In my novel Kiss the Sky, each chapter begins with a song. Over the course of the book, I compile a 91 song playlist that parallels the mood and story of the main character, Sophie “Sky” Lee, a black rock musician trying to make it in New York at the turn of the Millennium. I’ll blog a song from the playlist each day until the playlist is complete. Enjoy.

The Story Behind the Song….. Chapter 6: Craig Mack, “Flava in Ya Ear”

We’d gained millions of viewers, and you could say we’d lost our soul along the way. I’m not sure we ever had a soul to begin with, but we did have a lot of naughty, silly, music-fandom fun.

Those are a couple lines from Chapter 6 of the book, referring to the main character’s job at a music video station. I readily confess to a specific nostalgia for the late 90s/early early zeroes. We constantly experienced media-induced flashbacks that were jarring and eerily pleasing. Hearing early/mid nineties hip hop (like Craig Mack’s crowd-pleasing, awesome-video-having hit) while on the dance floor was a form of instant recall of where you were five years before.

The video is Hype Williams at his height. I wonder how much it cost then and in inflation-adjusted dollars today? How does that compare to the cost of videos that hit similar marks on the charts these days? Just wondering.