Music Memories #2

Mother knows best when it comes to music. As a teen of the 70s my mother listened to R&B. I always had a feeling that my love for soulful music came from my mom. My mom listened to Stevie Wonder, the Jackson Five, Diana Ross, and crooner bands that sang in Spanish. Her brothers listened to rock/metal, which she listened to but never fully liked as much as they did. One rock/metal band that she liked in particular was Led Zeppelin. It's understandable that she would like what was big in America since at nine years old my mom became a U.S. citizen. She grew up in California listening to what was "popular with the kids at school." Into her mid-teens she became a fan of the Beatles and the Monkeys. "I didn't know what it was, but they played music that was happy and soft, and it sounded real nice to my ears."
When the 80s came there were different sounds and disco was dying-if not already dead. "Disco was music you could really dance to. It wasn't cheesy like John Travolta made it in that one movie (Saturday Night Fever)." The 80s came with pop music, weird hair styles, and my eldest sister, Martha. My sister Martha was a teen during the Grunge Era and the beginnings of rap coming to be a hit. My sister, whether she believes it or not, actually introduced my mom to Tupac. This is her favorite song, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mb1ZvUDvLDY. Every Mother's Day we call up a radio stationand ask them to play it for her. "I listened to what your sister was playing in her walkman or to the radio station she had on. She liked all types of music. Rap wasn't her favorite, but I still liked it."
True story: One rainy Christmas Eve, my family and I were driving down to my uncle's house and on the way there my mom changes the radio station from Christmas music (she hears it all the time at work) to a rap station. She starts to sing to this one rap song. Before a minute worth of lyrics passed we all told our mom that her rap song she was so freely singing was about drugs. She shrugged and continued to drive. You know your mom is cool when she can listen to some hardcore rap and not care what the lyrics are about.
So came the generation of technology: my younger brother and I. Our tastes are basically complete opposites, but somehow our other sister, Monica, has a musical taste that is somewhat in the middle. My brother likes hard rock, metal, sreamo, rock &rap mash-ups. I like soft music that is along the linesof indie, Gold Oldies (Motown and pop), classical, and classical jazz/big band. Monica likes the main stream pop, rap, and R&B. It's weird now that I think about some things. My mom likes at least five songs from each genre that we like. We've influenced her likes and dislikes in music. My mom, Josefina Leyva is like living proof of the social cognitive theory.  I don't think I know another person who's mom likes Tupac, Katy Perry, and The Beatles.