The corner boys and hood rats bumped Rich Homie Quan – base throbbing in someone’s trunk. I smiled. It was entertaining to hear the energetic world rattling below me.

In my mind’s eye I envisioned Surfline’s blue-transparent chart in the darkness of my girlfriend’s apartment. She was sleeping, breathing rhythmically while my brain ran through familiar calculations. At 10:00 a.m. Sand Dollar was going to be 5 – 6 ft. With light winds from the East? Glassy. But Surfline was also predicting that the swell would weaken throughout the day. Unfortunately there was always the possibility of getting skunked.

But I committed, solo, to 7 hours on the road – praying that wind, water, and swell would cosmically align to create the hallowed moment when the shallow sandy ocean floor would rush beneath my fiberglass board.

The drive down Highway one is beautiful but lonely. As I passed Monterey my cell service dropped and I was left alone in a quiet car without Spotify, Soundcloud, a radio or any means of listening to music. I rolled down the window to listen to the air rushing by, but immediately felt bored.

Suddenly I noticed something shiny escaping from the glove box. It was a beat up, old CD that was labeled From Scratch in black sharpie. I doubted it would even work, but popped it into the CD player to give it a go. And fuck it was fresh! Kelsey, is a hip hop head to the core and a natural playlist generator. I opened the glove box to see that she had twenty – thirty CD’s rolling around – vestiges of her musical past.

I stepped on the accelerator, weaving around hairpin turns, anxious to get to Sand Dollar before the winds turned South, listening to each mix tape – flooded with nostalgic memories of old school hip hop – Gang Starr, Pete Rock and CL Smooth, Talib, Mos Def. – transported into a musical black hole, swimming in the amalgamation of Limewire rips, 90’s mashups, illegal downloads and cool, cunnin’, soulful hip hop.