SUPER RUN

What came first - the breakup or the realization that you've been running to the same five albums for three years because everything new sounds wrong? I've been stuck in a post-punk spiral since Laura left, but yesterday I found this playlist and it reminded me that hip hop used to sound like this. Before everything got polished and algorithmic. When boom bap meant something and producers were wizards working with dusty crates and SP-1200s.

This is golden-era hip hop as a superhero origin story. The description says "Catch the bad guys!" and I'm not entirely sure if the bad guys are external villains or just my own terrible life choices, but either way, these 13 tracks feel like suiting up for something bigger than a six-mile loop on the Lakefront Trail.

"High Fidelity" shows up at track three. Obviously. The universe has a sick sense of humor. But here's the thing about this playlist - it's not trying to be your running coach. It's not matching BPMs to your cadence or building scientifically optimal intervals. This is a record store clerk's idea of a running playlist, which means it's really about storytelling and sequencing, not heart rate zones.

The production across these tracks tells its own story. You've got that classic boom bap foundation - kicks that hit like pavement under tired legs, snares that crack through winter wind off the lake. MF DOOM shows up midway through on "Rock Co.Kane Flow" with Danger Mouse, and that's your wall-breaker moment, the track that reminds you why underground hip hop mattered. Doom's mask wasn't a gimmick, it was a philosophy: focus on the craft, not the celebrity. Same reason I still sell vinyl to kids who stream everything - some things deserve the tactile experience.

Top 5 reasons this playlist feels like a breakup you're not over: One - it's stuck in a specific era (late '90s/early 2000s) and refuses to move forward, just like you. Two - every track sounds like it was made by someone who spent too much time alone with their record collection. Three - "Passin' Me By" at the end is either cruel irony or devastating self-awareness, possibly both. Four - the sequencing has that mixtape energy where you're trying to prove something to someone who's never going to listen. Five - it ends with The Pharcyde singing about the girl who got away, which is basically the thesis statement of your entire emotional life.

Barry would argue this is too obvious, too Safe Hip Hop 101, and he wouldn't be entirely wrong. These are the tracks you namedrop when you want hip hop credibility without alienating people who think Madvillainy is too weird. But that's also what makes it work for running. You don't need to prove anything at mile four. You just need that Jurassic 5 energy pushing you forward when your knees start lying about retirement.

The genius here is in how it refuses modern hip hop's obsession with sub-bass that destroys your earbuds and 808s mixed louder than the actual rapping. This is sample-based, jazz-inflected, lyric-forward hip hop from an era when underground meant something other than SoundCloud follower counts. It's hip hop for people who miss album liner notes and producer tags that weren't just branding.

I've made this run three times now. The first time I was analyzing it, cataloging the samples, placing each track in its proper historical context like Dick sorting imports by pressing plant. The second time I was arguing with it, questioning the sequencing, wondering why "Deception" comes so late when it could've been a stronger act-two opener. The third time I just ran, and the playlist did what good playlists do - it disappeared into the rhythm of feet hitting pavement, breath syncing to breakbeats, the eternal human delusion that forward motion solves backward-looking problems.

It doesn't, obviously. You finish the run and you're still you, still stuck in the same patterns, still making mixtapes in your head for people who've moved on. But for 13 tracks, you get to be the hero of your own origin story, catching bad guys that might just be earlier versions of yourself.