How Times Change...

When I was in high school the Walkman was an essential tool. Most of my friends from those times recognize me by seeing a pair of headphones in on my head and a book bag on my back. I had (and still have) a big box of tapes which I would listen to on the regular. Back then the only thing I listened to was the hip hop of the day.

There was one summer where my brother Mahdi lent me his Sony Walkman. Man this was the illest Walkman I'd ever seen. It was able to pick up TV signals like radio stations. I remember I was working for the Summer Youth Employment Program and on my lunch breaks I would listen to All My Children (probably should have kept that secret but hey I'm weird). The tape that was in the Walkman when I got it was Raekwon's "Only Built 4 Cuban Links" album. It was on a TDK tape I believe and it was a good month and a half before the release date. I was the MAN in the hood. I would burn batteries out listening to TV shows and Raekwon's album.

There was a whole culture to owning a Walkman. Freezing your batteries when they went dead to squeeze that last bit of juice out of em. Flipping the tape over (because I never REALLY trusted Auto Reverse) to listen to another banger instead of pressing rewind. Those were the days. Now we just make a playlist and hit the streets. The new players charge up at night so the battery man on Utica Avenue (I used to hit up for 1 dollar Duracells) has to find another way to feed himself.

So today we salute the Sony Walkman. Honorable mention to the Aiwa models with the super base switch.



The End