The Story of Us AKA How I Became An Arrested Development Fan
In the early 90s, I became a big fan of a hip hop group from Atlanta. They were known for their somewhat unorthodox fashion choices, had a bunch of hits on the radio, and they were all over MTV. Of course, I am referring to Kris Kross, the miggedy-miggedy macks who called people wiggedy-wiggedy wack.
Yes, Kris Kross. Hey, they were basically the same age as me and I loved those guys. Loved them. I can't even tell you how many times I played their tape Totally Krossed Out. So what does that have to with that other Atlanta-based group that was all over MTV, had a bunch of hits on the radio, and made unorthodox fashion decisions? Well....
Like I said, I was a nut for Kris Kross. So when "Jump" hit the radios, I had to have a copy of it, but the problem was the radio station in Omaha rarely played it despite "Jump" being a big radio hit. And this might shock you, but Omaha didn't have an "urban" radio station in the early 90s, so you basically had to bide your time on the top 40 station (where have you gone Sweet 98?) if you wanted to hear a rap song.
So this is what happened. I was listening to the radio, tape ready, and one of the DJ's said something like "coming up soon, "Jump" from Kris Kross." Problem was, it was getting close to my bedtime. So I came up with an ingenious solution- I stuck a tape in my tape player, waited as long as I could, and then hit record and let it roll while I laid in bed and dreamt about NES games, GI Joe's, and so forth....
So, I woke up the next morning, looking for my Kris Kross song. I played the tape through on my Walkman (or a cheaper version of one), fast forwarding every now and again, and much to my distress, there was no Kris Kross to be found. However, there was a rap song, which was guaranteed to catch my ear as it was rare to hear any rap on Omaha radio. And not only that, but it was a really good rap song that seemed to be called "Tennessee." So I played it, rewound, played it again, rinse, repeat. This was a really good song! But who is it?
So I then asked my friend about it, who was a little more in with rap at that time (I basically knew of MC Hammer, LL Cool J, Young MC, Kris Kross, Tone Loc, Fresh Prince, and that's about it.) He told me who he thought they were, but beyond that I didn't know much. So I had my dubbed tape, a possible name of the group, and that was about it.
Fast forward a bit to summer, a summer where I would stay up and watch Yo! MTV Raps with Dr. Dre and Ed Lover, which was basically hip hop 101 to a young kid like me who was just getting into things. To this day, people claim that 1987 was the greatest year in hip hop history, and they might be right, but 1992 wasn't a bad year to get into things either. You had newer acts like Black Sheep, Redman, DAS EFX, House of Pain, 2Pac, Pete Rock & CL Smooth, and so forth emerging, and you had more established acts who all dropped classic singles around this time that were still in heavy rotation, such as EPMD, Public Enemy, LL Cool J, and Digital Underground. I would just lay there and soak it up like a sponge, although X-Clan used to kind of scare me as a young white kid!
To top 1992 off, you had Arrested Development debuting, with "Tennessee" and "People Everyday" in heavy rotation on MTV. I naturally loved those videos, so I saved up my lawn-mowing money and picked up their tape (some time after I picked up Kris Kross of course). I still remember the cashier at good ole K-Mart telling me this was a great album, to which I replied "I know" despite never hearing anything but the singles. (Social interactions have never been my strong point.) But I loved that tape, and of course I still do- I can even remember the liner notes of the tape having a unique smell, if that's not too weird.... If it is, pretend you never read it. Now I will admit that I wasn't immediately hooked- it did take a little while to soak in, which I find is pretty common with a lot of great art.
So in a nutshell, that is how I became an AD fan. If you are here, I'd love to hear how you became a huge AD fan, even if it's as simple as "heard it on the radio, loved it, boom." I don't know if I would've become such a huge fan without finding them by accident- my hunch is I would've since the video was in heavy rotation and obviously the music is classic- but it did add a bit of a sense of discovery in my mind.
(Note: In case you are not familiar, "The Story of Us" is the title of an AD song on Heroes of the Harvest, which I think makes perfect sense for this post!)
