Rocking The Microphone

Listening to music can do wonders for journal-ist’s diarist’s block as I found out while thinking of an interesting topic to write on, with iTunes playing my favourite tracks in the background. Turns out, the song itself could be something worthy of a few paragraphs. Like this one called ‘Freestyler’ by Bomfunk MC’s from around the time when the Internet had just about started penetrating homes in the third world.

I remember watching this video in Mumbai for the first time, on a music channel where you could dial in to request songs from a list on the telly. The year was 2000. I was in 11th grade and discovering music outside of the Bollywood Soundtrack genre thanks to cable television.

The music and lyrics (“… as I rock .. rock .. rock the .. rock the .. rock the microphone …”) were funky for sure, but the real gem was the video and its conceptualisation. I loved (and still do) the idea of a white kid with dreadlocks (that in itself was brilliant) who could control time with a button on his music player (even better) after a chance meeting with a mysterious stranger. Wish my Blackberry could have such powers conferred upon it by someone standing next to me on the tube. Imagine pausing annoying people mid-sentence or speeding up those who are slow. I could take ’selective listening’ to a whole new level with this power to control my own time-line!

Another thing that I really like about this video is watching different sets of men and women dance cool moves in interesting outfits. The ‘funk’ in Bomfunk is very cleverly evident in both.

What do you think of the song and video?