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Tony Adams
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Why I Had to Go to Harlem to Become an Outkast Fan
So there I am, sitting in the most awesome Hide-A-Way Lounge on Broadway in Harlem, gulping down Beam and colas and I hear this... music. Both "Heyya" and "The Way You Move" by Outkast are in heavy rotation on the juke box. I love this stuff!

My new friends Judy and Evelyn (the entirely gracious barkeep) are both fans and hinted at the fact that being an Outkast fan is somewhat controversial in their neck of the proverbial woods. But they not apologetic about it in the least. Nor am I. All I have for my snap judgement is two songs, so my glimpse of the Outkast ouvre is perhaps non-representative, but from what I've heard, Outkast could be my new favorite band.

So why did I have to go to Harlem to discover this? I suspect it has something to do with the balkanization of the music scene. Forty years ago we all would have heard this music on Top Forty am radio, and even if we were too cool to listen to Top Forty on purpose, it was pervasive enough to be unavoidable.

Now radio is essentially a wasteland which we can easily avoid, but the price we pay is a loss of a common ground. We can go through life without hearing any of the today's version of the Top Forty. Mostly this is a good thing - since the great majority of what occupies the Top Forty is sheer crap, but even so, we risk missing out on some great stuff.

I just got lucky. I was in Harlem to see the The Classical Theatre of Harlem's production of Brecht's "Mother Courage and Her Children" at the Harlem School of the Arts. My plan for my African American History Afternoon was somewhat haphazard, and as a result I found myself in the neighborhood of the theater (645 St. Nicholas Ave) about two hours early. So I wandered around, shot some pics of the brown and greystones in Sugar Hill and Hamilton Heights, wandered around some more, shot some pics of Yankee Stadium from the hill overlooking Jackie Robinson Park, wandered around some more and finally realized that if I did not find a warm place to sit down that I might end up exhausted before I got to the show. I hid away in the Hide-A-Way Lounge. I don't plan to come out of hiding any time soon.

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