Back in the day—late ’80s, maybe early ’90s—some of my best memories were made up in New Haven with my cousins. Every time I went, I had one mission: come back home with a fresh mixtape.
Now New Haven isn’t exactly next door to New York, but if you angled the radio just right—halfway hanging out the window—you could catch those NYC stations. I can’t even remember if it was BLS or KISS, but it didn’t matter. The DJ would be in the zone, blending records, and you already knew… this was gold.
We’d sit there with our fingers hovering over the pause button like it was life or death. The second a commercial came on—click. Silence. Then you had to stay locked in, ready to hit record again the moment the DJ came back. No second chances. No rewind to fix it. You either caught it clean… or you lived with it.
And we’d do that all night.
Trying to fill up a 90-minute cassette—Side A, then flipping it over to Side B like it was a ritual. Timing everything just right, making sure you didn’t miss a drop, a transition, a moment. It wasn’t perfect, but that was part of the magic. You were building something in real time.
I was living in Dallas back then, so bringing those tapes home felt like bringing a piece of another world with me. It wasn’t the clean, professionally done mixtapes where the DJ handled everything for you… this was hands-on. Raw. Personal.
And honestly? I wouldn’t trade those tapes for anything.
Because more than the music, it was the experience—being there with my cousins, locked in, creating something together—that made every single mixtape special.
Troy aka V33P