It was the first time you heard a particular note, drum beat or electronically created sound that made your ears tingle, your heart skip a beat and resonated with your soul. This is “My Song” – a series where the music that makes the person is spotlighted. James Bullock writes about a song that shaped his listening habits from the time he was child until now. .
Netflix continued the trend of housing some of the best original series to air over the few years with “The Get Down”. The series focuses not only on the beginning stages of hip-hop on the east coast, but also the characters involved being influenced greatly by the music that was about to or already had reached its zenith. While the plot (thus far as only half of the season has been released) looks to usher in what audiophiles associate as the first great rap boom, the soundtrack is that of the time and predates the genre’s popularity.
Though I’m an 80s baby and a 90s kid, I have a great appreciate for the music that came before the stuff I listen to on a daily basis because it essentially laid the foundation to what “speaks” to me from a musical perspective. A lot of what plays throughout the series harkens back to the days of my childhood, riding around with my dad on a Saturday afternoon listening to whatever he had on the radio including Earth, Wind & Fire’s “Shining Star”, “Superfly” by Curtis Mayfield, and one of my favorite songs of all time, War’s “Slippin’ Into Darkness”. The latter established my love for songs that tell a story; that don’t shy away from the dark reality that faces individuals who lose loved ones, family members, and friends. It’s something that I would have to face as I got older. Just like the characters in “The Get Down”, the power of music can truly open one’s eyes in regards to their own potentially closed perspective and the world around you.
