The Wake Up Show Is Back!

Wow... what a great day.

I wake up around noon and Nas is hosting a rerun of his favorite 25 videos on BET. In spite of some questionable picks -- New Edition and Bobby Brown among them -- Nas dropped some straight Memory Lane type classic hip hop, including "One Love", "Player's Ball", "Road To The Riches", "In The Ghetto", "Award Tour", and the Native Tongues posse cut -- "Buddy" (a classic Prince Paul production). Oh yeah, and he also picked the hilrarious feel-good "Pass The Dutchie" by reggae group, Musical Youth. The highlight of the show, for me though, was Cool C's "Glamorous Life", which bites so hard off MC Shan that Nas even mentions it on the show. And when the Shan video came up later in the countdown, similarities were downright blatant: same voice, same delivery, same subject matter... and both videos feature the same 80's guy-girl theme.

As if my day couldn't pack anymore heat... a few hours later VH1 broadcast a repeat of its Top 22 MCs of all time. Sure, their list doesn't exactly match my own, but they had a grip of hip hop's most prominent writers -- including Harry Allen, Kevin Powell, Toure, Elliot Wilson, and Erik Parker -- delivering all the blurbs, sounbites, accolades, superlatives, and all manner of inane . Too bad they couldn't just let this somewhat diverse group of critics loose on each other while the videos played. They made it seem like everyone was in agreement.

VH1 did their usual bang-up editing job editing all the soundbites into a chorus of agreement. VH1 has this knack for presenting very subjective material -- people's opinions about music -- and presenting it as some sort of cultural truth. It's like VH1 is trying to be the Discovery Channel of popular culture. The inclusion of Foxy Brown in the list definitely raises questions of validity, but host Fab Five Freddy was emphatic about the fact that... "Chosen by who?! ...YOU!!!" Except I seemed to have missed the part where Freddy explained exactly who "YOU" is.

By early evening, I was feeling downright exhausted from all the heavy media intake and retro-rap flashbacks. It was time to cook some veggie chili and lay off the frozen corn dogs for a few hours. After washing last nights dishes I turned on the radio and heard something I could not believe...

"Weeee'll be riiii-ight back...." ...in this sort-of ultra-polished Beach Boys type harmony.

When I left California a few years ago, the Wake Up Show had just been cancelled. Though I listened to rap since I was a little kid, the Wake Up Show was my first introduction to real hardcore, underground hip hop and exclusive white label joints, advanced pressings, and live freestyles. Sway and Tech introduced me to countless emcees and many emcees I already knew about... but didn't know were so nice on the freestyle tip.

I was shocked when the Wake Up Show got cancelled out of nowhere by KKBT. But that's how things go, right? After 10 years, the realness had to take a break and give radio listeners a chance to move on with their Saturday nights.

Now, I just moved back to Southern Cali from Oregon and never even thought to turn on the radio until about two hours ago. Never -- in my wildest wet dreams -- would I have believed what I heard tonight: the trademark "Weeee'll be riiii-ight back..." No... it couldn't be. Isn't that the commercial break outro from the Wake Up Show. I went back to slicing onions and garlic... how could the Wake Up Show be back on the air without my knowing it?

I guess that's what I get for moving to Oregon! Apparently, the Wake Up Show was picked up by its original Bay Area station, KMEL, last November. And can now be heard live each Saturday night in Southern California and live through the KMEL website. It's no longer syndicated in 30 cities. But it's still Sway and Tech and DJ Revolution and the dopest exclusive joints that a bunch of industry vets can get their hands on. Honestly, I think I was feeling tonights show even more than the shows before they went off the air. Instead of all that late 1990s backpacker material... now there seems to be all this sophisticated, ready-for-prime-time commercial radio type ish... yet still on the undergound tip. It's as if my dream has finally come true: underground emcees ditching those uninspired "Nineties" beats (think Roots, Slum Village, Premier, Evidence, etc) and get with the times (read: Timbaland, Neptunes, Kanye West, Just Blaze and other producers who combine the synth-meets-sampler-meets-instrument approach).

Damn, it's good to be back in Cali! The only thing harder to believe than the Wake Up Show being on the air was when the freestyle guests -- Kurupt and Rosco -- said they had just signed to Death Row. Say whu????? Now, I thought the return of the Wake-Up Show was hard to believe... but if Suge Knight can make a comeback after all that crazy bad publicity... I think anything is possible.

Anyway, today was on some Ice Cube level good day type vibrations, minus the fatburger, plus some very tasty veggie chili. Hit me up if you want the recipe.