Being the A&R for Sha Stimuli, you hear alot of sht., From - "he's underground" to "he's a back pack rapper". What they mean is that he is a dude who raps for the sake of rapping and hearing hot beats and keeping hip hop pure. In those terms, a back pack rapper he is not.
If you're not from new york city, brooklyn in particular, you won't understand.The original backpackers were teenage kids from the hood who used bookbags to "steam" or boost" clothes from department stores or to steal spraypaint from hardware stores which we called "racking".Most people would stuff the inside of their bookbag, knapsack was a term we never used. This, of course involved you either taking your bag all the way off of your back or a wiser way, to keep it on one shoulder using your free hand to un zip, stuff and re zip the bag.A more skilled booster would keep the bag on both shoulders and place the clothing between back and bag. Thus, you wouldn't alert the security guard by taking the bag off.
Some famous, pardon me, infamous boosting crews were lo lifes, steam team, USA and more.
This is the origin of the backpack. In hip hop. Black Moon were the original back pack rappers so to speak.In their debut 1992 video in "who got the props" frontmen Buckshot and Five Ft wore oversized hoodies, baby hats and enormous bookbags. Some didn't understand the style. But those who were from Brooklyn know that Buckshot was a member of FAP (Franklin Avenue Posse) a crown heights crew who had a section that were straight boosting.
In the 80's and 90's. If you saw 5 young dudes with bookInside a bookbag, you weren't going to findNo microphone, 12 inch vinyl record, and no rhymebook. You would find a can of spray paint, some gear (probably someone elses), and if you looked in the small compartment you would most likely find a gun on 2 out of 5 of them. And it was wrapped in a wash cloth.If you were lucky. And if you had a decepticon on your hands, you might find a hammer. Who am I kidding? In 1994 I carried a hammer in the inside comparment of my Purple XXL Polo Hooded Parka and I was hardly a decept.Any way, you may think that any ole' book bag would do. You couldn't be further from the truth. This wasn't no EastPack ting.What was the book bag of choice for thousands of bookworms, (graffiti) taggers & bombers, boosters and stick up kids?The JANSPORT.
..I don't know why the jansport was popular. I don't even know when it became popular..I just know that for MY high school era (early 90's), it was ushered in along with 2 color reversible face masks, hard plastic neon pacifiers and baby hats.Jansports - or Jans for short, came in damn near all colors and sizes. Green, Blue, Black Red, Blue, Purple, Pink, Grey, Sky Blue..you get the point. Their were different sizes..I think the smallest kind would cost you 15 to 20 bucks, the next size was about 25 and then you had the big boys with the big leather patch on the back...these were about 35 to 50 bucks each.
This is the origin of the backpack. In hip hop. Black Moon were the original back pack rappers so to speak.In their debut 1992 video in "who got the props" frontmen Buckshot and Five Ft wore oversized hoodies, baby hats and enormous bookbags. Some didn't understand the style. But those who were from Brooklyn know that Buckshot was a member of FAP (Franklin Avenue Posse) a crown heights crew who had a section that were straight boosting.
In the 80's and 90's. If you saw 5 young dudes with bookInside a bookbag, you weren't going to findNo microphone, 12 inch vinyl record, and no rhymebook. You would find a can of spray paint, some gear (probably someone elses), and if you looked in the small compartment you would most likely find a gun on 2 out of 5 of them. And it was wrapped in a wash cloth.If you were lucky. And if you had a decepticon on your hands, you might find a hammer. Who am I kidding? In 1994 I carried a hammer in the inside comparment of my Purple XXL Polo Hooded Parka and I was hardly a decept.Any way, you may think that any ole' book bag would do. You couldn't be further from the truth. This wasn't no EastPack ting.What was the book bag of choice for thousands of bookworms, (graffiti) taggers & bombers, boosters and stick up kids?The JANSPORT.
..I don't know why the jansport was popular. I don't even know when it became popular..I just know that for MY high school era (early 90's), it was ushered in along with 2 color reversible face masks, hard plastic neon pacifiers and baby hats.Jansports - or Jans for short, came in damn near all colors and sizes. Green, Blue, Black Red, Blue, Purple, Pink, Grey, Sky Blue..you get the point. Their were different sizes..I think the smallest kind would cost you 15 to 20 bucks, the next size was about 25 and then you had the big boys with the big leather patch on the back...these were about 35 to 50 bucks each.
Jansports were cool to have, and if you had some other shit, you might as well had been wearing Pepe jeans, or worst - Paco .If your color was light enough, or if you had the neon gold or silver paint marker, you would Tag your Posse's name as well as your tag name on back of your bag. IF this wasn't enough, you would use the paint marker to tag up the black shoulder straps so they saw your name and crew when you were coming.
Each zipper piece had an elastic string. The string was black and had bits of color through out. Some time in 93 or so we figured out that if you split and peeled off the black layer, a neon pink or green string was underneath.That blew our minds. (Back then, there wasn't such a big thing with pink, as longas you weren't over doing it. If youhad a pair of pink acid wash guess jeans (not like straight pink, more like rose...pause) you was cool as long as you rocked it with a black hoodie, a black North Face vest with the blue trim and a pair of black cross trainers.. I myself never rocked the pink, but I don't remember dudes getting flack around that. So, this being the case, to have your Jans strings to be pink and green was hard.A even deeper subculture with the BK Bookbag movement was the Jansport String.
This is deep right here. The more the strings you had, the more status you had. It would be hell to keep a string on your bag. There were enough dudes trying to steal bags and whatever eas in them, but then there were dudes who filled their bag quota and just needed more strings. Each bag had four strings, each string was tied through the eyelet of the zipper with a simple knot.So it was nothing for some one to loosen the knot and pull the string off. This was especially easy on the bus. Brooklyn roads are bumpy as hell. The untrained person is not going to feel that shit.Strings on a jansport were sort of like decals on a football players helmet for every tackle or touch down. It showed you were hard.You could be hard without 30 strings on your back, but 30 strings on your back showed that you definitely were taking other peoples strings, bags and shit in general.
In a climate where everyone was stealing bags and strings, the more strings you had were testimony that you could hold yourself down. Or that you "held weight" or had "back up".
Each zipper piece had an elastic string. The string was black and had bits of color through out. Some time in 93 or so we figured out that if you split and peeled off the black layer, a neon pink or green string was underneath.That blew our minds. (Back then, there wasn't such a big thing with pink, as longas you weren't over doing it. If youhad a pair of pink acid wash guess jeans (not like straight pink, more like rose...pause) you was cool as long as you rocked it with a black hoodie, a black North Face vest with the blue trim and a pair of black cross trainers.. I myself never rocked the pink, but I don't remember dudes getting flack around that. So, this being the case, to have your Jans strings to be pink and green was hard.A even deeper subculture with the BK Bookbag movement was the Jansport String.
This is deep right here. The more the strings you had, the more status you had. It would be hell to keep a string on your bag. There were enough dudes trying to steal bags and whatever eas in them, but then there were dudes who filled their bag quota and just needed more strings. Each bag had four strings, each string was tied through the eyelet of the zipper with a simple knot.So it was nothing for some one to loosen the knot and pull the string off. This was especially easy on the bus. Brooklyn roads are bumpy as hell. The untrained person is not going to feel that shit.Strings on a jansport were sort of like decals on a football players helmet for every tackle or touch down. It showed you were hard.You could be hard without 30 strings on your back, but 30 strings on your back showed that you definitely were taking other peoples strings, bags and shit in general.
In a climate where everyone was stealing bags and strings, the more strings you had were testimony that you could hold yourself down. Or that you "held weight" or had "back up".
Some dudes had More strings then Mr.T had chains. Around 94 dudes got wise and started melting the end of the strings. By melting it after the know was tied, it became impossible to untie it. Plus we just liked to burn things.
My High School at the time was literally on the other side of brooklyn - Sheepshead BayI was living on myrtle avenue in fort greene brooklyn at the time and the morning commute was 90 minutes. I took two buses, the 54 down myrtle to Nostrand Avenue by marcy where I took the B44 bus all the way to Sheepshead Bay. When I tell you that the bus ride was hell, I aint lying. Though some of my homies from flatbush were going to the bay, none of the my peoples from Downtown were even going into that direction. So I had to hold down fort myself.
So, to ward off any people who thought I was alone in life, and also because I was addicted to graffiti, I usually tagged my name as well the names of my whole crew (was only about 20 of us, so it could fit)This of course, made my bag look ugly as shit. And the tagginist tagger eventually wants..no-NEEDS a clean jansport.BUt who's trying to buy one? Not your mother. So you gotta go shopping the BK way. You gotta steal it.
So tuesday morning, I was on the prowl.THe bus hadn't passed by church avenue yet and the two Wingate High kids from the projects in my hood had just gotten off the bus and I was on the hunt. The bus was crowded as usual. You had kids who were going to Wingate, Prospect Heights, Clara Barton, Erasmus Hall, Boys And Girls, Midwood, Madison and Sheepshead on there. Standing room only. Except for me, since I got on crazy early. Other dudes sitting down would be peopel who were thorough enough to sit down, in otherwords - take a seat. And considering there were only about 12 seats in the back of the bus.it was dog eat dog.I once saw a kid named Boots from VTM (Vandeveer Territorial Mob or Vandeveer Trouble Makers) kick this dude in the face for not giving up his seat by the window. He was called Boots because he wore a size 13 or 14 black timberland chukka all year round. Needless to say, the dude got it bad in the face and we all had a good chuckle.
My High School at the time was literally on the other side of brooklyn - Sheepshead BayI was living on myrtle avenue in fort greene brooklyn at the time and the morning commute was 90 minutes. I took two buses, the 54 down myrtle to Nostrand Avenue by marcy where I took the B44 bus all the way to Sheepshead Bay. When I tell you that the bus ride was hell, I aint lying. Though some of my homies from flatbush were going to the bay, none of the my peoples from Downtown were even going into that direction. So I had to hold down fort myself.
So, to ward off any people who thought I was alone in life, and also because I was addicted to graffiti, I usually tagged my name as well the names of my whole crew (was only about 20 of us, so it could fit)This of course, made my bag look ugly as shit. And the tagginist tagger eventually wants..no-NEEDS a clean jansport.BUt who's trying to buy one? Not your mother. So you gotta go shopping the BK way. You gotta steal it.
So tuesday morning, I was on the prowl.THe bus hadn't passed by church avenue yet and the two Wingate High kids from the projects in my hood had just gotten off the bus and I was on the hunt. The bus was crowded as usual. You had kids who were going to Wingate, Prospect Heights, Clara Barton, Erasmus Hall, Boys And Girls, Midwood, Madison and Sheepshead on there. Standing room only. Except for me, since I got on crazy early. Other dudes sitting down would be peopel who were thorough enough to sit down, in otherwords - take a seat. And considering there were only about 12 seats in the back of the bus.it was dog eat dog.I once saw a kid named Boots from VTM (Vandeveer Territorial Mob or Vandeveer Trouble Makers) kick this dude in the face for not giving up his seat by the window. He was called Boots because he wore a size 13 or 14 black timberland chukka all year round. Needless to say, the dude got it bad in the face and we all had a good chuckle.
So this tuesday was no different, but sometimes you want to stand up. Here you could kick it with your peeps and write on the windows. Like I said I was a writer so there was always a fine black or blue pilotMarker in my pocket, along with my boxcutter or knife.One of the dudes on the bus that would tag with me was a cool cat from flatbush named Panama. Panama was down with LTP (looney toons posse) and a whole bunch of other crews. We linked up based upon us being panamanian and cool at the same time.Plus a little bit of fucking around on the ball courts. Cats like my man Jamal also known as Lips or Whiskey VTM usually had me write his shit up because he didn't have "hands" like that. Besides that he was usually busy terrorizing something.
Some people would try to hide in a corner. Half of the time, those were victims in waiting. But I was sitting down today. I was in the corner seat over the radiator...Writing on the arm rest of the seat in front of me. The corner was the best seat in the house. If you could stand the occasional roach falling to the ground or stepping into last nights chinese food, you could get the closest thing to a birds eye view of the bus. That's how I spotted my new jansport.Jansport stealing was an art.
You had to analyze the prey. Hell, there was even a crew in Crown heights called JST (JanSport Takers).The shit was fresh, new and green."Hmmm," I thought to myself "I never had blue, I bet my tags would show up crazy with the blue..AND he got strings, oh that shit is mine". For some reason, I decided to just take the strings, like I said, I hadn't crossed church avenue and I was still by myself, so at clarkson and Nostrand, it may have been suicide to rob this kid so early. He may have had "back up" on clarkson.Every stick up kid worth his gat knows that when u rob some one, you need to distance your self from them ASAP. I didn't really know this kid, so I didnt know how long he would be on the bus. So instead of jacking the Jans, I started untying his strings..after I had 3 or four safely in my pocket, I could have quit, but I decided to go after on more. He must have sensed it. Because he moved a couple of steps forward, turned around and looked at me. Stunned, all that could come out was "What!" in brooklyn, What! Is not a question. Its a declaration of war. "You all on my bag son, I saw you" he yelled. "You bugging" I replied "I was closing your bag for you son, I wasn't even near your shit". Despite the obvious contradiction, homeboy turned around and hung on the pole opposite me.
A couple of more blocks passed and we were on church avenue. Hardbody. About a dozen kids came on at the back door, and your man with the green jansport was trying to get out. I got up, followed him to the back door and pulled the jans off of his back. At this point, I had the tru element of surprise and he was stuck, after another well placed "WHAT!" your man continued to walk down the stairs in disgust...- I can't say he was a herb, I can't say I was a thug, but that day , I got the drop on him, and went to school with a pretty Sky Blue Jans, some new strings.
After a while people realized that I had a love for stealing shit from people and I began taking orders. Cats would tell me the color they wanted and I would handle that. I won't lie on my hands. After a while I went for easier and easier targets. I would go to the lunchroom, pace around looking for the right bag...and prey..walk to they shit. Pick it up and walk away. This was the 90's. Most people understood and respected the Jux.
It wasn't til later on, that I realized that I was being used and exploited..firstly by myself. The bus ride on the 44 was cool, but stressful at the same time. Church ave, newkirk ave and the junction were hotspots and10, 20 kids would flood the bus at the same time. After awhile, I guess some kids decided to ride in the front or find a different route.
So the back of the bus became a den of wolves. And there is no honor amongst thieves. Especially 16 year old ones.One day a couple of Vandeveer heads were comparing jewels they just stole. "Look at this bracelet I just caught". The younger and considerably more gully one said "put that away before I steal it from YOU". That's how I knew I had enough of the B44. I mean, I knew both of these kids, but they were in the same crew (STP/VTM/VIP) and couldn't be trusted.
After a while people realized that I had a love for stealing shit from people and I began taking orders. Cats would tell me the color they wanted and I would handle that. I won't lie on my hands. After a while I went for easier and easier targets. I would go to the lunchroom, pace around looking for the right bag...and prey..walk to they shit. Pick it up and walk away. This was the 90's. Most people understood and respected the Jux.
It wasn't til later on, that I realized that I was being used and exploited..firstly by myself. The bus ride on the 44 was cool, but stressful at the same time. Church ave, newkirk ave and the junction were hotspots and10, 20 kids would flood the bus at the same time. After awhile, I guess some kids decided to ride in the front or find a different route.
So the back of the bus became a den of wolves. And there is no honor amongst thieves. Especially 16 year old ones.One day a couple of Vandeveer heads were comparing jewels they just stole. "Look at this bracelet I just caught". The younger and considerably more gully one said "put that away before I steal it from YOU". That's how I knew I had enough of the B44. I mean, I knew both of these kids, but they were in the same crew (STP/VTM/VIP) and couldn't be trusted.
polo & guess 1993There was a shortage of fresh meat on the B44...so like in anyother drought, shit became fierce. What did that mean for me? That I could expect a double cross any day.... of course, there were hundreds of things stolen on the way to school, but the Jans- had to be the strangest one of them all. by the way. jansport dont make strings no more.
dj victorious
dj victorious
stay tuned for part 6 - I dont have any back up aka i am my own goon.
see me at http://www.hoodintelligence.net/
also..Sha Stimuli - Never or Now the EP DECEMBER 16. buy that!
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