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Wednesday

by James Anthony Zoccoli (Jaz), Actor/Writer of Wiggerlover [white boy + black dad = grey areas]

LEFT, RIGHT, LEFT, TOGETHER

“Now I am Jimmy Z & I’d like to say Hello
To the black & the white, the red & the brown, the purple & yellow.
But first…”

If shoes make the man, then mine are Boogie Shoes.

I was hardly born with two left feet, but, even still, it takes patience, pratice & diligence to Get on the Good Foot, like James Brown.

I always loved to dance & sing, but I remember the first time the funk hit my backbone & went straight to my head.

First there was the cowbell, then the bassline, then the synthesized strings & next thing you know…

It was like that moment in The Jerk when Steve Martin’s character Navin R. Johnson is laying in bed - dejected from learning that he was adopted by his Black family & realizing that he’s going to be White forever - & as he starts to eat his Birthday Twinkie while listening to “Music in a Mellow Mood” on the Radio.

“It’s unbelievable. I’ve never heard music like this before. It speaks to me.  Now, watch…”

His toes start to tap, his fingers start to snap, & the beat of the Mantovani Orchestra sweeps him away.

“Well, if this is out there, just think how much more is out there! This is the kind of music that makes me want to go out there & be somebody!!”

The same phenomena occurred with me at the Rainbo Roller Rink in 1979 when I heard Rapper’s Delight by the Sugar Hill Gang.

As soon as I heard it, I threw my hands in the air & started waving them around like I just didn’t care!

For the rest of the year, I walked around goin’, “I said a-hip-hop, the hippie, the-hippie, to the hip-hip-hop, a-ya’ don’t stop, the rock it, to the bang-bang boogie, say up jumped the boogie to the rhythm of the boogie the beat…”

& ever since, I have dug rappin’.  Don’t get me wrong, I’m no rapper.  In fact, I’ll be the first to admit that I’m a whack MC.

But, I do love Hip-Hop music in all its forms - because Hip-Hop IS music in all its forms.

[Rhythm + Blues + Rock + Soul + Disco + Jazz + X + Y + Z = HIP-HOP]

& on top of all that, Hip-Hop was the gateway into a lot of other musical styles for me, personally.  It was an education, even.  My mom listened to Steely Dan, but I didn’t think those guys were that cool until I heard their music sampled by De La Soul.

Don’t get me wrong, I liked Carol King & Kansas just as much I liked Rakim & Boogie Down Productions.

I listened to Electric Light Orchestra & Vicious Beat Posse.  Both.

I liked both XTC AND XClan.

The Doobie Brothers AND The Jungle Brothers.

I did ’The Safety Dance‘ AND ‘The Smerphies Dance’.

I had Kool & the Gang on 8 Track; then, Heavy D & the Boyz on 45 and Bruce Hornsby & the Range on Cassingle.

My eclectic interests made it difficult for me to pick a style, which made it difficult for kids at school to label me & sometimes it even made it difficult for my friends to understand me, too.

Until years later, when Tupac sampled That’s Just the Way It Is for his song Changes.

Then, I was finally able to say: “See y’all?  It told you that song was fresh.”

Play that Funky Music, White Boy.  Let’s Dance.