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One's mind, once stretched by a new idea, never regains its original dimensions.
— Oliver Wendell Holmes

I can write a rhyme where nothing rhymes.
— Priest (Antipop Consortium)

I used to spend my early mornings with a couple named Balthasar and Pebbles. Don't worry, it was strictly platonic. They were always good for a laugh, and man, could they talk. I would mostly listen as they rambled on about celebrity gossip and Foxy Brown's wardrobe. One of their favorite pastimes was to call up people at the same time each morning (7:16 a.m.) and convince them that they had been fired, were in serious credit card debt, or had contracted Chlamydia. We had good times.

In the afternoons, I'd hang out with Ramiro. I called him the Freakin' Puerto Rican, which he didn't seem to mind. Fiercely proud of his heritage, he would shout his opinions from his own private soapbox, his piercing voice more potent than an afternoon cup of coffee. It was his world, and we were all just living in it, as far as he was concerned. If he liked the latest Puff Daddy tune and he wanted to sing along, well, he would.

I grew up on Jam'n 94.5, Boston's #1 for hip-hop and R&B. Actually, "grew up" may not be fair, because the station really came into its own when I was already well on my way to being a well-adjusted, if not abundantly cool, teenager. But Jam'n played a huge role in expediting the maturation of my musical taste, if only because it reaffirmed every stereotype I had about hip-hop. Through its never-ending loops of catch phrases and crunk beats, I learned that the music was indeed the best party soundtrack around --and nothing more.

When other stations had been exhausted, Jam'n was always the first place to turn for my friends and I, because there was sure to be another top 40 hit that we'd heard a dozen times already that week. We would use words like "jiggy" in everyday conversation and blast the beats in our cars as we cruised past the new Jordan's Furniture on Route 9. But when we got home, most of us left the music behind, treating it like the promiscuous girlfriend you can't bring home to mom (speaking metaphorically of course, my experience with such women is marginal at best). For all its infectiousness, the real reason I think we listened to radio hip-hop was because it allowed us to be people we weren't. We could freely toss around sexual innuendos (if not outright discussions of anatomy) and masochistic boasts while in reality we would often choose books over beats.

So I can understand why my parents disapproved of this music. They didn't want me to masquerade as one of these unsavory characters, and so shook their heads when they caught me tuning in to the midday mix on my bedroom stereo. To them, hip-hop was just a silly fad, something that didn't even qualify as real music. Wasn't I above this? Didn't I have a brain? It was quite the irony that back in 5th grade, during my school's annual Readathon (of which I was a perennial all-star), a school-sponsored reworking of Salt n' Pepa's "Shoop" was the highlight of the talent show. Had they seen my class mates fake-limp around stage with Cub Scout bandanas tied to their foreheads, shouting "Read" in place of the title word, they might have wondered where it had all gone wrong. My tour-de-force performance of the same song years later at a youth group dance? A sign of Armageddon, surely. Not that I regret it for a moment; whether it was my pitch-perfect lip-sync, breathtaking dance moves, or the shiny brown vest I wore, that was indisputably one of the best nights of my life. Sometimes, parents just don't understand.

But deep down, I knew they were right. This music was beneath me in a lot of ways. I couldn't fully commit to such a base form of entertainment. There would always be a special place in my heart for the Thong Song, but wasn't it time to move on? And move on I did, to the greener pastures of Sublime, The Band, Ben Harper, and even (for a brief, regrettable period) The Barenaked Ladies. Now here was music that spoke to me, and didn't seem like a slightly catchier porn soundtrack.

It wasn't as if I stopped listening to hip-hop. A complete break would have been unavoidable in a culture increasingly saturated with pimps and hoes, and besides, I had spent all that time memorizing "Rapper's Delight". But by college, I had mostly given up on it as an art form, as anything worth my time past the minutes spent in my fraternity bathroom. (As far as I could tell, Snoop and 50 Cent had taken up residence in the foul space.)

Something brought me back, though, and I don't know if I could pinpoint a moment. It may have been during a night of drinking when Atmosphere's Lucy Ford EPs were spinning off in the distance. Or when a friend introduced me to Aesop Rock's "Daylight". But at some point, hip-hop became a dominant force in my life once again, this time occupying a far different role from before. Where I once used rock to ease my frustrations or to make me think, I was turning to hip-hop to compensate for whatever I lacked.

Once I was in, there was no turning back. My obsessive nature affords me little self-control when it comes to obtaining documented proof of my tastes. Besides, the prospect of anxiously awaiting a new release was enticing, something I hadn't felt for quite awhile, as many of the bands I liked were six feet under, or at least acted like they were. Dead white men strumming guitars, a friend had characterized them. I jumped from one artist to the next, finding a veracity I had not known existed, eager to make up for lost time.

I had always been drawn to art that was uncompromising, that told its story even if it meant risking scorn. I saw this in the Beat writers, especially. I discovered this same unwavering self-confidence as the ethos of underground hip-hop (Eminem deserves just as much credit in this respect, as long as we disregard much of his latest album). This was angry music, yet its purveyors could communicate with the personality of a bedside crooner if they so chose. Unlike much of the indie rock I was enamored with, hip-hop was straightforward and honest, insular without being self-consciously obtuse. Well, for the most part; I'll tackle Anticon at another time.

The criticisms of underground hip-hop, as I've heard them, have been that the production is weak and the rappers leave a lot to be desired when compared to free-flowing commercial MCs like Ludacris and Nelly. Both of these have validity at times; whether it's because the artists try to do too much with their limited tools, embrace the term 'concept' too fully, or simply because they make music without regard for popular notions of style and beauty, notes from the underground can often be tough to digest. However, their aesthetic is fully in line with the admittedly skewed way I view myself as someone a little detached from the mainstream. Easily swayed, I related to the stark personalities aching to be heard, their voices brimming with fierce desire and subversive thought.

Where I had left behind rhymes about bling and bitches there was now a whole movement built on education, emotion, and politics. This is not to say that these aspects never existed before a few years ago, but aside from a brief brush with Public Enemy, I was unaware of most of it. It would be untrue to say that my affinity for underground hip-hop stemmed completely from its laudable ideals. There is certainly no shortage of self-promotion and appreciation of the female form among lesser known MCs, but I suppose I have been able to embrace this material as long as it is delivered with some degree of integrity, and often, with tongue planted firmly in cheek.

It wasn't enough for me to have re-found this passion for hip-hop. As with everything else in my life, I needed confirmation. Though there were a few friends who caught on at the same time I did, many continued to dismiss hip-hop as black music, as dull and uninventive, or, like my former self, as party music that did not need to be taken as anything more. To analyze it, in short, would be to take the fun out of it.

My conflicting view of what hip-hop can be is simultaneously a source of pride and one of derision. In reality, I can't be trusted to make any kind of mixtape for others, as inevitably the music ends up being more what I'd like to hear than what might please my listener. On a recent road trip to Las Vegas, I was entrusted by friends to supply the bulk of the music. Inevitably, I failed at this task, because my stab at creating a soundtrack that might prepare us for low-stakes poker and abuse of free drink privileges was much different from what they had in mind. My friends don't want me to think too hard about which Hieroglyphics song to add to my mix-for that matter, they don't want the song on there at all. My audition as a DJ was mostly a resounding failure, and the radio soon rendered my opinions mute.

It's a two-way street, of course; if I'm to expect others to appreciate and even embrace my musical choices, I have to ward off my innate stubbornness to accept the fact that maybe, just maybe, their opinions have some validity as well. Thus, every so often, I do allow myself to enjoy the many virtues of the latest club-banger, and I think my exposure to other forms of hip-hop has enabled me to better appreciate the mainstream take on the music. I realize there is a tendency among fans of "alternative" music in any genre to eschew popular music solely because of its popularity. This is a practice I have found myself succumbing to, and I try my best to avoid it. Still, I question why others don't seem to put forth the same effort in forcing themselves from their own musical bubbles.

Can my friends (and this is not all of them, just some) not appreciate abstract hip-hop because they are simply too accustomed to the choreographed simplicity we are bombarded with at every turn? Do they have an idea in their heads that hip-hop can only be party music, and we shouldn't try to take anything more from it? It is interesting that as rock music continually reinvents itself, no one bats an eye. Butif hip-hop strays from the Mad-Lib-style "insert pop culture/bitch reference here" mold, all of a sudden it's too weird. People seem to give hip-hop too little credit for expanding boundaries, and thus are left right where they want to be, grinding with a sorority girl on the dance floor. These diluted expectations are at least partly the result of media representations of the music, and especially of its purveyors, both popular and not. Now, even if this is true, it does not excuse me for trying to expand my friends' minds on a trip to Las Vegas. Everything has its place, and Vegas is most certainly not the locale for deep thought.

While I may never be able to convert various friends to my preferred brand of hip-hop, I will continue to be relentless in my quest to re-shape my parents' minds. Though I have made the leap from ignorance to adulation, mom and dad continue in their futile attempts to ward off any notions that hip-hop is actual music, their perceptions clearly still guided by their limited exposure to the genre through commercial media.

I've conjured up two main ways to explain the music's intricacies to my dad. As he listens to the soothing sounds of The Kingston Trio, I can remind him of how, exactly, poor Charlie came to be stuck on the MTA. As Mos Def might tell him, it's because the DAMN MAN raised transportation costs and spit on the working class once again, leaving the poor worker to toil in the underground for the rest of his waking days. Obviously, Charlie is black. Hip-hop is simply another form of protest music, though perhaps one not as conducive to growing long hair and lying on McGovern '72 blankets strumming a banjo (I have pictures).

If this appeal to his background in civil liberties law doesn't work, I'll have to exploit his appreciation of history. As Q-Tip noted on "Excursions", "Well daddy, don't you know that things go in cycles?". Hip-hop is acutely aware of the music that makes up its past, which it borrows from liberally. While it might be difficult to get him to understand the kinship between Ella Fitzgerald and Black Thought, or to explain the intricacies of sampling, it's worth a shot. I might call this respect for hip-hop's forebears; my father would likely dismiss it as plagiarism.