Editor’s note: The following article is an op-ed, and the views expressed are the author’s own. Read more opinions on theGrio.
It’s 2024 in African America and that means, naturally, those of us of a certain age will be looking back at the cultural artifacts that have shaped our lives from 10, 15 and even 25 years ago. You see, for people like me — and this is mind-blowing — 25 years ago, I was a bill-paying, decision-making, tax-paying adult. I was still in college, and turning 20 years old so the pop culture of the day ruled my life. This brings us to the point of today’s entry into a series of sermons titled: “You Is Old.”
Destiny’s Child’s SECOND album, their breakthrough album, “The Writings on the Wall,” turns 25 years old this year. Let that sink in. A group that features Beyoncé, Kelly Rowland, and my personal fave Letoya Luckett (as well as LaTavia Roberson — can’t forget her) released an album before the turn of the millennium.
Whew, chile … the ghetto.
Look, I realize I’m jumping the gun a little bit; “The Writings on the Wall” was released in July 1999, so we have a few more months before we’re celebrating anniversaries. But I was in my car yesterday listening to some jams and “Say My Name” came on, and I was like, “Kids, this song came out when Daddy was in college” and then it hit me, I was in college in the 1990s. Like, the 1900s. Yowza.
That means songs like “Say My Name,” “Bills, Bills, Bills” and “Bug-A-Boo” are classics now, maybe? For what it’s worth, “Bug-A-Boo” and “Bills, Bills, Bills” would break the Internet today. I remember the call-in radio conversations about those songs on Atlanta radio and that was a thing. In 2024, not only would those jams be used as explainers for why Black women are preordained to be spinsters but also as lyrical proof of how Black women don’t appreciate the kingdom of Black men. Oh, what a time it would be….
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