Social media will always find a way to make the most out of the most mundane of days. Monday was no different after the hashtag #3AlbumsThatChangedMyLife started to make it’s way up Twitter’s Trending charts. Users from all demographics listed the trio of works that most impacted them personally.
With that in mind, let me run down a few albums critically important to me and why they hold weight, since Twitter’s no place for detailed responses. The choices aren’t the only LPs that impacted me, but they are ones I can remember resonating with me years ago and they still hold a place today. My answers are abridged versions of autobiographical entries that could form a book one day, but you’ll get the point. And after you’re done reading, feel free to chime in with the projects that helped direct your lives, too.
Nas Illmatic
What Eric B. and Rakim created, Nas cemented with his 1994 debut. By that I mean, I can still remember being mesmerized the first time I heard Eric B. and Rakim’s “Check out My Melody” — and the same applies for Doug E. Fresh’s “The Show,” except I was way too young to process what dope music was. Hearing “Check Out…” was one of those moments where time stood still, the world fell away to the sides and nothing existed other than me and the music.
Nas managed to replicate that same experience for me with Illmatic, beginning with the album’s first track, “New York State of Mind.” DJ Premier’s hard-hitting keys paired with Nasir’s vivid storytelling pulled my mind in so far deep there was no turning back. My relationship with rap was already strong but Illmatic was the album that earned my 100% commitment to hip-hop culture for life.
Common’s One Day It’ll All Make Sense
When this one dropped back in 1998, I was finishing up my last semester or so of college and shifting into real adulthood. And by real adulthood, I mean both starting my career and being on the verge of becoming a dad. To be honest, neither me nor my daughter’s mother knew exactly what the future held for us so we were having a tough time figuring out how we would go about parenting.
It was Com’s “Retrospect for Life” that helped push both of us to the realization that having and raising our daughter meant more than degrees, money, and maybe even our own personal comfort. When he closes off his final verse with “let’s have this boy,” those words were the final little push we needed to go from hesitant to wanting to make this new life happen. As it turns out, that shorty has been one of the key forces in making me into the man I am today and I have Com to thank, even if it’s indirectly.
Tupac’s Me Against The World
If there was ever an album that felt like “this is my life right now,” Tupac’s Me Against the World definitely held the spot for me. The 1995 release was the one where Pac began to come into his own and be comfortable with the multi-faceted role he occupied as a self-proclaimed thug, a lady’s man, a revolutionary thinker and young man forced to do battle with his demons. The project came about as I was entering my early 20s and still figuring out the direction for my life while watching friends lose control of theirs. Some were lost to the streets, others were swallowed by the jail system and a few passed away. Then there was me, with one foot in college while the other had a toe still extended in the streets. And, there with me was Tupac’s third album to articulate what I was going through.
For every playful moment on MATW like the girl-chasing “Temptations” or the celebratory “Old School,” there were darker numbers like “Lord Knows” and “Outlaw” that signified how hard coming of age of a young black male could be. I don’t know that it exactly changed my life so much as the LP proved to be a point of relief from real life tensions and helped guide me when I came upon forks in the road. I wasn’t walking that road along or at least not in silence because I had Pac and his music there with me.
