Juice Box

One of my first new followers on the twitter came from a page called 'Hip Hop Golden Age'. In essence they're all about original hip-hop. 80s & 90s. And through utilising the usual avenues of social media and YouTube, these guys are on a mission to raise 20,000 U.S. beans to facilitate the building of '..the premier online Classic Hip Hop platform'. An honourable mission statement in my own opinion, even though I haven't yet felt a desire to contribute. 

I think one of the first tracks I caught was A Fly Girl, released by the Boogie Boys in 1985. Old school in the extreme. I shared it with brother number three who has gotten into breaking (known as break dancing to most, but call it that to a true B-Boy and they won't thank you for it) which was, and still is, a major faction of real hip hop culture, and was born in this same era. I've also sent over a whole bunch of De La Soul. Real funky hip-hop. Tracks like Keepin' The Faith and A Rollerskating Jam Named 'Saturdays".

Each day then, HHGA have presented me (and 230+ thousand others) with a plethora of old school classics. LL Cool J, Run DMC, The Beastie Boys and De La Soul to name just a few. The pre-eminent aspect of these first 2 decades of hip-hop, was the sheer range of styles that came out. Originality was everywhere. There were no real forerunners to these guys. And so there were no rules or stereotypes for what you had to sound like or look like. Just think what an exciting environment that must have been. It's owing to this, I'm sure, that Flavor Flav still rocks a clock hanging around his neck. They laid the foundations, and today, you're most likely to hear them referred to as the old school. I'd put money on that.

The idea of something being old school seems to be everywhere nowadays. Music (of any genre), fashion, slang words, trends and games you used to have in primary school, anything from the past it seems, can be old school. Granted, the term hasn't yet reached the levels of 'amazing' and 'journey' which fill our X-Factor-invaded television screens, but still. 

Aside from the great music therefore, I've found myself thinking over the one thing from the past which best represents the old school. This being? The Juice Box. Sure, we English kids called it a carton but these days I'm preferring this U.S. term. 

Old school is a concept we use to categorise something from our pasts. From when we were young. And what kid didn't go to school with an Um Bongo or Ribena juice box? They were the drink choice of the school yard ballers. The hipsters. The streetwise kids. With LP's, a portable cassette player or CD player, depending on your era. In my own head at least, these were the cool kids. The 80s and 90s were the ages of Juice Box Hip-Hop. 

Sure, you may not agree. There may be some other iconic aspect of your time as a young'n that better represents it. And that's good. My point is merely that today, it can sometimes appear like everybody follows each other. Even to the degree of language. Juice Box is merely my own expression of old school. On the face of it, it's simply a different name..

But I ask again, just think what an exciting environment it must have been for the Run DMC's and alike. Creating hip-hop. Each MC, DJ, B-Boy, Grafitti artist and clothing designer who crafted their own originality into reality. With no forerunners, they created a culture. What if we were all to pretend there were no forerunners to our lives? I wonder.

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