"It's on..."

There's something so magnificent in certain moments of hip hop. For those of us who model ourselves after Walter Benjamin, collecting artifacts and gathering quotations and information for our notebooks, hip hop is indeed a culture that informs all our actions. And, the fact that, at its inception, hip hop culture aimed at dismantling the unfortunate machine of white supremacy that rules this nation makes hip hop our savior.

There are countless moments on recordings where, as in the mistakes preserved on old jazz or blues LPs, improvisation and intuition are given the proper form to flourish. B-Real created some of the most impressive moments in hip hop music during the early 1990s, although his lyrics (for me) never quite lived up to his talents. His nasal vocal style and impeccable timing make him one of the most important writers in hip hop:

"One time tried to come in my home
take my chrome, I said yo it's on."