I am a Jersey boy. I grew up in Irvington, Newark, Orange, East Orange to be exact. At that time, my world seemed idyllic. Looking back, it was just your All-American ghetto existence. Lauryn Hill said it best, “Every ghetto, every city and suburban place I've been, make me recall my days in the New Jerusalem.”

I don’t know why I remember this one particular summer day the way that I do, but I am happy to still have this memory. I lived on the corner of Park Avenue and N. Center Street in Orange, New Jersey. My family didn’t do arranged play dates and soccer practice in the summer. Sure, I did a day camp, or two, but mostly my main objective was to go outside.

On this day, going outside consisted of grabbing my kickball and walking down towards the end of N. Center Street where it seemed the kids had more fun. The street was a residential one-way. It wasn’t a wide street and like most city neighborhoods, there were way too many residences crammed onto the block.

Walking towards the heart of the block, I passed Haitian Patrick’s crew, Paul and Portia’s house and Mussy’s place. My destination was this brick stepped, multi-family house where Chris lived. Chris’ mama used to sit on the porch like she was one of us. She’d be doing hair; talking smack and making sure we didn’t get hit by cars.

On this day, the block was hot. Everybody was out. There was double-dutch happening in front of one house. Some kids were playing hide and seek. The older dudes who hung out at the house next door, just sat, smoking herb and messing with the girls. My crew, we played kickball in the middle of the street; cars and windows be damned. When I drive down Center Street now, I can’t believe that we had the audacity to be kicking balls in this tiny little space. The ball had very few options other than hitting someone’s car, or house window.

But this is what summer was all about.

I remember Lee Jeans, Adidas, jelly shoes and bracelets, neon shorts, gold chains, bamboo earrings and Gazelles. We were living. This is before Carrie Bradshaw rocked nameplate bamboos on “Sex and the City.” It’s before other folks co-opted hip-hop dance and turned it into commercial cheese for shows like “America’s Best Dance Crew.” We didn’t know it, but we were Jazz. We were creating. We were American originals. We didn’t know this, because at the time, we were just poor kids on the block that no one appeared to be paying much attention to.

Boy, were we wrong. Everyone was paying attention.

What I remember most about that day and what makes me smile, is the moment that someone pulled out the oversized boom box. “Planet Rock” boomed out of the radio and in an instant, what was a normal summer day, turned into a block party. Cardboard hit the asphalt. Circles formed around dancers. In that moment there was no better place in the world to be. That is hip-hop.

You can’t recreate, repackage and sell that at Ed Hardy.