Nostalgia
Nostalgia.
A gift and a curse.
Nostalgia is the driving force for our love for music and most things in life. From television shows, movies, and even the food we eat. It’s hard to escape. In 1999, a scientific study showed how music has a significant effect on creating memories for the listener. I am adamant we all have albums/songs in which evoke us to go back to the emotion of how we felt at that particular period in time. That is the beauty of music. When we hear specific music, at times, it can bring you back to those memories; good or bad. For example, I grew up in a Christian background; however, my parents (musicians themselves) listened to a wide range of genres. From a young age, I can remember gospel albums such as Kirk Franklin - Hero (2005), to more neo-soul cuts such as Erykah Badu - Baduizm (1998) and Dwele - Subject (2003) playing on long car journeys; records in which I still cherish to this day.
From a more personal standpoint, I have been a big hip-hop fan from a young age. I remember being 12 and listening to Kanye West's sophomore album Late Registration (2005) and being astounded by the intricate production. I would credit J. Cole - Friday Night Lights (2010) as a project also which captivated my growing love for hip-hop. Additionally, from this album, I became more familiar with Ye's production for other artists, including Common - Be (2005), which to this day, is one of the albums I admire the most. One the other hand, I have to question if I enjoy these albums for their musical qualities or because of the nostalgia attached to it? For example, my favourite Drake project is his debut album Thank Me Later (2010), critics and fans alike may place this in lower his discography ranking. Still, I often reminiscence a lot on the songs from the album such as 'Fancy,' 'Miss Me,' or 'The Resistance,' which makes it hard for me to look past any other record in the regard due to the personal meanings they all have to me. Others may argue for Take Care (2011), or Nothing Was The Same (2013), which has a more cohesive and robust sound.
Nonetheless, when it comes to the relationship between nostalgia and music, the music we listen to earlier on sub-consciously shapes our late teens and early adult years. A study published by The University of Leeds titled: 'Self-centred memories: The reminiscence bump and the self' and an article from Vice titled "The Science Behind Music's nostalgia power," memory researchers argued that not all our memories are created equal. The ones we reserve from our formative teenage years, as well as those from our early twenties, are the ones we return to and cherish the most. They call this period the "reminiscence bump" when human beings retain more memories than they will during any other life phases. My love for music stems from my parents as I would spend hours going through the hundreds (literally) of albums they had stored away: Donny Hathaway, D'Angelo, Glenn Lewis, Fred Hammond, Worship collections and many more. So I acknowledge them for the variety of music they would keep and play around my brothers and I. They were not avid listeners of rap, hence, I give recognition to my older cousins for forcefully changing to music channels when we would all gather at my nans on a Sunday. From them, I got my first introduction to rap collectives such as Dipset, The Lox, and the whole Roc-A-Fella label.
Regarding my teenage years, many memories I have with music also resonate with my older brother as we would often debate our albums of the year and argue about who introduced who first to the new artist we discovered. We shared a designated music phone which had all our favourite mixtapes unavailable on any major streaming platforms, which we would use for long journeys. My older brother and I both have similar musical memories attached to albums, which remind us of landmark occasions in our life. Visiting Jamaica for the first time in August 2017 and being able to see where my grandparents grew up was a special moment for us both. The music we listened to reflects the ventures Ocho Rios to St. Thomas and Kingston as we embarked on reuniting with family and meeting some for the first time. Daniel Caesar had just released Freudian (2017) a few days into our trip, so that album maintains a special relationship with us both.
Although, despite our love for nostalgia, it can also be our downfall. A prime example of this can be looking at the career of Nas. Undeniably one of the greatest rappers of all time, Nas has had an illustrious career. Accredited to him are 11 studio albums, 13 times Grammy nominee and curator of arguably one of the greatest hip-hop albums of all time, his debut project Illmatic (1994). Nas has released other classic albums, in my opinion, which can challenge Illmatic as his most substantial project, which included: It Was Written (1996), Stillmatic (2001), and my preferred choice, Life is Good (2012). Earlier this year, Nas announced he was "done celebrating Illmatic. While being grateful for it being a pioneering album, Nas argues "it's so crazy to celebrate one album (Illmatic) when I've made over 10, all the things I've worked on — and I've been working for so long — to celebrate one album over all else is corny to me".
But let me know your opinions, is nostalgia a gift or a curse?