Bougie Bachelorette Chronicles - Episode 6: Donny Hathaway ruined my date

Fresh off Friday night's fail, the Bougie Bachelorette ventured out for drinks at a lovely wine spot with a potential S.O. Forty two, six two, gave good phone. We'll call this one Paul. Paul was a friend of a friend. We had met a few years back and kept in peripheral-type touch. (He would ask his friends how I was, I would ask his friends how he was) When he heard I was single (again!), he put in a call.

Here's the beauty of the early evening wine date - you get there around 6:00pm. You have time to get an appetizer and a glass (or two) of wine before deciding if you want it to morph into dinner. Or you can beg off saying you have something else to do later that night if the sip~n~smile doesn't go as planned.

So we're sipping 'n smiling when the music changed to a kind of neo-soul, smooth jazz set. We started talking about music. He said that he is a "music aficionado" and considered himself a student of "multiple genres and subsets". [A-ight then] The Kirk Whalum/Lalah Hathaway collab "It's what I do" came on and I got all mushy. Listen to the lyrics and delivery and tell me that isn't just a gorgeous song?

Anyway... in the midst of discussing my Lalah-love, I said "she has very distinctive phrasing, like her father." To which Paul said, "Oh did her father sing too?" Every table (full of white and black people) fell quiet while people gave him the side-eye of life. I decided to assume he just didn't get who I was talking about so I helpfully supplied, "Donny Hathaway."

He said, "Never heard of him." The waiter refilling our wine paused and sent me a look like, "Girl, get out now."

Forty two year old black man calling himself a music aficionado [with the subsets and genres and whatnot], a fan of Lalah's and had never heard of Donny?! When I tweeted this, Ms. Lalah herself laughed and sent me the Price is Right Fail sound. Someone else said it was like calling Laila Ali a great boxer and having someone ask who her father was. What next? Calling Jaden Smith a good actor and not knowing who Will is?! *kicks over trashcan in minor rant*

Moving on...

So as I'm sipping this wine, (gathering myself) I think - you can't rule someone out for not knowing Donny Hathaway, Chele. You can. not. So I tried a different tack, "Well who do think is the best artist out there right now?"

Wait for it...

This ninja said Drake. And then started quoting Drake lyrics. As Deion Sanders says, #HOP (Hold On Playa!) - you can quote Drake but don't know who wrote and sang The Ghetto, A Song for You, at the very least This Christmas! I just... 

I was stunned speechless. I couldn't even fake it. He got tart and decided to try and prove a point. He leaned over to a table with three black guys probably in their mid-forties early fifties and asked, "Do you guys know who Donny Hathaway is?" Immediately one guy said, "Legendary, died too soon, went to Howard." Another one said, "His duets with Roberta Flack, man?" And the third one said, "Lalah's dad, Talkin' bout the Ghetto, This Christmas, c'mon!" 

So I asked the same three guys, "Can you name Drake's last three hits?" The responses I got back, "Which one is he? The neighbors know his name boy?" "Do he sing or rap?" "Is he on that cut with Lil Wayne before he went to jail? Wait - Best he ever had - right?"

Paul responded, "Well not everyone is as up to date on cutting edge music as I am."

One of the guys said, "If Drake is cutting edge, just leave me with the old school."

**CHECK PLEASE** I rested my case. Grown folks know grown folks music. No shade to Drake. I wouldn't call myself a literary expert and not know who Shakespeare is or Langston Hughes! I wouldn't call myself a foodie and not know the difference between collards and arugula. Woo-sah. 

I'm not saying I won't go out with him again (I don't know, I don't know). But the night was definitely done. What say you BougieLand? Thoughts, comments, insights? 

P.S. And if you need to step up your Donny Hathaway game, please do so!