Borderland Mythbusters: Lighter Shade of Brown Did Not Film Iconic Music Video In Ascarate Park

Growing up, a lot of us probably heard a whole bunch of random rumors about stuff that SUPPOSEDLY happened here in El Chuco but more often than not, these things are usually not real. How do these rumors get started? Who knows! Sometimes its a schoolyard lie that someone told someone else during recess and it just stuck. Other times, someone just states a "fact" with their full chest without actually knowing if its true or not!

No matter how a rumor gets started, you can always be damn sure that even with Google around and perfectly free, most people will just keep spreading the lie. One of the ones I heard over and over growing up was about an iconic hip-hop group from the early 90's that picked up some decent steam here in EP.

Now, because of El Paso's specific style and reputation, it totally makes sense that people might think this group was from Chuco. I am of course talking about Lighter Shade of Brown! Growing up, not only was I told that Lighter Shade of Brown was an El Paso music group, I was also told one of their most iconic jams actually had its music video filmed right here in one of the most well known El Paso parks.

Multiple El Paso natives who grew up in the city, including my very own father, repeated this story to me specifically. While growing up and being shown the music video for 'On A Sunday Afternoon', I was told with pride that the video was actually filmed right in El Paso's very own Ascarate Park!

As a young kid who only got to live a bit of my life in EP before I had to move away, I had no idea if this was true or not! We didn't have Google the way we do now so of course I couldn't look it up to find out for sure. Instead, I went on spreading this very proud lie to everyone who cared enough about Lighter Shade of Brown to listen.

I forgot about the whole thing until a few years ago and decided to do some digging since I finally could.

As it turns out...nope, not only was that video not filmed in El Paso, Lighter Shade of Brown themselves are from Riverside, CA and the park in the video was Legg Lake Park in the Whittier Narrows Recreation Area in LA. Needless to say, I was very disappointed in all the adults who made me believe this rumor for the majority of my young life.

I am probably one of the very few who believed this as a youngin but if there are others out there who were fooled, well now ya know. This borderland myth is busted. Did you used to think LSOB were from El Paso too, or are you smarter than me?