Open Letter to the Expert Whiteboy Panel and...

The rest of yous who post comments here pretty often.




...And listen to what the fuck I got to say for a minute.


So for those of you who don't know, I'm neither white nor a boy, I'm the token chick, and come to think of it, the token 100% minority, too. I know Mike read my personal blog to sort of check out my writing skills when I asked him to write for dumpin', although I'm not sure whether or not anyone else did, but hey, whatever. I had told him initially that I was a huge hip hop fan, and really considered myself a serious one - not just into the getting jiggy club bangers that most chicks that are hip hop fans like. In retrospect, I kind of wonder if he didn't just bring me on board to be the token chick because the combination of my choice of employment and hobbies amused him. I don't say this because I want any sort of recognition, but because of well, the actual reason I'm writing this post to begin with.

So let me get down to business then. The reason why I'm writing this post? Its because this blog has humbled me. A LOT. I used to pride myself on being up on all things hip hop- admittedly, I was much more so when I was younger, I used to know quite a bit more about underground/independent hip hop than I do these days. But still, even more recently, I figured I was so much better than most girls I've met in the last decade or so, only because they don't know shit about production, about DJs, about mixtapes. But *I* did, so every time I met a girl or even a guy for that matter who called themselves a "hip hop head" and I knew more shit than they did...well that sort of inflated my little ego about shit I figured I knew. Not to mention I enjoy "old school" - I listen to EPMD, Brand Nubian, I liked Wu Tang in '93 (predominantly because at the time I was on the East Coast music tip, and MOSTLY because I grew up in the martial arts world and watched most of the movies they used clips from), I've been a fan of Jay's since "Dead Presidents" was released, I liked LL way before he was "SO HAWT" and had the 12 pack, when he was a skinny-ish bald dude who always wore Kangols.

In any case, for the last few years, I was a little depressed about music, since to me it's always been a huge part of my life, and it seemed to me that hip hop and and r&b have been on the decline quality-wise. I stopped listening to the radio or to current music at all for that matter, and listened more and more to the old shit I had. And then a friend directed me towards dumpin' - I read several posts and realized that it seemed as if the contributors all felt and thought a lot like I do about a lot of things, which led me to want to contribute as well. But since I've started posting I've begun to see how much more there is to hip hop that I've missed. And what inspired this you might ask? Well, we just hired this one white boy who's a hip hop head from Detroit. Of course he loves J Dilla but he also loves Dabyrie, Lab Waste, and Anti-Pop Consortium. And honestly, I only know who Dilla and Dabyrie are. Talking to him about hip hop and reading the shit you expert white boyz write have made me understand that I don't really know shit about hip hop and that there's a lot more to hear and learn. So I've been totally humbled, and as corny as fuck as it sounds, there really is something new to learn every day.

I guess what I'm really saying is thanks. And before you ask, yes, I AM a little emotional because it's about to be that time of the month and the estrogen is running high. Don't think you guys would be hearing this shit otherwise because that ain't how I barrel roll.