90s
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Is Above The Rim's Thomas 'Shep' Sheppard The GOAT Fictional Basketball Player? A Discussion
I love Above The Rim. Its soundtrack is always in the convo for the best Black movie soundtrack of all time, and Tupac Tupac’d the shit out of the movie. Then, you have Leon (I was today years old when I discovered his last name was Robinson) displaying another talent of his—a believable jump shot—to…
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Console Wars Is a Fun Look at the Height of the Sony-Nintendo Beef
There was a brief period of time where Sega and Nintendo were the only real contenders for the gaming throne. If Mario was Tupac then Sonic was Biggie. Emotions surrounding the two brands ran so high that I almost got beat as a kid for suggesting Sonic Adventure was cooler than Super Mario 64. (I…
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10 Songs That Defined New York Rap to Me, From the Outside Looking In
I grew up as a ‘90s hip-hop head, which means that I have an ironically romantic view of New York City. Though my musical palette tended to veer south (where I lived) and west (where the sounds seemed fit for driving), I knew that New York City was what made it all possible. Also, I…
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The Root Jams Weekly (9/4/2020): 'The Teenage Years'
Monday evening, we were treated to the Verzuz folks have been talking about since the idea came to be: Monica versus Brandy. It featured all of the shade and entertainment we expected, but what it mostly did was take everybody back to the the early-to-mid 90s. For many of us, those were our teen years…
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This Is Not A Drill: Brandy and Monica Confirmed for Next Verzuz
Dreams do come true, and we very likely will get to see a 2020 version of “The Boy Is Mine” duet, because it is now official: Brandy and Monica will be facing-off in the next Verzuz on August 31. The two R&B icons have come up frequently in discussions about ideal Verzuz pairings, ever since…
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A Line-By-Line(s) Breakdown of Alleged Foolywang Jam, Donnell Jones' 'Where I Wanna Be'
In October 1999, singer/songwriter/producer Donnell Jones released his second album, platinum-selling Where I Wanna Be. The first single featuring Lisa “Left Eye” Lopes was a hit—his highest-charting hit, in fact—landing inside the top 10 of Billboard’s pop charts. Interestingly, the first record I remember hearing from the album was “Shorty (Got Her Eyes On Me),”…
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 24: Jodeci, 'Stay'
Jodeci and SWV are my favorite 90s groups. Their music, to me, is so superbly good that you shouldn’t have anything negative to say about it. Jodeci is still, today, a gold standard group, which is amazing considering that they only have three albums, all released between 1991 and 1995 that are worth talking about.…
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 14: The Roots 'What They Do'
The mid-to-late 90s ushered in an era of opulence in hip hop. While Sean “Puffy” Combs gets most of the credit for taking hip hop into the “Shiny Suit” era, he was far from the only artist making music and videos that exhibited lifestyle goals more than lifestyle. And just as there was no shortage…
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 5: Missy Elliott 'The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly)'
Let’s go ahead and get a few facts out of the way about Missy Elliot’s song “The Rain (Supa Dupa Fly).” For one, the song is timeless—I believe if this song was released today, some 23 years after its original release, it would still be a hit. It’s so different and so unique, so special,…
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30 Days of Iconic Music Video Blackness With VSB, Day 4: Jade, 'Don't Walk Away'
Jade’s video for “Don’t Walk Away” is one of those joints that you could toss into a 90s time capsule, open it 50 years from now and have a very clear, if not confused, understanding of what the early 90s in young black America looked like. Everything about this video is awesome and remarkably of…