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Sippin Coffee / Hala Hala (Free Download)
coffee I saw this post in the NY Times the other day and was amazed at many of the similarities between the author's coming around to coffee and my own "coffee story." I especially loved the parts about New York City coffee drinkers: "When I came to New York in 1995, I was delighted to discover deli coffee. At the time, I was focused less on taste and more on quantity and price. Thus, I was in caffeinated paradise..." Or about coffee at work: "I order large coffees, but stop drinking when the coffee gets too cold. There’s always a couple of ounces left in the cup, so I can’t just toss it into my wastebasket. I dread the long haul to the bathroom to properly dispose of the coffee remains. Hence you will usually find a tower of paper cups on my desk." The author just summed up the last three years at my former job. Coffee has definitely played a role in the creation of much of my music. On the corner of Myrtle and Clermont avenues in the Fort Greene section of Brooklyn is a bodega formerly called the Heaven Minimart. I think the name and sign changed recently, but the name of the shop doesn't matter as much as the words imprinted on the short green awning above the door -"Hala Hala." This was the name, to those who entered, of the owner as well - who many called simply, Hala. Depending on his mood, when you'd enter and wave a hand hello, he might greet you with "Hala," while watching some obscure news report on the ever-broadcasting tv in the corner. Sometimes it was a good-bye or thank you. On Friday nights, you might find a half dozen children from the mosque next door inside his shop, excitedly shouting lots of little "Hala!"'s. We usually found ourselves at Hala's sometime after midnight, taking a break from mixing or recording some new track, grabbing a fifty-cent Hala Hala coffee. We'd be in the basement working for several hours, and then someone would say, "Yo, I need to get some of that Hala coffee." We'd walk up the block - in the winter, I can remember piling on the layers, walking quickly in the cold quiet. Myrtle would be basically dead except for the bodegas, and we'd roll into Hala's little cavern. It definitely wasn't the best coffee. But it was the essence of New York bodega coffee - cheap, quick, and in a little paper cup. We'd cop a candy bar and be out - "Thanks Hala." He'd reply, "Hala hala." I almost always take my coffee black with or without sugar - I'm not a big fan of dairy, I'd rather just have my stuff straight. Plus I grew up on nonfat milk, and throwing thick cream or 2% into my coffee was too much for me. Once you get used to the kind of burnt coffee taste, it doesn't matter that much. Especially during my first job out of college, I worked for a small anti-hunger nonprofit, located in the back of the giant warehouse in North Philadelphia. There was a little lunchroom in the middle of the building where someone usually had brewed a pot of coffee - really awful, watery coffee. I never found out who made it. It didn't matter - several times a day, I'd walk out past pallets of canned food and giant bags of potatoes and bring a small, styrofoam cup of the pitch-black steaming liquid back to my desk. Philly addicted me to coffee, but New York took the aesthetic to a higher level. Coffee in New York is a world of it's own. sure they have coffeeshops and such, but those are mainly for students and late night rendevous. The true new york coffee experience is going to places like Hala's, or the local diner or street cart, and getting your paper cup, often with the classic blue and white Greek emblem, brimming with cheap coffee, plus two or three sugars, and/or some cream or milk. You might grab a donut or pastry as well. To me, the NYC coffee experience was a variety of rituals that had much less to do with the specialty of the coffee and more with the essence of the moment. In 2003, making late night runs to Hala for coffee was an integral part of the music sessions taking place in my basement. If you ask Seattle-based rappers Gabriel Teodros or Khingz (Abyssinian Creole) about their time living in Brooklyn, they'll tell you about late night stops at Hala's. Earlier this year, we collaborated on a song off my album "Pieces" called "Sippin' Coffee." The song is available below for free download. Sippin Coffee - Original Version |
