Eye Candy-Erykah Badu-Cover Girl Edition

I'm a day one Erykah fan and wanted to share my experience of meeting her back in the mid-90's. In 1997 I and a few buddies of mine pretty much snuck back stage at the Smokin Grooves Concert in Milwaukee to record footage and interviews for our public access shows. After a small search I found Erykah's dressing room and simply walked in. She was sitting comfortably on a couch. Trust me when I tell you that she is even more beautiful in person. I introduced myself, told her about my public access show and asked for an interview. She declined the interview but told be she would do some "drops" for it instead. Afterwards she autographed a few items for me, gave me her address and told me to be sure to send her a copy of the show.

Insane Milwaukee Rap Article

Who would have thought that Europe had an eye on Milwaukee rap back in the 80's?  This was an article from Issue 20 of a UK mag called Soul Underground, published in 1989.

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Thank You Curly!

I have been a hardcore fan of the Harlem Globetrotters for as long as I can remember. In my much younger days I would be so excited when they would make an appearance on television. For a kid like me they were larger then life. When I was around 12 or 13 years old, I begged my father to take me to see them play. He never did, and later in life he told me he didn't care much for the HG's because while he was enlisted in the army in Germany before I was born, he missed my mother and wanted to call her but the army would not let him and instead made all the soldiers go to some gym to watch the HG's play. I could just picture my father in the stands pissed off because he couldn't talk to his woman so I guess it made sense.  Fred "Curly" Neal was easily the most recognizable (by means of his signature bald head) and my favorite player on the team but by the time I became old enough to go see them live on my own, Curly had retired.  He and the rest of the Globetrotters were the best thing to ever happen to basketball as far as I am concerned and showed the world how black excellence is done. Thank you Curly!

Diggers Delight - Darrell D's Rap/R & B Tees

Being the collector that I am, it is only right that I share a small portion of my rap concert tour t-shirts and a few other collectable tees I have. These are some of my rarest gems that I've acquired over the years and some hold a lot of value.

Soon after the passing of Jam Master Jay, Adidas released a limited amount of tribute Superstar sneakers that Jay's own sons had a hand in designing. They were limited to 5000 pairs worldwide and were only released in Tokyo Japan and New York City. I just happened to be in NYC and treated myself to 2 pairs. The shirt pictured here was also available in limited quantities and  accompanied the sneakers. Yep, got 2 of those too. I actually have never seen anyone else with this tee which makes it even more of a collectable.

Autographed flavor!

As you can already tell, i'm a huge RUN-DMC fan. This concert tee was from 2000, the very last time RUN-DMC performed here in Phoenix. It was a full house at the America West Arena downtown. No disrespect to anyone else on the bill but all I cared about was seeing RUN_DMC & Jam Master Jay!! They performed mid-show and when they were done, I left.  It was still a good line-up though.

Slum Village was also on this tour.

Bought this in 2006, the last time Mr. Brown came to town. Read more about that show here.

Maybe it's just me but there's something cool about how cheap some of these concert tees were produced. Erykah never disappoints and I check for here as much as possible. This shirt was from the "Mama's Gun" tour. Classic!

No i'm not an Aerosmith fan, I simply wanted this shirt because this was the very last tour that RUN-DMC was a part of. Sadly, they had to leave the tour due to the death of Jam Master Jay. He passed 2 weeks before they were supposed to perform in Phoenix.

  

Super rare joint from the mid 80's.

From the 1988 Dope Jam Tour that had a line-up that was insane!! Check it out here.

More autographed heat!