I know this vid has made the rounds, but I’m gonna run it because hey – it’s my blog and I feel like watching this and you can kiss me on the Brooklyn side if you don’t like it! Haha. Plus I’ve been having that “J Beez Comin’ Through” bonus beat in my head all week.

Growing up in Cali, my crew was all into hip-hop; the gangster boys called us “housers” though, which derived from the dancing, gear, and music that got identified with the house clubs, where kids could go dance and style in a way that wasn’t really happening in the hip-hop spots, few as they were.

This VHS was passed around like a heavily guarded state secret – “The Brooklyn Tape”. You couldn’t tell me that I wasn’t gonna go to New York and do this. The piece aired in its entirety as a PBS documentary on the hip hop dancing culture in early 90s Brooklyn. But the outro shown here is real special. Shouts out to all the hip-hop dancers doing their thing out there – Mop Tops (featured here), Housing Authority from out west, Soul Sector, and on and on.

I don’t have too much to say – I was raised on MJ. His death has just devastated me. Thank you, Michael, for such amazing music.

edit: this, from Andrew Sullivan, I think says it well:

I loved his music. His young voice was almost a miracle, his poise in retrospect eery, his joy, tempered by pain, often unbearably uplifting. He made the greatest music video of all time; and he made some of the greatest records of all time. He was everything our culture worships; and yet he was obviously desperately unhappy, tortured, afraid and alone.

I hope his soul finds rest.