There are many reasons why going home for Thanksgiving is that shit we look forward to all year. There's Ma Duke's stuffing, sure to pack on necessary pounds for self-heating in winter. There's the annual "when are you going to get a real job/you should have thought about that when you were witholding parental affection" argument that gets better and better every year. Then you've got the time-honored tradition of getting some cranberry sauce courage together to find out if your high school ex is really "serious" about her "husband" and if she'd like to "hang out" for "old time's sake." Ahem. But nothing compares to digging in the crates, does it? Going through the time capsule that is your old room, finding those yearbooks, dog-eared pics from prom, and treasured cultural artifacts from your record collection's past.
This time we happened upon some real Raiders of the Lost Beats shit. A mixtape (and we mean TAPE) from the 9-6 called Heatwave 96 Part 1. As soon as this hit the office stereo our intrepid fashion editor's door-knocker earrings started KNOCKING. True story. Included on this nuclear power plant of a cassette are some well-known jams and some undiscovered gems. The tape starts off with Tupac's subtle ("First off, I fucked your bitch") love-letter to the East, "Hit Em Up." You get De La's "Stakes Is High", and the Cypress Hill/Fugees collabo, "Boom Biddy Bye Bye (Remix)". L-Boogie in the days before she rocked the Bible belt makes a dude get choked up. And there's that Valentine's Day anthem, "Put It In Ya Mouth," by Akinelye. Tender is the night, dog.
The real kick in the shins are all the joints that had fallen out of memory. "Shine," by Natural Elements (what you know about "NYC the locality!"), Wu-Tang's slept-on AIDS chronicle, "America", Jamal & Khalif's "It Beez Like Dat" (IOVINE! LET'S GET THESE KIDS ON G-UNIT, MY MAN), and of course the ladies choice, "Paula's Jam"
by the lovely Paula Perry. Maybe it's time for you to break out the rubber gloves and Pledge and do a little cleaning of your own. You never know when you might find a Maxell with Heltah Skeltah's "Da Wiggy" on it.