Campaign For Me To Stay When You Know That I'm Gone Right

Part two of our musical journey keeps us in the same genre and same decade, only this time it's a sung/rap collaboration instead of the other way around. I was 16 when Janet's "Velvet Rope" album came out and I remember it well. It's so funny to look back on what the sibs and I were and were not allowed to listen to growing up. Neil Diamond talking about hookers? Good. Boyz II Men singing about getting it on? Good. Oldies songs about transsexuals? Good. Any rap song in creation, regardless of the message? You're grounded. My mom has a deep hatred of all things rap, even songs that just have a cameo by a rapper. I don't understand why she loathes it so much but back then we weren't allowed to ask questions. But she was always okay with Janet. In hindsight, I don't know if she was fully aware of the content from "janet." on. "Rhythm Nation", my favorite album of all-time, was pretty much innocent in its message. I don't know if she based everything else that came out off of that album or what but she never thought twice about letting us listen to Miss Jackson. And that's hilarious considering every album since has been quite sexual in nature. VR was no different, its ode to sex talking about bondage. Honestly, I was never super psyched about any of her uber-explicit songs. Some of them feel as if they're trying too hard to be controversial, "Anytime, Anyplace" the exception. To put in perspective how long ago this album was released (aside from the fact that I was 16), people still bought CD's back then at The Virgin Megastore. Yeah. That happened. And that's where I got my copy. People (read: me) also used to watch MTV and BET constantly to see these things called music videos, sometimes recording them to these things called VHS tapes so they could be watched again. Cray cray, I know. I was one of those who favored BET because it showed a lot more R&B and Hip Hop than MTV did at the time. It was there that I saw the video for this song and heard the song for the first time. It kicked ass then and it kicks ass now.