Janet Jackson: Roller Disco
There’s a great story in Questlove’s memoir “Mo Meta’ Blues,” where he tells about a time he went rollerskating with Prince in the mid 90s. Questlove was at a Grammys after party with Eddie Murphy when he received a text message from someone in Prince’s crew asking if he wanted to go rollerskating. So naturally, you’re gonna say yes, right.
Questlove happened to be standing next to Eddie Murphy at the time and asked him if he wanted to go rollerskating with Prince. Eddie Murphy didn’t care too much about rollerskating, but that didn’t matter. He had to go just to see Prince on a pair of roller-skates.
Questlove and Eddie Murphy showed up to the roller rink around midnight and about 1:00 AM Prince strolled in with his crew. Prince was wearing purple. Of course. Prince then took out a case, like a special case. The holy Grail.
Inside the case were his roller-skates. Purple roller-skates. Prince put on the roller-skates and begun to skate around the rink with sparks, shooting out the back of his skates. The wheels had lights on them that lit up when they spun. Could you imagine how fucking amazing that would be to see?
Imagine it's the 80s. You're wearing the shortest of short shorts and the most colorful of T-shirts. Your roller skates are your favorite pastel color or maybe even purple. Your wheels are clear with lights that shine as the wheels spin.
Imagine sparks shooting out of the back of your roller skates as you strut around the rink to the music. The music in this playlist is what you'd want to hear at a roller disco in the 80s.
Around the time I read Janet Jackson's memoir, “True You,” I got the idea for this playlist because of a friend of mine, Rosanna. My wife, Teresa made a video of Rosanna skating with her best moves and it gave me this idea. I saw Rosanna wearing these rad red 80s short shorts with a white T-shirt and the most colorful skates. Incredible!
One thing that's in every small town across America is a roller rink. These roller rinks helped shape the minds of young future pop stars and created the most influential music in history.
It’s the 80s. What music would you be skating to? This is dedicated to all musician’s memoirs and autobiographies that I have been reading this year who spent their childhoods in roller discos.
This is my roller disco.
Comments
Post a Comment