A CD by and for Black College Students

By Dominic J. Hunter
Black College Wire

It’s about time an LP about the black college experience was created.

Though it won’t be slapped into everyone’s CD deck, "Blackberry Volume 1: The Soundtrack of Your Black College Experience" clearly addresses the issues of today’s black college students.

The CD released by The HBCU Network is something we can relate to: it is created by black college students for black college students. Wale Oyijide, a recording artist with a few underground albums, produced it. The album contains many unique sounds in its 20 tracks. It has the traditional rap and R&B, but it also has sounds of reggae and salsa, providing the listener with songs one can really dance to.

Though most of the tracks are attempted club bangers, the album also has many empowering songs. Women get much attention with tracks like "Girlfriend," which tells women to "not let anyone hold them down," and "Take Your Time," which tells the story of a girl poorly raised who rushes into sex and ultimately dies.

Surprisingly, the best track isn’t even a song. The spoken-word piece "Let’s Talk" forces the listener to really think about a lot of today's issues and makes one realize that a lot of what's going on "ain't cute."

The album has multiple interludes that poke fun at the everyday stresses of the black college student, such as enrollment lines, roommates who borrow all your things, and the creation of the Students Bill of Rights.

If you plan to see any of the artists featured on the CD on the record-store shelves, you are clearly listening to the wrong CD. As featured artist Black Sultan puts it on his track "No One But Me," most of these artists are "the greatest rappers that you ain’t never heard of." They come from schools such as Morehouse and Morris Brown colleges and Howard, Tuskegee and Southern universities.

Though it might not be a CD that you would ride down the strip nodding your head to, "BlackBerry Vol. 1" should not be overlooked.

Dominic J. Hunter is a student at Southern University who writes for The Southern Digest.

Posted Oct. 4, 2004