CRATE DIG – Silkk the Shocker feat. Mya – “Somebody Like Me”

Welcome to the newest regular feature here at Brooklyn Bodega, the “Crate Dig.” It’s time to advocate a “back to basics” movement in music. Instead of everyone being an innovator, some of us need to be preserving the importance of original source material. To that end, the “Crate Dig” will feature members of the Brooklyn Bodega staff digging through their mental crates to remember the songs that made them appreciate music. There will be some amazing, and yes, embarrassing choices here. However, the key impact is to remember when music was not something to be over studied, remixed, downloaded, forgotten and torn asunder. We’re remembering when music was simply a song you liked, and really couldn’t tell you more than a sentence or two why. Now, that we’re older, we can, and we will. Sit back, reminisce, and enjoy the building blocks of music appreciation.

Song: “Somebody Like Me” – Silkk the Shocker featuring Mya (No Limit Records, 1999)

Reason I “dug” it: In the summer of 1999, I was preparing to enter my senior year at Providence College. I was incredibly bookish for most of my first three years in Rhode Island, save my involvement as the commentary editor of the campus newspaper and being an on-air personality and DJ at the campus’ radio station, WDOM. As a radio station employee, I was aware of Master P and No Limit Records as their releases flooded our station on a weekly basis. From Master P to Mia X, Fiend and a ceaseless supply of artists, where at many times the content seemed lacking, the label certainly was intriguing by sheer volume of releases.

It wasn’t until I discovered alcohol and party culture that Master P and his many minions spoke to me. I really had no idea as to the relationship between alcohol abuse, music and the human id. As a revelry averse nerd, the Freudian implications of Beats by the Pound production techniques and the most ignorant of hooks were a foreign concept. However, as I began to drink and party more than read and write, I suddenly had a never-ending soundtrack to my existence.

Silkk the Shocker is by no means a technically sound rapper. However, he was Master P’s younger brother, which was more than enough for me to appreciate his style. I never cared to hear earnest, heartfelt and R& B tinged singles about the difficulties of living in New Orleans’ Calliope Projects. I needed to get crunk, and I needed it now! If you were balling out of control while shooting guns, f***ing b***hes, drinking, smoking, fighting and making unintelligible sounds while doing so, I was a fan.

Silkk’s summer of 1999 collaboration with Mya? A giant song for me. At the time I was dating a girl who didn’t approve of the idea that 30 second long keg stands were more important than romantic time alone. I felt like I was an outlaw, “a thug,” and that in “falling for a guy like me,” we were involved in an ideal relationship because the pop rap song that I heard at the local dive bar while I was three sheets to the wind told me that everything would be okay.

Youth is a time best spent worshiping at the altar of ignorance. When I was young, my high priest wasn’t human, it was a gleaming, golden tank. Uhhhhhhhhh!