9. AaliyahAge Aint Nothing But A Number
I understood this album as much as a teenage girl can. And it was explicit. Later I realised that I’m what I call a “music / melody” person. So lyrics and rhymes, especially in hip hop, are secondary for me. You get some people who are lyric people, or rhyme people, and the music adds to their overall connection to the song. Aaliyah was one where it was both. And my aunt, Aunt Vee, would drive down from London to Devon in the summer holidays and we’d listen to this album on repeat the entire time and she would take me to Carnival. And to clubs. Because her niece lived in Devon she’d spend six weeks trying to give me my culture. We’d listen to pirate radio stations and I’d make cassettes of radio stations so I could listen to them in my room. And she introduced me to dancehall, to soca, all of it. Her neighbour was a reggae artist called Audrey Jordan and her son, Neville Jordan, played football for Holland. This was a very just a very different world from Devon.
I mean the whole thing was amazing; being scooped up from Devon and listening to Aaliyah and then going to clubs. Listening to all these R&B artists, it was just phenomenal. And then I would have to go home. And I would cry, I mean I would cry and cry, clutching my cassettes. I wouldn’t want to leave because she’d shown me the world! The summer was spent in London. We’d be hanging out with people having barbeques in parks. That smell of food cooking outside and the sounds that you only get from summer in London in a West Indian community. It was transformative, nothing less. That was the album that serviced that time. I was a late teen then so I wasn’t super, super underage I guess. I’ve even got a picture of us together at SW1 Club I think. She told me when I was much older that she felt it was her mission to make sure her niece knew at least some of her culture. Can you imagine taking on that responsibility? I spoke to her last night, actually. She had a stroke about a week ago. She follows everything that I’m doing. She knows that she’s the reason. Because I’d come home from London with records, with cassettes and a constant reminder of London and of music. And she told me yesterday that she is really proud of me. She would come to my gigs like early on when I was still DJing in pubs and playing vinyl, just to be my cheerleader. Sometimes a bit too much even, like where I’d be saying, ‘Auntie, I’m trying to play here!" She’d do this amazing thing where she would just rave; I mean she was a raver. London raving is so different to raving anywhere else, just the time and the dedication. I mean she’d dance the whole time and she’d come behind the booth, chatting away to people and even to me, ‘I love this one, do you remember this?’ as I was saying, ‘Can we talk after this?’ while I was trying to mix. She was just so enthused, just like always. Shout out to Aunty Veronica!
