How MC Lyte Changed My Life... My Definitive Moment of Destiny

It was January 11, 1991... a cool, rainy afternoon in Los Angeles. I was 10 and my mom and I were visiting the fam in Cali for the holidays. Bill, my biological father, had just picked me up from my Auntie Marva's South Central crib... Our destination was Footlocker for my Christmas present.

**SIDENOTE: First, you should know that Bill and my mama divorced when I was young and I never lived under the same roof with them both. Subsequently, Bill and I had an estranged relationship. Phone calls, birthday/Christmas cards, random letters... but never really hands-on involvement. Bill, a handsome, 6'6", Mexican (though only by bloodline because he identified with everything in black culture), former professional basketball player, led quite a bachelor lifestyle post-marriage. I can recall Playboy magazines all over his sprawling white two-story house... female "roommates" and workout equipment. In fact, one of my earliest memories was age 4... maybe 5.. and we were in his driveway and he was putting a bicycle together for me. I'd recently heard another kid call their father "Daddy" so I thought I'd try it, too. (To this point he'd ALWAYS been "BILL"). Well, I did and he proceeded to tell me that he "didnt want to be called daddy. call him Bill", and thats what he's been to me ever since. A hard pill to swallow as a child, but I understood and accepted it. I have to admit, my entire childhood memories of him center on his interest in 3 things- Money, Women and Basketball. THE END. I grew tall very fast and he was convinced I'd see 6'2" easily, and wanted to make me the first girl in the NBA. When I peaked at 5'8" at 14, so did his interest. Now, instead of spending time with me on the court, he'd give me money and send me to the mall while HE went to the court with my adopted and god-brothers. Now, back to the story...

So there we are on this very wet, foggy day riding in his prized Black, chromed out Jeep Wrangler, headed to Footlocker in search of Air Jordans. These were the all black ones with the "infrared" accents and that little pouchy thingy on the tongue for your laces! I was so excited, convinced that THESE SHOES were gonna improve my game so much so that Bill would be proud of me. And as we rode, I remember him pulling out this white cassette tape single and tellin me how "tight" the lyrics in this song were. Cue MC Lyte's "Poor Georgie". Now, mind you I'm only 10 years old but even at 10, I'd already had an appreciation of music simply because my mom played a wide variety of music in the house (Sting and the Police, Tears for Fears, Michael Jackson, Whitney Houston, Huey Lewis and the News, Diana Ross, etc.) since I could remember. And I even remember the Summer of 1990 in Cali when I spent EVERY SINGLE DAY with my cassettes and notebook, writing the lyrics to Young MC, Candyman, Tone Loc and De la Soul songs in my big fat "cool" handwriting.**Remember making circles to dot your "i's"??**LOL So anyway, as we rolled I watched him bob his head HARD... and he's totally reciting the song line for line, and I remember him rapping this:

The story is not to say that I'm in sorrow
Just to say no one is promise tomorrow
If you love someone you should say it often
You never know when they'll be layin in a coffin
Wake up, it's important that you know that
No one on Earth is promised tomorrow..

And then he stopped the tape, pressed rewind, and rapped it again...

If you love someone you should say it often
You never know when they'll be layin in a coffin

And I remember really thinking through the storytelling lyrics in "Poor Georgie" absolutely amazed and inspired. I was young yet I understood the storyline and the emotion woven into each 4 bars. Since it was a cassette single, we listened to it several times as we drove through the rain, and each time I memorized a little more and a little more. Sure, the purpose of the drive was to get my J's but my attention shifted to discovering how to listen to my music closer.

That was absolutely the moment when my ear became more discriminating and I totally got into lyricism as opposed to the commercial songs. Going forward, I'd listen to Freestyle Fellowship and Pharcyde (thats a Cali thing), Ras Cass and I'd even hang out at "The Good Life Cafe" on Crenshaw and Exposition in the summer (the same hangout of Moesha her friends on the show. lol) Hell, in 1996 I'd even joined a battlin' crew of upperclassman "misfits" in school just for the purpose of sharing rhymes. And after soccer practice, I'd go home and log-in to my modem connection just to sign-in to www.ThaLandz.com, one of the first online battle sites... and I'd post freestyles about my chemistry homework, boys... whatever moved me. Totally random, but totally relevant now.

Fast-Forward: Bill and I haven't had a relationship or communication at all since some apparent/alleged "break down" he experienced around 1995 or 1996. Initially, my heartbreak of being "disowned" made me rebel against basketball and instead I put everything into soccer. It took me until a fated friendship and years of living in Atlanta through college on my own, to discover that I could actually have a career in songwriting. Over the years, I've collaborated with the industry's top dogs... all the while working and learning... perfecting my craft and taking direction from the who's who's.

But it wasnt until tonite, chatting with @TJArmour (twitter), an internet DJ on www.swanksociety.com (Chicago), and making a "request" to hear "Poor Georgie", that it FINALLY dawned on me that all this time, I've been chasing my dream of songwriting, and specifically perfecting my lyricism, because maybe I'm still chasing Bill's acceptance and the hope that my "tight" lyrics will one day unite us.

Keep your ears open, hope that you listenin
Cause I'm about to take you on a George Porgie mission

2Fingaz1HeartMuchLuv.

Summer G