HI ITS DJ PEPPERONI SANDWICH

            On the great family road trip to the San Juan Islands in the seventh grade there was a blank disc forgotten in the rental car. While my family was bickering, biting, and generally getting car sick I was discovering "The Marshall Mathers LP" by Eminem. That year I had recently grown leg hair and had been mortified and had given up on the idea of shorts all together, I had been dumped by my first girl friend (i still curse your name Sarah Wegmullzers), and had failed at least three of my classes. I was feeling the full weight of adolescence, I was in need of guidance, it came in the form of a bleach-blond semi skin head named after my favorite candy.
           Through Eminem I discovered hip hop and rap (if they aren't the same thing). I started listening to N.W.A, Biggie Smalls, Tribe Called Quest, and Blackstar. I put down my electric guitar and bought a sampler and a record collection to draw samples from. Through out high school i would spend every day after school eating roman noodles in my underwear and creating hip hop beats. I found friends through the craft I had dedicated myself too and some of them rapped. I made songs, I went to concerts, I listened to hip hop and hip hop only, and i generally exhausted myself on hip hop in general.
           Some where between all the roman noodle, mild high school depression, and rapping friends I started to feel a disconnect between myself and hip hop. There I was a middle class Jewish white boy thinking he could make beats and relate to the struggle and lives of lower class African American males. I could no longer listen to N.W.A and feel so empowered, i could no longer listen to common and feel any sentiment. I lost my adolescent angst, my furry at having leg hair, my anger at my family. The world started recognizing me as what I was becoming, an adult white male (the most powerful flavor of people). I picked up my guitar again.
            So i come into this course with a long history of love for hip hop but also a lot of apprehension. I believe to a certain extent that hip hop is a fading art form if not from my own life then from the world itself. I am excited to get a second chance to throw myself back into the culture I once believed myself to be a part of.


these are my favorite rap songs;