¶
Greetings and welcome to another episode of Queue Points Podcast. I am DJ Sir Daniel,
and my name is Jay Ray, sometimes known by my government as Johnnie Ray Kornegay, the third Sir Daniel. This was a moment in time that you literally had to be alive. You have to be
there. You had to be there. It is exactly. We're now in 2025. It is exactly 25 years from the year 2000 . We are, we we're at, at the quarter mark, right? Yeah. 25 years into the new millennium. Mm-hmm . And likJay Rayay said, you had to be there. There was just so much going on in 1999 leading up to, to this remarkable change. As a matter of fact.
The year 2000 was such a big deal that A24 Films is releasing a disaster comedy called Y2K and we are officially at the age where movies JRE are being made about an era that we experienced firsthand. Can you believe it?
You know what? I am grateful that I am here and we are here to experience it.
¶ Intro Theme
So can I believe it? Sure, because I'm here and this is great and we can have this fun conversation to talk about this moment in time. Now. I'm curious for you, Sir Daniel. So did this turn of the century, cause it was a big deal.
¶ Welcome to Queue Points Podcast
Were you excited or were you like anxious? Like what was your, what was your mood?
I was a little bit of both more so because I was, um, in a, I was in a, in a, in a state of transition. Like, uh, how old was I? 99. What was it? I can't even remember.
¶ Reflecting on the Year 2000
Well, clearly I had to. I was 22. So you're probably like 24. So 24, 25 actually. Okay. So I'm 25. No, you're right. 24 going on 25. And so I am trying to figure things out. I think I'm about to graduate from Clark Atlanta. Um, But I still don't, I'm trying to get into radio. I'm trying to just trying to figure things out.
And there's a lot of stuff that is not happening the way that I thought it would, which is, I believe a predicament that a lot of young people in college or at that quarter mark of their life start to experience. Yep. So. You're just trying, you're like, okay, it's, it's a sense of what is, what is we going to do? What am I about to do? And then on top of that, the world is on high alert, right? Because some, some people didn't plan for the numbers changes
¶ Y2K: The Global Panic
from 99 to go to double zeros. Yes. That just threw us into a whole form of turmoil. So J Jay Ray, there's a whole Y2K theory, a whole Y2K disaster theory that we all live through, but I want you to break it down for the people that weren't there and also just, you know, jarred the people, their memory of the people that were there to experience it.
Yes. So. Cool. It's interesting that we are about to have this conversation because I think we're so far removed from it that it seems like a weird thing that happened, but it really was real. So I want to start with the number that I think is important. This is according to computer world. They did an article, um. This was a feature story in 2000, okay? The estimated worldwide cost of fixing the Y 2K bug, according to analysts, Capgemini America said $858 billion.
Wow. Garner Group said $600 billion. International Data Group said $300 billion, so. The Y2K issue cost us in 2000s money between 300 billion and 858 billion to fix. So let's explain what Y2K was really about and why everybody was so stressed.
¶ Breaking Down the Y2K Bug
So what happened was in, in the early days of computer coding, Everything was new. It was like hip hop back in the day. You know what I'm saying? It was new. People was like, we doing, we doing computer things in the, in the, in the 1900s. Right. And 1960, 1967 is 67. That's how we program 67. That's what year it is. You, we know, you know, I know that's 1967, right? But here's the, here's the gag.
The gag is, Those people weren't thinking like, well, what happens when it gets to the year 2000, right? So what was the big problem? One of the big problems was the numbering system that was built into the coding of the time was using like two digit Uh, month, year, month, day, year. The problem with that is, of course, when you hit 2000, everything resets to zero, zero. That's a mess. Y'all right. Done. Done. I wish I had that sound effect.
Right?
So the fear was. Oh, crap. When things reset to zero zero, we're talking banking problems. We're talking everything that could possibly be a problem will be a problem because the system will revert to zero. Like the dates will revert back to zero. So what had to happen and this is second nature to us now, you can look at the clock on your on your computer and it will give you the four digit year before all of these folks did all of this work around the Y2K bug fix. That was not a thing. And
so that that really that put us into a tizzy. There were people on television. Um, talking heads that were concerned about airplanes falling out of the sky. And everything was going to, was going to be calamity on New Year's Eve.
December 31st, 1995 at midnight, I mean, there were literally guys, do you, I don't know if y'all recall about the discussions about, you know, um, people were clearing out water from the supermarkets and canned goods and, you know, make sure you stock up your, you know, stock up your home with canned goods just in case, you know, the, the, the, the banking systems go down because then you can't go. grocery shopping, and then you can't, you know, and, and then you can't get gas.
So then there might be, you know, they wanted you to go fill up your tank. And it was just so much fear mongering that sent really sent people into a tizzy and You know, I think, I think a lot of us, Jay Ray, I'm going to, and I'll count myself. I'm going to use an I statement and I'll count myself in this. A lot of us were thinking when we got to the year 2000, we were thinking, Oh, it's going to be like the Jetsons up in here.
Literally like all of a sudden, like the cars are just going to start levitating. I'm not sure why they would do that. That's what we thought. But. And I would say to that point, and Sir Daniel, I don't know if this is true for you, but it was definitely true for me. It was easy when midnight hit to immediately downplay all of the, the stuff that happened, all of the, the fear mongering, right?
It was immediately, see, nothing happens, but Nothing happened because between 300 billion and 800 billion was spent to fix the thing that would have been disastrous for us. So I think that's really important for people to understand is yeah. We we downplayed it at the time because we was young and foolish but computer people was like nah son They saved all of them programmers saved the world
They were in their laps clacking away On their keyboards because the keyboards back then made a lot of noise. So that's what i'm saying Here's my
keyboard. It's a clackety clack
clack. There you go And then and the rest of y'all know the rest of y'all was at watch night service With your hands up in the air. Oh lord jesus, you know praying that that lord. Peace Keep the planes in the sky most heavenly father and if and if it is time for us to go home Let us go home with you. Amen but It was Hassan
clackety clack clacking on his keyboard somewhere over in India
¶ The Cultural Impact of Y2K
Shout out to
Hassan shout out to Hassan
And Abibi and everybody that kept the lights From glitching the the yellow red and green lights from glitching and we were able to get home after Because Jay Ray i'm not gonna lie me and my friend angel. We were at a reggae club And and there was a moment where we were kind of like Standing still like, is everything okay? I don't know what we thought was going to happen.
Like there was going to be, uh, um, uh, earthquake or something, or the ground was going to open up, but I do know what people were doing. Jay Ray. A lot of people were getting it on as
they should have been. Why not? Because you know what babies had to be born at some point, the baby's got to come here, you know, 1999 to two thousands. They gave us some very important people.
Sure, a lot of these people are about to, a lot of these important people are about to turn 25 this year. And there, there's just, here, this is a short list of, um, of entertainers, some rappers that were born in the year 2000, Jay Ray. I Spice. I don't remember ice spice. That is shady. Why are we doing it? 2025? Why are we doing that to ice spice? Because she's you know, she she's taking a hiatus.
I don't know where she's been but she famously well she in 2024 she infamously dropped an album by the name
Y2K.
Because Cleo Trapper
took her out. Cleo Trapper was like, nah, sis.
You know what? I forgot about it. That's what that was. That was a really bad look. That was a really bad look for Ice Spice, but a really good look for Cleo Trapper. Yep. She was born on January 1st, 2000. She's one of those kids that was born on the first day of Y2K. So. Yes, Ice Spice is on that list, um, Flo Millie,
shout out to Flo Millie, Flo Millie who I,
I dig a lot, she's really cool, um, a young man by the name of 2C,
I have no idea who that is, yeah,
the young people know who that is, 2C, uh, we know who Halle
Bailey is, we do know who Halle Bailey is, whose name still confuses me, I'm like, I don't, I get where your parents were doing, but it's Bailey, not Barry, right?
It's Bailey, Bailey, Halle Bailey. And one Willow Smith was born in the year 2000.
That's a gem right there. That Willow Smith is the gift that keeps on giving because her album in 2024 went off. It
sure did. And if in case for those of you who are under a rock and don't know who her mom and dad are. Her mother, of course, is Jada Smith, Jada Pinkett Smith,
Jada Pinkett Smith,
and her daddy is Mr., Mr., uh, Will, Willennium himself,
the
Willennium, remember that? The Willennium!
That was a whole album.
Yeah. Yeah. It was Mr, um, it was Mr, uh, Will Smith himself, the Fresh Prince, who the millennium is actually, uh, another indication of everybody's obsession with the year 2000 and the new millennium. Everything was about the millennium. And when I tell you. Hip hop specifically went gung ho about the new millennium and the Y2K aesthetic because a lot of albums were based on it and the video aesthetics and treatments were about being in the year 2000. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. Like, so what I will say was dope about that is we definitely went to the future. Immediately. So you think of, for example, TLC's fan mail, where you got, you know, your first kind of, um, you got some AI happening in fan mail. Right. And shout out to left eye, of course, who really came up with that concept, but they were in the future. Um, of course, one. Missy Elliott was always in the future. It felt like, but she was really in the future.
Um, during the Y2K era, Busta Rhymes was in the future, right? So hip hop was like, listen, let's lean into this. We're going to go sci fi. We're going to go to the future and we're going to take our folks with us. And that's what we did, sir. Daniel, we started, uh, doing all of our futuristic millennium stuff.
¶ Hip Hop and the Millennium
And apparently in the future, there's a lot of. Glitching in in the music videos.
There was a lot of You know, a lot of glitching as Usher calls it, that's his dance now is that he calls it the glitching, but you know what the, we have to pay respect to somebody who, who really may had a lot of input on those, um, the visual aspect of a lot of those artists that you just mentioned, because Hype Williams was a very, very important figure in In what our imagination of what the year 2000 and beyond would look like.
And here we are 25 years later, and there's some, you know, um, virtual meetings, you and I doing the show just like this, um, virtually is part of that. Um, it was part of that aesthetic, but I think. If we want to talk about how Williams and his magnum opus, we cannot talk about 1999 going into the year 2000 and not talk about belly.
Yes. And, and, and specifically the classic opening of belly, I think is just. Because honestly, I haven't watched Belly since the early 2000s. It's probably worse than I remember.
You're not off. You're not far off. It's not, it's not one of those. You're not going to Belly for like dialogue and really good dramatic acting. That's not what you're there for.
But that vision of. The blue and walking down the hall and you got a crew and black folks look, you know, the black men looking blue at midnight, like moonlight, you don't have to say that's also beautiful to like being able to like imagine us in that way and like glowing and being beautiful in our skin
and dimensions. Let's not forget that. Yes. The whole fish Island that
gave.
It's a different kind of texture to the way things looked. Yeah, movies.
Yeah, man. Um, so yeah, belly is that belly was definitely a moment and hype William. So if y'all haven't seen belly, maybe we should do it. Maybe we should do a watch party for belly. We might y'all want y'all want us to do that. Let us know.
Let us know, buy us a coffee, you see the little QR code there in the corner, buy us a coffee and let us know why you're sipping it, should we do a watch party for Belly, it's, it's really superior. Beautiful to look at. Yeah. I love it. It's got some really funny scenes, but I think what the culmination of the movie, it does happen on New Year's Eve. Yeah. 1999 going into the new millennium, which I, let me tell you something.
People were ready to party As we should have 31st 1999 And if y'all don't know i've mentioned this before I was working at hmv record store Um during this time i've been working working there for three years And I can honestly tell you that Maybe towards the the second quarter of the year A lot of people we started to see this boost of people coming in You Asking for Prince's 1999 album, whether it's CD, whatever people were, do you have 1999? And then as we got closer, like December.
Of 99, all the people were, they were like, we've got, I've got to have it because I got to drop this in New Year's Eve, you know, 1999. Yeah, man. So it was like Prince, Prince was like, well, we know he was a genius, but was he a genius with a, uh, what do they call it? A crystal ball. Yeah.
Listen, he, he named, uh, the three, he had a three disc set. Call crystal ball. He
sure did.
He did. Um, and 1999, let me take a step back. There is a weird thing about putting a year in a song. So if you go back and listen to a tribe called quest is midnight Marauders album. Q tip does this whole bit, um, in the middle of, I can't remember what song, but he says. Extra P was large professor says, don't say the years right in the song, so he couldn't say what year it was. Right. And that's kind of a sentiment, right? You don't want to date the song.
However, Princess 1999 was made in like 1982. So Prince was in the future. And it was so crazy because that is a jam you'll hear 1999 played on the radio probably tomorrow Just turn on your radio and classic r& b radio. They're probably going to drop 1999 because it is probably the the most Recognizable song with a year in its title Ever made I don't know another song that has a year as a title that is as well known as that song
Maybe the summer of 69 Maybe
I love that. Shout out to Brian Adams. Love that song. You're right.
It does not hold as much weight as 1999 by Prince. And you know, one of the reasons, another reason why I think it holds so much weight or mythology with. A lot of us is that for as old as long as I can remember, Jay Ray, I don't know if you grew up with this, if you grew up, if you grew up with any kind of religion, some Jesus, you have some Jesus, if you had some Jesus in your life, you grew up with any kind of religion, they were pounding the message of revelations.
Into our brains at a very early start because the world has been coming to an end since it started
Like every 20 years some minister is making millions off of the end of the year prophecy
exactly and you know prince Famously says in the, in the lyrics, they, they say 2000 party over,
oops, out of time. Honestly, it was, he was right. Because if, if these people did, if, if Hassan and them didn't program it. Hey, we would have been out of time.
That's it. And so, yeah, I think really people really thought that's part of the, the vision, you know, that's why people were, I'm pretty certain watch night services was packed December 31st, 1999. You probably, You could, you had to get reservations to get up in church at that time.
Can you see the red, the uh, the velvet rope at church?
Yes. . Oh, absolutely. There's somebody with a clipboard. Uhhuh . Uhhuh. . Okay. I've got two . This is not your regular usher. I've got two front, but we will need a credit card to hold those two seats for you. Can you do that? Right. Just go ahead and, but
it,
but it was the
credit card with the,
yeah, because there was no swiping back then. Right. So it is like. And here's your carbon, we'll keep this copy, here's your carbon copy, and yes, now, if you're not here But if you're not here, but by, um, by 1130, your seats can be given away.
So just letting you know, no refunds, no refunds is going to be, and I know that there's a church that I live down the street from not too far from that's very popular here in the metro Atlanta area, um, for having those kinds of, um, you know, um, celebrity, uh, celebrity esque rules and foolishness that goes along with going up into that church. But of course that was long, long, long ago. Those things don't exist anymore.
But yes, I, you know, yes, kids, that's exactly why 1999 has such an effect. Effect on us, I think, uh, you know, we had a lot of music wise, like Jay Ray was saying earlier, you know, music was the music videos were having this more futuristic look and we got to give it up to the television shows that were being born.
And then new year because all these new music videos and different, um, visuals Were like videos were a must Oh, yeah this time So there were some new platforms that came about specifically In the year 2000.
Yeah, so and as we talk about these shows, I think it's really important. Um, the late 80s ushered in, um, sorry, the late 90s ushered in, um, the new era of the pop star. So this is when your, your boy bands are emerging. You have your backstreet boys is your Samantha. Shout out to Samantha Moomba. You got a Samantha Moomba. You got it right. You have Britney Spears, et cetera, et cetera. So you see these shows emerging, but specifically, um, in 2000, we have one Oh six in park, which is BET.
Basically BET was like, we need a TRL over here. One Oh six. Tell me what
TRL stood for.
Total requests live. And I don't know why they called the show that because it was a countdown show for my, wasn't it a countdown show?
It was a countdown show, but they also had like a futuristic aspect to it where you can hop online and you can go to the MTV website and you can make your requests on live. And if they, And they, you just see them pop up from time to time, like such and such in Nebraska wants to see, you know, Old Town, uh, whatever song they were popular for back then.
And, you know, so there was that, that aspect of the virtual, um, computerized way of asking for songs instead of calling up to a radio station or to a video show for your requests. Now the computer and the internet is involved.
See, I had no, I, I didn't watch. So I had grown, I was older, I was an adult, you know what I'm saying? So I didn't watch TRL. Unless it was somebody going to be on TRL that I really wanted to see but we of course on BET got 106 and Park So shout out to AJ and free Legend
free. Yes,
AJ and free were legends and everybody came through 106 and Park It was kind of a it was kind of a moment in time and then um Lou Pearlman actually, this is the first season of making the band It came in 2000, and the first
¶ The Legacy of 106 & Park
season of Making the Band was focused on Lou Perlman, who was responsible for NSYNC and the Backstreet Boys. And he went down in flames, he, rest in peace Lou Perlman, but he did a lot of real icky stuff throughout the years. He was making a band and I think he made Tel
Yeah, that was his band. Yeah,
that was his band. So yeah, that was, uh, the premiere of Making the band, which eventually got taken over by Diddy. Um, but I'm taken
over by MTV,
by MTV and then Diddy became kind of the face of it, but it was Lou Pearlman and, but that premiered in 2000.
How ironic. Lou Pearlman and Didier. Ugh. Wow. Yikes. But yeah, so those were, I and I. That literally, those shows really changed the industry. They did. They literally changed the industry and we, we definitely have to talk about reality shows based on making people pop stars.
We do have to get to that topic, yes.
Because Some of them were successful and some of them were not so successful . So we did, we, so we definitely got that coming into the year 2000 and shout out to BET May, um, 1 0 6 and Park was off of 14 years. Jay Ray, that's a, that's a, that's nothing to shake a stick at. That's, that's a long time.
Yeah. And 1 0 6 and parks survived. The abrupt departure of their big of their main hosts They literally survived that like that was a big deal because for it for most other shows That would kill the thing because aj and free were so closely attached to the format but Making I'm sorry, uh, one oh six and park survived it and they were able to continue on we got roxy and uh, Terrence jay and so yeah,
we got bow wow Jay Ray Bow wow to his credit. He when he calls himself. Mr. 106 in part. He's not being um, What's the word? Um He's not being, um, hyperbolic, hyperbolic. That's exactly where I was looking. I like that. He's not, no, he's not, he's not capping young people. He's, he's not capping. He really was Mr. 106 in part. Like he grew up on the show and then ended up being a host on the show. So yes, um, you literally watched Bow Wow grow up.
Um, and one of the things that, You know, we saw 106 and Park and TRLJay Ray was a lot of fashions Jesus Christ, I know that fashion Is cyclical? And a lot of things come back, but i'm not looking forward to those. Um, 2000s fashions Jesus Christ. There was some choices that were made back then.
We might have the same one. That's awful. Those big ass white tees that like went down to your knees.
Yes, the extra the two tall to
the two tall tees and then And then I'm gonna give a runner up when Nelly and them St. Lunatic showed up with like the, the, the, the, the tape under their eyes combined with those super huge jerseys. I was over my life. No, that's not cute.
I, you know, I'm so glad you mentioned Nelly because something just came to me that a lot of you. And I'm going to include myself in this was, um, was guilty of this boys and girls. I don't know if you can imagine it, but I had a lot of hair back in the early two thousands so much so that I had straight backs. Yes. And at the end of those straight backs were beads. Yes. So every time I turn my head, you can hear cracking. So that's, that's one offense.
¶ Fashion Trends of the 2000s
That's one egregious offense that I committed back in the 2000s. But then Jay Ray on top of that. I was rocking multicolored do rags, of course, how could you, how could you not? Because the do rag was a part of your ensemble, right? Your do rag had to match your oversized, um, throwback Jersey and whatever. Um, law, they weren't even shorts. They were like short pants. They were, they went down to your ankle.
And, um, not only did, and so not only was the durag, the durag wasn't always tied up like it was meant to be. The durag was flared out underneath a big ass cap to make it look like you had, if you didn't have, um, braids or straight backs or, or locks, the durag was like. Boy hair, because I saw a lot of people flipping back to do right. Y'all did it. I was there. I saw it. I saw y'all do it. Don't try to act like you didn't do it.
But yes, that to me, that's one of the more egregious fashion, um, choices that we made back in the, the two thousands along with, um, a lot of business casual wear in the club. And.
Yeah, I thought I thought so. I literally was just um, I went down a rabbit hole about this this thing because um, I Remember, you know, I was going to the club then you know what I'm saying? Um, and One of the things that I have forgotten about are the dress codes that they had the clubs didn't want the hippity hoppers coming into their club.
So you had to look like you had some good sense in order to go to the club and it was like, Oh, that's why we was wearing business casual because the clubs, we have to remember y'all hip hop wasn't the culture yet. Now hip hop is everything right? So everybody is trying to look like a rapper back then you were trying to look like you were a nice safe business person or a student who wouldn't wreck your club.
Picture it. The page boy hat cut to the side the oversized frames. Yes. Um, Jay Ray the vest the vest the vest the vest over the button down shirt and down shirt with the collar open with the collar open. But the best with the best was was buttoned up and your shirt underneath was flared out on it. Oh my God. It was so terrible looking. It was. So I was going to the
club we was going,
we were going to the club and I'm
chunky shoes because they weren't sneakers and you couldn't do Tim's at a lot of places. So you had to find a shoe that was sneaker like,
yes, like those sketches of those, um, hammer Steve, Steve, Steve Madden's. Yes,
Steve Madden.
Steve Madden, my God. I do not look back. The way I look back fondly on 80s fashions, I do not look back fondly on the year 2000 fashions. I don't know how women were walking around because all the jeans back then apparently, nothing, everything had to fit below your hip. Yes. So everybody had like, Like jeans that went right above their crack. And if you didn't have a flat stomach, you were just, Oh, here's what the girls did. If you didn't have a flat stomach, what they would do is.
They would have like this, um, a tight camisole
Oh yeah. That came down. Yes. That came down
to the, to, to their jeans to, to go over their not so flat stomach uhhuh. And then they would put on another tight shirt above over the camisole. It was a mess. It was a mess. You guys. Um, yeah. Thank, thank God for deliverance. Oh, an evolution in fashion and that you don't have to live through that anymore, but you can experience it listening to Queue Points.
You can experience it listening to Queue Points and no shade given what's going on in 2025. We might be going back to that. So y'all might be going back to business casual in the clubs. Just saying, but listen, y'all thank you for tuning in as we refreshed your memory for those who were there and informed you about what it was for those who weren't about Y2K. If you like Queue Points and you are seeing us and you are listening to us, thank you so much. We appreciate you. We love you.
Hit the subscribe button wherever you are. And if you could do us a solid and share the show with your friends. You can check out more Queue Points by visiting our website at Queue Points. com. You can watch all of our old shows over there. You can also sign up for our newsletter, which leads you to our blog where we have a whole bunch of other content. You can shop our store at store. Queue Points. com where you can get a lot of fresh gear. And you know, just support your boys. We love y'all.
We appreciate y'all.
We absolutely do and as we always say at the end of the show in this life, you have a choice You can either pick up the needle or you can let the record play this because there are no numbers on the ends of But I'm DJ so Daniel I'm Jay Ray y'all and this is Queue Points podcast dropping the needle on black music history We will see you on the next go round. Peace. Peace y'all