No one wants to have the scraggily look around the fam on Christmas or near New Year's. So a few days before Christmas, I headed to the barbershop.
My cousin had a gang of customers waiting to get a cut.
As usual, the conversation in the shop was all over the place. We talked about the Chiefs (and why they suck), the Royals (and why they suck), TO, the NBA, BET's American Gangster series and how the CIA and Reagan were responsible for bringing coke into the black neighborhoods of America, the fact that Janet Jackson is still fine at 40, whether or not we'd believe it if anybody said they slept with Janet Jackson among other things.
My cousin had a gang of customers waiting to get a cut.
As usual, the conversation in the shop was all over the place. We talked about the Chiefs (and why they suck), the Royals (and why they suck), TO, the NBA, BET's American Gangster series and how the CIA and Reagan were responsible for bringing coke into the black neighborhoods of America, the fact that Janet Jackson is still fine at 40, whether or not we'd believe it if anybody said they slept with Janet Jackson among other things.
As you could imagine, there wasn't much quiet time. That was until ...
You know how a song will start to play on the radio, and nobody knows what it is from the first chord expect for you, and you get giddy?
Well, this first chord was the perfect chord for a barbershop full of men talking about manly stuff. I got giddy because I was anxious to see how the room reacted to the song.
The first verse kicked in. It got quiet as people figured it out. Hair stopped being cut, and people started singing:
You know how a song will start to play on the radio, and nobody knows what it is from the first chord expect for you, and you get giddy?
Well, this first chord was the perfect chord for a barbershop full of men talking about manly stuff. I got giddy because I was anxious to see how the room reacted to the song.
The first verse kicked in. It got quiet as people figured it out. Hair stopped being cut, and people started singing:
"This song's dedicated/ to my homies in that gangsta lean,/ why did you have to go so soon./ It seems like yesterday/ we were hanging round the hood./Now I'm gonna,/ keep your memory alive,/ like I homie should./ A life time of memories,/ going down the drain./ I have to keep stepping,/ cause i can't get past the pain./ I tipped my 40 to his memory ..."
Some cats actually pretended to tip the 40. I'd never seen a barbershop so quiet. Never.
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