I’ve recently dusted off my old Akai tape deck, dug out whats left of my cassette collection and reconnected with my analog self. I had really forgotten how great the cassette was a music medium as I played some of my homemade mixtapes. The way my tapes swang from mixes, exclusives recorded of the radio even to stuff recorded of the telly, you had the ability to record and edit at the touch of a button rather than the click of a mouse or the shaving of a visual soundwave.

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Tape was a labour intensive medium often involving hours of dubbing, editing, spooling and splicing to create and maintain your music library but it was all done physically. By doing everything with your hands it somehow becomes second nature and you don’t have to think anymore to control and manipulate sound, which is surely the first step on the way to DJing.

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I’ve realised how much I actually loved the tape sound quality too as I’ve  digitised them and listened to them on the computer you can hear how music production and home audio equipment have changed hand in hand. There is just something so perfectly imperfect about the compression, hiss and even that faded muffled snippet of the last thing you recorded over seeping through to the speakers. Also the constriction of 45 minutes a side is almost made for mixtapes and its suprising how few people really ever make an album or ‘mixtape’ with a Side A Side B feel.

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The lower sound quality also raised questions in my mind about how boring and homogenous pop, rap and rnb have become. They all sound the same now thanks to the difficulty producers have in making their sound big enough to get a commercial realease. So you end up with everyone looking for the same clinical crisp sounding bass thuds and percussionless drumbeats and empty synth patches. I mean when it gets to the point that talentless mugs like N-Dubz, Tinchy Stryder and Chipmunk can perfectly replicate the ‘hits’ put out by our translatlantic cousins Timbo, The Dream and Kanye you have to ask what is the point?

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So I dug out these ad’s that show that tape was once considered the pinnacle of home audio and realised that a rise in hi fi quality has clearly made an audible decrease in music quality for the consumer. The 90′s hip hop production that I love so much wouldn’t stand up to the merciless digital formats we use today. Punters would just dismiss their music as budget or swag, I mean when was the last time you heard crackle on someones single? I firmly believe that the analog formats helped us connect with the sounds of the 70′s and farther back that the 90′s hip hop artists were sampling.

They say you should never stop chasing your dreams but I had long given up hope of seeing Van Damme fight Steven Seagal on film. Now thanks to some snappy editing by channel 5 and the meteoric decline of both their cinema careers it will finally happen.

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The channel 5 advert is part of a 3 part campaign for their very commendable Seagal versus Van Damme season. Lets hope they show all the old favourites and not the newer straight to DVD offerings that the 90′s action heroes have been dropping.

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As you can see the 2nd and 3rd installments of the channel 5 trilogy are a bit lame. Who wants to see the muscles from Brussels drive a car or an 8th dan Aikido expert shooting guns? We want fist on flesh action, feet in the face, we want kumite channel 5, kumite.

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If you’re as bloodthirsty as me you might just get your wish as a new JCVD & Seagal project has been announced in Hollywood. ‘Weapon’ will see the pair play assasins who combine their deadly talents of sharpshooting (Seagal) and knife fighting (Van Damme) to hunt down a drug cartel. There must be at least one fight scene scripted where they tee off in each other and I’m voting for JCVD to take Seagal down… Nuk soo kow! Nuk soo kow! Nuk soo kow!

The Fresh Prince of Bel Air was without doubt a driving force in bringing hip hop from the underground to the mainstream in the 90′s. Taking elements from The Jeffersons, Cosby Show and Different Strokes and coupling them with the infectious personality of young rap star Will Smith, the show was a welcome breath of fresh air when it amazingly premiered on BBC 2 of all channels in the UK in late 1990.  The show is centred on the struggles of streetwise teenager Will, who is uprooted from the ghettos of south Philly to the mansions of Bel Air to live with his rich Uncle Phil and his 3 cousins.

This show embodied the essence of early 90′s hip hop with Will sporting a wardrobe colour matched to the front cover of De La Souls 3 Feet High and Rising, whilst spouting the popular slang of the time. Between Will and best friend and occasional guest star Jazz the unsuspecting audience is slowly introduced to the elements of hip hop; turntablism, beatboxing and break dancing, though Will’s dancing is more Heavy D and the Boyz than Crazy Legs.

Though primarily a family show, the Fresh Prince occasionally touched on more serious topics such as crime, racism and absentee fathers, although a gag was never far away to lighten the tone. By the later series a number of running jokes had been firmly established, Aunt Viv had been replaced, Ashley had grown up and a new family member Nicky had been added but the show was just as popular as ever, avoiding the axe on couple of occasions.

Trivia

The running gag of the “Carlton Dance” throughout the show was actually a parody of the Bruce Springsteen dance he did in his video for “Dancing in the Dark” in 1984.

The cab driver in the opening credits is Quincy Jones, the executive producer on the show and whose Swedish son produced the now infamous opening music and score for the show.

Geoffrey’s last name is Butler and in the episode Hare Today, it’s revealed that his middle name is Barbara

Nicky’s full name is Nicholas Michael Shawn Nathan Wanya Banks. He is named after the four members of Boyz II Men, after they performed at his christening.

Running jokes

Jazz gets thrown out of the front door by Uncle Phil

The Carlton dance – usually to Tom Jones

Uncle Phil fat jokes

Hilary and Jazz’s unrequited love

Slapping Carlton or hitting him on the head with anything that comes to hand

Clips

Theme tune

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The best Carlton dance ever

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Will beatboxes at a formal Dinner

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Carlton and Tom Jones

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Jazz gets thrown out for the first time

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Carlton dance compilation

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List of Guest Stars

Richard Roundtree / Sherman Hemsley (The Jeffersons)

Nia Long / Tyra Banks / Jay Leno / Vivica Fox / Chris Rock

Malcolm Jamal-Warner (Cosby Show) / Queen Latifah

Evander Holyfield / Boyz II Men / Kareem Abdul Jabbar

Raven Symone / Donald Trump / Kadeem Hardison

Tisha Campbell / Robin Givens / Isiah Thomas / Isaac Hayes

Oprah Winfrey / Lark Voorhies (Saved by the bell)

Tevin Campbell / Bill Cosby / Tom Jones / B.B King

Gary Coleman / William Shatner / Don Cheadle

Tom ‘tiny’ ‘zeus’ Lister / Jaleel White ‘urkle’

Vanessa Williams/ Jasmine Guy (different world) / John Witherspoon

90s Guy says

This was must see TV for hip hop lovers young and old in the UK. There was only Yo! MTV Raps and the Fresh Prince on telly plus Westwood’s radio shows later on to check for week in week out for a hip hop fix. I’ve never been a big Will Smith fan but this is him at his best; cocky, outrageous and genuinely funny. Later on Ashley was another good reason to tune is as she was one of the only fly girls on TV who was my age. Still can’t believe they never made a movie though?

Links

Official Site

On the DL

The box went live in the UK in 1992 and was the first TV channel of its kind. Viewers could call in and request tunes they wanted to hear (every song had a unique three-digit code), although you often had to watch a lot of rubbish while waiting for your song to come on. Sporting the motto ‘Music television you control’, this channel was a backlash against the lame playlist payola-driven stranglehold MTV and VH1 had over music television in the early 90s.  Remember, at the time of its launch there were only three music channels and not many people in the UK were interested in watching CMT (Country Music Televison). So when The Box appeared with no veeJays, no long programming, no long ad breaks and a diverse selection of videos that ranged from boybands to miami bass and underground hip hop to hardcore thrash metal, it was welcomed with open arms. The only programming was ‘Box Talk’ where artists would shamelessly promote their new single and ‘Box Fresh’ which was no more than an advert for the newest videos.

Viewer democracy meant that programming structured itself by who was at home at any given time. During the daytime housewives ruled the roost, endlessly requesting Karyn White’s ‘Superwoman’ and Gloria Gaynor’s ‘I Will Survive’. When the school bell rang adolescent girls would repeatedly request whatever boyband was flavour of the month. As the kids lost the battle of the remote to their parents the eclectic tastes of the trendy teens and twenty-somethings would emerge playing indie and gangster rap. As they say the freaks come out at night and that’s when you would see a lot of miami bass – or just any video with a lot of booty bouncing or boobs that had been liberated from bras and bikinis. With every subculture and social group getting their time to shine The Box was one of the most universally liked TV stations in cable history, the only problem being the cacophonic soundclash that occurred when the school holidays arrived.

The original box format (real ghetto quality clip)

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Trivia

Was brought to the UK from Miami where it originated by Vincent Monsey who had previously worked at Radio Caroline a pirate radio station that broadcast from a boat anchored of the coast of Felixstowe with the express intention of playing music that the mainstream radio stations would not playlist and break the stranglehold of the then juggernaut of radio broadcasting, the BBC.

90′s Guy says

This channel was the key to killing boredom in the 90′s and was constantly on in my yard, I can still remember the excitement of seeing the 3 little yellow numbers I’d just typed into the phone appear on the screen for the first time. I also remember you usually had to wait about an hour to hear anything you’d selected unless it was the middle of the night.

Just to illustrate its far reaching powers I remember me and my sister crying with laughter while my mum cleaned the living room with ‘The Box’ on. She was singing away unbeknownest to her that me and my sis were listening to her best rendition of Cypress Hill’s ‘When the shit goes down’. Unfortunately the censored version on the box was re-titled ‘When the ship goes down’ and my mums hearing had changed it further to the point that she was warbling ‘When the boat comes in, you better be ready’. We are still waiting for that boat to come in.

90s Guy’s Box top 5

By no means the best videos played on the box but the 5 clips your about to see are tracks that weren’t getting any play on UK tv outside of the box and instantly became box cult classics.

Half Pint – Boom and Hydraulic

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Gerrardo – Rico Suave

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Ice T – G Style

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Positive K – I Got a man

Domino – Getto Jam

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