How many of us remember our first phone?
My first phone was an LG phone with a circular mirror on the front. My parents bought me the free after 8pm plan and 100 text messages were free after that, they charged us $.25/text. I ran up my bill every week due to the latest gossip shared amongst the four-way phone call w/my homegirls “The Juice Crew” (we wore pink on Mondays and blue on Fridays, we were lit). It was cool having a cell with only 4 people to talk to but that wasn’t my favorite part about it. The ringtones are what made you, you! If you didn’t have the hottest ringtone going off in the middle of class, acting like someone was calling but it was really your alarm, then what is your life really about? Well, I will tell you what I was about by listing my top six ringtones from back in the day.
I’m doing six for no particular reason.
“Everyday I’m Hustlin” by Rick Ross
1. Rick Ross and I have a love/hate relationship. I like his music but not all of it. “Everyday I’m Hustlin”, “Party Heart” and “Thug Cry” are like my top three favorite songs by Ricky Rozay but that’s really it. I don’t know what it is about him. Maybe it’s the multiple grunts or the reference to food in every song or maybe it’s the fact that the label MMG is trash and keeps the artist from releasing music thus holding back their creative juices? But I vividly remember when “Hustlin” hit the screen of my TV. At the time, I had a Cingular wireless phone and I was barely talking to people because they didn’t have cell phones so I spent my time buying games and ringtones. I may have run up the bill at least 6 times while I had that phone, but I was young so yeah! Anyway, I bought every day I’m hustling not because I liked the song but because I would’ve been the only one in class with the ringtone. So, despite the fact that I wasn’t hustling for money, I was hustling for good grades and new Jordans.
“Ridin Dirty” by Chamillionaire
2. At one point in time, a lot of Houston rappers were controlling the DMV airwaves. One, in particular, was Chamillionaire. I remember when I first heard his song “Turn it UP” from his “Sound of Revenge” album. His flow was something crazy, which became a familiar thing with Houston rappers. After “Turn it Up” hit the scene Chamillionaire came out with a lit song that had every white kid that I know thought they were badasses! “Ridin” ft Krayzie Bone. I had this ringtone set as my alarm for school because when it was time to wake up, I was “Ridin” on the bus! This ringtone on my phone actually went longer than 30 seconds so I got a chance to listen to it to it like it was an MP3. Yes, you can call me corny. Now, I know many of you may think that Chamillionaire is irrelevant during this day and age but nah, he really is a Chamillionaire. His come up came from making money off of entrepreneurial residences and being a major investor in companies such as Maker Studios which is now a subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios. Oh and to top that off he also made over $300k in ringtone for “Ridin”.
“Dem Boyz” by Boyz in The Hood (Bad Boy South)
3. Does anyone remember when P. Diddy tried to do a Bad Boy South ft. Jody Breeze, and Young Jeezy. Yeah, I feel like it was a flop but I really like the song they came out with “Dem Boyz”. At a Young age, I hit a very ratchet point in my life. I was wearing every type of Roca-Wear, Baby Phat, Pelle Pelle and spray paint fit from head to toe every day. My music choice was just as worse. If they weren’t rapping about Trap Houses or Rubberbands then I wasn’t listening to it. I vividly remember buying “Dem Boyz” on my sprint phone back in ‘06 when I was 13 years old. I was sitting in the dryer after getting my brown gel updo ponytail with the clamps at Hair Productions. I was browsing through the Sprint ringtone shop and I saw “Dem Boyz” on the list. With that being my favorite song at the time I clicked “buy” with a quickness! From that point on my hair was lit, my ringtone was lit, and my life was lit. My home-girls had one type of ringtone and my homeboys Deontae and Rod had “Dem Boyz” because, why not. The year 2006 was the year of “Raven stop buying these damn ringtones!”.
“Lean Wit It, Rock Wit it” by Dem Franchize Boyz
5. At my school, we had a mentoring program named S.T.A.R. Academy (Student Teachers After Reward) with Ms. Shaniqua, Mr.Flowers and the oh so fine Mr.Randy. Looking back at it, it was actually a program for the 15 black students at my school. I didn’t have to be in the program but all my friends were in it and, I wasn’t doing anything after-school anyway. The program wasn’t really about anything but I do remember us always trying to create a step team which I opted out on. Every black kid has the type of parent that will either take you somewhere or pick you up but not both. Moving on, to go along with the stepping, we would do homework, eat snacks, talk about being a black kid at our school and then finish off with the end of the day rec. Most of the time we would be dancing or rapping.
Our playlists would consist of Dem Franchise Boyz, D4L, Party like a Rockstar dudes, etc. Now when I had my phone, I was working out ways to have ringtones without buying them. After some vast after-school research which should’ve been for homework, I came across an audio creator software. I honestly forgot the name but I made a lot of money off of it. This audio creator software allowed me the privilege of taking Mp3’s and cutting them to whatever verse I wanted in a song in order to format it to a ringtone size. My first song was Dem Franchize Boyz because I loved them,w e used to finger snap in slow motion, do the matrix and just rock out to this them at STAR. I had about 5 new white tees every Friday of the month. “Lean Wit’ It Rock Wit It” happened to be my first ringtone that I sold to someone in STAR Academy. After word got out that I was making ringtones, business was booming on the bus and in the hallways. I charged $1 for every ringtone and an extra $.50 for a specific part of the song. You can could call me a lil money maker back then.
“Back Then” by Mike Jones
6. Alright, this last one was hard to choose but I had to stay true to myself. Who? Myself! Who? Myself! Tell me something… Where were you at when you first heard “Back Then”? Or let me take a step further, where were you at when you heard “Still Tippin” by Mike Jones ft. Slim Thug and Paul Wall? Well, I was at home in my living room, indulging in my MTv Jams 2-hr video block. I swear at one point people would come to my house just to watch videos (Do people even do that anymore?). Like I said in the previous post, Houston artists were taking over the airwaves and that also included Mike Jones. A lot of you may know him from his dope lyricism but, the moniker of his career was “281-330-8004 hit Mike jones up on the low cuz Mike Jones is bout to blow!”. Me, you, ya mama and your cousin too all called that number and attempted to leave a voicemail or had a sliver of hope that he would answer!
I don’t know how many times I called that number but best believe I was a dedicated fan. After some heavy promo, Mike Jones blessed us with another song that is more relevant to my personal life than it was before. “Back then they didn’t want me, now I’m hot hoes all on me”. Raise your hands if you have ever been a victim of the “Back Then” syndrome! raises two hands. Anyway, I loved this song so much, my dad even knew to have it playing when I got in the car with him! This song was my ringtone during the last semester of my 8th-grade year going into 9th grade. If I was capable of having the time to make ringtones this would be my first choice. A lot of us can say with confidence that “Back Then” is a verse we lived life by at one point in time. This song maintains its relevancy because it’s something that we will always say to ourselves when we glo-up!
Honorable Mentions
1. “Grind With Me” but they were singing “Pick Up the Phone” by Pretty Ricky
2. “I’m in Luv with a Stripper” by T-Pain the Trickster
3. “No Hands” by Waka Flocka Flame (they made over $1mil just off of this ringtone)
4. “Gold Digger” by Kanye West
Where You at the Whole City Behind Us!
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