My friend Tommy Kent shared a post on Facebook this evening that is some targeted marketing on Facebook, and extremely tempting at that. It was a face mask featuring some of hip hop’s most famous tape and CD spines.

Yeah, the purchase finger got real itchy.

So, instead of insta-buying, I went to work in Spotify throwing these classics all into one playlist, including the additional albums on the shirt versions. This will be my work music for the next week or so, in all likelihood, and a workout list for much longer than that.

The playlist is 35 hours long, and 1,000s of hours of my youth. I was firmly on Team West Coast, because Hit Em Up was the greatest battle rap of all time. I was more Run DMC than I was Beastie Boys, in they way I am more Marvel than DC. Both are still awesome. I didn’t get into Wu-Tang until college, but still remember finding a used Wu hoodie at a resale and I wore that shit for years. I may still have it in the back of a closet somewhere. I still remember grabbing the ATLiens album used at Positively Fourth Street in Charleston.

Most of these were out well before my college days, but my roommate and I straight up abused that CD trade-in program they had, along with this new technology called CD-R. Then came the Napster days, and the subsequent ban thanks to Dr. Dre. Hey, at least I got his autograph. So many memories.

I try not to be “things from my youth were the best” guy. I understand we all have something is us that makes us want to believe the music, movies, sports, etc. from our junior high/high school years was the best there ever was. I’m aware of this inherent need to make this true, and it that it can’t always be true as we are all different ages with different opinions. But I swear, this was the best era of hip hop.

Enjoy, and keep yo head ringing.