This Jill Scott Clone

My headphones serve two purposes when I am wearing them in public: to keep my music contained to my little sphere, and to ward off possible interlopers, trying to vibe off of my groove. The former is a beautiful thing when I’m listening to Jay-Z’s “99 Problems…” in the 12th Street Methodist Church lobby, and the latter serves me well in the New York City subway. Both are very valid reasons to me, and neither one involves bothering others.

So why is it that I’m sitting in the public library trying to concentrate on writing a blog entry (not this one) and I can’t focus because the rube across the room from me is blasting some hip-hop jams at the highest possible volume for her headphones to handle? You know what I mean, when you can hear the static from the high decibel level and you only hope no brain damage is being done, along with the eardrum damage that is now unavoidable. Talk about blowing up yo speakers!

When did I become such an old fogie? Time was when I would have been blasting alongside this Diana Ross wannabe across the room. I remember my Afro days, when it was hard, but not impossible, to fit that headgear on without messing up my ‘do. But every single day I would do just that as I walked to and from my job delivering flyers door to door for thr Philadelphia Vision Center. Hey, they were paying me under the table. Why wouldn’t I jam while on the job? Most days I would walk for miles anyway to drop the flyers off in a particular radius in neighborhoods far and wide. Music was my friend and homey on those trips.

And I would amp up the volume, too. Janet would be singing to me about what she would be doing if she was my girl, and I would be nodding along. Sade would be telling me that what we had was no ordinary love and I would believe it. Snoop Dogg would be rapping about his exploits in the bedroom and I would imagine he was filling me in because we were buddies. It was easy to do because it was like they were right there in my ears. So, yeah, I know how this Lauryn Hill poseur across the room feels.

But, and I hate to admit this, I’m older and wiser now. I know the beauty of the nuance in music, and how you can hear the layers better when you turn down the volume a little on your beats by dre $200 dollar headphones. Although, at the same I envy this Jill Scott clone, in her too-tight jeans and attitude to match. I envy her sense of personal style while she is oblivious to the stares of other patrons sitting in our chairs and soundly judging her in our heads. She doesn’t care, and on some level that’s kind of cool.

Sam