i say “tryna make a dollar out of 15 cents” so often i don’t even think about digital underground anymore when i do. it’s part of the language i grew up with, at the same time that i was learning how to carry the remainder and style my mushroom cut. i activate the phrase out of reflex, like hella and waddup, cuz and melting into thizzface whenever i’m really feeling something. it perches at the corner of my lips like a toothpick. bay shit.
i started tuning into chuy gomez on KMEL when i began middle school. that beat from I Get Around slaps so hard, i could loop it endlessly. i spent entire saturdays waiting with a blank tape and my thumb on the red button for rick lee the dragon to throw it into the mix. on hindsight, it’s an inappropriate song for a 10 year old. i had no idea what it meant to put satin on someone’s panties. still, i loved that shock g verse, even more than pac’s.
i only had lunch money to my name, but i understood “tryna make a dollar out of 15 cents” immediately. it’s not even a punchline but it’s one of the earliest bars to raise my eyebrows. a vivid, clever, concise, very functional eight words that i repeated time and time again while digging for ecko shirts in the ross clearance section, while turning my flaming hots into a meal by pouring nacho cheese into the bag, while trying to make world-class projects with broke-ass budgets. i don’t think there’s a line in the entire rap universe that i’ve uttered more times. it’s a mantra.
shock g died this week. we lost dmx earlier this month, and black rob, too. it’s like everyone in the CD wallet i used to carry in my backpack is disappearing. not like i’ve had much of their music on rotation lately, but i cherish them for soundtracking my coming of age. moments from my youth now buried with the ages:
in middle school, bumping Freaks of the Industry on my discman while rolling the garbage bin to the curb. in high school, doing donuts in the logan parking lot with Whoa Remix pouring from my speakers. in harlem, sticking my head out the window to watch the ruff ryders descend down lexington with the RR Anthem on blast. all those songs were about living fast and dying young, nobody mentioned getting frail and passing alone. the rap life never prepared us for death like this.