SOON AFTER its 1979 launch, Sony's Walkman was already seen as much more than a trendy audio player. Crucially, it became an escape hatch.
Whenever I cradled my Walkman as a kid, it transported me to new worlds. It made five-hour cross-country flights bearable and took the sting of loneliness out of the once ultimate injustice of strolling somewhere unaccompanied by music. While my brother and I could agree on blasting Green Day's “Dookie” from a bright yellow boombox when poolside in Miami, our Walkmans allowed us to find our own independent grooves. He listened to Tupac, I enjoyed the jazzy flow of A Tribe Called Quest's “Phony Rappers” on repeat until I memorized every rhyme. I was lost inside my head, somewhere deeply peaceful and far, far away from wherever my body happened to be.
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