Quiet Storm and Oldies R&B Has Made Me Delusional.

This might be a little too strict, in some people’s eyes. But not for me.

I’ve come to realize that a lot of people my age are just not hip to the oldies. When I ask a nigga if he likes old school music, he’ll say yes. And then when I ask the nigga to turn on his playlist, what does he play?

90s and early 2000s music.

NIGGA.

I smile on the outside, but on the inside I’m just dying a little on the inside. Then here I go, turning on some Teddy Pendergrass, some Rick James, some Minnie Riperton… and here the nigga goes… giving me this confused face.

“You don’t know these songs?,” I ask.

“No, I’m not familiar.”

My eye twitches and I give this uncomfortable ass smile. Clearly, I ain’t masking my disappointment.

But in my head I’m like, This will be our last time ever linking up.

Instantly, my coochie dries up like a raisin in the fucking sun. Like what were you niggas doing on y’all clean up days? Who are y’all parents? What were y’all listening to? Like where are my girlies who put music taste high on their list? It can’t just be me, right? Is that too strict?

I feel like your music taste tells me everything I need to know about you. Like too much G-Herbo and Moneybagg Yo and Lil Baby and NOTHING ELSE, tells me that you lack poetry in your bones, I don’t know. Like there’s zero sensitivity there if that is the only thing on your playlist. Where’s the Marvin Gaye? The Stevie Wonder? Do you like Innervisions more? Or are you a Songs In The Key Of Life kinda nigga? I don’t wanna hear music with a bunch of gun shots and violence in it all the time. That shit dysregulates my fucking nervous system. Let’s fuck to Marvin Gaye, okayyyy? Because truth is, I can’t be with nobody that’s gonna look at me weird if I turn on some Sammy Davis or Ella Fitzgerald. That’s gonna turn me off.

I try to be lenient sometimes, but I like what I like. You see, I want really cultured kids. I really do. My kids have to be very well versed when it comes to not only Black culture, but Black music. They will know about the works of Quincy Jones, Berry Gordy, the magic that is MOTOWN. They’re gonna be hip to Parliament Funkadelic and Earth, Wind, & Fire. Initiation starts the moment I find out I am pregnant. I even plan on naming one of my daughters Stevie. Sooooo, I’m real selective and picky around these parts. Can’t contaminate my bloodline with uncultured men. Like… no. Absolutely not.

You see, the reason a lot of niggas not romantic is because they aren’t listening to Quiet Storm R&B no more. They not taking notes from Teddy or Marvin or Michael. Just walking about calling women ‘fine shit.’

Where’s the game? Where’s the charm? Where’s the yearning? Where’s the begging?

Perhaps that is why I’m so delusional when it comes to love. I listen to too much of the love songs from the 50s all the way to the 80s. I spin I Want You and Distant Lover and Come Live With Me Angel too much. I daydream about me and my future man slow dancing to that music too much.

I daydream about conceiving to music from that era. So much so to the point where I’m stuck on my soulmate being familiar with that era. I’m sold on it. I’m already attached to the outcome I’ve created in my head LMAOOO. I already decided I wanna get pregnant to Minnie’s Inside My Love. I mean, what better lyrics to get pregnant to than Minnie crooning, “Will you come inside me?”

How romantic.

I already imagine my first dance at my wedding to be You’re My Latest, Greatest Inspiration. I even wanna play Sammy Davis’ All of You at my wedding. I wanna have a crib with my husband where the whole spot is just immersed in Black music. Vinyls on the wall. Vintage posters of our favorite artists. House just full of good music. I wanna hold my baby and sit by the record player with her, playing Stevie’s Isn’t She Lovely?, singing it to her and everything.

I wanna push my child out to old school music. Because I believe the music from that time is just so sacred and soothing and beautiful and full of delusions— just like me, lmao. It’s so poetic. It makes me cry, it makes me laugh, it makes me wanna dance. There’s something that was put in the music from that time, that is just lacking in the music today.

Truth is, I woulda folded for them niggas back then. Folded like a mothafuckin lawn chair. You said I’m your latest and greatest inspiration? You said you wanna give me head? Do you wanna have a baby??? I would’ve most definitely been a groupie bitch back then. The niggas were just too smooth, bro. Even if they were lying. Niggas done lost that art, man.

So excuse the fuck outta me if I judge you or cut you off for considering 90s music to be old school music. I’m disgusted, my nigga. Get away from me. You don’t fit in my delusions or the future I’ve curated in my head. Yuck.