Me, my older sister and music

Growing up I loved RnB and soul music due to my older sister's musical influence. She would come home with vinyls and CDs of music artists completely alien to me. I often snuck into her room while she was at work like a ninja. I would gauge the temperament of her old door handle, the impact on how much the door had been closed, then once inside the terminal mess that was an older sisters room... I would hop about like a stone cold ninja assassin looking for musical gems.

I would riffle through her vinyl collection, then stare in wonderment at her sparkling, almost glowing new stereo system.  Growing up relatively poor, without the luxurious extravagances, I often stared with giddy excitement at her stereo. It possessed a CD player!

Not only that but it was actually the best money could buy. My sister had done her homework before parting with her hard earned money. She cooly advised me once, that Denon was a company that made equipment for recording studios, and that it was pretty much light years ahead of the bog-standard high street brands of Sonys, and Panasonics of the time. (This small lesson stuck with me, and I never purchase technology to this day without researching the brand. However, I digress).

So, situated in her room... I would operate this hi-tech piece of equipment like the little brat of a brother I was.  I would hear her voice echoing in my ears as I inserted TDK cassette tapes and recorded everything new that she had just bought... "DON'T GO IN MY ROOM!"

These words instilled a mediocre level of fear in me, but I genuinely felt it was my duty as a little brat of a brother to sneak into her room and disobey her commands. She wasn't my mum. So, after cyphering off her latest musical purchases, who's lyrics were mostly too old for me to even comprehend as a foolish little kid, I would bounce back out the room like a stealth CIA trained covert operative, leaving no trace.  No way would she realise her door had been opened let alone the stealing of vital musical knowledge.

Needless to say, my older sister of seven years had been trained by a higher master, and way better than an 11 year old hopeful ninja. She would scream at the top of her lungs and screech my name, the minute she returned back from work. I had left glaring footprints of my intrusion everytime, which to this day I still can't fathom. I moved in delicate precision and barely touched a thing! Eitherway, me and her scrapped it out, while our mother just could not be bothered to intervene. 

(This helped in the successful reconnaissance of future musical gems which my sister would be completely unaware of. I knew my mum couldn't careless).

I wasn't scared of my big sister.  That's why I know who Tevin Campbell is.

Tevin Campbell - Can we talk

Joshua, TCC