 'All my Life' became my theme song to them and later my wedding song. The songs I play on my page are currently the soundtrack to my life. Sometimes I add, and sometimes I remove as the moment fits. Music truly moves me in every since of the word. I can sit back and listen to the lyrics and feel what the author was trying to convey. Often times in the car I find myself becoming irritated because someone has talked over the lyric I was waiting to hear. Even more annoying is someone who is just singing and doesn't know what the song is REALLY about. I'm the crazy one that will rewind the song back and say "No, did you HEAR what they were saying". It seems my love affair with music has become more intense over the past few years as I fight the demons of what is appropriate for me as a mother of young boys. I adore so many of the lyrics too Lil' Wayne, JZ, E40, The Game and Kanye. Another memory includes coming home after purchasing All Eyes on Me. I think I stayed in my room an entire day listening and memorizing both of Pac's album. I haven't had that feeling about a rap album since then, but I'm starting to feel that way about some of Jay - Z's music. As I drive into the school parking lot I often have to remind myself to turn the volume down. Thank goodness for illegal tint. Nothing thrills me more than a ride alone in the car with a perfect verse over a tight beat. When my heart is broken the words of 'I hate you right now' songs only piss me off more but I can't turn them off because the best way for me to de-stress is to listen to music that I can feel. "All About Me" by Mya, "Lonely By Jaheim", and even Mary J. Blige have gotten me through many a night. There could be no greater invention right now then the ipod. It has enabled me to listen to "Zoom" by the Commodores one minute and "We could be" by Keyshia Cole the next. I think I love it more than my crackberry...no I think I'd literally be ill with my blackberry but that's a whole other subject in itself.