---
title: "Music that shaped my youth"
description: "Set It Off was the sound of Black Girl Summer in '96"
date: 2022-12-17
tags: vignettes
---

I came of age in the late nineties and early aughts and a lot of my musical tastes reflect this.

At the time Set It Off was released I'd not been heavy into hip hop for close to a decade but the SIO soundtrack changed that for me.

Da 5 Footaz went in on this track and it's one of my favorites off the soundtrack.

## Namecallin'

Queen Latifa, for me, as a kid watching BET in the late 80s was *Ladies First* and in the 90s, *U.N.I.T.Y*. I never thought that she could be this... *hard*. Straight up big black girl slaughter on this diss track and when I first heard it, as a tall big black girl myself, took to it immediately and it was on heavy rotation in my bedroom in the Devereux Group Home Barracks.

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## Namecallin' pt. 2

This... she bodied *three* whole ass women on this track, on four different samples and I. I didn't know this existed until today as it was unreleased and shit I see why!

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