In the spring of 2004, I quit hip-hop. It wasn't the first time.

that spring when I walked into a bar with 50 Cent and Fabolous pumping at maximum volume, it felt like an audio beat down--everything I ever hated about hip-hop blaring at me in all its nihilistic glory. I left with an equally black and dismayed friend. This was absurd--two black men in their late 20s acting like two white women in their early 70s.

I realized something deep and dear to me was shifting. Despite my stormy relationship with rap, my music collection had always been adorned with a COLORED ONLY sign. But New York's internationalism forced me to rethink

the night I traded 50 Cent for Jack White, I knew something fundamental had changed, that the Soul Train had pulled into its final stop.

When I went home that night, it was all devastatingly clear to me. I'd fallen for white music.