Soundtrack — A Black Music Month tribute to the songs that shaped my memories — “I Can’t Wait Another Minute”

“I can’t wait another minute” (E. Foster White) is a number-one R&B single by Hi-Five. The song spent one week at number one on the US R&B chart and peaked at number eight on the US Pop chart. (Not so) Fun Fact: The song featured original member Toriano Easley before he left the group… to serve a 15-year prison sentence for first degree murder.

It was the summertime and my brother was spending more time with me than normal, allowing his semi-annoying little sister to feel like a big girl. We circled all throughout our small town in his silver Mazda. The windows were all the way down letting the heatwave Sahara dust our faces. I was annoying by birth right, but my brother learned to drop his beef with me as soon as he realized I loved music just as much he did. We blasted the local R&B station and I sang along to whatever I knew.

On the day I was born in 1983, my brother blamed me for his missing the radio premiere of New Edition’s “Is this the end.” Our grandmother had forced him out of the car to greet the new baby and our mother yelled at him to smile for our first full family photo. He smiled, but he was mad, because this was back when music wasn’t at your fingertips. He’d have to wait days to hear the song for the first time. When he became old enough to control the car he would wait until the song ended before getting out.

My brother drove fast and I rollercoaster emoted with each hard turn. By the time we spun back into our cul-de-sac shaped street “I can’t wait another minute” by Hi Five seemed to bust the 1990-something trunk-embedded tweeters.

And then sirens.

I slid my small frame out of the open window and looked on as police officers surrounded my brother. My brother ran. The song never stopped.