Old To The New Q&A – A.D.O.R. (Part One)

Introduced to an unsuspecting Hip-Hop Nation in 1992 via his smash Pete Rock-produced single “Let It All Hang Out” on Atlantic Records, New York’s A.D.O.R. appeared to have the rap world at his feet as he made his presence felt amidst stiff competition that year from the likes of Das EFX, House Of Pain and Redman.

With successful appearances on “Yo! MTV Raps” and “In Living Color” adding to the momentum of his debut single (which cracked the Billboard Top Ten), anticipation steadily built for what A.D.O.R. would deliver next, with his Pete Rock-affiliation and connection to DJ Eddie F’s Untouchables camp leading heads to believe an impressive debut album was imminent.

Unfortunately, bad business, industry politics and strained relationships would all contribute to A.D.O.R.’s album “The Concrete” being significantly delayed and ultimately shelved, with the NY emcee not releasing a follow-up to “Let It All Hang Out” until 1994′s K-Def-produced single “One For The Trouble”.

In the years since his major label deal with Atlantic dissolved in the mid-90s, A.D.O.R. has gone on to build a strong fanbase as an independent artist, releasing five album projects and a number of singles on his Tru Reign imprint which have always stayed faithful to his original soulful boom-bap blueprint.

In this two-part interview, the veteran lyricist discusses his introduction to Hip-Hop, rolling with a young Sean ‘Puffy’ Combs, working with the Chocolate Boy Wonder and dealing with the unpredictable nature of the music industry.

You were born and raised in New York City, right?

“Yep, I was born in Washington Heights, Manhattan. Then when I was about six or seven-years-old we moved to Mount Vernon.”

Was it a big change for you moving from the city to the suburbs or did it not really register at that age?

“When I was in Manhattan I was already out in the streets seeing what was happening because there was always something going on and  Mount Vernon was kinda like that to. Mount Vernon is the first suburb right outside of the Bronx. I mean, you can actually walk from Mount Vernon to the North East Bronx. So the South Side of Mount Vernon being right next to the Bronx meant that it was really in tune with what was happening in the streets.”

So when were you first introduced to Hip-Hop?

“My father was a musician. Back in the 70s he was a very talented singer in a crazy New York City rock band. They were moving around in the same circles as Kiss and cats like that. It was real. He used to take me down to the studio sometimes and I remember being in the studio with him at five or six-years-old until maybe three in the morning with them just rockin’ out. I would be hearing crazy sounds and ill s**t, mad s**t would be going on. So I was introduced to music really from when I was a baby. Then when I got a little older, my father left us. Now, it’s hard for a young woman on her own to keep control of a young boy, so I was running around in the streets of Mount Vernon and also New York City because it was still so easy to get to. So I was just all up in it back in the 80s. I started hearing about the Zulu Nation from going to school with cats, we used to pop and break-dance. I could pop crazy back then. We used to go to New York to watch the Floor Masters and the Rock Steady Crew. We were on some crazy New York s**t.”

When did you actually first start rhyming?

“Well, before I got into rhyming I became a deejay. It was crazy because my step-father was a musician as well and he played the bass. He was a talented cat. He had these big-ass speakers, like these giant five-foot cabinet Sunn speakers. They were bass speakers for the studio or when you were playing a concert or something. They had like two thirty-four inch bass woofers with the mid-ranges and the tweeters, y’knowwhatI’msayin’? Then one year they brought me mad deejay equipment for Christmas. My mother knew my passion for the music and she had saved up to get me this equipment. I had the Gemini mixer with a pair of Technics turntables, and then my step-father hooked it all up to those speakers in my room! Now, we were in an apartment building, we weren’t in a house. So I was in an apartment in Mount Vernon on the fourth floor. There was another building about twenty feet across from us and then behind us was this huge parking lot with a post office over there and everything. So we were about seventy feet in the air and I used to pump that s**t, dude. I used to pump that s**t, for real! People on the street would be looking around, like ‘What the f**k is going on?!’ I used to look out from our terrace and see people who were crazy far away just looking (laughs). I’m not even exaggerating. It was crazy, bro (laughs).”

What records were you playing?

“Man, I was playing s**t like “Salsa Smurf” from Special Request, Fearless Four “Rockin’ It”, Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force “Planet Rock”. I ain’t even gonna front, I was even playing Madonna when her first s**t came out, “Everybody” (laughs). I mean, I’m not saying that I loved Madonna or anything like that, but when she rocked that “Everybody” joint, that s**t was fat, yo. That was when she was still trying to come up on some street s**t and she had some passion in that s**t. “Buffalo Gals” was another one I used to rock and “Jam On It” from Newcleus. So what happened was, I started listening to the instrumentals of those records and would be playing with words just freestyling over them. I realised I had something special and was kinda slick with my s**t, so I kept on doing it.”

Were you running with a crew back then?

“I mean, all my friends were involved in the music and the break-dancing, going to see Rock Steady and the New York City Breakers with cats giving us love. We were kinda dope when it came to the dancing. We’d battle cats at the dances at our school and s**t like that. We were just kids running around with mad energy,  smoking, whylin’ out, messing with the honeys, just being on some real New York s**t. I remember when “Beat Street” came out and everything. But I mean, I had friends who were all into the dancing and the music with the partying and the deejay-ing and all of that, but I was the only one out of my group of friends who really tried to do something on the musical side. I think all of my passion and drive for music that I got from my father really started to encompass me and I started to pursue things. I’d make instrumentals using a tape-recorder and just spit my vocals over that s**t and people would hear what I was doing and be like, ‘Yo, that’s kinda crazy.’”

So when did it get serious for you in terms of actually trying to break into the music industry?

“I got a meeting with Def Jam before I was really connected with anyone in Mount Vernon. One of my boys Scott was running with Hank Shocklee and them from the Bomb Squad. I met Scott just running around on some New York party s**t. So we befriended each other and he ended up starting to do some work at Def Jam. This would have been around the time that 3rd Bass were just coming out, so you’re looking at the late-80s. I’d started going to New York City to work out of some studios in Manhattan to make a demo. So I had a demo package I’d put together which had a couple of good records in it. Scott took that up to Def Jam and then Lyor Cohen actually called my house one day.”

That must have been a surprise…

“Yeah, this is real, man. Lyor called my house and told me that he wanted to meet with me. So I went down to Def Jam. It was one of those things where at the time I wasn’t really thinking about what a big deal that was, but then later you sit back and reflect on it. It’s like Derek Jeter when he said how he’s going on this journey and it is what it is, but one day later he’ll reflect on everything that’s happened in his life and be like, ‘Wow! That was kinda special.’ So anyway, I met with Lyor, I played him a couple of my records and nothing ever came of it. I mean, Lyor obviously felt something from the music he’d already heard from me  for him to call to arrange the meeting, but I didn’t end-up getting signed to Def Jam. Maybe they thought that because they had 3rd Bass already that they didn’t need another non-Black artist. I mean, it was tough back then as a non-Black artist to make some real Hip-Hop that was appreciated for what it was.”

Were you battling other emcees at this time?

“I mean, I could always hold my own when it came to freestyling and spit some clever s**t. But I wasn’t running around like a battle-rap cat wanting to eat muthaf**kers heads wearing a back-pack and all that (laughs). That really wasn’t my thing. I was more about just wanting to make some ill music.”

Was it a big deal in Mount Vernon in the mid-80s when Uptown Records started blowing-up with Heavy D & The Boyz?

“Hell yeah! I mean, I went to school with some of those cats from when we were little kids and knew them either directly or indirectly. I mean, some of my boys who I was cool with were running with Heavy D and Puffy. Mount Vernon is a small city. Hev was the first cat to really blow from Mount Vernon and he was like the star of the city. We used to see him running around with his jeep and everything when he’d just got signed and “The Overweight Lover’s In The House” had just come out. It was a great time for Mount Vernon. Now, all through that time I was still working on my music and I had a fat demo. From being around my boy Will, he knew Puff, so I used to run into Puff all the time. So I gave Puff my demo. S**t, when Puff first started working at Uptown, I used to go to the office and he’d let me in through the back and we’d just talk and chill. I had this demo I’d made called “I Wonder Why” and Puff loved that record. That was the track that made Puff think that I might have something.”

You mentioned your friend Will – was that the same guy who appeared on “Yo! MTV Raps” with you back in 1992?

“Yeah, exactly (laughs). Will was my friend from childhood. Now, when I made the demos, I put a package together and started shopping that s**t. That was how you did it back then. You put something together and if you knew cats who were involved in music then you gave them something to listen to. There wasn’t no internet or any of this crazy stuff like there is now. But Puff believed in me and actually started really working my s**t and shopping my demo around. But then soon after that he started getting involved with Mary J. Blige and Biggie and all that s**t right, so I didn’t know if he was really looking out for me. I knew he believed in me, but I didn’t really know how hard Puff was pushing my material, plus I was being impatient at the time as well.”

So would this have been around 1990 when Puffy was first making his mark at Uptown?

“Exactly. This was when Puff was at Uptown making artists like Jodeci and first really putting it together. Funny story, I remember when Puff really got to me one day. He was real cool with me and he always believed in me as an artist and I’ll always appreciate him for that. But I was in his office one day and I was still making demos because people were saying they wanted to hear some more s**t. So I’m making more songs and I’d made this particular track which I took to his office so he could hear it. Puff let’s me in the office and we’re in the back chillin’ and he’s got K-Ci, JoJo, Dalvin and Devante in the office with him. So I play him the new record I’d just done and Puff was like, ‘I don’t really like it that much.’ I thought the record was hot! So after it had finished Puffy turned to Dalvin and was like, ‘Would you buy this?’ and Dalvin was like, ‘Nah, I really wouldn’t buy that.’ That made me so mad, bro. That made me so mad and I think that’s what changed my relationship with Puff a little bit. I mean, that was his way, but it kinda affected me at the time. So I was just like, ‘Okay, whatever.’ But this was all around the time when Puff still had demo packages of mine and had sent some s**t out to Tommy Boy and Columbia. Then all of a sudden my man Buttnaked Tim Dawg, Tim Patterson, he was running around in the music industry with all of them as well. Now, Heavy D & The Boyz had already blown-up and at the time DJ Eddie F had signed Pete Rock & CL Smooth to his Untouchables Entertainment and had gotten them a deal with Elektra.”

Did you already know Pete or CL prior to this?

“Pete and I knew each other just from running around in music. Plus, I knew Pete’s little brother Grap Luva from when we’d be break-dancing back in the day. I battled Grap Luva and we used to pop together. He was nice. So me and Pete knew each other, but we weren’t all directly connected musically. They had their little world with Hev and Al B. Sure! and Pete Rock & CL Smooth and I had my own little A.D.O.R. world. I mean, we had mutual friends and we’d be at parties coming up and they definitely knew me, but I wasn’t all up in there with them as far as the music was concerned. I was really trying to do my own thing. So I wasn’t involved in music because I was from Mount Vernon and was running around with Pete Rock, Heavy D, Eddie F and Puffy. I was a musician anyway and was already doing my own thing. But I mean, we were all at high-school together. We were all at high-school at the same time, me, Hev, Puff, Pete Rock, Al B. Sure!. I mean, one of my best friends Akbar, he was a cousin of Al. B Sure!. But there were like four thousand kids in Mount Vernon High School (laughs).”

So how did you actually get signed to Untouchables Entertainment?

“So what happened was Tim Patterson brought my demo package to Eddie F and he liked it. Now, Tim Dawg had started doing A&R for Eddie’s Untouchables Entertainment. So Eddie was signing all these groups to his production company, producing their material with people like Nevelle Hodge, Dave Hall and Pete Rock, and then Eddie would take the music to the labels and get the deals.”

Considering your connection to Puffy, was there ever any talk of you signing to Uptown?

“It was always possible and was something that maybe could have happened. But at the time, Puff had Jodeci, Heavy D, he started messing with Biggie. So I don’t know if he thought I was going to be a right move for him at that time. I mean, they were on some Uptown new-jack swing s**t…”

So they would have been looking for the next Father MC…

“Exactly. They were on that R&B Hip-Hop s**t and I was more on that organic New York Hip-Hop s**t. I mean, I think there was definitely times when Puff mentioned to Andre Harrell like, ‘What’s up with this white boy?’ and Andre was probably like, ‘Ahhh, I don’t know.’ That s**t was real, man. I mean, even to this day there aren’t that many non-Black artists who have made a real mark on Hip-Hop culture. I mean, I was like the first non-Black solo artist that made real organic New York soul Hip-Hop s**t. I mean, 3rd Bass were doing that ill god-body New York Def Jam s**t, but me, I was on some soulful, jazzy s**t. But as a non-Black artist in Hip-Hop we had to deal with a lot of s**t back then.”

Was there anything in particular that made you decide to sign with Eddie F and Untouchables Entertainment?

“Well, Eddie F was the first person to show me something concrete. He had paperwork. Puffy hadn’t done anything like that at that point. I didn’t really know what was going on with Puff. We were communicating a little bit, but not to the point where I was like, ‘Okay, Puff’s definitely going to get me a record deal.’ So Eddie offered me paperwork and I signed the s**t. That weekend I was at a party, Puff runs up to me at the party and is like, ‘Yo! You signed with Eddie?!’ I’m like, ‘Yeah…’ and Puff’s saying ‘I’m out here working your s**t! I had s**t going!’ I mean, maybe he did have some stuff about to happen with some labels. I don’t know. But we weren’t really communicating like that. All I knew is that, at the time, I wanted to move forward with my music and that’s why I signed with Eddie F and Untouchables.”

You mentioned Biggie earlier – did you ever meet Big whilst you were still in contact with Puffy?

“Hell yeah! Me and Big had a great connection. I remember I did a show with him one time in New York City with Stretch Armstrong, Outkast, Craig Mack, Smif-N-Wessun and Keith Murray. I was in the studio with Big as well when he was working on his early material and Tim Dawg was still at Uptown. That’s Tim you can hear on “Party & Bulls**t”. But yeah, we smoked herb together in the studio. This was when as A.D.O.R. I was more famous than Big and he was showing me love (laughs). He was cool though, man. Back in those early days you could tell that he was just trying to make something out of his life and that he was definitely blessed with talent.”

So after you signed with Eddie F was it a case of him then putting you straight into the studio to start working on tracks to shop to a label?

“Exactly. But one thing that happened in-between that I almost forgot is that in the midst of all that, while I was making demos and working with other producers, another producer from Mount Vernon who was my boy from school had starting making some noise in the music industry. His name was Tony Dofat. So, me and Tone started working together and before the Untouchables situation I actually signed a production agreement with Tony Dofat to make three records where I wouldn’t have to pay for them. It was a case of us making a demo and then if anything ever happened on the strength of the music we made then he would be part of the project. That was actually the first real contract I ever signed. Tony was working out of this studio in the Bronx with this cat called Greg Rogers and he was one of his producers. So I did that deal with Tony and then did the deal with Eddie F.”

Ryan Proctor

Lookout for Part Two of this interview coming soon.

A.D.O.R. performing his debut single “Let It All Hang Out” on “In Living Color” in 1992.

Old To The New Q&A – Captain Rock

Although his career on wax may have been relatively brief  (spanning just four short years from 1982 to 1986), a young Ronnie Green definitely captured the imaginations of Hip-Hop fans from all corners of Planet Rock, blasting-off from NYC in his silver Dip Ship as he transformed into the larger-than-life Captain Rock.

Although the Captain Rock character was originally the creation of New York dance music producers The Aleems, former deejay Green went on to embody the persona following his early-80s audition for the position. Combining the feel-good party-based rhymes of the time with space-age subject matter and futuristic production, NIA-released singles such as “The Return Of Capt. Rock” and “Cosmic Blast” went on to become regarded as classics, not least by Hip-Hop heads here in the UK thanks to the regular inclusion of the Captain on the groundbreaking StreetSounds “Electro” compilation series.

In this interview, the man who came from Pluto and aimed to make you dance talks about coming up with Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde, working with the Aleem brothers and performing at London’s huge UK Fresh ’86 event.

Calling Captain Rock….

What part of New York did you grow-up in?

“I grew-up in the borough of Manhattan, Harlem to be exact. Back in the 70s and the 80s it was really rough in New York City. The economy wasn’t up to par and there were a lot of abandoned buildings, crime and everything else. I mean, it’s totally gone in the opposite direction since and it’s a great city now, but back then, the economy wasn’t what it is today. It was tough. But before there was Captain Rock there was DJ Ronnie Green. I started out as a deejay with Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde and before that I had Mr. Barnes and MC Starchild who were my first emcees with the Get High Crew. I remember we did a show over on the East Side on First Avenue, I bumped into Mr. Hyde and he was deejay-ing with another guy Louie Lou. We gave him an offer he couldn’t refuse and he came and joined us. Then after that it was DJ Ronnie Green and Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde.”

Before they were signed to Profile Records, Jeckyll & Hyde were featured on the 1980 Harlem World Crew single “Rappers Convention”. Did you have any involvement in that particular record?

“No, I wasn’t recording with them at that point. I came out a little after those Harlem World Crew records. But I used to be up in Harlem World all the time. Matter of fact, I lived just three blocks from Harlem World when I was coming up. I lived on 114th and Harlem World was on 116th Street. They had a deejay there called DJ Randy who passed away a few years ago while he was deejay-ing in the park. He had a massive heart attack doing what he did best, being on those turntables. But I used to go up to Harlem World back in the day to support DJ Randy, Jeckyll & Hyde and those guys, deejay-ing for them, but we weren’t recording together at that time.”

What do you remember of your time spent at the Harlem World club?

“There was just so much going on at Harlem World, man. Every weekend it was a party. I mean, if I wasn’t there every weekend, then I was there every other weekend. I used to like it when they’d have the boxing fights up there. They wouldn’t actually hold the fights there, but they’d record them and then show them at Harlem World. That was really big back then. But there were just so many shows that happened at Harlem World. I remember seeing Kurtis Blow, Sugarhill Gang and so many local groups as well who would perform there. I really believe that Harlem World helped take rap to another level back then, because the crowds that used to turn-up every week would be enormous. It was great at the time.”

What do you think differentiated the artists that were coming up in Harlem’s Hip-Hop scene from what was happening elsewhere in NYC back then?

“Obviously, Hip-Hop began in the Bronx with Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash and all those guys who really set the tone. Now the artists in the Bronx, they were really hardcore, whereas in Manhattan we were a little more laidback. The Bronx was tough and rough, whereas in Harlem we had the cool rappers. The Bronx had the hard rappers and Harlem had the cool rappers. But the way we were back then also had a lot to do with the history of Harlem. Harlem had always been known as a money-making town. Unfortunately some of the biggest drug dealers of the day like Nicky Barnes were also based in Harlem. But back then, if people wanted to make some money, they came to Harlem. People from all the different boroughs would come to 125th Street. We had The Apollo which was always a big attraction for people and it still is today. So that sense of style and flair that Harlem already had influenced the Hip-Hop that came from there.”

How much of an impact did that Nicky Barnes / Frank Lucas drug kingpin era have on the community of Harlem?

“It had a massive impact on Harlem. But for all the negative side of that situation, there were also some positives that came out of it. They opened up a lot of businesses in Harlem. During the holidays and on Thanksgiving they’d give out turkeys and food to underprivileged families and stuff like that. They would put on a lot of basketball tournaments in the neighbourhood to give the kids something to do. They’d also put on shows with different artists for the older people. I mean, I was very young at the time when this was happening, but I saw the impact it had on the environment around me. So although there was a lot of negativity around what people like Nicky Barnes and Frank Lucas were doing, when they got their money they tried to do the right thing with it and give something back to the community. A lot of what you saw in that Frank Lucas film “American Gangster” with him giving back to the community, that actually happened. But I have a lot of great memories of growing-up in Harlem, man. Really great memories. Harlem was the centre of New York City back then and it still is.”

Did you have regular venues that you would deejay at?

“Before Harlem World I used to run a place on the East Side on First Avenue called the Chuck Center. I used to do parties over there and I also used to do parties in Harlem’s King Towers. This was around 1980. I was like, thirteen or fourteen-years-old running my own disco. We used to charge a dollar to get in. Now the guy who owned the Chuck Center, he was supposed to be getting funding from the state or something, but he wasn’t getting his funding, although he still had the building. So we used to help with the upkeep and bills from the money we made charging to get into the parties. We would keep half and he would take half.”

What equipment were you using?

“I was using Technics turntables. I’ll never forget those turntables. I can’t remember the exact number or model I had, but I’ll never forget how those turntables felt. I must have had about fifteen or twenty crates of albums. I had a couple of mixers and the big speakers and stuff. But I definitely remember those Technics turntables. I didn’t mess with any other turntables except for Technics (laughs).”

What sort of music were you playing?

“Now, let me think what really used to get the crowd going. “Apache” by the Incredible Bongo Band and Bob James “Take Me To The Mardi Gras” always used to get a great response. I still have copies of those party tapes on my computer (laughs). We’d be cutting up songs like that back-to-back and would rock for two or three hours straight. It was all about those breakbeats and cutting-up the R&B records of the time.”

When you started performing with Jeckyll & Hyde were you making appearances in other areas of New York outside of Harlem?

“We had our own spots so we didn’t have to go to places like the Bronx to perform. People from the Bronx came to us. People from all the other boroughs came to Harlem.  I mean, they had their spots up in the Bronx like Disco Fever, but we had our spots like the Chuck Center, King Towers and then Harlem World. So we didn’t really have to go anywhere. Our thing was, come to Harlem if you want to party (laughs). So we didn’t really move around too much as we had our own places to perform. I remember, we used to get a lot of Bronx people at our parties, but not too many people from Brooklyn or Queens. But that had a lot to do with the fact that the Bronx and Manhattan are really close to each other. I mean if you’re in uptown Manhattan on 145th Street you’re two minutes away from being right in the Bronx. We used to have artists and deejays from the Bronx come to Harlem to perform as well. Grand Wizard Theodore used to come from the Bronx and he was such an awesome deejay. Flash and them came down a couple of times on 125th Street. Lovebug Starski used to be up at Harlem World. We were like one big family. You got up there, rocked the house and kept it moving. Of course there was competition and everybody wanted to put on the best show to rock the crowd, but everybody just came to have a good time. We just wanted to party, have a good time and then go on home.”

Did you have a particular stage-show with Jeckyll & Hyde that you’d perform?

“I remember, you’d have other deejays and acts who would come on and do their sets. Then we’d get on about 11pm. There was no dancing or anything like that, they would just get the mic and come onstage and rap. I remember they had a song they used to sing before the music had even come on, that started off ‘We’re Dr. Jeckyll & Mr. Hyde and DJ Ronnie Green…’ then towards the end of it they would sing ‘One, two, three, four, five, Ronnie Green if you’re ready make the crowd come alive…’ Then I’d starting cutting, zigga-zigga-zigga-zigga (laughs).”

Were you surprised when people like the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five started making records in the very late-70s?

“It just came out of nowhere, like ‘Wow! Here it is!’ When the Sugarhill Gang and Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five started putting records out I remember everyone was sorta shocked. Kurtis Blow was a big inspiration to me back then as well. But people were surprised that the music was taking off like it did. We had no idea at the time that it was going to go to the level that it went to.”

So was there a particular reason why you weren’t involved with Jeckyll & Hyde in that first Harlem World Crew release?

“They really just considered me to be a deejay. Which is why I still to this day don’t really know why they took me up to the Aleems to do the Captain Rock audition. I mean, they knew I could rap a little bit, but my primary thing was always being the deejay. I definitely thank them for the opportunity and for taking me up there because if they hadn’t, there would have still been a Captain Rock, but it wouldn’t have been me (laughs).”

Considering you were known as a deejay, were you hesitant about the audition knowing you’d be behind a mic rather than behind the turntables?

“I always had the feel to rap from watching Jeckyll & Hyde onstage. The last show I did for them, we were down in Virginia which is about six hours away from New York City. I was watching them onstage and I said to myself, ‘This is what I want to do.’ I even prayed on it. Then a couple of weeks later they took me up to the Aleems to do the audition. But it was definitely something that I’d already thought about wanting to do. I’d started to see how the deejays were being pushed into the background and I wanted to be in the forefront. I mean, I grew-up singing in the church and playing the organ, so I already knew I had musical talent and could perform.”

So how did the audition work? Were you the only one there to audition or were there other people trying out for the Captain Rock role as well?

“It was just the two Aleem brothers, Mr. Hyde and myself. Now, there was already another guy who the Aleems had in mind for Captain Rock. This other guy they were thinking of using, they had his vocals for “Cosmic Glide” down already. But Alonzo Brown, Mr. Hyde, kept telling the Aleems ‘I’ve got the guy for this, man. This other guy can go.’ Hyde had already given me the lyrics to what became my first single, ‘Well I’m here to spread pure funk y’know, Put the beat in ya feet and the chill in ya bones, I’m stronger than steel, Impossible to stop, That’s why they call me Captain Rock…’ When I did the audition the Aleems just liked my groove and the way I presented myself. Then once we started recording “Cosmic Glide” they loved my voice and the enthusiasm I had for what I was doing. I actually listened to the version of the song the other guy recorded and his vocals were real dull to be quite honest with you. But I brought some life to it and I got it.”

Were you aware of the whole space-age concept behind the Captain Rock persona before you did the audition?

“Well, when I first got in there, I just had the lyrics and they just told me to perform them. I had no idea at that point what the idea behind Captain Rock consisted of. They didn’t even tell me about the Captain Rock angle, the Aleems were just like, ‘Okay, you’ve got the lyrics, step up to the mic and let’s hear you.’ Then afterwards on the way home Alonzo told me the whole thing, how Captain Rock was going to be this character who was supposed to be a space-man from another galaxy who would come down to Earth to rap about space, having fun and things like that. I was just like ‘Wow!’”

So how did it feel when you finally released your first single in 1982, “Cosmic Glide”?

“I was a bit discouraged by how the first single did when it was released. It did okay, but it didn’t do what it was supposed to. I mean, NIA Records was a real small independent at the time and it was the label’s first single, so the Aleems really didn’t have the money behind them that was needed to really get that single into circulation. But once the second single “The Return Of Capt. Rock” came out in 1983, that was really the record that put NIA on the map.”

As as a young fan of Hip-Hop back then the music seemed so spontaneous and organic, but people behind the scenes like the Aleems and Sylvia Robinson were definitely making some shrewd business decisions…

“Yeah, my only regret from back then is not knowing more about the business aspect. I was travelling all over and making money that I had no idea I could make before. I was young. I mean, I was about sixteen-years-old when “Cosmic Glide” came out. What was happening was unbelievable to me. But I didn’t really know much about the business aspect of what was happening behind the scenes in terms of record sales and things of that nature. I really got kicked in the butt as far as the business side of things was concerned. But I still thank God for the experience.”

Compared to the funk influences heard on “Cosmic Glide”, “The Return Of Capt. Rock” definitely had a much sparser, harder sound to it…

“I think one of the major things behind that record was that we really needed something more up-tempo. “Cosmic Glide” was good, but we really needed something with a little more punch. That was thanks to the Aleems because they took care of all of the production on those early singles and they were definitely two very talented men. They were very talented as far as putting music together was concerned. So they decided we needed to hear something a little more up-tempo from Captain Rock and that single was definitely received well.”

Considering Captain Rock was the Aleems’ creation, how much input did you have on those early singles?

“I had no input on “Cosmic Glide” whatsoever. The Aleems and Mr. Hyde took care of that with both the production and the lyrics. “The Return Of Capt. Rock”, Mr. Hyde wrote that by himself and the Aleems did the music. After those first two singles I started having a lot of input. I wrote “Cosmic Blast” and also helped produce that. Mr. Hyde was out of the picture then and was off doing other things. So after “The Return Of Capt. Rock” I took over writing for myself and was also doing the production with the Aleems.”

What was the response to “The Return Of Capt. Rock” in New York considering you felt the first single hadn’t done as well as it should have?

“New York didn’t play “The Return Of Capt. Rock” like it should have done. I remember I did a show downtown in New York City back then and one of the biggest radio jocks at the time, Chuck Leonard from Kiss FM, actually apologised to me for the station sleeping on that single. I don’t really know why that was, whether it was to do with politics with the Aleems, but as far as other places like Virginia and Philly, the response was fantastic. The record did well in New York but it didn’t get the airplay that it should have got. I mean, everyone knew that Ronnie Green was behind the Captain Rock persona, particularly in Harlem, and my name was pretty big back then. So we definitely had the support from the people. I think it was more to do with politics with the Aleems  and how they were getting along with the programme directors at certain radio stations and things like that. I mean, back then the music industry was rough and if you had money then you’d hit the deejays off and the programme directors and you’d get some airtime. Like I said, NIA was a small label at the time so they really couldn’t compete like that. Plus, the Aleems had issues with a lot of people, man. Back then, we used to get these flyers done and we’d put them around Harlem and the Bronx. On the flyers it would say to call the radio stations, which were WBLS and Kiss, and request Captain Rock. There would be one thousand to two thousand people calling the radio stations requesting to hear Captain Rock every day and we still didn’t get the airtime. So that’s how I know it had to be down to politics. The Aleems weren’t the most likable people in the world, y’know. Looking back on it now, when that radio deejay apologised for not playing my record I should have asked why they didn’t support it and got more involved in the situation. But I was just so young back then and I was really just happy to be making music, making some money and flying all around the place performing.”

Where else were you travelling to perform?

“We were going all along the East Coast with that record. But my biggest market was always Philadelphia. I still go out to do shows in Philly today. Virginia was another big market for me. I was travelling all along the East Coast doing shows every weekend. It was unbelievable  Like I said, I wish I’d known more about the business aspect at the time, but that’s all water under the bridge now. I had a great time.”

Who was actually in the Cosmic Crew who were mentioned heavily on 1984′s classic “Cosmic Blast”?

“Well, DJ Darryl D had been with me since the start. After “Capt. Rock To The Futureshock” we brought on Richie Rich who was our human beatbox. I met Richie Rich in a park in Harlem. Every week I used to do this thing at King Towers called Wednesday Talent Night where people from the community could come and sing, dance and whatever else. To open up I always used to do a show with DJ Darryl D. Someone had come to me and told me they knew this kid who could really beatbox. At the time Doug E. Fresh, who was also from Harlem, he’d just released a beatbox joint. So I was like, ‘You know what? I want to do a beatbox thing.’ I listened to Richie Rich do his thing and then the next day I sat down and wrote “Cosmic Blast” and put a part on the record for him to be on. “Cosmic Blast” was huge in New York. It was such a big record. I think “Cosmic Blast” had a little more funk to it, whereas “The Return…” was more electro. I just think “Cosmic Blast” was more appealing to New York. But going back to your question, I still talk to Darryl D a lot and occassionally I see Richie Rich. Everyone’s working now and has their own things to take care of, but they’re still my guys. We still hook-up. I don’t take them out on the road with me now, though. I go by myself to be quite honest with you. I’m not making that much money from the shows where I can have a budget to pay for the two of them to come along as well. But I’m talking to some old-school promoters across Europe and we’re trying to put some things together.”

How much interaction did you have in the studio with Marley Marl who is credited with mixing “Cosmic Blast”?

“I had very little interaction with Marley. It was the Aleems who brought Marley on board as he was a studio intern for them at the time. So when he came in to do the mixing, I wasn’t in the studio. I had one or two sessions when he was there and we were laying down vocals, but usually Marley would come in after the vocals had been put down. But I do remember he was a great guy and it was clear even back then that Marley was very talented and really had a good ear for music.”

Marley Marl also credits “The Pure” which was included on the “Cosmic Blast” single as one of the first times he used a sampler in the studio…

“Right. See what the Aleems did when we recorded “Cosmic Blast” was they had Richie Rich go in the studio and put down a whole bunch of tracks of just him doing the beatbox. Then off the back of that they had the idea of doing “The Pure” on the flipside and just let Marley put all those bits and pieces together. It was a great idea.”

I’ve seen people mention on the internet that they thought it was Biz Markie beat-boxing on that track because of the Marley Marl connection…

“Nah, that was definitely Richie Rich who did all of the beat-boxing on “The Pure”. Biz didn’t have anything to do with that record whatsoever. That was strictly Richie Rich.”

After the success of “Capt. Rock To The Future Shock” and “Cosmic Blast” in 1984 a couple of years would pass before you released any new material. Was there a reason for that gap?

“To be honest, I was kinda burned out. The years of touring and all the excitement, I just really needed a break. I was going through some personal issues as well at the time and I just really needed to focus on getting me together.”

Spyder-D produced “You Stink” on the b-side of your 1986 single “House Of Rock”. Was it your idea to bring Sypder in for that track?

“No, that was the Aleems who brought him in to work on that record. I’d written “You Stink” myself but then the Aleems brought Spyder-D in to handle production on that track. I had limited interaction with him during that process.”

Given the amount of singles you released was the possibility of a full-length album ever discussed?

“It was, but it had gotten to the point towards the end where I just wasn’t comfortable with the Aleems. There were a lot of money issues, a lot of things going on and I just wasn’t being compensated properly for my work. I went and got an attorney and stuff like that and I really wasn’t comfortable with doing too much more recording with the Aleems unless I was going to be properly compensated. Those guys went from working out of their apartment with NIA Records to having a big office downtown, and part of that was down to the success of Captain Rock. I mean, they had their own material they were releasing as Aleem, but it wasn’t doing as well as the Captain Rock singles. I was very instrumental in helping them climb the ladder, so I felt I should be compensated. So I got a lawyer and we worked out some stuff. In fact, my lawyer was so good that after we finished they actually hired her to work for them (laughs).”

Your music was heavily featured on the early “Electro” compilation albums that came out in England on the Streetsounds label. Were you aware that your music was being so well received over here in the UK at the time?

“You know what kills me? I had no idea at all until we came out to London to do UK Fresh ’86. I had no idea how many units we were selling out there in the UK. I didn’t even know our music was available out in England. I remember when we went out for UK Fresh and I was saying to DJ Darryl D, ‘They know about us out here? Can you believe this?’ Y’know, when they first asked us to come out to England, I was like, ‘England?! For what?! Who the hell knows about us out there?!’ I had no idea whatsoever.”

What do you remember of your appearance at UK Fresh?

“What an experience that was. We got off the plane and the steering wheel was on the opposite side of the car as we’re being driven to the hotel (laughs). We didn’t know anything about pounds or pence and the difference in the currency. We were so young back then. But basically, they didn’t have us billed to be on the first UK Fresh show which was earlier in the day. We were only supposed to be performing at the evening show. So after we ate breakfast, I said to Darryl D ‘Let’s go to the first show.’ So the people in the hotel showed us how to get to Wembley Arena and we took the train there. As soon as we get there we got whisked into a locker room by the organisers and they’re telling us that they need us to perform at the first show as well because Roxanne Shante or someone hadn’t turned up. But of course all of our stuff, our outfits, records and everything were still back at the hotel. So they somehow managed to get our records from somewhere and we performed at the earlier show just in our regular street clothes. Then we came back in the evening again and did our full show. It was an experience I’ll never forget. Great memories.”

Your 1986 single “Bongo Beat” was the last release we heard from Captain Rock. Was there a reason why you stepped away from the music scene?

“My personal life was a little bit screwed-up. I was having too much fun out there and not focusing. I needed to take some time to get myself back online and I had some personal issues I had to deal with.”

There was definitely a changing of the guard in Hip-Hop around 86 / 87 with new artists coming out like BDP, Stetsasonic, Public Enemy. Were you still listening to the music that was being released back then?

“Yeah, I was listening to the other artists that were coming out and that had a lot to do with my decision to step away also. The whole scene was starting to go in a different direction to what I’d been doing with the electro-funk stuff. My last single “Bongo Beat” was me trying to move with what was happening at the time and I regret that. I should have stayed the course with the electro stuff. I mean, it’s crazy because electro is back out there now and it’s hot again. It’s hot! But also back then, I was really burnt out. There was a time when I just wanted to be like an average, normal person again. I just wanted to go back to living a normal life. Everything was moving so fast, the money, the flying around, I was living out of a suitcase and didn’t know where I was going to be from one day to the next. I just wanted to be normal again for awhile. I wish I hadn’t been thinking that now, but y’know, s**t happens. But I had a great time back then and thank God for the opportunity.”

Ryan Proctor

Captain Rock – “Cosmic Blast” (NIA Records / 1984)

You Know My Style – Kid Capri

Legendary deejay and mixtape king Kid Capri dusts off some old vinyl for Fuse.TV’s “Crate Diggers” series.

Live Review – Big Daddy Kane

Venue: Jazz Cafe, London  Date: 24 April 2013

As one of my top five emcees of all-time, any opportunity to see Juice Crew legend Big Daddy Kane rip the stage is definitely something not to be missed. Having witnessed the Prince Of Darkness live on numerous occassions over the years, it’s safe to say the Brooklyn-bred emcee easily ranks alongside the likes of KRS-One and The Roots as one of Hip-Hop greatest live acts. With a catalogue of classics to choose from combined with a commanding stage presence, Kane never fails to come across as a seasoned, polished performer, with that old-school BK bravado shining through just enough to remind audiences that he was once one of the most feared lyricists in the rap world.

Even if, like myself, you’ve seen Kane live before, his appearance at London’s Jazz Cafe put a new spin on things, with the venue’s intimate setting providing an interesting alternative to the much larger locations BDK has previously been booked at in the UK’s capital city.

Following a quality opening set from Crown City Rockers emcee Raashan Ahmad, King Asiatic Nobody’s Equal calmly descended the Jazz Cafe stairs to the sound of thunderous cheers, his simple outfit of shirt, waistcoat and jeans a million miles away from the custom sweat-suits and gold-chains Kane would have been picking up from Brooklyn’s famous Albee Square Mall back in the 80s.

Opening the show with a back-to-back medley of upbeat classics, the Big Daddy tore through the “Juice” soundtrack favourite “Nuff Respect”, the 1988 party-starter “Set It Off” and the Prince Paul-produced single ”It’s Hard Being The Kane”, delivering his fast-paced rhymes with a level of force and aggression that easily matched his verses on the original recordings.

Pausing briefly to catch his breath, the golden-era great then proceeded to run through a near non-stop barrage of timeless tracks, including “Young, Gifted And Black”, “Just Rhymin’ With Biz”, his verse from the mighty posse cut “The Symphony” and the mellow anthem “Smooth Operator”.

Injecting some humour into the performance, when a female audience member called out inbetween songs “Where’s Scoob & Scrap?!” Kane responded without missing a beat, shooting back ”I’m 44-years-old! I don’t how much dancing you’re expecting to see…”

Breaking momentarily from his back catalogue, Kane showcased a track from his new album as part of live band Las Supper, making the wise choice not to force too much unfamiliar material on the audience, but ensuring he did just enough to raise awareness of the new project without detracting from the night’s lively throwback atmosphere.

Leading the crowd in an enthusiastic call-and-response routine, Biz Markie’s former running partner also took time out to pay homage to a number of Hip-Hop’s fallen soldiers, including Heavy D, Guru and Biggie, ending the segment with a shout to Big L which then led into Kane performing the track he recorded with the Harlem icon, “Platinum Plus”.

With “Ain’t No Half-Steppin’” and “Warm It Up, Kane” filling in the blanks for anyone who was counting the inclusion of staple Kane cuts, all that was left for BDK to do was drop the track some ageing heads had been calling for all night, closing the show with the Marley Marl-produced “Raw”, which still stands-up as a near perfect display of whirlwind lyricism twenty-five years after its release.

Big Daddy Kane’s stageshow has barely changed in the last ten years, but it really doesn’t need to. Like the R&B greats he once openly admired such as Barry White and Marvin Gaye, Kane has reached a point where the music heard on early albums such as “Long Live The Kane” and “It’s A Big Daddy Thing” has not only aged well, but now represents a period of time for an entire generation of Hip-Hop heads eager to be taken back to our youth, when our main concerns involved keeping our sneakers clean and copping the new Public Enemy album, rather than paying bills and day-job drama.

All Kane has to do to keep fans happy is keep coming back and running through his long-list of crowd favourites with the same level of enjoyment  he displayed throughout this particular show, demonstrating that the man behind the mic cherishes those some classics and their place in Hip-Hop history just as much as those who’ve paid for a ticket.

Kane might now be approaching his mid-forties, but when it comes to putting on a quality show, he’s sure to continue to get the job done for a few years yet.

Ryan Proctor

Footage of Big Daddy Kane performing “Nuff Respect”, “Set It Off” and “It’s Hard Being The Kane” at London’s Jazz Cafe.

Old To The New Q&A – Prime Minister Pete Nice (Part Four)

In the final part of my interview with Prime Minister Pete Nice, the Hip-Hop legend talks about recording his 1993 solo album “Dust To Dust”, the death of KMD’s DJ Subroc and the legacy of 3rd Bass -  make sure you check Part One, Part Two and Part Three before reading further.

When you started working on your 1993 solo album “Dust To Dust” with Daddy Rich were you concerned about how it was going to be received by fans considering you were coming out of a successful group?

“I mean, I’d always done more of the production on the 3rd Bass records. Serch didn’t really do too much on the production end. So me and Rich were already working really well together both with other producers and on the things that we would do on our own. So we liked the challenge of musically doing s**t on our own. Plus, I’d been working a lot at the time with The Beatnuts with Kurious, so it kinda fell in together. I mean, some of the beats that they had that ended-up on the songs we collaborated on were just nuts. Rich and I were always very proud of “Dust To Dust”. Some people just look at commercial sales but we had a lot of critical acclaim with that project. I mean, listen, if that album had had Serch on it as well and was a 3rd Bass album, it probably could have done better. Obviously, we would have had some different songs on there, but “Dust To Dust” was probably going in the direction of what another 3rd Bass album would have been.”

Personally, I thought Serch’s 1992 ”Return Of The Product” project was a solid album, but it did have a slightly different musical vibe to it in comparison to 3rd Bass, mainly due to the work he was doing with production duo Wolf & Epic…

“I mean, Serch had more of a kind-of R&B influence on his album. Now, when we were in the studio, we would both have different ideas of what we wanted, and at some point if me and Rich weren’t there to tone Serch down then the music would go to a certain point. So it was almost like, his solo album was the album you would have had if me and Rich hadn’t been there to pull him back on certain things (laughs). But, you could also say that Serch would hold us back on certain ideas we had as well, which is why 3rd Bass worked so well together when we were in the studio.”

Do you feel that any label politics played a part in how well “Dust To Dust” performed?

“I mean, this was all around the time when Russell was looking to the West Coast and signing Warren G and Montell Jordan. Plus, the other thing that was figured into the mix was the fact that I was working with Kurious Jorge at that point and Russell really wanted Jorge. I wanted a good deal for Jorge and at the same time Donnie Ienner at Sony offered me my label deal for Hoppoh with Bobbito. We really couldn’t turn that down. So there was animosity between myself and Lyor because had had beef with Donnie Ienner as Def Jam was going through a break-up with Sony at the time. I guess you could say that “Dust To Dust” kinda got caught up in the middle of all that. I know I used to speak with people and they’d tell me that Def Jam weren’t working my solo record on purpose. I mean, when they saw that Serch only got to a certain level with his first release as a soloist with a lot of push, that might have influenced things. I mean, Rich and I had some success, but we had no push. That was a really strange time. There were all the problems with KMD at Elektra when Ice-T had the whole “Cop Killer” censorship situation which totally f**ked-up KMD with the album artwork for “Black Bastards”. Then Elektra ended-up dropping the group. We had the tragedy with Subroc and it was just a crazy time. It had even got to a point where KMD had beef with Serch when we had beef together. We did a song for KRS-One on the H.E.A.L. album and Serch said a couple of lines on the track that KMD didn’t like. It was just weird, man. So I ended-up managing KMD when originally they were Serch’s group. I mean, he discovered them. I didn’t know them beforehand. So it was all pretty strange.”

“Dust To Dust” came out following the release of Dr. Dre’s “The Chronic” and the East Coast / West Coast split was starting to happen with gangsta rap really beginning to dominate the industry. What was your opinion at the time on the direction Hip-Hop was moving in?

“I always thought there was room for both East Coast and West Coast groups. I mean, when we came out as 3rd Bass there was a lot of West Coast music out there with the whole N.W.A. thing. When we went out on the road we would see all these pockets of local artists who were big regionally, but there was always room for music from people outside of each region. I guess that West Coast sound did kinda take over, but I still think a lot of East Coast groups at that time still had great followings. Then of course Biggie Smalls came out and did what he did. 2Pac was someone who was interesting to me. When we were with him, we were touring with Digital Underground and he was basically just doing crowd warm-ups and being a roadie. I remember buying 2Pac Whoppers in Burger King and he would get his hair cut by Daddy Rich in my hotel room at the Holiday Inn or something (laughs). That’s the 2Pac that I remember. He was a very intelligent, thoughtful kid at the time. It just seemed that when he was in “Juice”, which Daddy Rich was in as well, he just turned into this more gangsta persona which really wasn’t him. We did a show soon after that out in San Francisco and we saw him there thugged-out with the gold chains. We went up to him and it was almost like he was playin’ us like, ‘I’m too big for this now’ (laughs).”

The Beatnuts produced a number of tracks on “Dust To Dust” – what drew you to their sound?

“I had seen them around and knew them, but when Jorge formally hooked-up with them and said he wanted the Beatnuts to do a lot of tracks on his album, that was when I’d be in the studio with them working on the Kurious stuff. So then it was a natural progression and they’d play me certain things they’d been working on and I’d hear certain tracks and just totally fell in love with their sound. To me, they were taking a certain style to a different level than even someone like a Prince Paul, with it being a little darker and a little heavier. They were definitely very creative with the way they would manipulate sounds. All they really had to do was play me a couple of tapes with tracks they’d done and I was sold right there. I mean, I was already sold on them with the stuff they’d done for Jorge.”

The track they gave you for “Verbal Massage” off “Dust To Dust” still stands as some of the best Beatnuts production ever…

“That beat was ridiculous. Something else that was interesting about recording the album was that, after doing a couple of albums and seeing how much money gets wasted by using a big studio like a Chung King, we actually did “Dust To Dust” in our engineer Adam Gazzola’s house. So we saved a lot of money actually recording it there and then we’d mix it in the bigger studios. That was an interesting process, because it was right at the time when you were able to do more on computers.”

The album had some crazy skits on it. Was that your mother on the answerphone interlude getting upset about her “intelligent son” being at a Public Enemy concert?

“I’m trying to think who’s mother that was (laughs). That wasn’t my mother. It just shows you how long it’s been since I fully listened to the album (laughs). Right at that point, it was around the time that the Jerky Boys were coming out, so that interlude was definitely influenced by that. That was one of my favourite interludes as well. But it definitely wasn’t my mother. It was one of my friend’s mothers. Now you’ve got me thinking and I definitely have to play that back and try to figure out who it was (laughs). The “Pass The Pickle” skit was funny because that was MC Disagree & The Re-Animator. Their stories are funny because those dudes basically hung out with us when we were still trying to make it as 3rd Bass and obviously they had the tie-ins with the Beastie Boys and everything. But at a certain point, John, who was the Re-Animator and lived on the Lower East Side, when we did the first album we had that part where we said you can call up our man Re-Animator and put his number out there. We did all that s**t totally unplanned, just gave out his number and didn’t even tell him. At any point, he would be at home and he would have girls calling him up from Sweden or whatever. But he loved it because he would actually talk to all these people (laughs). That’s actually how he met a guy who would become a good friend to mostly all of us, this kid Beckham. He started to come to a lot of our shows. He called-up John, John got him in touch with us, then next thing you know this kid’s doing the shows with us (laughs). It was nuts.”

So it was the ultimate fan hotline…

“I mean, you think you’re doing something just as a goof, and then John was just getting calls all day long. I remember, he had some calls from people trying to buy Serch’s underwear (laughs). It got to the point where I used to give him stuff to send out to people (laughs). I mean, I had a fan show up who’d tracked me down just recently who collects all kinds of 3rd Bass memorabilia. I have to laugh because I’ve been collecting baseball memorabilia since I was a kid and my interest is in fraud in that particular industry, so I’ve been known to track down old-time baseball guys in the same way that this guy tracked me down. So I definitely had to hit him off with some items.”

I guess your passion for baseball helps you put it into context when you meet old 3rd Bass fans who’re still so enthusiastic about the group, because you are to us what an old baseball player would be to you…

“Exactly (laughs). So I definitely don’t look at people like they’re nuts when they do approach me like that. I definitely appreciate it.”

Unless they’re asking for underwear…

“That’s when it kinda goes wrong (laughs)…”

What was the deal with the Drednotz who were also featured on “Dust To Dust” and went on to release the brilliant “Causin’ A Menace” single in 94 on Elektra?

“The Drednotz were Rich’s group and Benz was the main emcee. Rich had gotten them a deal and that was totally his thing. But we put Benz on “Dust To Dust” on the “3 Blind Mice” track with Kurious. But Drednotz were another great group at that time who kind of got lost in the mix. Artifacts were another great group who were affiliated with us on the management side through Bobbito, and they still have a great following today. But I guess at that time, that was the point where things started to get saturated, even on the underground.”

Taking it back a little, how did you first actually meet Kurious?

“When I was at Columbia, my room-mate and the guy who ended-up being our 3rd Bass road-manager, SAKE, he was a graffiti artist and was also on my basketball team. We lived on 100th & Columbus and Jorge’s building was over on the otherside of the park on, like, 97th. So I knew Jorge through the neighbourhood and also through Bobbito because he lived in Jorge’s building. So when Jorge came-up, he would just be hanging-out at clubs rhyming. First, we got Bobbito a job at Def Jam starting at the bottom. I remember he showed he had potential over there in terms of knowing what the kids were listening to in the streets. I remember he was up on Special Ed before anyone else was (laughs). So then they had him promoting records over at Def Jam, then one thing led to another and he took it further with his own talents. Then Bobbito got Jorge a little gig working at Def Jam and so then he was around everybody and it went from there.”

How much of an impact did Subroc’s tragic passing in 1993 have on you?

“I think the point when Subroc passed away was a real turning point. I mean, I had KMD with Serch, we were their managers, they came in as basically like this innocent group of devout Muslim artists who were very young. Then they got a little older, started to get their own identities, then next thing you know they’re drinking forties and poppin’ acid all over the place. I had Subroc come to my office several times with a machete in his coat and I’d be like, ‘You’ve gotta calm down, man.’ I remember he came to the office one time, I hit him off with an advance for one of their records or whatever, and I figured I had to drive him to the Long Island Railroad so that I knew I’m getting him on the train and he’s not going to get into any trouble. So I’m driving him to the station and he’s asking me how much dynamite it would take to blow up the railroad station in his town in Long Beach?! He was definitely experimenting with drugs and s**t and it was very hard to keep tabs and keep control on the artists that I was dealing with. Then when Subroc actually died it was just such a shock, even though in some ways you could see it coming, y’know. It was just very disconcerting all around.”

Zev Love X’s re-emergence some years later as MF Doom has to be one of the greatest artist comebacks in the history of Hip-Hop…

“I’ve gotta give it to Doom, because he went underground for awhile and was just totally out of it. Then he re-emerged doing the poetry slams and everything and just totally re-invented himself with the whole MF Doom persona. I don’t know if you already know this, but Lord Scotch designed that whole mask. Then you had MF Grimm who was also involved with Doom’s re-emergence early on, but then they had beef. But there were just so many talented people involved with what we did when you look at the outreach of the wider crew, with the whole KMD crew, Kurious and all of his people, the whole 3rd Bass army (laughs). I mean, when you look at Serch as well and the whole Nas thing, there was definitely a lot of influence all the way around. It’s interesting to look back so many years after the fact and see where everything fitted together.”

So did you make a conscious decision to step away from the music business after the release of “Dust To Dust” or did it happen gradually?

“It got to a point where personally I got really disillusioned over just the whole music business in general. Subroc died. What happened with KMD. What happened with our project. That was the time when I started doing a lot of things outside of music, then one thing led to another and it was like, ‘Okay, well this is where things are going.’ I think, also personally for me, Kurious’s first album was dope but was a very slept-on album. We had a certain push at Columbia on it, but also at the same time Nas was coming out and he obviously overtook Kurious in terms of being a label priority. But Jorge had enough success and sales, which I think was about 150,000 copies, to do a second album. Columbia were all-set for that to happen. Then Jorge just kinda disappeard for awhile and didn’t want to be involved. That was just such a crazy time. I mean, I had Jorge not wanting to get into the studio, and then I had Cage who we were trying to put a project together for. Me and Bobbito were basically getting him beats from everyone under the sun, like DJ Premier, and Cage was just like, ‘I don’t like these beats.’ Then when we finally did get him to do something, his lyrics are talking about how he wants to take out a Sony exec with a sawed-off shotgun (laughs). I mean, Cage was like Eminem way before there even was an Eminem, but it just wasn’t timely. If there had never been an Eminem and Cage had come later, he probably could have had a lot more success commercially. When I put him on the “Rich Bring ‘Em Back” record off “Dust To Dust”, he was nice, man.”

The Kurious debut project definitely ranks as one of the greatest albums of the 90s. I remember when Columbia first started pushing both Kurious and Nas thinking how ironic it was that they were doing split-page ads in The Source  featuring them both given the 3rd Bass connection each artist had…

“That was bizarre to me. I mean, it made sense on one side because a label only has so much money to promote new artists and there were some similarities between Kurious and Nas, but at the same time they were also very different. But the thing with Jorge was, Columbia were behind him, and obviously my label Hoppoh would have been operational for a lot longer if he’d decided to do that second album. But he kinda went off into the mountains to meditate (laughs)…”

Did Kurious ever give you a reason why he didn’t do that second album at the time?

“I think it was just a mental thing where he wanted to get away from everything for awhile. I mean, we would get him all sorts of beats but one thing just led to another. Then, of course, I had the artist Count Bass D who was really talented and his album was incredible. I thought Count Bass D could have hit and blow-up more than anything, but it just didn’t happen.”

So how long was it before you actually first spoke to Serch after the 3rd Bass break-up?

“I think it was around 96 / 97 when we first spoke after the group split. The graffiti artist and designer Cey Adams had a company called The Drawing Board  with Steve Carr and they would do all the in-house artwork for Def Jam. Then Steve started doing videos for people like Heavy D and he’s a big Hollywood director now and did the “Daddy Day Care” movie and things like that. So they played a joke to put me and Serch together on the phone without either of us knowing about it. So that was the first time we’d spoken in years. Out of that reconnection there was talk of a reunion album and we got in the studio and cut a couple of records which I think Serch has since put out online. Then we did Woodstock in 1999 and also Tommy Hilfiger’s brother’s birthday party. So we were actually doing some stuff together, but we just never officially took the full-step to do a whole album. Part of that was down to me being involved in so many other things and not being able to devote the time to it. It’s funny, because both Serch and Rich have spoken to me recently about there being a lot of interest for us to do certain shows and I’m like, ‘Listen, let’s see what happens and maybe I’ll come out of the mothballs.’

Do you still ever write any rhymes at all?

“Because I’m writing my book and I’m writing all the time, I sometimes do think about writing rhymes, but I can honestly say I haven’t written too many rhymes lately (laughs). You do have thoughts that come into your head at times that give you flashbacks, but I haven’t had the motivation to actually write anything. But I guess you’d consider it more poetry at this time rather than just rhymes (laughs). I mean, I can definitely see there’s a lot of nostalgia out there for music of the time we were out as 3rd Bass, but I always lose respect for artists who are way past their prime and then try to put a new album out. I actually respect it more when older artists go out on tour and actually focus on the older material that the fans want to see them performing. But I was in the city the other night and was just flipping the stations and I guess there’s a little buzz on that new Edo.G album and I got into it just listening to a couple of songs. I thought it was pretty good.”

Are there any particular golden-era Hip-Hop albums that you still reach for today when you want to listen to some music?

“Personally, I’d have to say the ones I was involved in like the Kurious album and the KMD stuff, which is kinda self-serving for me to say that but I do actually still listen to them. But then I’ll listen to to the Jungle Brothers first album which will always be a classic to me, all the Public Enemy stuff, De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest. Even going back to old Just-Ice stuff. The first Brand Nubian album is one of my favourites of all-time and Grand Puba was always a favourite emcee of mine. The Eric B. & Rakim albums. There’s just so much music from that period in Hip-Hop which has stood the test of time. I know people say you sound like an old-timer when you’re there saying that s**t was doper back when we were doing it, but I really think it was (laughs). There’s something missing in the music today and it’s just not as organic and creative as it used to. I’m sure there are artists like that out there, but everything’s just so fragmented now that it must be so hard for anyone like that to breakthrough on a commercial level and get that kind of recognition.”

Finally, looking back, what would you consider to be the legacy of 3rd Bass?

“I would hope on one level that me, Serch and Rich came up as group that looked beyond race, really had no hang-ups about that and put it out there to both Black and white kids that, ‘Hey, you can be a white kid and be into Hip-Hop.’ I would hope that would be the most enduring legacy that we have. Beyond that, if people still like the music and it holds-up years after and people can listen to it and reminisce on it as being part of the golden-age of Hip-Hop, if people put us in the same realms as our own favourite groups of the time, then that’s like the ultimate compliment. We put out quality music and never sold out to any other influences that were out there at the time. A lot of kids today can’t even begin to comprehend what things were like for me and Serch when we came out, let alone just battling people or doing shows, but actually putting out the records, promoting the records and having hits. I look back on it all now and it’s amazing that things even happened.”

Ryan Proctor

It’s always a great experience to speak with artists I grew-up listening to, but in this particular instance I’d like to give huge props to Pete Nice for being so generous with his time to ensure this interview got completed (three hours on the phone in total!) and for being so detailed and honest with his memories, thoughts and opinions.

Word To The Third!

Visit Pete’s site HaulsOfShame.Com to catch up on his activity in the world of baseball.

1990 3rd Bass Appearance On “The Arsenio Hall Show” Performing “The Gas Face”.

Old To The New Q&A – Prime Minister Pete Nice (Part Three)

In this third part of my in-depth interview with Pete Nice, the former 3rd Bass member discusses recording the group’s two classic albums, beef with MC Hammer and almost starring in one of Spike Lee’s most iconic movies – check Part One and Part Two.

How did it feel to see “The Cactus Album” go gold approximately just six months after it was released in 1989?

“It definitely felt like we’d accomplished everything we wanted to when we went into the studio and even way beyond that. We were just hoping that someone would pay us to let us make music, so to go gold was a massive achievement. I mean, to put it in perspective, when Slick Rick’s first album came out in 1988 there would be promo copies up at Def Jam, and Serch and I used to steal those and sell them on the corner for ten bucks so we could buy pizza from this place that used to be right next to the label offices. So you couldn’t even compare where we were at then to where we ended-up. It was just ridiculous.”

One of my favourite tracks off the album was “Product Of The Environment” but the Marley Marl remix that was released just took that record to a completely different place in terms of its sound and mood…

“Of all the remixes that were done off that album, that was actually my favourite. I remember when we had different producers who were presenting us with ideas and then we heard that one. I mean, we were cool with Marley Marl as it was, so to have grown-up listening to his radio shows and then have him want to remix our music, that was just a no-brainer. I think he dropped us off a tape with the beat first and then once we heard it we were just like, ‘Let’s go with that one.’ I mean, the album version was really just like an album track, but that remix really turned it into a single musically. I mean, that record in a club….”

The album will always be remembered for the beef between 3rd Bass and MC Hammer which culminated with a hit being put out on the group when you were touring on the West Coast. How seriously did you take that particular situation at the time?

“From everything that we were told it was serious and was apparently real because we had to go through some channels with Russell with some people that he knew like Mike Concepcion who was like a kingpin out on the West Coast. We definitely met with him out there and talked to him at the time. We had security who had worked with N.W.A. following us everywhere. So it was definitely something the record company weren’t taking lightly. Apparently it all got squashed. It really all came from the song “The Cactus” where I had thrown out the line, ‘The Cactus turned Hammer’s mutha out…’ Obviously I wasn’t talking specifically about Hammer’s mother it was just a play on words based on the title of his single. But Hammer’s brother took that and just went nuts with it. I know it was his brother Louis who was the one who called-up Def Jam just flipping out when the record came out. Then to top it off they said that Serch said it, so Serch ended-up taking more of the heat for that when I was actually the one who said it. But our beef with Hammer, aside from when Serch had that little altercation with him at the celebrity basketball game dance contest, was that Hammer had actually come in and totally dissed Run DMC at one point. Now, this was very close to the time when we were recording the “Gas Face” video, so Russell had told us that all of them were going to come to the video, but actually only DMC and Jam Master Jay got out there. We told Lionel Martin to get us a big hammer and that we were going to have Run DMC kick the hammer down (laughs). So that really came out of our respect for Run DMC and was our way of saying that you couldn’t just come out and talk  s**t about your founding fathers and be in the position that Hammer was in. I mean, there weren’t too many people who looked at Hammer as being a legitimate artist at the time anyway.”

What was 3rd Bass’s connection with KMD at the time you were recording “The Cactus Album”?

“Well, our dancers Ahmed and Otis, who were also known as Thing 1 and Thing 2, they were from Long Beach, New York and were all down together in the Get Yours Posse with KMD. Doom (Zev Love X) and Subroc were very young at the time when we first started out, and then they were doing their own material and writing. Subroc at the time wasn’t even rhyming, he just had his drum machine and was programming beats. Serch actually knew them before I did and then through the affiliation with our dancers we just started hanging out with them. If you look at the photos that are on the inside of “The Cactus Album” that look like we’re all at a house party, those were taken in the basement of Ahmed’s house. We were very close with them at that time. I remember, we were taking the Long Island Railroad out to see Prince Paul to work with him on “The Cactus Album” and Doom was coming out with us. Doom had been using the term ‘Gas Face’ relentlessly at the time and Serch said, ‘Let’s do a record called “The Gas Face”.’ So we literally wrote that record on the train to the studio and while we were actually in the studio. It was all just totally spontaneous. That’s why, even saying the stuff about Hammer on there, it was just all totally off the top of the head.”

“Brooklyn-Queens” was another big single off the album…

“”Brooklyn-Queens” was a song that I’d had as a concept back from the days of being with Lord Scotch. So that was us expanding on an original idea. The same thing with “Product Of The Environment”, which was us expanding on one of Serch’s original demos. He’d done “Product Of The Environment” with Sam Sever before we ever got together and I had “Brooklyn Queens” before Serch was with me.”

Another favourite track of mine was “Monte Hall” although it sounded totally different to anything else on “The Cactus Album” – where did the idea for that track come from?

“The music that was used on “Monte Hall” with the Grover Washington Jr. loops was something  I’d actually planned to use for the “Soul In The Hole” song. But when we looped it up we just decided it would work better on “Monte Hall”. When you looked at Hip-Hop at the time, everyone had their love jam or whatever, like Whodini or UTFO, there was that tradition of having that type of record. So we wanted to have that type of record on the album but not be corny about it. We didn’t want it to come off as being something that wasn’t real. But “Monte Hall” was another record that just totally came together in the studio. I think I had thrown out the name and Serch was just like, ‘Yeah, we’ll f**kin’ call it “Monte Hall”‘ and then we just wrote s**t right there with Sam Sever hooking up the beats. So that song was totally something that wasn’t planned that just got created in the studio”

So there was definitely a lot of spontaneity involved in the recording of “The Cactus Album”?

“Yeah. I mean, we definitely had a lot of things planned out in terms of how many songs we wanted on the album and what the overall concept of the album was going to be. I mean, I’ve told people before how I had conversations with Chuck D about how your A-side should be the same length as your B-side on a cassette because if someone’s listening to it in their car you don’t want there to be any dead-space on your tape because then they might just put in someone else’s tape. So we definitely put a lot of thought into some things, but there was also a lot of spontaneous creativity involved.”

Moving forward, what was the concept behind the imagery used on 1991′s “Derelicts Of Dialect” album cover with the group being shown as ageing men?

“I mean, we had the idea for the title of the album and the concept for the cover came from us tying it into the idea that we kinda came into the business as almost like bums off the street and we figured we’d go out the same way. Actually, I think the people who did the make-up for the album cover were the same people who did the make up for the “Saturday Night Live” TV show. It was something that really we just planned for the album cover, but then it turned into a whole concept for the “Portrait Of The Artist As A Hood” video. I guess overall that was more of a darker album, but it was definitely a progression and reflected our personalities at the time.”

1991 was definitely a pivotal year in Hip-Hop in terms of the friction that was happening between the commercial rap that was starting to be embraced by the mainstream and the true-school artists who were still trying to be heard and recognised. It seemed like “Derelicts Of Dialect” really fell right alongside other albums that year like De La’s “De La Soul Is Dead” and Tribe’s “The Low End Theory” as a response to the commercial music that was being championed by the industry…

“That is true and the album was probably a reflection of the time too which is something I didn’t even think about, so you’re right on point there. Back in that time period we would get offered endorsement deals for Sprite, different soft drinks and other stuff and we would regularly turn them down as it was something that was kind of unheard of back then. We were all about our credibility. Nowadays people wouldn’t even think twice about an artist taking a deal like that, but back at that time it was foreign to us and didn’t really fit into the way we had patterned our career. Even to the point where Spike Lee had Serch and I come in and read for his “Malcolm X” movie. We read for it and he liked us. I remember Laurence Fishburne was in there reading for one of the other parts when we were coming into Spike’s office. He wanted us to play two of the prison guards who roughed Malcolm X up and we were just like, ‘Spike, can you picture people going into a movie theatre and seeing 3rd Bass rough up Malcolm X?’ In retrospect I can see what he was trying to do, but we actually turned it down. As much as we might have wanted to do it, we just couldn’t see ourselves in that role. Who knows how it would have been accepted if we’d done it, but the fact we turned it down because of how it could have been accepted just shows what a different time it was back then in the early-90s…”

I’m sure James Bernard would have written a column in The Source at the time if you had taken those roles…

“Yeah, exactly (laughs). We just didn’t think that it was appropriate so we stayed away. I mean, Spike really wanted us to do it and he might have had better judgement on it than we did, but we decided it’d be best to pass on that one.”

In the same way the MC Hammer beef was attached to “The Cactus Album”, 3rd Bass’s beef with Vanilla Ice was linked to “Derelicts Of Dialect” with the infamous “Pop Goes The Weasel” video beatdown. Were you going at Vanilla Ice primarily because he was one of the most successful commercial rap artists of the time or beccause he was a white successful commercial rap artist who you felt was damaging what Serch and yourself had achieved as white emcees?

“It just seemed to be the music in general at that time. You had Hammer. You had Vanilla Ice. I mean, to a lesser degree, you had Delicious Vinyl with Tone Loc and Young MC. There was a whole commercial side of the music that was going out to the whole country. Radio was really playing that stuff and still ignoring real Hip-Hop. So “Pop Goes The Weasel” was really our answer to that. I mean, that record was successful based on the strength of the familiarity of the Peter Gabriel “Sledgehammer” loop, which got it into certain places that otherwise probably wouldn’t have been paying attention to our music. It was almost like a joke between us. I mean, we figured we’d do the record but didn’t really think it would be a single. But we kinda duped everyone into playing our little game because the next thing you know you had all these pop radio stations playing the record which was actually mocking the same people who were playing it. We’d even get sent out to be interviewed on some of these radio shows and then have to explain the concept behind the record (laughs)”.

Did you get any strange reactions once some of those pop deejays realised what the group’s intentions were with “Pop Goes The Weasel”?

“I mean, all the traditional morning jocks and people like that probably still didn’t get it (laughs). I think at that point, we’d turn up at these stations like, ‘Word to your mother’s grandmother’s aunt’s third cousin..’ and all kinds of other stupid s**t (laughs). I mean, I think our core audience at the time understood what we were doing with “Pop Goes The Weasel” and that we were using it as a way to get the message out there but at the same time still keep our own integrity. But that single definitely helped us sell more records. I mean, if we hadn’t broken up at the time I think “Derelicts Of Dialect” would have even sold more than it actually did. We were still out on tour when the group actually split up, so there were definitely more tours and singles planned in connection with that album. So overall, “Dereliects Of Dialect” could have been a much bigger record if we hadn’t split at the time.”

KMD and Chubb Rock were both featured on the album, but “Microphone Techniques” with Nice & Smooth is still one of my favourite collaborations of the 90s to this day…

“That was fun to make. I always loved Nice & Smooth. Greg Nice is just such a character. Being in the studio with those guys was just nuts and something that I’ll always remember. The same thing with being in the studio with Chubb Rock when we did “Kick ‘Em In The Grill”. The verse that Chubb kicked on there just killed me. But with both Greg’s verse on “Microphone Techniques” and Chubb’s on “Kick ‘Em In The Grill”, when they each actually got in the booth to record and dropped their rhymes, everyone just lost it (laughs).”

What memories do you gave of working with Prince Paul on “Derelicts Of Dialect”?

“I mean, when we worked with Prince Paul on “The Cactus Album” it was very spontaneous and just came together. But when it came to the second album, we definitely had more time in the studio with Paul. We recorded most of those songs at this studio called Calliope, which is where KMD did a lot of their stuff to. But we spent a lot of time in there working with Paul and he was working on other stuff at the same time, like a lot of the De La stuff. So it was a cool time creatively to be spending time working with Prince Paul. We were collaborating with him quite a bit, throwing ideas that we had at him, then he’d pick up on something and throw an idea back at us. It was a great process because Paul was never tied to pre-conceived ideas of what he wanted to do as a producer going into the studio. I mean, sometimes we’d go in the studio and he might just have one loop set-up and we’d be like, ‘Man, what is that? We gotta have that one.’ The song “Come In” is something that came together like that. I mean, the actual song “Derelicts Of Dialect” was another big collaboration between us. We already had the concept of what we wanted and then Paul came up with the 9th Creation loop that was used on that record. I think that was actually the first record that we did for the album and really established where we wanted to go with the “Derelicts Of Dialect” project in terms of it being a darker album compared to the first album.”

You mentioned earlier about the group splitting-up – was there a particular moment when you realised that 3rd Bass was over or was it a gradual process?

“I mean, Serch and I had personal problems on the tour we did to support “Derelicts Of Dialect”. We probably didn’t speak to each other for a long stretch of that tour. We’d perform and people probably went to the show and didn’t think there was anything wrong whatsoever. But we had beef together and it probably started a lot earlier than we even thought. I remember there was one point where we did a show for Hot 97 in New York and I think they wanted Marky Mark to open up for us. We told Lyor that we weren’t going to perform and he basically had to beg us to get us to do it. So he basically knew there were some problems in the group and he tried to give us a little talk which probably prolonged things for another couple of weeks, but we just couldn’t move forward together at that point.”

Was it a mutual decision between you and Serch to end the group or were either of you pushing for it to happen more than the other?

“Actually, because we were so succesful at that time I don’t think we really thought that Def Jam was going to let us split-up. We had a lot of things that we were tied into contractually as well. So I think that was a bad move on the label’s part and also with our management. I think a lot of people could have done things differently. But it’s not like we were hammering it home like, ‘We’ve gotta do our solo s**t! We’ve gotta do our solo s**t!’ So things just progressed into that. I mean, at some point I think Serch did some demos and spoke to Russell. I don’t even know if Russell just thought that we could do some solo stuff and then still be 3rd Bass. Who knows what he thought? I mean, if there’s anything that describes where me and Serch were at back then, I guess my “Rat Bastard” video kind of answered any thoughts anyone had about ‘Do these guys have problems together?’ Yes, we did…”

That video definitely didn’t leave much to the imagination…

“Yeah, I guess it kinda said it all right there…”

Ryan Proctor

Lookout for the final part of this interview coming soon.

Prime Minister Pete Nice & Daddy Rich – “Rap Prime Minister & Daddy Rich (Rat Bastard)” (Def Jam / 1992)

Old To The New Q&A – Prime Minister Pete Nice (Part Two)

In the second part of my interview with 3rd Bass’s Pete Nice, the Prime Minister talks about the origins of his and Serch’s beef with the Beastie Boys, signing with Def Jam and touring the UK – check Part One here.

What were your thoughts when the Beastie Boys first came out on Def Jam?

“When they first came out, my room-mate at Columbia who hooked me up with Lord Scotch, SAKE, he actually went to high-school with Mike D and MCA…”

Is this where MC Disagree & The Re-Animator come into the 3rd Bass story?

“Yeah, well MC Disagree & The Re-Animator were all together with SAKE, who was Mark Pearson and who actually ended-up being our 3rd Bass road manager. So I didn’t know the Beastie Boys personally at that time, but I knew all about them from hearing stories. I mean, MC Disagree, Dan Kealy, he was very close with Ad-Rock when they were growing up in the same neighbourhood and everything. I guess the whole thing was, I don’t know if it was animosity or whatever, but Disagree and SAKE would always go to earlier clubs than even I was going to, like the Northmore and other early Hip-Hop spots in the city. I mean, they were into Hip-Hop and were white b-boys before most people were. They were like a year or two older than I was in school. So they always looked at the Beasties like, ‘Yo, those guys were into punk rock and now all of a sudden they’ve got up on Hip-Hop.’ I don’t think they really had any specific beef with the Beastie Boys, but of course throw into that them hanging out with us, the Beasties coming out first, and then the “Sons Of 3rd Bass” song we did on “The Cactus Album” kind of grew out of that. Plus, at the time me and Serch were trying to come out, their record had dropped so there was now already this perception of what a white Hip-Hop group should be about, so all these other record labels wanted us to kinda be like them and we really weren’t like that. Labels wanted us to have more of a rock edge, which is why that group the White Boys got signed around that time. Most people would listen to our records and say that we just sounded like a regular Black rap group. We took that as a compliment, but we just sounded the way we sounded and we weren’t going to change that to try and get a record deal. What’s funny, actually, is around that time Kid Rock was an emcee as well. I remember when Serch was entered into the New Music Seminar and Kid Rock was there rockin’ almost like an Evil Knievel suit with a flat-top (laughs).”

So it wasn’t really a personal beef that you had with the Beastie Boys, it was more about the indirect impact their success was having on 3rd Bass getting signed?

“It was probably as much about frustration as it was anything else. I mean, we would run into them at different clubs here and there. I remember running into MCA at Hotel Amazon once, and one time I ran into Ad-Rock at a barber-shop. But of course, Sam Sever was cool with them and also Dante Ross was boys with them from way back to. So there were just a lot of common denominators involved in the situation. Also, at the time, the Beastie Boys had left Def Jam, so that added to a lot of it as well. Like I said, I didn’t really know them. In fact, the only time I ever really had any contact with them myself was when our then manager Lyor Cohen got marrried in the Dominican Republic in 1988 and he invited all the artists. I remember Serch was dying to go but he couldn’t get out of work. But it was literally everybody; Run DMC, Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Public Enemy, Beastie Boys, LL, me, EPMD, Davy D, Tashan, Original Concept. It was nuts. I mean, if the planes had gone down there would have been no Def Jam (laughs). I have pictures of Flavor Flav in a yarmulke at the wedding (laughs). But that was really the only time I had any contact with the Beasties and they probably didn’t even know who I was at that time, they’d probably just heard about these couple of other white rappers.”

Serch knew the Beasties previously though, right?

“Well, the other part of the beef was, Serch knew Mike D and apparently one day Serch ran into Mike or one of the other guys, went back to his place to play some beats or whatever, and apparently Mike D was kinda clownin’ Serch and Serch definitely took offense to it.”

I remember Sam Sever telling me that same story some years back when I did a short interview with him about working on “The Cactus Album”…

“Exactly. So then, obviously I’ve already got the stuff that my boys were telling me about the Beasties and then as I got closer to Serch that happened. So the situation was almost like it was destined to be (laughs). I mean, you look back on it now over the years and there was definitely some stupidity involved. I mean, when MCA passed away I was asked to write a piece for Gawker.Com (note: Requiem For A White Emcee)  and I really had to think whether it was MCA or Ad-Rock that I ran into at that barber-shop that time and it actually turned out to be Ad-Rock. So I told them at Gawker that I didn’t really know MCA and had just met him a couple of times. But there was still that common link of what we did as white emcees, so I just wrote that piece based on that.”

You mentioned earlier the chip-on-the-shoulder that a lot of white emcees carried around back then. Did that ever come into play between you and Serch in terms of each of you wanting to be seen as the better emcee in the group?

“I don’t think there was really any of that between me and Serch back then. I mean, we would compete with each other more for ourselves to make better music as a group rather than going against each other. But I think other people would always bring it up more about who was the better emcee between me and Serch. That was definitely something that I felt was brought up more to some level from fans than maybe you’d hear people having similar conversations about a De La Soul or a Tribe. But that was really on a very small scale and when you have a group containing members with different styles it really just comes down to what people’s preferences are. But that’s what makes your group diverse.”

So did the Def Jam deal actually happen quite quickly once the label were aware that you and Serch were working together?

“Nah, I mean the whole thing was actually quite difficult for us. When the Beastie Boys came out we had demos going around and all these labels wanted something else that was different to what we were doing. So we actually got turned down by a lot of labels that wanted to sign us to big deals but then backed out. That happened with Arista and some other big labels. Then, we started to get more credibility and buzz around us from performing at different clubs and turning up everywhere. Plus, me and Serch both had promos playing on the radio with Red Alert, which for us back then was pretty much the ultimate. Even if you didn’t actually have a record out back then, you could still have a promo playing on the radio. I had a promo on Red Alert for my radio show and Serch had the promos for his early singles. Those were still playing, so we thought we’d made it anyway (laughs). Even if we hadn’t made a record as 3rd Bass, we were still known around New York. But we had a difficult time getting those records deals. Profile Records were looking at us and then when Dante was at Tommy Boy they made a play for us. At the time we really wanted to be on Def Jam and I think Lyor and Russell finally looked at the whole landscape and realised that the Beasties were gone. At that time, Def Jam were kinda down and it was really Public Enemy who were picking them up. I mean, LL’s “Walking With A Panther” was a dud compared to how his other albums did. So 3rd Bass definitely gave the label new blood, along with EPMD when they moved over as well. The first Slick Rick album was doing well, so along with Public Enemy, I think us and EPMD gave the label a new identity for them to build on. But at the same time, Russell was still always trying to find that one R&B act that he could be successful with which he finally got years later with Montell Jordan (laughs).”

I think Russell’s main problem with that in the late-80s was that the R&B artists he was signing like Chuck Stanley and Alyson Williams were largely making traditional soul albums, which compared to the New Jack Swing sound of the time didn’t necessarily connect with the average teenage Def Jam fan…

“Exactly. I mean, Tashan was incredible and Sam Sever was working on his first album when we were doing our first stuff for Def Jam, but it was almost like that record was too good for the time. But he did have Oran “Juice” Jones who kinda blew up with “The Rain” which was a big single. He was a classic, man. I used to love that guy (laughs). He was just such a character. I remember, we’d used Grover Washington Jr.’s horn licks on our song “Monte Hall” and he was also on Columbia. There was an event that the label did for this new record from Grover Washington and they invited us to it and Oran “Juice” Jones. I remember we all took a picture where I’m sitting in this big chair with the cigar, Grover Washington Jr. is above me and Juice is to the side of me (laughs). But Juice was always the guy to come up with the good one-liners and everything he said at the end of his record “The Rain” was definitely not scripted. He could just come up with stuff like that at any time (laughs). But that record totally blew-up in New York at the time.”

Given the impact Russell Simmons had already had on Hip-Hop by the time 3rd Bass signed to Def Jam, what were your first impressions of him when you joined the label?

“Obviously we were impressed. I mean, Russell was Run’s brother and had already had so much success. “Krush Groove” had already come out and Russell was really on top of the genre at the time. If there was anyone you were going to roll with back then, you’d be rollin’ with Rush (laughs). You wouldn’t want to be anywhere else at the time other than with Russell. I remember, we were talking to different managers at the time and they were telling us to make sure we kept our publishing. So we spoke with Russell to try and keep our publishing and he was like, ‘Listen, I’ve got fifty percent of Run DMC’s publishing, I’ve got fifty percent of LL’s publishing, fifty percent of Public Enemy’s publishing, so why the f**k am I going to give you your publishing?’ But back then the business side was a lot different during that period when we were signed to all the big money that came later on with all the label consolidations.”

What was the working dynamic like between Russell and Lyor Cohen?

“Russell and Lyor would always play the good-cop / bad-cop routine in any given situation. I mean, they were genius together. As different as they where, with Lyor being the hard-nosed business guy and Russell always being the nice guy, Russell was definitely just as shrewd. I could just write books about episodes with those two all day long (laughs).”

The “Russell Rush” interlude on “The Cactus Album” still makes me laugh with Russell discussing the name of the group and then he starts talking about the Dickhead Six…

“That was totally live. What happened was, when I was still at school at Columbia when I first hooked-up with Serch, Russell would tell us some s**t like, ‘We’re going to put you out on some dates with Run’ or ‘We’re going to put you out on some dates with LL.’ There were always these carrots that he would stick out there. It even got to the point where I had to speak to one of the counsellors at my school to tell them I might have to take the semester off to go on tour with Run DMC (laughs). But then these things would aways fall through. We just got so frustrated, so I said to Serch, ‘Look, we’re getting so much smoke blown up our ass, I’m just going to take a little tape recorder in to the meetings and we’ll tape that s**t.’ So we would go into meetings with Bill Stephney, Russell and Lyor, and I would just have the s**t running (laughs). So I just had all these tapes of our meetings and when we were doing the album I remembered the tape of the meeting where we were coming up with the name of the group. Russell was trying to get a date with Paula Abdul for the American Music Awards at the same time we were coming up with the group name so that’s what’s on the rest of that tape which is just classic (laughs).”

Any classic Lyor memories?

“I remember, one time we were in London with Lyor at a big hotel around Piccadilly Circus. We’d come in at the time for those rave shows they used to have out there where kids would call a phone number to get the location of the party. I remember, there were these Nigerian princes who were funding and organising them and they’d promised to pay Lyor £25,000 for Public Enemy and another £5,000 for 3rd Bass. It was just a whole s**tload of money. I remember Lyor saying to them that he was bringing us over and if the authorities came after them or anything that he was getting his money either way. So what happened this time we went was the show never happened. Lyor flew us over with PE and De La Soul. I remember it vividly, because right when we went on that trip our  “Steppin’ To The A.M.” video was released on Video Music Box in New York. So we weren’t actually in New York when it first hit, but that’s when our record sales really started to jump. But I remember Lyor with one of these Nigerian princes in the restaurant of the hotel we were in just going crazy like (adopts angry Israeli accent), ‘Listen you motherf**king prince, get me my f**king money or you’re going to be living in the f**king bush! The king, your father, is going to send you out to the bush by the time I’m done with you.’ Sure enough, he ended up paying Lyor even though there was no show (laughs).”

Outside of New York that “Steppin’ To The A.M.” video was largely the first visual introduction to 3rd Bass for a lot of people - where did your whole cigar, cane and suit image come from?

“I mean, it kinda came from the days when I was hangin’ out with Blake (Lord Scotch). He gave me the name Prime Minister when we were hanging-out at the Albee Square Mall. We always used to hang-out at this jewellery store K & I Jewelers which I think Biz Mark mentions in “Albee Square Mall” a couple times. Big Daddy Kane would be at the Albee Square Mall as well. So I think Blake kinda looked at me as being a white Kane kind of character, so that persona was pretty much from before I was even with Serch. Then when first did the “Steppin’ To The A.M.” video with Lionel Martin from Video Music Box, he definitely picked up on that and was like, ‘Yo, I’ve got this huge chair, so you can sit in the chair like it’s a throne with your cane’ and it really just took off from there. I mean, I was smoking cigars anyway. And with the whole cane thing, when people would ask me why I needed the cane I’d tell them, ‘Yo, I got shot in the leg when I was a kid’ and all kinds of different s**t which was fun (laughs). Actually, I remember we did one show in Scotland and sometimes Flavor Flav would tell us to ask him to come out during our set. So at this particular show, he wanted to come out after we’d done “The Gas Face”. So we introduce Flav, people go nuts, and he comes out like, ‘Yo Pete! I was at this store today. Now, you’ve got your cane and that’s fly, but check this s**t out, man.’ He takes out this thing that looks like a cane, hits it on the stage and it turns into a little chair (laughs). He sits on it and is like, ‘Look at this Pete!’ and then goes into his whole ‘Yeaaah boy!’ thing and the crowd just loses it (laughs). But I will say, my favourite moment onstage was probably in England when the Poll Tax was around.  I was like, ‘F**k Margaret Thatcher! I’m the Prime Minister!’ and the whole crowd was going nuts (laughs). That’s probably as political as we got at that time (laughs).”

I think 3rd Bass was political to some extent just by your mere presence in Hip-Hop at the time as two white emcees in a Black-dominated artform…

“The other thing that I think people totally overlooked was that we were really the first integrated group as well because it wasn’t like Daddy Rich was just our show deejay or something, he was actually a member of the group. Hurricane was the Beastie Boys deejay for shows and stuff but he wasn’t actually in the group. But that’s actually a funny story too because our first deejay for 3rd Bass was this kid called DJ White Knight. Serch knew this guy DJ Holiday who was well known in New York but ended-up going to Tennessee. Serch went down to visit him and he met White Knight there who was definitely a nice deejay. Serch comes back from Tennessee and is like, ‘Yo Pete, I’ve got our deejay.’ He didn’t talk to me about it or anything and I’m like, ‘Are you f**kin’ kidding me? You’re going to bring this kid back from Tennessee and he’s all of a sudden our deejay?!’ Now Rich at the time, he was was at school in Farmingdale out on Long Island, so he really wasn’t available. But I was trying to get to him to be our deejay and join the group. So Knight shows-up after leaving Tennessee to live with Serch. I’m just beside myself and we were in the studio at the time and I’m like, ‘What the f**k is going on here?’ Sure enough though, I like Knight, he starts growing on us and I’m totally down with him (laughs). He’s doing cuts in the studio, we did a couple of early performances, he’s in the “Steppin’ To The A.M.” video in the back of the car. He did one of our first photo-shoots with us. It was almost like he was the fifth Beatle or something (laughs). But it turns out, him and Serch had some sort of falling out. Knight was living with Serch and his girl, some s**t happened and next thing I know they kinda split-up and Knight’s heading back to Tennessee (laughs). So Serch brought him in and Serch took him out (laughs). I was as baffled when he left as when he came. So that’s a bit of 3rd Bass trivia for you (laughs). But after that happened, that’s when I told Rich that we wanted him. We had already produced the first album but Rich did those early tours with us and then when we got into the second album Rich was involved with the production.”

I still have tapes of your appearances on Tim Westwood’s Capital Rap Show from 3rd Bass’s visits to the UK - what do you remember of being on-air with Tim in London?

“I remember Tim had the late-night show on Capital Radio at that time and we used to go up there with this guy from Def Jam in the UK called Trenton. I just remember going up there late-night after we’d been running around all day with Serch going nuts and Tim would end almost every line he said by saying ‘Respect!’ So it just became a running joke between me and Serch where we would imitate Tim Westwood all the time (laughs). Then we’d get back to the States and hear is tapes back home and there was somewhere that used to list his charts in New York and we’d see we’d made it onto his charts and be happy about that. But Tim was was always very receptive to what we were doing and gracious enough to have us on his show so we always got along well with him.”

Ryan Proctor

Check Part Three of this interview here.

3rd Bass – “Steppin’ To The A.M.” (Def Jam / 1989)

Old To The New Q&A – Prime Minister Pete Nice (Part One)

In a post-Eminem world it’s perhaps difficult for many to understand how a white emcee could raise even as much as an eyebrow from anybody both in and outside of Hip-Hop. But once upon a time, in a rap galaxy far, far away, the sight of a pale-faced microphone fiend was guaranteed to inspire a variety of both positive and negative (yet equally intense) reactions from all across the board.

Just being a white fan of Hip-Hop throughout the genre’s earliest days and into the 90s presented a cultural maze that demanded to be navigated if you were truly going to follow your passion for beats and rhymes, with that web of social norms and racial politics becoming even more complex if you chose to step beyond simply supporting the culture and actually attemped to participate as either a b-boy, graffiti artist, deejay or, the final frontier, as an emcee.

Whilst the Beastie Boys can perhaps lay claim to being the first widely-recognised crew of Caucasians to grab the mic, bursting out of NYC’s early-80s punk-rock scene to become one of the earliest signings to the legendary Def Jam label, Prime Minister Pete Nice and MC Serch of 3rd Bass fame upped the credibility ante, with both determined to be considered as dope emcees existing on a Black planet, not because of their whiteness, but in spite of it.

With Pete and Serch each having personal histories steeped in the Rotten Apple’s early Hip-Hop scene, the duo rejected the alcohol-fuelled antics and rock-edged sounds of the Beasties in favour of a more serious approach to their music, combining long-practiced lyrical skills and witty wordplay with stellar production from the likes of Sam Sever, Prince Paul and The Bomb Squad.

Adding DJ Daddy Rich behind the turntables, 3rd Bass dropped two classic long-players, 1989′s “The Cactus Album” and 1991′s “Derelicts Of Dialect”, before an unexpected split found Pete and Serch each taking the solo route, with their influence also being felt via involvement in the mid-90s debut projects of Kurious Jorge and Nas respectively.

With April 2013 marking twenty years since the release of Pete Nice & Daddy Rich’s only album project, “Dust To Dust”, the Prime Minister kindly agreed to jump on the phone for a lengthy in-depth interview, discussing everything from memories of the Latin Quarter, first meeting MC Serch and Beastie beef, to Lyor Cohen’s business hustle, working with KMD and the chances of 3rd Bass hitting the road again.

So read on, or get your mack-daddy license revoked!

How and when were you introduced to Hip-Hop?

“Well, when I was a kid my father was a basketball coach and he coached some of the best high-school players in New York City. In the summer he would travel with them to what was called the Empire State Games, which were almost like the Olympic Games of New York state. I used to be the ball-boy on the team from when I would have been about ten-years old. So from like 77, 78, 79 through to the early-80s I was always with these older high-school kids that played basketball and they’d always have their tapes when they came out, everything from Jimmy Spicer and Kurtis Blow through to early Run DMC. Those were some of the earliest groups I remember hearing, along with Funky Four Plus One, Cold Crush, Crash Crew and Divine Sounds.”

When did you actually start rhyming?

“As I got older and went to high-school in Brooklyn, one of my boys Jazzy, who ended-up in the group Whistle doing “Just Buggin’”, his cousin was Kangol from UTFO. So he used to bring in all the Roxanne tapes before they were even out and then you’d hear them on Red Alert. I mean, when we were kids that was the thing, to have a cassette ready to roll to tape Red Alert, Chuck Chillout or Mr. Magic on the radio. In New York, that was pretty much the ultimate at that point. So we all just formed a little group in high-school in the lunch-room basically, with my boy Kibwe K, Fresh Fred, Buddah B, honorary member The White Box, and we had a group that was called Sin Qua Non. But then when we graduated from high-school they went to Syracuse and I stayed in school in New York City at Columbia so we were kind of split-up geographically. But before we had split up, my man Kibwe, who was from Bed-Stuy, his father knew the Black activist Sonny Carson and his son Lumumba who ended-up becoming Professor X in X-Clan. He was managing some acts at the time, so we got introduced to him, and Lumumba was actually managing the group before we all split up and went away to school. I remember we did our first show at the Empire Roller Rink in Flatbush. But then when everyone went away to school, I was the only one around, so Lumumba was just managing me as a solo act. At the same time he was also managing Positive K before he had any records out, he had Just-Ice and Stetsasonic too. That’s when me and Serch first kinda met because I used to go to the Latin Quarter in Manhattan. At the point I was with Lumumba, as I said he was managing Stetsasonic, so I’d go to a Stetsasonic show at the Latin Quarter. I’d get picked up from my dorm room by Walter and Lumumba in the Aerostar which thinking about it now is hysterical (laughs).”

Were you working with Lumumba with the intention of making a record?

“He was promising to get me in the studio and everything and in that winter nothing really happened. At the same time I had met up with this guy through my room-mate at Columbia called Lord Scotch who was also known as Kid Benetton and is the brother of the writer Jonathan Lethem. So this would have been sophomore year at Columbia when me and Scotch hooked-up and we formed this other group called the Servin’ Generalz. We hung-out a lot at that time at the Albee Square Mall in Brooklyn and this was around the time when beat-boxing was prevalent and our boy Shameek The Beat Mizer, who also wrote graffiti, he was the third man in the group. At the time, I don’t know how I met them, but I got together with the two guys who were managing Kid ‘N’ Play. The name of their company was Richlen Productions because one of the guys was named Rich and the other was called Lenny (laughs). They were going to put us together with Hurby Luv Bug at the time. So I’m thinking if I’m with Lumumba he’s got Stetsasonic and other acts, these guys Rich and Len had ties with Hurby Luv Bug, there were all these different opportunities so we figured we’d just go with the first person that wanted to sign us. But at the same time, me and Benetton had cut this brief demo at this studio on Fulton Street down by the Albee Square Mall.”

Was that demo shopped to any particular labels?

“Nah, it wasn’t anything that was to such a level that it was a professional demo. I think maybe I played it for Rich and Lenny, that was the thing that actually got them to want to sign us. So we were about to sign with them, there were papers drawn up and everything, then right at that point Blake (Lord Scotch) disappears. He just totally disappeared off the face of the earth. Then Shameek gets arrested with some other guy because they held-up a whole subway car…”

That sounds like something that could only have happened in the New York of the 80s…

“Exactly. So now, I’ve gone from the Sin Qua Non group, to no group, to Servin’ Generalz and then back to being solo again. At that time, my room-mate SAKE who’d hooked me up with Blake, he knew a couple of other people like Dante Ross, who wasn’t even over at Def Jam yet at that point, he was just working as kind of like a gofer over at Rush. I think at the time Dante would even road manage for Eric B. & Rakim and whoever else they needed him to look after. I remember there was one day I was with Dante and he had to get a passport for Rakim so we were running around all over the city trying to track down information to get this passport (laughs). I think they were actually going to do a show out by you in the UK. Anyway, around that time I’d decided that I was just going to go in the studio and cut a demo myself and I ended-up getting that to Dante. At the exact same time, Dante had already been working with Serch and had put him together with Sam Sever. Actually it was funny, because the other time I’d met Serch was at this club called Roseland at an Eric B. & Rakim show. I think it was Heavy D as well. Me and Blake went to the front door and Serch happened to be there, and then I met him one other time at the Latin Quarter.”

So at this point you and Serch were just aware of each other but there was no relationship there to speak of?

“The Latin Quarter was actually the first time I formally met Serch with Blake. It was funny, because I remember Serch came out of like a low-budget limo and he had this air-brushed denim ‘SERCH’ jacket on. Serch had already got his first record out at this point. At the time, Red Alert and Chuck Chillout would run his promos on the radio.”

So this was around 1986?

“Yeah, it was right around 86. P-Fine from NYU was playing Serch’s record as well. Then right after that time, I think it was that summer, I got my radio show on WKCR at Columbia. Most people don’t realise it, but I had the first rap show on KCR. Stretch & Bobbito being on there wasn’t until years afterwards. It was me and Clark Kent at the time and we were probably on air for part of a semester. I was still going to school there at the time and it was unheard of to have anything close to rap on the radio there. I don’t know if you remember the rapper Little Shawn, but he was up there, and Biz Markie was up there at one time. I’m pretty sure that the reason we got kicked off the air was because at some point some equipment disappeared. Who knows if it was even anyone affiliated with us at the time, but we ended-up getting blamed for it (laughs).”

Did you have many artists coming through the show?

“Nah, not really. I mean, we had Little Shawn up there and there was one show I missed because I was out of town that Clark did and I think Biz Markie was there for that one. But the show wasn’t really established at that point where you’d have artists coming through all the time. Plus, we were on so late. I have the times on a flyer I kept somewhere (laughs). But at any rate, the whole aspect of our show, as much as having an artist come through to freestyle and whatever was cool, it was Clark’s mixes that were off the hook. Even today, I still see him on Twitter and he was just on Hot 97 the other week rippin’ it, so he still has it. But his mixes back then were a really big deal. Plus, we’d get the first pressings of records back then around the same time that someone like a Red Alert would get them and maybe even before in some cases. Clark was touring with Dana Dane at the time so from time to time he would have to miss a show, and that was actually when he introduced me to Daddy Rich. So the first time me and Daddy Rich met was when he was filling in for Clark when he was on the road with Dana Dane.”

The Hip-Hop landscape has changed dramatically since the early-80s, but when you first started rhyming how were you received as a white emcee?

“As far as being a white emcee, at the time that me and Serch, and even Scotch, were contemplating rhyming, there was no-one out there already. Being a white emcee really was an unknown entity and it was something that hadn’t even been attempted. Rap and Hip-Hop has come so far now that I think people forget that today. I mean, people did look at you first like you were nuts. But I mean, I really started out at first with friends in school. So first of all you had to get accepted in your own small group, then when people saw that you really appreciated the music and you had skills, that’s when you started to move into different public situations, like when we did our show at the Empire Roller Rink. At that time, people would just look at you like, ‘These f**kin’ white kids…’ y’know. But then when they could actually see that you can rhyme, then you’d f**k up their heads a little bit, you get a little respect and then you’d just take it from there. That’s pretty much the way me and Serch always approached it back then. Blake was even on a different level, because I don’t even think he thought he was white on any level. He was just in another zone. They broke the mould with Blake. But I mean, he was rhyming before even Serch got up the mettle to even write any rhymes or do anything when he was at school at Music & Art. I mean, Blake was already rhyming at the time with the Kangol Crew and some other kids.”

I know I’ve read Scotch say that he doesn’t claim the title himself, but in your opinion would you say he was the first white emcee in New York?

“I mean, if there’s anyone else who wants to jump up and say that they were, I never knew of them. Maybe they were in a different state or something, but I highly doubt there was anyone else out there doing it that early. I mean, there were a lot of white break-dancers and, of course, graffiti artists, but no-one had ever got down on the mic. I mean, obviously then the Beastie Boys element comes up, and of course they had records out before we did as 3rd Bass, although you could say that Serch had his solo single out. Then right after the Beastie Boys you had groups like the White Boys who came out and Jon Shecter from The Source had his B.M.O.C. record out when we were in the studio doing our demos. We kinda got a little kick out of that (laughs). But then the ironic thing about that, is that Brett Ratner, who directed my solo videos, is actually the person who put out that B.M.O.C. record (laughs).”

You mentioned earlier going to the legendary Latin Quarter club – what memories do you have of the nights you spent there?

“Off the top of my head, having mentioned the Stetsasonic show earlier, I remember sitting backstage at the Latin Quarter before the guys were going onstage. Frukwan was there with Prince Paul and he said something like, ‘I’ve gotta get out of here early tonight because I’ve got to get to work early in the morning.’ I was like, ‘What do you mean you’ve got to work? You guys are Stetsasonic! You’re not supposed to be working.’ He was like, ‘C’mon, we’ve still gotta work, man.’ So it was like a realisation that just because you had a hit record out, you’re not retiring. It wasn’t like any big money was being made in the rap game at that point. Back then, it was just about guys doing it because they loved the music and wanted to put out records. That was also my first time meeting Prince Paul as well, who obviously we went on to work with as 3rd Bass. I also remember vividly one time being in the Latin Quarter and walking up to Just-Ice and his beatbox DMX actually thought I was MCA from the Beastie Boys which was pretty funny.”

Is there one particular Latin Quarter memory that really defines what the club was to you?

“Actually, the biggest night probably ever at Latin Quarter, and this also relates to Lord Scotch, was when they had this particular night that was a benefit for the soul singer Jackie Wilson to raise money for his tombstone. I’ve heard people talk about this show in interviews before. Everybody was on the bill from LL to Salt-N-Pepa to Full Force, Awesome Two, I think KRS, Doug E. Fresh, I mean anyone you could imagine got up there that night. Just-Ice performed. It was like a who’s who all night. At some point, Special K and Teddy Ted threw some records out into the crowd, someone stepped on someone’s sneaker somewhere and a scuffle started. Then at some point the drug dealer Supreme who used to roll with Eric B. & Rakim was in there taunting LL and was picking up a chair. S**t just jumped off all over the place. I’m standing by the coat-check, Bow-Legged Lou, Full Force and Lisa Lisa were there, Melle Mel was standing not too far away, and the next thing you know there’s fights breaking out all over the place, people are getting slashed with razors, then you heard some gunshots. So we were running out the front door after hearing those gunshots out onto the street. Someone picked up one of those big New York City garbage cans and put it through a car window. S**t was jumping off all over the place. So we ran at least two blocks with Bow-Legged Lou (laughs). This all happened at about two or three in the morning and I ended up in a Burger King in Times Square with Melle Mel (laughs). It was surreal. But because I’d lost Scotch during all of this, I ended-up going back to the Latin Quarter. So I get back there and there’s Scotch and Biz Markie, with Biz beat-boxing, Scotch stood on top of a speaker just rhyming and there’s people just laid out on the floor (laughs). It was f**kin’ nuts! But that’s my ultimate LQ memory (laughs).”

Was violence a reoccurring problem there from what you can remember?

“I mean, that’s the only time I was there when anything that big jumped off. There used to be the odd fight and scuffle here and there, but the place would have never stayed open for as long as it did if there was stuff going on like that all the time. Then, of course, it did ultimately close. But I remember there was a kid from my high-school and I think his father had some sort of ownership interest in the Latin Quarter. I saw him there one time and he was like one of the only other white kids I saw there. There was also one other white kid that I would see there who always used to have on some pretty fly sneakers. I just always remember these sneakers he would wear. They were like a brand that nobody had really seen before, so that’s why I always remember them. I remember Dante would be around as well, that was when he was affiliated with Rush so he’d come through with the artists. The Beastie Boys would be there with Russell Simmons as well and that whole crew when they came through to promote their records, but I mean they weren’t going there just to hang-out. Me, Blake and Serch would go to the Latin Quarter just to hang-out when we were freakin’ nobodies.”

What other clubs were you going to in NYC at that time?

“Union Square was the other big club right at that time. You also had another club people would go to regularly called The World. Actually, a funny story, Clark had Mixmaster Ice from UTFO come up to our radio show once or twice, and then, I can’t remember if it was as part of the NYU Seminar or the New Music Seminar, but we were given time on the bill at this big show at a place called The Limelight. So me, Clark and Mixmaster Ice show-up and get to the door and there’s like four or five pretty big security guys and then a couple of, I don’t know, they looked like ninja Japanese guys (laughs). I can remember standing out on the avenue, Clark had a towel around his neck and his turntables in the cases, Ice was right next to him. They wouldn’t let us in because they were saying that we weren’t on the list. They’ve always laughed at me since, especially Clark, because I was like ‘Step offff…’ and started to go after them. Then the next thing these ninja kids are coming out and Clark was like, ‘Let’s just get the f**k outta here…’ But Clark won’t let me live that down to this day probably. It became an on-going joke so he’d see me and just be like ‘Step offff…’ (laughs). That’s kinda why I did that in the “Brooklyn-Queens” video, it was like an inside joke (laughs). But Latin Quarter was really the main spot and then you had other clubs downtown like Area and 1018 that would be Hip-Hop on certain nights where there would be performances. Then you also had The Red Parrot which was in mid-town and they would have some decent shows with different artists performing.”

Were you grabbing the mic at any of those clubs before you got on as 3rd Bass?

“No, not really. Downtown there used to be a couple of clubs in abandoned school buildings and one was Hotel Amazon and actually me and Serch would sometimes warm up the crowd there. I mean, we would show up anywhere and just say give us some time on the mic to introduce groups or whatever. We introduced Public Enemy there one time, I think. There was another spot, I think it was Irving Plaza Hotel, and we introduced Rob Base when his record “It Takes Two” was out. So we used to show up everywhere and anywhere. To the point where, even when we didn’t have records out, if Serch connected with a promoter or something, they’d be like, ‘Do you guys want to come out to Illinois?’ or something like that. Actually, we went on one trip to the Bay Area as judges for a basketball contest that Hammer was at. There was a dunk contest, a three-point contest and they also had a dance contest. That’s where the beef started between Serch and Hammer, because Hammer wouldn’t let Serch get into the dance contest (laughs). But I remember we were there with like UTFO, Whodini, Grandmaster Dee was there, so we were with a lot of old-timers even before we had our own records out as a group. We would basically go anywhere and do anything we could to promote ourselves and the group.”

Various stories have been told about how you and Serch first officially met with different people taking credit for the introduction – but how do you recall that first meeting actually happening?

“I mean, we had been in the same spot before at the Latin Quarter and not known each other. But I think the first time ever when it was like, ‘This is Pete, this is Serch’ was with Blake at the Latin Quarter. Then after that it was through Dante because he had my demo and he was also already working with Serch at Rush and had put him with Sam Sever. I’m trying to think of the exact times and Serch might remember that better. But I remember me, Dante and Serch went to go see Schoolly D at The World. I remember Serch was bangin’ some chick from the projects called Lorraine (laughs). Serch had a blue Granada at the time that didn’t have a radio that we would call the Think Tank (laughs). So picture me, Dante, Serch and possibly this chick called Lorraine heading to The World to go see Schoolly D (laughs). I remember Russell Simmons was there and I talked to him briefly, but Serch was talking to him more than I was because at that point Russell knew Serch better than he knew me. But I would say that was like the first time we actually went out together.”

Do you remember when you were first introduced to Sam Sever?

“I think I met Sam Sever through Dante Ross. I think it was Dante who introduced me to Sam. Afterwards I called up Sam and asked him to come into the studio to check out what I was doing and he started collaborating with me on my demo. I think that’s when Dante spoke to Lyor Cohen like, ‘Why don’t we try and put these guys together?’ It was by no means anything how some people make it out to be, like some calculated move by anybody. It just happened. I mean, it was even more like Sam’s call at the time than it was anybody’s because he was already working with both of us. I remember us all meeting at Sam’s apartment and Serch’s mom was like a performer back in the day and she was like the typical stage mother. So she was like, ‘Well, you know, Michael’s a soloist so I don’t really know about this group idea.’ So I had to meet Serch’s mom at Sam’s crib and it was just hysterical. But me and Serch hit it off pretty well right off the bat.”

So you and Serch clicked together from the very beginning?

“I mean, listen, I’ve always said that any white emcee, and even white b-boys, have a chip on their shoulder and think that nobody else is as nice as you or can be down other than you. That still lives on to today to some point. But you have to remember, we were doing this back in the early-80s, so a lot of how things were back then is lost on the kids of today. I mean, when I went to high-school most of the white kids were burnt-out and listening to Led Zeppelin. That’s what was accepted back then. I used to go to school in a pair of Wallabees, a polo shirt and Lee straight-leg jeans (laughs).”

Ryan Proctor

Read Part Two of this interview here.

3rd Bass – “Brooklyn-Queens” (Def Jam / 1990)

Zulu Kings – Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force

Footage of Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force performing their 1983 classic “Looking For The Perfect Beat” at their recent Radio City show in NYC.

Old To The New Q&A – DJ Cheese (Part Two)

Part One of this interview with turntable pioneer DJ Cheese found the New Jersey native discussing his introduction to Hip-Hop, hooking-up with Word Of Mouth and signing with Profile Records. In this concluding instalment Cheese remembers winning the 1986 DMC World Championships, hanging-out with Biz Markie and paying for his time spent hustling in the streets.

So how did you get involved with 1986′s DMC competition?

“Well, I didn’t really choose to enter the DMC, the DMC chose me. How it happened was through me being in the New Music Seminar battles in New York. I won the New Music Seminar battle in ’84 and then came back in 1985. I really won that battle  as well but I was cheated out of it. Tony Prince from DMC was there at the time and everyone knew I won that battle which is how I ended-up going to England for the DMC. At the time New York was always about New York, so you couldn’t really go there then and get a fair battle. I was lucky enough to get one in ’84 but they weren’t about to let me win two times in a row. Now the winner of that 1985 battle was going to go to the UK to represent the United States in the DMC World Championships, that was announced at the beginning of the battle. Now, even though I didn’t win that NMS title that year (note: NYC’s DJ Easy G Rockwell won) in the books they know who really won that battle because I was told right there that night that I was going to the DMC event. I remember Kurtis Blow coming over to me and telling me it wasn’t right what had happened and that it was clear who’d really won the battle.”

You won the DMC event with a ground-breaking routine made-up of various turntable tricks – were you aware that what you were bringing to the competition was so different to what the other deejays would be doing?

“Nah, not at all. I thought the other deejays there were going to be doing the same thing that I came to do, which was battle. I didn’t think the competition was going to be that laidback. I thought everyone knew why every other person was there, but obviously not. I didn’t go there to mix. I went there to battle.”

At the beginning of the routine there was that slight glitch when you started cutting the Hashim record – what went through your mind at that point when the needle skipped?

“I was always used to things like that happening. I never panicked in a situation like that because that was just Hip-Hop back then. If you were good at what you did then you already knew that the crowd were going to love it. So I didn’t panic at that point. That’s why I got right back to it so fast because I knew where the routine was going to go from there and what I was going to do.”

Dutch deejay Orlando Voorn famously shouted “What is this, a mixing competition or a scratching competition?” after your win was announced and he placed third - what was your response to the reactions you were getting?

“I didn’t really get any negative feedback about my routine other than from the other deejays who were involved in the competition. I remember I could see the fire coming out of Orlando Voorn’s face (laughs). Chad Jackson (note: 1987′s DMC Champion) was definitely cool about it. I got a lot of positive feedback from people saying that they’d never seen anything like that before up close and personal. Back then we did two sets over two days and I remember the attention I got from other deejays being upset after the first day just made me want to go even harder, because they hated what I’d done but the crowd loved it. The first day they weren’t ready with what I came with so I took everybody off guard with the handcuffs, the blindfold, spinning around, using my elbows. But then the next day when we came back there were guys there with pool sticks, bike tyres, one dude even had the kitchen sink! It was crazy (laughs). Suddenly it was like a magic show and everybody had to come up with some new tricks.”

How did it feel to win that DMC event?

“That was definitely another highlight for me to take the title of world champion deejay at the time. I didn’t think I was going to go over there and win that. I mean, it was a world championship, so I figured I was going to go over there and be up against all these deejays from all around the world and have more competition than I really had at that event.”

So with 1986 being such a huge year for you with the success of “Coast To Coast”, the DMC win and headlining UK Fresh, what was the plan moving forward?

“The plan moving forward was to do the album with Word Of Mouth on Profile, but as I said we started to understand what was happening with our management so we let Duke Bootee know that we didn’t want to be a part of his label anymore. We didn’t want anything else to do with him. When he picked us up from the airport after we came back from Europe he was basically telling us that we didn’t have no other choice. I remember him saying that he had contracts and that even if we were reincarnated we’d come back and he’d still own us. He basically told Word Of Mouth that he didn’t give a f**k about them. He told them, ‘You two can leave today and I wouldn’t give a f**k but this guy here ain’t going nowhere.’ Duke was like, ‘Finding a deejay like Cheese is like finding a needle in a haystack but you rappers are a dime a dozen.’ I think Word Of Mouth were shocked when he said that because he was real aggressive with it. Duke pulled over on the highway and was like, ‘You two can get the f**k out now or we can go back to my house and we can split this money out and we done.’ Like I said, we didn’t really have access to the business side of things and that was then the group really fell apart because I still wanted to do music but the other guys were hesitant on how we were going to do it on our own. I felt there were ways we could’ve gotten it done but they weren’t as motivated about it as I was. So I actually walked away from them afterwards. I mean, looking back, we really should have made a group decision and fought it out more than we did. Even though we were being robbed we should have stuck it out a little longer and used the situation to make other connections in the industry so that we could move on. I mean, I remember hearing bad talk about Duke Bootee from Tom Silverman at Tommy Boy and then I went to the DMC and Tony Prince was in my ear telling me to watch the dude. So I’m hearing the same story from two major industry dudes, which let me know that Duke was already known as a slimeball in the business. But being young at the time, I didn’t know any of that before we got involved with him. I mean, I looked up to Duke because he was the one who put me on and got me to do my first record. But on the other side of the coin, he was a bad businessman and it seemed that the industry knew it already, it was just me who didn’t know that.”

What was your involvement with Tom Silverman?

“Tom Silverman was trying to sign me to Tommy Boy and he told me like, ‘Duke’s not a good dude. He’s going to get you for your money.’ I was working from Tom’s studio at the time when Keith LeBlanc was doing the “Lipservice” record (note: released on Tommy Boy in 1984 under the name Beatmaster). Back then in Hip-Hop if you f**ked with a crew then you were loyal to that one crew. So I made Duke aware of what Tom had said to me and he was like, ‘Well, that’s the last time you’re working there.’ So when Tony Prince told me the same thing that was when I kept it to myself because I wanted to see where it was going to go. So when Word Of Mouth started to see what was going on, that was when I told them what had been said to me and that was when we decided to walk away from the label.”

So was Tom Silverman trying to sign just you to Tommy Boy or Word Of Mouth as well?

“We really didn’t get too much into the conversation but I believe he just wanted to sign me as a deejay because he really didn’t speak on the group. He was impressed with me as he was involved in setting-up the New Music Seminar and had seen what I was capable of doing.”

I understand that Biz Markie also approached you about being his deejay when he first started putting records out in the mid-80s?

“Yeah. At that time it was me, Biz, Big Daddy Kane and TJ Swan who were all running together at one point. They used to spend the night at my house and go to parties with me. At the time, I was doing two or three parties a week so they used to travel with me. It was towards the end of our run with “Coast To Coast” when Biz first asked me to be his deejay. I still didn’t know where things were going to go with Word Of Mouth, so I was like, ‘I’m down with these dudes already’ and I didn’t want to just walk away from them at that point. Then Big Daddy Kane came along and he was the second one to ask me to be his deejay. Biz and Kane would freestyle at all the parties I was doing in Jersey and the way I was rockin’ with them it was as if we’d practiced routines together, but we never had practiced. They’d just be hanging out with me coming to the parties. Kane would be like, ‘Let me get the mic’ and I already knew he was hot even though people didn’t really know who he was at that time, but he would turn the party out. He’d be rockin’ and I’d drop the beat out on his punchline or throw a cut in there and he’d look back over his shoulder like, ‘How the f**k did you know I was about to drop that punchline?’ So after that he wanted me to be his deejay as well.”

So did you turn Kane down as well because you were still with Word Of Mouth?

“Yeah, right. I was also approached by Queen Latifah and Shakim of the Flavor Unit to be her deejay as well. At that time, I wasn’t even with Word Of Mouth no more, I was in the streets hustling. But I was so caught up in the streets at that time that I turned them down, which became the third biggest disappointment of my career. First I let Biz go by, then Big Daddy Kane, and then here comes Queen Latifah. I let all three of those opportunities go by.”

What was your connection with Biz Markie?

“Biz at the time basically lived in Jersey. You used to see Biz walking around Jersey on a Tuesday (laughs). I mean, Biz was already hot even before his records came out and hit radio because he was known for doing his human beatbox. So he’d already established himself and Kane was running with Biz at that time. As far as Kane, anyone who came from New York to Jersey, the crowd was already looking forward to seeing them rock because they were expecting them to be dope. I mean, that wasn’t always the case, but Kane obviously was a real dope emcee so he definitely left a big impression on people. From time to time people will remind me, ‘You remember that time you brought Kane out at such and such a party? You remember when you brought Biz?’ People still remember that.”

Did anyone ever try and battle Kane at any of those Jersey parties?

“Nah, not at all (laughs). I mean, after Kane got on the mic didn’t nobody else wanna get on it. If he was the first one on, then Kane was the last one on. A person would be a fool to try and go in behind that (laughs).”

Were you involved with any of the other Flavor Unit members aside from Latifah?

“Nah, but I knew all of them. I knew Mark The 45 King. I mean, when Shakim approached me about working with Latifah it was because Mark was busy with other projects so he couldn’t be her deejay as well. This was around the time that “Wrath Of My Madness” was being played on the radio which was a hot single to me. But part of the reason I turned them down was because I really didn’t want to relive the experience I’d had with Word Of Mouth and the music business.”

So at that point you were burnt out with the business side of the music game?

“Yeah, I was definitely burnt out with the business side of the game and that was when I got caught up in the lifestyle as far as being in the streets was concerned. Basically my addiction in the streets was the lifestyle and the money. I never had a drug habit which is what some people think. I’ve never used drugs, had a drink or smoked a cigarette in my life. So it wasn’t what a lot of people thought it was in terms of them thinking I had a drug addiction because everytime I came home from jail I went right back. No, I had an addiction to money. I mean, when I was touring the UK and making records my addiction was Hip-Hop and it was always about the love of the culture for me and at that point it wasn’t about the money. But that addiction to money came later once I got into the streets.”

How long were you in the streets for?

“I would say from about 1987 through to 2002. I was in and out prison and my mindset during that time was all about getting out to go straight back to the streets. I knew exactly what I was going to do. Today, that’s not my mindset. I’ve prepared myself for it this time. Today my mind is back to the music and I’m back to where I was in ’83, ’84. I know there are people out there who think it’s just a matter of time before I go back to jail but I’m looking to prove them wrong. I’m not upset with anyone for thinking that, because I know I let people down, but now I have to work hard to get that respect back.”

What did you serve time for?

“Distribution of cocaine. There’s nothing else on my jacket other than that.”

Were you still dabbling with Hip-Hop while you were in the streets or did you completely disconnect yourself from the music business?

“I was still doing parties inbetween all that and I did a couple of shows. I did a couple of shows with Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick when I was in the streets. I opened up for 50 Cent while I was in the streets. But for the most part I just walked away from the music even though I would still practice on the turntables at home. I remember I did a show with Kane at The Apollo one time around ’88 / ’89 and he gave me a cold shoulder and treated me like I was a stranger. I don’t know if he was disappointed because I turned him down when he asked me about being his deejay or whether he was disappointed because he knew what I was doing in the streets. I remember we were in the green room and he was standing in the doorway. He was looking at me and I was looking at him, but he didn’t give me a head-nod or nothing. So I approached him like, ‘Remember me?’ and he was just like, ‘Yeah’ and that was it. In my mind I was like, ‘Wow! You used to sleep on my floor and this is how it is now?’ I went and sat back down and I was kinda upset but now when I look back at it I know I disappointed a lot of people with what I was doing. I mean, I’ve talked to Kane since I last came home and we didn’t speak about that particular incident but he was just happy that I’m home and doing what I’m doing.”

How long were you locked-up for before the last time you came home?

“I was released in 2011 and I’d been away for almost nine years.”

So are you still in touch with Word Of Mouth today?

“Yeah, we did a single called “Life Without Hip-Hop” a little while ago. Like I said, I’m not going going back to the streets again whether this music thing goes my way or it fails. I’m so motivated right now and I keep telling Word Of Mouth that all the old-school crews are still touring and we’re one of the few groups that aren’t out there touring. I understand I was away, but I’m home now so let’s drop the single and let the people know we’re back. But this has been going on for about fifteen months now and I told them flat-out either we’re going to do it or it’s over for good. I’ve got the studio right here at home so we don’t need to pay for studio time or anything like that, we can do it all right here. But it’s just not getting done, so regardless I’m going to keep moving how I’ve been moving. I’ve had quite a few deejay sponsors come along who’re backing me right now because they see what I’m doing and I’m moving right now.”

What’s your opinion on the current state of turntablism?

“I mean, to me everyone is doing the same thing. Everyone’s using their laptops now with Serato. I mean, there’s nothing really wrong with that but it’s just sounds like you’re using one turntable and just doing a lot of scratching. Where are the skills at? Where’s the technical part of being able to do something with that turntable? To me, it always used to be about how you used those turntables and that mixer. It’s moved away from that now and it’s need to get back to what that word turntablism really means. It used to be about the funk. It used to be exciting to watch someone on the turntables and see how nice they were. There are some people out there who’re slowly bringing it back.”

Has it surprised you being on social media and seeing how much people still remember the impact you made the first time around?

“Oh yeah, definitely. Coming home and seeing all the activity on Facebook with people sending me stuff from events that I didn’t even remember doing or pictures that I didn’t even remember taking, to me all that stuff is big.”

How would you sum-up the contributions you made to the golden-era of Hip-Hop as both a deejay and with Word Of Mouth?

“Back then we never even looked it at in terms of what contribution we were making. We were just in the scene doing what we did. Looking back on it now, it’s a decision the people have to make when it comes to how much of a contribution we made. Me personally, I can’t make that decision. That’s something the people have to decide.”

Ryan Proctor

F0llow DJ Cheese on Twitter @KingKutDJCheese.

Footage of DJ Cheese’s 1986 DMC routine.

Old To The New Q&A – DJ Cheese (Part One)

Born in West Virginia but raised in the New Jersey of the 1970s, a young Robert Cheese discovered Hip-Hop early, combining his love of the new culture with his already-established passion for music to begin turning out local parties as DJ Cheese around the same time as the 1980s rolled around.

By the time the new decade had reached its mid-way point, Cheese had firmly established his name in the world of Hip-Hop. Having won 1984′s New Music Seminar deejay battle, Cheese then teamed-up with New Jersey emcee duo Word Of Mouth to release 1985′s classic “King Kut” single on Duke Bootee’s Beauty And The Beat imprint, before being signed to then powerhouse rap label Profile Records and going on to win the 1986 DMC World Championships with a ground-breaking routine that would have a profound impact on the way many deejays viewed their two turntables.

Following the release of their speaker-busting 1986 single “Coast To Coast”, label wrangles, money issues and the lure of the street life prevented the crew from building on their strong musical foundations, with Cheese becoming involved in the drug game and spending the following years in and out of prison, largely detached from the artform he once played such a big part in.

Having now put his past troubles behind him, DJ Cheese has returned to his first love of Hip-Hop, keen to reclaim the respect and admiration he once received from both fans and peers alike.

In the first instalment of this two-part interview, the man who once shocked the world with his deejay skills discusses working with Sugarhill Records affiliate Duke Bootee, meeting Run DMC in the early-80s and appearing on Mike Allen’s legendary London-based Capital Radio Hip-Hop show during his first visit to the UK.

What was your introduction to Hip-Hop?

“Well my initial introduction to the music was hearing early emcees like the Cold Crush Brothers, Treacherous Three, the Fearless Four and then “Rapper’s Delight” came out. I was living in New Jersey already by this time. So there were tapes being passed around of freestyles and that’s really how I got wind of the music. When I heard those tapes I knew that Hip-Hop was going to be something big.”

What initially interested you in becoming a DJ?

“It was really through listening to the radio and hearing what the deejays on there were doing. That was really where my interest started. The first deejay that really caught my interest was Frankie Crocker on WBLS. This was before I heard Hip-Hop and started to get those tapes I mentioned, but I was already listening to Frankie Crocker on the radio. People often ask me that question and I guess it kinda shocks them when I say Frankie was a big influence on me (laughs).”

They’re probably expecting you to say someone like a Grandmaster Flash or a Jazzy Jay…

“No doubt (laughs). It wasn’t necessarily that I wanted to be like Frankie Crocker, it was more about the fact that he was on the radio playing all the hot new music at the time. I mean, at that time Parliament Funkadelic were blowing-up and I was a huge fan of theirs and I’d hear Frankie playing their music and it just grabbed my interest.”

When did you get your first turntable set-up?

“Well, I didn’t actually get my first set-up when I first started deejay-ing. I was rockin’ on someone else’s equipment who was also trying to learn at the same time as me. It was a guy from my neighbourhood called Brian Cox. I guess I was more of a fast learner than he was so then it got to the point where he just enjoyed watching me practice. He was like, ‘You can use my stuff anytime just as long as you’re down with me’ and I was like, ‘Bet!’. So it was around 1980 when I actually got my first set. Before that I was rockin’ with Brian Cox, John Brown and this guy from a crew called Sound On Sound who’s name was Carl Burnett. I already had it in my mind then that I wanted to be a Hip-Hop deejay and it was at that time that I really started to learn about Kool Herc, Grandmaster Flash, Jazzy Jay and guys like that. I started out on Technics SL-D1s and then upgraded to 1200s real quick. I mean, you had to try and keep up back then with the new equipment because everthing in Hip-Hop was moving so fast. We’d see stuff that other deejays had and be like, ‘Yo! We’ve gotta get that.’”

What was the New Jersey Hip-Hop scene like back then?

“Well, living in Jersey we’re only like maybe twenty, twenty-five minutes away from New York. So everything New York were doing back then, we were doing. We copied the whole style. So there was nothing too different between New York and Jersey. I mean, we had the graffiti, the break-dancing, freestyling, the battles, we were really doing the same thing they were doing in New York. I mean, I was still too young to travel to New York myself at the time. But in New Jersey we had people like the True Brothers from Asbury, there were a couple of guys from Plainfield coming up like Ken Doo. As far as deejays we had DJ Sky, who was further north and closer to New York than I was, but at that time there really weren’t too many deejays who were known to me. I always remembered Sky because his name always stood-out to me.”

Were there any particular battles back then that you remember?

“I mean, there were so many battles back then and everybody was doing them. We used to have battles at the Falcon Casino in Jersey. But like I said, we were basically doing everything that New York was doing so almost every party we had there was a battle between crews with emcees and deejays. But there were so many battles back then that it’s hard to really think back to any particular ones that stoodout.”

What type of records were you playing at your parties?

“I would always play a variety of music and what the people wanted to hear. But I would play a lot of breakbeats. I mean, at my parties people definitely partied but then you’d also have a lot of people who would just stand around and watch me. I would have my own show that I would put on that would catch their attention. I was deejay-ing with the handcuffs back then, using the blindfold, spinning around, scratching with my sneakers, so all that stuff really caught people’s attention.”

So a lot of what was seen in your winning DMC routine in 1986 were tricks that you’d been using for years before?

“Yeah, exactly”.

So at that time in the early-80s would artists from New York regularly come to perform in New Jersey?

“Yeah, New York was definitely coming to Jersey back then. I remember seeing Stetsasonic before they came out on record here in Jersey. That was actually the first group I did see when I was young. Stetsasonic were out performing at a school in East Orange and even back then they had the whole live band thing with the drum machine. That was definitely cool to see how they were rockin’ at that time. I remember seeing the Force MCs before they became the Force MDs, they used to be over performing in Jersey. The Cold Crush Brothers came over to Jersey to rock a few times as well.”

Were those artists who came from New York treated respectfully by upcoming New Jersey artists or was there an element of competition involved as well?

“There was definitely a respect thing. I mean, you did have people in Jersey who did feel that they were better than the artists coming from New York but for the most part they were definitely welcomed over here.”

So how did you hook-up with the Word Of Mouth emcees KMC and Ali-G?

“That happened when I met up with Ed Fletcher and this is where the story really gets interesting (laughs). Ed was also known as Duke Bootee and I’m sure you’re familiar with who he is. Ed was a ghost-writer for Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. He wrote for “The Message”, “New York New York”, “Survival (Message II)” and also produced and rapped on those records. I guess because he was a little older than those guys and because of his look he didn’t really fit into the group. But it was Ed who brought me and Word Of Mouth together, as he managed us both and Word Of Mouth were from Elizabeth and I was from Plainfield. Now as I said, Ed at that time was involved with the Sugarhill label and Sylvia Robinson which was based in Jersey. I mean, the first rap record that came out “Rapper’s Delight” really came from New Jersey and that’s not something that New York ever really gives New Jersey its props for. But Ed introduced me to Word Of Mouth with the intention of putting a group together. I heard them and thought they were hot at the time. We definitely sounded good together so I knew we could do something. At the time Duke Bootee was the man from all the hit records he’d had out and I was so young back then. So I was really just following his idea to put us together as a group.”

Was 1985′s ”King Kut” the first track you recorded together with Word Of Mouth?

“Yeah, that was the first track we recorded together. The name King Kut had been given to me by the True Brothers from Asbury who I used to deejay for back in the day. Back then, Hip-Hop was all about the deejay and we were still in that era where the deejay was the main focus of a crew. So that’s the reason why we went that route and made “King Kut” a deejay record.”

“King Kut” initially came out on Duke Bootee’s independent Beauty And The Beat label and really took off – were you expecting that single to become so big?

“Nah, I was surprised by it. I definitely wasn’t expecting the record to be as big as it was. I mean, I had hopes for it to be that big but I was definitely surprised when it happened. I believe it was actually bigger than even we thought it was back then, but after Ed started robbing us for our royalties and everything, I had no idea of really knowing exactly how big that record was. To this day, I couldn’t tell you how much that record even sold. I mean, at the time we made that record I was still in high-school and in the era I came up in Hip-Hop wasn’t about money, it was about the art, doing shows and having fun. So at the time I was just happy to have a record out. The money aspect came later when one of the guys in Word Of Mouth felt that something wasn’t right because at the time they weren’t really seeing any money and I was seeing a little bit of money. So that’s when we started looking into it and realised that the label had been robbing us. Before that we didn’t really know that the record had been making money like that.”

How did the crew end-up getting signed to Profile Records?

“Profile originally wanted to sue us for the samples that I used in “King Kut” which were from Run DMC’s “Jam Master Jay”. But then after they actually listened to the song they realised it was a hot record and decided that they wanted to sign us instead. So Profile brought the record from Beauty And The Beat and gave us a deal for another single. Then they told us that if that second single did well they’d let us do an album. I mean, “King Kut” was definitely getting out there on Beauty And The Beat but Profile really took that single around the world.”

It must have been a good feeling to get signed to a label like Profile at that time considering they were already working with some big Hip-Hop artists…

“Oh yeah, that was real big because Profile back then were like what Def Jam became in the 90s. For me to see my music and my name on that label was huge for me. I mean, we were on the same label as Run DMC!”

Which was ironic considering they namechecked you a couple of years before on their 1983 single “Here We Go (Live At The Funhouse)”…

“Yeah, I opened up for Run DMC in 1983 at The Ritz in Jersey and I was onstage doing my routine. The crowd were going bonkers. From what I was told, Run came out of his dressing room first and he came downstairs and was watching. By the end of my routine all three of them were standing on the side of the stage and from what I understood they never ever used to come out of their dressing rooms to watch someone perform back then. But they came out because they heard the crowd and they wanted to know who was onstage. I remember Whodini were there as well and some other groups. I was onstage rockin’ and then when I looked up Run DMC were stood there watching me. That was the night I learnt that Run was a deejay before he was an emcee when he used to be with Kurtis Blow. So he was giving me his story on deejay-ing and I took a couple of pictures with them. Then from there they put my name in their “Here We Go” single.”

Was Jam Master Jay a hero of yours?

“When Jam Master Jay came into the game he was just always so cool with it. That’s what I liked about him. I took some of his style as far as the way he had his equipment with the flight cases and the GLI mixer. Seeing Jay with that GLI is what made me get that mixer as well. Later on I actually had a chance to work on Run DMC’s “Raising Hell” album when I came back from Europe. I was approached at the airport to go straight to the studio but I’d just come back off a two month tour and I was tired so I said I couldn’t do it.”

What did they want you to do on the album?

“I don’t know what they actually wanted me to do on there. I just knew that I was scheduled to work with them when I got back but I didn’t know that they wanted me to go straight from the airport. I mean, I wanted to do it but I was just too beat from the tour. I was just mentally exhausted.”

You became known for having your turntables next to each other rather than having the mixer in the middle – where there any technical reasons why you decided to do that?

“The reason I put the turntables side-by-side was because back then Hip-Hop was all about being creative and having your own style. So I just decided to put the turntables next to each other to standout. I mean, I started out with the mixer in the middle and the turntables on either side, but then I just made a decision to put the turntables next to each other because I hadn’t seen anyone doing it at that time.”

How would you describe your scratching style back then because to me you always sounded very clean and precise compared to some other deejays at the time who weren’t quite so refined…

“Back then, I’d have to give credit for that to Duke Bootee. One thing I could say about him is that when we were doing a record, everything we were doing was live and he had me approaching everything I did in the studio like we really were in a band. So I had to do my cuts over and over until they were really on-point. Duke was something of a perfectionist in the studio so he definitely helped keep me sharp on that. Even today, when I do mixes and blends I’ll still do them over and over until they’re on-point.”

What was your involvement in some of the other records to come out on Beauty And The Beat like Z-3 MC’s’ “Triple Threat” and Point Blank MC’s’ “What The Party Needs”?

“It was really the same role I had with Word Of Mouth. I was the deejay on those records doing all of the scratching. I also did the production on Point Blank MC’s. I’ve probably got about twenty-five records under my belt I was involved in that came out that people are only really now starting to pick up on as I wasn’t given proper credit on a lot of them.”

Do you have any personal favourites out of the records you worked on?

“Yeah, “King Kut” and “Coast To Coast” obviously. The record I did for Triple Threat MC’s and also the Fats Comet ”King Of The Beat” record I did with Keith LeBlanc from Sugar Hill. The Masterdon Committee’s “Get Off My Tip” on Profile is another favourite and also K-Rob’s “I’m A Homeboy”. What a lot of people actually don’t know about “Coast To Coast” is that that record was created and recorded while we were touring Europe and over in the UK in 1986. “King Kut” had been out for awhile and we were out on tour but Profile wanted a second single from us. The deal was that if the second single we dropped did well, which it did, then they were going to give us an album deal. At the time we realised this guy was robbing us and that was when we walked away from the label and the music. We didn’t even really think about the larger label we were signed to in terms of Beauty And The Beat being under Profile and seeing if we could work with them without Duke. We were just so young and we were kept in the dark about everything in terms of the business, so we really didn’t have any access to Profile because it wasn’t us who’d been dealing with them.”

You mentioned K-Rob’s “I’m A Homeboy” which is still one of my favourite singles from the 80s to this day…

“That was Duke Bootee’s work. See, what happened is, once Profile ran with “King Kut” and then “Coast To Coast” did so well, they basically appointed Duke to be like an A&R and get involved in some other projects that I guess were on the shelf at the time to see what he could do with them. So they gave him K-Rob and he put his touch on it and he brought me on that particular record. But again it was all about the money with him.”

Were you and Word Of Mouth performing regularly in New York around this time?

“We did all the famous spots in New York except for The Rooftop and The Fever. We performed in New York quite a few times. We performed at the Latin Quarter. I think for me though the biggest spot we performed in was The Roxy. That was actually the first time I saw Slick Rick because he was in a talent show there. He won the talent show doing “La-Di-Da-Di” before he ever recorded it with Doug E. Fresh. I can even remember the way Slick Rick was dressed with the long trench coat on and Kangol hat. He had some shades on at the time and wasn’t wearing the patch yet. I mean, there’s actually nothing wrong with Slick Rick’s eye. He’s just cock-eyed and started wearing the patch as a gimmick and it definitely worked for him. I remember LL Cool J was there as well. It was a good night. But that was a big deal for me to be up in the Roxy at that time seeing all the break-dancing and everything.”

“King Kut” was a big record in the UK and you visited here in the mid-80s – were you surprised to see such a vibrant Hip-Hop scene in London when you toured?

“The very first trip to the UK was exciting for me and it was definitely an experience I’ll never forget. I was surprised by the amount of people that knew about me over there. I mean, being young at the time and still in high-school, the furthest I’d ever been before was to New York City. Then to go almost to the other side of the world and have so many people knowing about me was incredible. I mean, we were getting so many articles and interviews, people were approaching me telling me how much they loved the music and wanting to take pictures with me, it was just mind-blowing. Hip-Hop was just so big out there. Plus, what y’all were doing at that time, with the graffiti and the break-dancing, we weren’t doing back home like that anymore. It was like going back into time for me being in the UK in 1986 because y’all were still in that era of Hip-Hop that nobody ever wanted to let go. It was like “Wild Style” all over again (laughs). I tell people all the time that I’ve always respected the UK because they respect the culture of Hip-Hop more than the US does. I loved it over there back then.”

You were also featured on Mike Allen’s Capital Radio Hip-Hop show – what are you memories of that experience?

“When we were on Mike Allen’s show that was the first time someone had really given me full access to do what I wanted to do at a radio station. That was huge to me back then. Plus, it was big to me to meet Mike Allen. I mean, at the time I didn’t realise exactly how big he was in the UK back then until after we’d left the station and people were telling me more about him and what he was doing at the time with his radio show. But even before that, I was still excited to meet Mike because that was the first time I’d ever deejay-ed live on a radio station. So I was excited about being given that opportunity. Then when we were on air and I started to see the phonelines lighting-up and saw the amount of people that were calling in, that was another mind-blowing experience for me. Those moments on Mike Allen’s show were some of my best moments in Hip-Hop. I remember when we were being interviewed on the show I really didn’t have that much to say because I was this young, shy dude at the time.”

What do you recall about headlining both of London’s UK Fresh ’86 shows at Wembley with Word Of Mouth alongside other artists like Mantronix, Roxanne Shante, Just-Ice etc.?

“That was another highlight of my career to be able to perform with all the artists that were on that line-up like Grandmaster Flash and Afrika Bambaataa. It’s crazy because back then I couldn’t remember people like Jazzy Jay being there, but then when I see the pictures I’m like, ‘Aw man, I didn’t realise Jazzy Jay was there. I didn’t realise Howie Tee was there.’ There were just so many well-known artists that performed on that bill that at the time I didn’t even know were there (laughs). I do remember Lovebug Starski being there though because I had an issue with him during soundcheck. He didn’t want me onstage while he was doing his soundcheck which I didn’t have a problem with as I was only sitting on my equipment at the time, but it was the way that he said it to me. I was only a little dude back then and some of the members of the Furious Five snapped out on Lovebug Starski. The police had to get involved but thankfully nobody got locked up. At the end of the night, Starski had police officers outside watching his door as he was scared for his life afterwards. I mean, we’re friends on Facebook and that now and sometimes I’ll remind him of that time and he’ll just laugh.”

Lovebug Starski was riding high in the UK pop charts at that time with “Amityville” so he was probably playing that rock-star role to the fullest (laughs)…

“That’s exactly what he was doing. Lovebug Starski was definitely acting like he was the star of the show at that time (laughs).”

Ryan Proctor

Check out Part Two of this interview here.

Audio of 1986 DJ Cheese / Word Of Mouth / Duke Bootee interview on London’s Capital Radio with Mike Allen.

Mad Sounds – Trends Of Culture

1993 interview from New Jersey’s RETV vaults featuring one of my favourite crews of the 90s – the mighty Trends Of Culture.

Sewer Stories – Das EFX / PMD

Vintage 1995 interview from New Jersey’s RETV featuring Das EFX discussing the release of their third album “Hold It Down”.

Old To The New Q&A – DJ Woody Wood / Three Times Dope (Part Three)

In the final part of this interview with Philadelphia’s DJ Woody Wood, the man behind the turntables for golden-era favourites Three Times Dope talks about splitting with the Hilltop Hustlers crew, recording the group’s 1990 sophomore album “Live From Acknickulous Land” and touring across the US - check Part One and Part Two.

Was that a difficult time for you when things started to go wrong with Lawrence Goodman’s label and you had Steady B and Cool C both dissing the group?

“Well, I can only speak for myself. But yeah, it was difficult for me because although I hadn’t grown-up with those dudes we’d definitely come up together in the music thing. So, for like two or three years, we’d all been working together in some type of way. Then all of sudden all of that happened and it felt foreign to me. I was like, ‘What do I do here?’ I felt that my relationship with Lawrence was strong and I trusted him in a lot of ways, so that situation was definitely difficult for me. As a group it was also difficult because we didn’t have a manager for awhile. That first album “Original Stylin’” sold around 420,000 copies on the Arista side with just two videos. That’s why I never understood why Lawrence split it up the way he did with the other label over in the UK. It might have made financial sense to him at the time, but to me, that could have been a gold album.”

How much of a negative impact do you think it had on the Philly Hip-Hop scene when the Hilltop situation fell-apart in terms of the label and crew being a possible outlet for other upcoming artists?

“To be honest with you, I never even looked at it that deep back then. My thing was, we didn’t have no money. Before that first album came out we were doing a lot of shows but not really making any money. But when we got out of that deal with Lawrence we owned our publishing which was important for us. Our royalties and everything came directly to us and we were also able to do a lot of shows. Every weekend we were on the road doing shows after we got out of that deal. We signed to a booking agent and just did a lot of travelling. But to answer your question, in terms of the Philly scene, I think we did a lot to rep Philly on MTV, BET and places like that where we would talk about where we came from. That I think helped other artists coming out of Philly. And it wasn’t just us doing that. Schoolly D, Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, Cash Money & Marvelous, we were all talking about Philly and showing people that the city had a rich diversity of Hip-Hop so that hopefully they’d give other artists coming up a chance as well.”

How did the group cope without having any official management for that time?

“It was tough for us. From the “Greatest Man Alive” single (released in 1988) through to “Funky Dividends” (released in 1989) we didn’t have a manager. There was a lot of stuff during that time that we had to deal with that a manager would have been able to help us with. That probably hurt our record sales somewhat and also our development as artists because when you have all this different business stuff coming at you it’s difficult to know what you’re doing unless someone explains it to you. So that time was hard for us.”

Did it put pressure on whether the group would stay together?

“Nah, it was never a problem with the group continiung. We all knew that we wanted the group to continue at that time, we just didn’t have a manager. So we were doing a lot of things ourselves at that point and working it out with the label.”

So how did the group approach the second album, 1990′s ”Live From Acknickulous Land”?

“I mean, we were trying to work out what we were going to do. Were we going to diss Steady? Were we going to diss Cool C? Or were we going to stay away from that? I mean, we were going on big arena tours with artists like Public Enemy, N.W.A., Heavy D, the MC Hammer tour, and people were screaming at us to diss them (laughs). But we decided we really wanted to steer clear of that. I mean, I never got a chance to really speak to them about what happened so, personally, I don’t think they really knew at the time what was going on with our situation. So at that point we just wanted to work, get out there, make money and continue to show people who we were and prove that we were a good group coming out of Philly. That was really what we were trying to focus on.”

There were definitely some more radio-friendly tracks with the second album like “Mellow But Smooth” and the remix of ”Weak At The Knees” which leant towards the New Jack Swing sound of the time – was that down to pressure from Arista?

“I have to say that it was partly down to everybody. It was partly us, partly the label, and partly looking at some of the groups who were out at that time in the late-80s / early 90s. I don’t want to blame it all on the label or anything because we definitely had a say in that. But at the time, I think our mentality was that we had to do things a certain way and we did it. There were things on that album we could have done differently and it would have probably been better, but you live and you learn.”

So where was Acknickulous Land exactly?

“Acknickulous meant something was better than dope. That word was something that EST and Larry Larr came up with and I give them much respect for being creative like that. So when you heard the title “Live From Acknickulous Land”, Acknickulous Land for us was a place to go to that was different and where everything was dope (laughs).”

You also had some involvement in Larry Larr’s 1991 album “Da Wizzard Of Odds”…

“Chuck did a lot of his production and I cut on some of his songs, but Larry had his own deejay. He was a very creative artist though. Larry was from right next to us at Hunting Park in a place called Logan which they used to call Logan’s Alley. Again, everyone outside of Southwest and West Philly probably had the hardest time coming up, and I believe Chuck enabled Larry to come out by being involved with his production and getting him signed. Larry was a few years younger than me but I knew him through his relationship with EST.”

Did you notice a big difference being signed directly to Arista in terms of how the second album was promoted?

“Well, Arista really spent a lot of money on setting that second album up which at the time was unheard of to me. They set a promotional tour up that went through Los Angeles, Texas, Atlanta, D.C. and other places. But they were very smart and they took us to Boys & Girls Clubs in those areas to talk to the kids so that we could open up and they’d really be able to see who we were as people. So they got to see a side of us beyond just being recording artists, they also got to see that we cared about what was going on in the communities. We’d actually just lost a good friend of ours Terence, who was Larry Larr’s deejay at the time. I wasn’t on the corner when this happened, but Chuck was out there with a bunch of people and someone had come and held the corner up and shot Terence at the same time. Tee ran about a block to the top of my block and that’s where he died. So what we did, we were going to these places and talking to these kids about violence and things that were going on in the community, like peer pressure, teenage pregnancy and things like that. But the record label was smart because at the same time they were working with a booking agent who was getting us shows at different venues everywhere we went.”

Did you experience any regional resistance when you were visiting these different places?

“Nah, but I think that had a lot to do with our approach. I mean, we would set the turntables up in the gym, there’d be about two or three hundred kids there, we’d talk to them, I’d deejay a little, we’d perform, we’d play basketball with these kids, so it really gave them the opportunity to see that we were just regular people. We were spending a week at a time in some cities so it really gave us a chance to explore and see what was going on in places like Compton. It really was a learning experience.”

Are there any memories of meeting particular artists while you were travelling that still stand-out to you?

“Yeah, I remember Dr. Dre telling us that he wanted us on the N.W.A. tour because he wanted people to know that there were other artists outside of New York who were good. That really stood-out to me. Meeting Too Short was another moment that stood-out. Now, in Philly, Too Short didn’t really get a lot of respect as an artist, but when I saw him perform I was like, ‘Yo! These people love Too Short.’ I was shocked (laughs). He’d come out onstage like, ‘My name is Too Short…’ and the crowd would go crazy. He was like God to people in the Midwest and down South. That was amazing to me (laughs). I mean, we did shows with MC Lyte, Cash Money & Marvelous, Slick Rick. I liked being on shows with singers because that gave you a chance to be exposed to a different audience, like when we were on the Guy tour with Heavy D. I remember there was one show we did on that tour when we were in Chicago and we got our records off the bus and they’d melted or something and they were warped. Now, back then, we were working off turntables in our shows and we would perform using the instrumental version of the records and I would cut. Now, this record was so warped that it just wouldn’t play, so we were like, ‘Chuck, you’ve got to load up “Greatest Man Alive” on the drum machine.’ So Chuck had to play that live (laughs). We just had so much fun back then.”

So what happened after the second album had run its course?

“We were recording a third album. I thought the third album was good because it was more like the first album. But what happened around that time was the record business started changing and Black music divisions at labels were being phased out. So it was a transitional period for music and we were trying to figure out how we were going to carry on when the people who originally signed us weren’t at the label anymore. So after that album was actually done I remember Arista did a big ad on us in the The Source around 1993, where one page was Chuck, the second page was me and the third page was EST. So I’m thinking, ‘Great, we’re about to come out.’ Then all of a sudden we just got put on hold. I couldn’t understand it. We just sat there waiting and that third album never materialised.”

Was any of the material from that third album on the “Sequel” project which came out some years later? 

“Nah, that was something that EST and Chuck did after we split as a group. The third album that never came out was called “Major Flavas” and really was a return to the sound of the first album. We had “Da Giddy Up 2″ on there, Larry Larr was on the album, Kwame, another emcee from Philly called D-Born was on that album. It was a good record.”

Does anyone have that now?

“It’s sitting in a label vault somewhere.”

What prompted you to step away from the group?

“It was the thing where we reached a point where we had a chance to mutually do other things. I think it was around 1994 when Arista finally let us go and at that point I think EST and Chuck connected with other people and were able to do other things. That’s something you’d need to ask them but even to this day I don’t have anything against those guys.”

What were your thoughts on the Steady B / Cool C bank robbery incident in 1996?

“I was shocked when I heard what had happened. I mean, those guys were just regular dudes, man. They weren’t bad dudes. I was sad to see that go down and there was nothing I could really do to help at that point. I mean, once I heard the names being mentioned on the news I knew straight away who it was, although a lot of people didn’t realise straight away because they used their real names and didn’t mention their recording names. I was like, ‘That’s Steady B they’re talking about’ and my friend I was with at the time was like, ‘Naaaah!’ But I knew who it was. Even though we’d been through our stuff in the past I didn’t have any anger for anyone, so it was just a really sad situation to see.”

Looking back who would you say are some of your favourite Philly artists?

“I’ve gotta say Schoolly D because I loved “Saturday Night”. Steady B for “Bring The Beat Back” because I used to cut that song all the time and even to this day if I make a mix of music from that era I have to include a Steady B song. You’ve gotta love Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince for what they did with songs like “Summertime” and I’d also have to say MC Breeze because without Breeze I wouldn’t have had a chance because he really helped open the doors for Philly artists. I loved Tuff Crew’s “My Part Of Town”. I mean, those songs are classics and they bring back so many memories for me.”

So, finally, what would you like Three Times Dope to be remembered for as a group?

“I’d like people to remember us for our creativity and what we contributed to Hip-Hop in Philly. Everything we achieved was great to me, getting signed and being able to put our music out. I was a part of history and I’ll always be glad about that.”

Ryan Proctor

Follow DJ Woody Wood on Twitter (@DJWood3XD) and Instagram (DJWoodyWood3XD).

Old To The New Q&A – DJ Woody Wood / Three Times Dope (Part Two)

In Part One of this interview with DJ Woody Wood, the Three Times Dope member reminisced on his early introduction to the Philly Hip-Hop scene. In this second instalment, Woody remembers signing with Lawrence Goodman’s Pop Art / Hilltop Hustlers label and recording the group’s debut album “Original Stylin’”.

So was it easy to get your music heard by Pop Art’s owner Lawrence Goodman considering the label was based in Philadelphia?

“Man, Lawrence’s office was all the way up in West Philly on City Line Avenue near the skating rink. I had a car back then and no matter the weather, rain or snow, me and Chuck would drive up there. But Lawrence Goodman would never come out. We never saw this dude (laughs). But there was this lady, Miss Joanne on reception, and we would give her the music and she’d be like, ‘Okay, I’ll let him hear it.’ Then she’d call us back like, ‘Well, Lawrence said go back to the drawing board. He didn’t really seem too impressed.’ So we’d go back to the drawing board.”

So is this around the 1985 / 1986 period?

“Yeah, this was in 1986. By that time Lawrence had more cats on his label who’d come out from both New York and Philly who were really starting to make some noise like Craig G and Steady B. We had these big concerts in Philly around that time like the Fresh Frest and Philly Vs. New York. You’d see some of the Philly guys who I was telling you about before battling the emcees and deejays from New York at these events. It was at those events that it really became apparent to me that the deejays from Philly were so much better than the deejays from New York. It was like the New York dudes hadn’t had enough practice when they came here (laughs). They really couldn’t mess with the dudes in Philly when it came to deejay-ing. When it came to the emcees, that was more of an even battle, but as far as the deejays were concerned, it definitely felt like we had more deejay power here in Philly. I mean, I was always impressed by the cats from New York, but I was more impressed by the deejays I could physically see in Philly. That was also around the time when I started hearing about people like Jazzy Jeff and Cash Money who did things differently to everybody else. I’m listening to the tapes and Cash Money was doing stuff like taking the ‘It’s time…’ part from Hashim’s “Al-Naafiysh” and just cutting between the two copies so quickly, like ‘It’s t-t-t-t-t-t-time…’ and then he started transforming and I’m like, ‘What’s that?’ That changed deejay-ing in Philly at that point. Jeff, Cash Money, Grand Wizard Rasheen, those dudes just had something that was so different that really caught the attention of everybody.”

So at what point did you make something that Lawrence actually liked?

“Lawrence kept telling us to try something else and we kept going back with more music. We kept working with different emcees. We did something with a guy called Bay Ray Boogie who sounded like LL and Lawrence was like, ‘Try something else.’ So we went back again and that’s how we met EST”

How did EST become part of the group?

“Well, EST was still in high-school at that time. We met him and he started coming around. Rob (EST) was definitely pretty thorough and had his own little style. He was a creative dude. He’d carry this book around with him and doodle all the time, drawing stuff. So we did something with EST, sent it over to Lawrence and he was like, ‘Wait a minute, let me talk to you guys.’ So we went up to see him and that was how we met Lawrence Goodman. He’d just signed Steady B to Jive at that point and had all these connections and that was when he started the Hilltop Hustlers. He signed Cool C first and we were like, ‘Damn! We’ve been waiting, why’s he not signing us?!’ Eventually he did sign us and that’s when I really started to see how the music scene worked.”

How familiar were you with Steady B and Cool C at that point?

“Well, Steady had already had records out like “Bring The Beat Back” so I was very familiar with him because it was actually through looking at the back of his records that we found Lawrence Goodman. I didn’t know Cool C at the time. I mean, he was there but I didn’t know him until we got with Lawrence. Cool C didn’t have records out before like Steady B had. I think what Lawrence saw was that they had MC Shan out in New York at the time and Cool C sounded a little like Shan. I think Lawrence was smart enough back then to understand how the music game worked and he used that to mimick what some popular artists were doing and diss them which was a big thing in Hip-Hop at the time. I mean, if you dissed somebody back then it was huge.”

Steady B dissed LL Cool J with “Take Your Radio” and then Cool C went at Shan with “Juice Crew Dis” – what was the reaction on the streets of Philly when two local artists went at two of the biggest Hip-Hop artists out of New York at the time?

“I mean, I think all of that was really down to Lawrence. I think he had relationships with those guys in New York and I don’t know what happened with those relationships or if he was just capitalising off the battle scene that was in New York at the time with the whole BDP / Juice Crew thing. I think he was smart enough to think of doing some of the same thing in order to get some attention. But at the same time, although some people in Philly might have been surprised to see local artists dissing big New York artists, there was also a sense of ‘Yeah, give us our space to.’ I mean, MC Breeze had already made the song “It Ain’t New York”. It wasn’t like we were some know-nothing dudes down in Philly. We wanted our respect to. But I mean, back then, if you dissed somebody, it wasn’t like now where it’s like you’re trying to kill them, it was about going for your reputation. It was healthy competition.”

So getting back to EST, what were your first impressions of him as an emcee?

“What ES brought to the table with his lyrics and the kind of stuff he was writing was just very creative to me. I mean, we all had a mutual respect for what each member brought to the group. I’m about four years older than EST and Chuck is a year or so older than me, so we definitely had more experience than ES in terms of what we’d been doing with the deejay-ing, but we just came together so well as a group. ES definitely had his own style. He was left-handed. He always wore K-Swiss. He had his own style with his clothes and his dancing. But remember, EST was still in high-school when we got together. I mean, when our first album came out he was in twelfth-grade (laughs). But to me, EST didn’t sound like anybody else who was out at that time and that was definitely one of things I really liked about him as an emcee.”

It’s crazy to think EST was so young on those early records because he had this big voice and always sounded so self-assured and confident…

“I agree. You saw that to when we were doing shows. I mean, when we started doing shows it was new for all of us, so we were all learning as we went along. But EST definitely had that presence. I remember when we started out, Lawrence used to package Steady B, Cool C and us all together for shows, so if you wanted to book one of us, you got all three of us, and that’s how we got a lot of our early exposure. Steady was already out first, but although Cool C got signed before we did we kinda came out around the same time with records. So we would sit down in Lawrence’s basement and do all three shows together. We would go first, then Cool second and Steady B last. So when you came to one of our shows, you’d see 3-D doing our stuff, then we would stay on the turntables and the beat machine and Cool C would come out and do his show, then Steady would come out with no intermission. We would just go straight through and it was bangin’. The only thing we would switch was a Hilltop Hustlers sign we had when we were onstage because Steady had his own sign and everybody also had different dancers. But performing all together like that was definitely beneficial for everyone.”

Where did the Hilltop Hustlers name come from?

“Well, Lawrence had his label Pop Art and then at some point he decided he was going to change it to Hilltop Hustlers Records. Steady B was from the Hilltop, which was 60th and Lansdowne in West Philly. So with Steady, Cool C and us they probably just decided it would be good to put us all under one name, the Hilltop Hustlers. The original Hilltop Hustlers were a gang back in the 70s in Philly, so he just took that name and used it.”

Was there ever any feedback from any of the gang’s members about the name being used by you all?

“I don’t think so, but then I wasn’t from Hilltop so I probably wouldn’t have heard it as much as someone like Steady would have done. But they probably didn’t think it was a bad thing because it was positive to take a name that had been used before and use it again in a way that was showing respect for where it came from. But you see, 3-D, we came from Hunting Park in North Philly, which is why you would hear EST say on records, ‘From Hunting Park, the Hilltop…’ so that we were giving respect to where we were from. We wanted to let people know the neighbourhood we were from, but we were also respectful to the Hilltop because we were under that name Hilltop Hustlers and we were all working together at that time.”

Radio always seemed like it played a big part in the Philly scene back then…

“It was crazy. We had two big stations here in Philly, WDAS and Power 99. Now you had Lady B on Power with “The Street Beat” and Mimi was on WDAS with “The Rap Digest”. All these cats from New York used to come Philly to get on the radio and I was trying to understand why they would do that. I used to ride with Lawrence back and forth to New York to drop off our music and that was when I realised that those dudes in New York were battling so hard. You had Kiss and WBLS with DJ Red Alert on one and Mr. Magic on the other station and they had beef with the whole KRS-One / MC Shan battle. So if you were affiliated with one you couldn’t get on the other station. So you had some of those dudes coming down to Philly, which was a major market with two large stations, and getting a lot of air-time. We’d see this as we bounced from station to station and that’s when it became apparent to me that we were really onto something as a group because we sounded just as good as them. In fact, when we first started getting heard outside of Philly around 87 / 88 people actually thought we were from New York because of our sound.”

That time around 87 / 88 seemed to be a real break-out period for Philly artists…

“That whole era was crazy. I mean, if they’d have had reality TV back then (laughs). There was so much stuff going on up at the radio stations and it was just so much fun. On any given Friday night, either on Mimi’s Rap Digest or Lady B’s Street Beat, you’d have Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince, 3-D, Cool C, Steady B, Malika Love, DJ Bones, Tuff Crew, everyone would be up there.”

Now just to clarify, you weren’t the same Woody Wood who was a mix deejay for Lady B in the mid-80s?

“Nah, there was another guy who used the name Woody Wood from Jersey so that wasn’t me.”

Were there ever any memorable battles at either of the stations considering the amount of artists who used to congregate at each spot?

“Yeah, yeah (laughs). Steady B and the Fresh Prince went at it one time on-air. This was about 87 / 88. I mean, for the most part everyone had mutual respect for everyone else, but of course everyone wanted to be seen as the best. Steady had more street credibility at that time, but that was maybe one of the first times that people outside of those who really knew him saw a different side to the Fresh Prince, like, ‘I may sound a certain way but don’t play me, I’m from Philly to!’”

At the time you would have been recording 1988′s “Original Stylin’” project there were a lot of classic albums coming out from Public Enemy, Big Daddy Kane, Eric B. & Rakim, Biz Markie etc – what was your mindet going into making that debut album considering what else was happening in Hip-Hop back then?

“At the time, for me, I was just thinking that we wanted to sound different. Hip-Hop was just so creative back then and we really wanted to just sound like us. I felt like what we came up with on that album was a good mix of stuff that did make us stand out. We didn’t sound like anybody else and each one of us in the group brought something to the table. We all had an input on that album. But that was the case from the very beginning. I mean, our first songs, “On The Dope Side” and “Crushin’ & Bussin’”, I felt took sounds from that era, like “Funky Drummer”, but we were trying to do different things with them. We also had some creative input from Steady B early on as well as he produced “From Da Giddy Up”. The track was originally for Cool C but it was a little too fast for him. But that beat was something that Steady had come up with and DJ Tat Money actually cut on that record. So yeah, it was too fast for Cool C to flow to, so EST sat down and wrote something that became “From Da Giddy Up”.”

I remember at the time being impressed with how much of a really solid, clean sound that first album had to it, particularly on tracks like “Believe Dat” and “Straight Up”… 

“Yeah, that sound came from Chuck and Lawrence and the studio we were using at the time. We were working in Studio 4 in Philadelphia at the time with Joe ‘The Butcher’ Nicolo as our engineer. I definitely give those guys credit for what they did when it came to the overall sound of the album. I can’t take credit for any of that (laughs).”

I think the vinyl album came out here in the UK on the City Beat label a little earlier than it did in the States on Arista…

“Yeah, we were signed through City Beat in the UK. I mean, Lawrence was the business person behind what happened on that side so I’m not really sure why that was that we were signed to two different labels like that. To be honest, that was part of our challenge with some of the other stuff that happened on the business side. But we were signed to two different labels, had two different versions of our first album, and some of the tracks that were on the US version weren’t on the version that came out in the UK through City Beat.”

Yeah, “Funky Dividends” wasn’t on the UK pressing and “Once More You Hear The Dope Stuff” came as a bonus 12″ with initial copies of the vinyl version…

“I mean, we weren’t privy to a lot of the business stuff back so we didn’t really know what was going on.”

What was the impact of the album both in and outside of Philly?

“Good question. I mean, the album actually came out a little earlier in Philly. In fact, from what you said, I would say it came out in Philly the same time it came out in the UK. So people in Philly had the single “Greatest Man Alive” before everyone else had the single. That was also the first video we ever did which really opened up a lot of doors for us. Even though we were going through some internal things with the label that video still got made. When I first saw that video I was shocked because they’d done a really good job for the amount of money that was actually spent on it. But when it dropped we started realising that people outside of the Philly area, New York area, Virginia and D.C. were also picking up on the music. We could see it, because right away we started getting more fan mail (laughs). We used to have a PO Box in Hunting Park and we would open these letters and there’d be girls sending pictures and stuff like that (laughs). It was crazy to me. We used to sit there and laugh and be like, ‘Damn, people really like us.’ I wouldn’t say I was totally shocked at the time but to see people from other areas liking our music was definitely a positive thing. I still have some of the fan letters today (laughs). I’m telling you, I keep all that stuff. I’ve still got receipts for equipment, I’ve got pictures from back then, I didn’t throw anything away (laughs).”

You mentioned that there were some internal problems between the group and the label when you were making the “Greatest Man Alive” video – so things were coming to a head with Lawrence Goodman that early on?

“Oh yeah. I mean, we were cool, but it was hard at that time because we were starting to have different views on things. I mean, Lawrence was doing a good job, but he was both our manager and our record label at the same time. So we started to see there was a conflict there. I think he meant well, but we felt that some of the things that were happening weren’t in our best interests. We found out about some things and had somebody look at our contracts. Now, as I said earlier, EST wasn’t eighteen-years-old when we were first signed and his mother never really signed his contracts and stuff. So he got pulled out the group someway and then we got signed directly to Arista. There was just a whole bunch of stuff going on.”

Ryan Proctor

Part Three of this interview coming soon.

Old To The New Q&A – DJ Woody Wood / Three Times Dope (Part One)

Bursting out of the rich Hip-Hop scene of Philadelphia in the late-80s, Three Times Dope (originally known as 3-D) made their name as part of the infamous Hilltop Hustlers collective alongside fellow local artists Steady B and Cool C.

Initially signed by Lawrence Goodman of Pop Art Records fame (and Steady B’s uncle), the trio of EST (emcee), Chuck Nice (producer) and Woody Wood (deejay) quickly gained themselves a dedicated fanbase following the release of early cuts such as “Crushin’ & Bussin’” and “From Da Giddy Up”.

A falling-out with label-head and manager Goodman around the time the group dropped their impressive debut 1988 album “Original Stylin’” found Three Times Dope being dissed by their former musical allies as they began recording 1990′s sophomore effort ”Live From Acknickulous Land”.

The threesome finally went their separate ways in the mid-90s, but not without having left an indelible mark on the landscape of East Coast Hip-Hop and beyond.

In this three-part interview, DJ Woody Wood talks about his early recollections of Hip-Hop in Philly, being part of the Hilltop Hustlers and touring with the likes of N.W.A and Too Short.

So how did you first become involved in the Philly Hip-Hop scene?

“When I was coming up in high-school I got involved in music by trying to listen to these tapes that would be passed around. At that time in Philly we had a number of really big deejays who would throw block parties like Cosmic Kev, DJ Thorpe, people like that. There was Parry P who was an emcee. I wanted to be like those dudes. They had cliques and groups like the Black Knights Of Funk and Cosmic Kev was from the Grandmasters Of Funk. So I would get these tapes of these guys, listen to them and want to be them (laughs). So I asked my mom if she could get me some turntables and then I started playing records, listening to what all these other guys were doing, and really just trying to be like them. So that’s really how I first got involved in the Philly music scene.”

What sort of music were you hearing on those tapes at that time?

“Back then everything was breakbeats. So they would play stuff like Brothers Johnson and then when it got to the break part just play that over and over. Then that’s when the emcees would start rapping and I’m listening to this like, ‘Damn! What is this?!’ That’s back when the deejay was still the frontman and the emcee was the hypeman for the deejay. So you’d hear these breakbeats like “Dance To The Drummer’s Beat” and also some of the records that were out at the time from, like, the Treacherous Three. The deejays would play the breaks and then mix it into some of the records that were out at the time.”

Were you actually going to the parties at this point or just listening to the tapes?

“Nah, I was still too young to go to the parties in the beginning. I was about thirteen-years-old at that time so I wasn’t allowed to go to stuff like that. I could hear it on the tapes but I couldn’t see it until some of those deejays would come around my way. Now, I lived in Hunting Park, which is North Philly. So sometimes they used to come around the way, Disco Red, Cosmic Kev, Grandmasters Of Funk, Sex Machine, they would come out with these big giant speakers and it would be loud! You could hear it from up the block and the music would just draw you in. I would go out and just stand there and watch those dudes. I’d be right there in front of the turntables. So that was really how I learnt to deejay, I would just watch those dudes.”

So what were your first turntables like?

“Man, my mom brought me some belt-driven turntables when I was in the eighth grade. She gave me two turntables, a mixer and a stereo set-up with two speakers. I got on those two belt-driven turntables and I just used to play the hell out of the two records that I had (laughs). So I was just watching these other deejays and listening to what they were doing and eventually it got to the stage where I though ‘I can do this.’ Back then people like Cosmic Kev were huge and they had such a big following. This had to be around 1983. Eventually I started doing parties in my neighbourhood and I started to get a reputation as being a deejay in Hunting Park.”

Were these parties you were putting on yourself or as part of a crew?

“Nah, they weren’t my parties. These were house parties that  people would have and sometimes they’d charge like a dollar to come in. They’d be jam-packed with people from the neighbourhood. So I wasn’t part of a crew at this point, I would just do parties for people. There were about two or three deejays in the neighbourhood and that’s actually how I met Chuck Nice initially because back in the very beginning he was also a deejay before he got into the production. We used to call him Grandmaster Blend back then (laughs). He used to blend the hell out of two records. So we used to throw parties like that and I was in demand to do a lot of cutting and scratching and Chuck was doing his thing as Grandmaster Blend.”

Was it a Hip-Hop-orientated set you were playing at those early parties?

“It was mainly breakbeats and the Hip-Hop records that were out then back in 83. You’d play records that you knew people would dance to and then you’d also play records like “Planet Rock” and others that were coming out of New York. I mean, they were real long records that you could keep a party going with from like nine at night through to maybe one in the morning.”

That’s back when you’d get ten minute long 12″ versions of tracks…

“Oh yeah (laughs). You could play the hell out of those records back then. Some people would stand in front of the turntables and just watch what you were doing but most people would be dancing and having fun. Then as time went on we started messing with these guys in the neighbourhood, Les and Disco Red’s cousin Vadar. Now Disco Red’s cousin had all these big speakers which meant he could battle against some of the bigger deejays and that’s how we got good with him. He could stack his speakers up and sound way louder than them. He had the concept of using the double-scoops and the horns and all of that and the music would be so loud that it would draw people into the park. So I used to set-up with them when they were doing a party and they’d give me a chance to spin as a part of their crew.”

So were you aware there was an actual Hip-Hop scene in Philly at this point or was it just a neighbourhood thing for you back then?

“That’s a good question. So what happened is, there were a bunch of different promoters who would have parties at different places like Hotel Philadelphia and Fantasia or the different ballrooms that were around. They would bring in deejays from the different areas of Philly. So you had Grandmaster Nell who was from South Philly. Cosmic Kev was from West Oak Lane. Thorpe was from that same area. Then you had Sex Machine who were from North Philly.  So these promoters would bring all these different guys together to deejay at different venues and that was the whole thing back then. It would cost you something like ten dollars to get in and there would be like two or three thousand people there. It was crazy. So it was the deejays in Philly who really made everything click in the city when it came down to Hip-Hop. It was all about the deejays, the dancing and the clothes back then. Everyone used to wear what we called a Joe Palmieri in Philly. Joe Palmieri was a tailor and he used to make these custom jeans and things like that which everyone had.”

So you’re seeing people from other parts of Philly who’re involved in Hip-Hop but how much awareness did you have of what had been happening in New York in terms of the origins of the music?

“For me, it was back to listening to those tapes (laughs). I don’t know where people got them from, but there would be these tapes of people like Grand Wizard Theodore. So you’d listen to the parties that they were doing on these tapes. You would hear someone like Theodore cutting a breakbeat and his crew would be rapping and you’d just be like ‘Damn!’ Or you’d hear someone like Grandmaster Flash. Man, if you got a Grandmaster Flash tape! You’d hear rumours at the time that Flash was blind but still mixing and doing all this crazy stuff (laughs). So, back then, the only thing I had to go on was those tapes. So I was listening to Grand Wizard Theodore, Grandmaster Flash, Busy Bee and people like that. So that was really what put me onto what they were doing in New York. I mean, I was so young back then I had no way of actually going there or anything like that. So, for me, it really all came from listening to those tapes.”

In our digital world of social media etc it’s almost incomprehensible for today’s generation to grasp the fact that back then you might not even know what was happening in another neighbourhood musically let alone another city…

“Exactly. Then after the tapes came the records and we had these stores like Sound Of Market and Funk-O-Mart and I would go from store to store looking for records. So what you’d do is build an alliance with these guys who worked in these stores and were selling breakbeats and the other records that were coming out. So they would tell you about stuff when you went in there and you could also see the wax and the pictures of different artists and that’s how I visually started to see Hip-Hop. I mean, I didn’t know any of those cats back then, I just knew of their reputations. So going to the record stores was how I started to visually see what was going on in Hip-Hop at that time.”

Who were some of the earliest emcees from Philly that you heard about?

“In the early days, each deejay had his emcees. So a Cosmic Kev might have had a Parry P who was a legend back then. All those guys were legends to us back then because they were that bit older than me and had these big reputations. Sex Machine had MC Sport, Thorpe had his emcees. Everyone had their emcees (laughs). And they would be rapping over the breakbeats and sometimes they’d do these story raps and just keep everything live so the crowd would stay energized. So my first recollections of hearing emcees was hearing the people that would be with those deejays. Now, as time moved on, you started hearing about other people like DJ Jazz and Robbie B. who had one of the first records I heard that came out of Philly. Then you’d hear other records from other Philly artists like MC Breeze, Schoolly D and that was mega-huge to me back then. I was like, ‘These cats are from Philly and they’re making records?!’ That was around 85 / 86 and these were cats that I’d heard on the tapes and now they’re making actual records. So, me and Chuck started thinking that maybe we could do something. Now, everyone at that time seemed to be coming out of West Philly and me and Chuck were out in North Philly and we didn’t have any connections to what was going on. EST wasn’t a part of the crew at that time and we were still just deejays trying to find emcees and put some stuff together. Around 85 I started doing this carpentry thing. My dad was a carpenter, my brother was a carpenter and when I was in high-school I did carpentry. So I started an apprenticeship programme and that’s when the music thing really got real for me because the money I was getting from the carpentry I used to buy equipment. I still had my belt-driven turntables (laughs). I never owned a pair of 1200s until I could afford them. My mom couldn’t afford to get me anything like that.”

So were the Technics 1200s the first thing you brought when you started looking at equipment?

“See, the other crews out there already had big equipment because they were getting paid a little bit. They did it for the love of the music and all that with the block parties, but they were also making some money to be able to buy equipment. I didn’t have big equipment like that. It’s funny thinking about it now, Cosmic Kev and people like that had other turntables, like the 1800s, and I would look at what they were using like, ‘Yo!’ I didn’t really understand about all the different models of turntable in the beginning (laughs). But their turntables were so much smoother than mine. I mean, when you pushed my belt-drives to start a record you had to push them hard. But with those 1200s you could just let ‘em go and they’d pick right up like, bam, bam, bam! I was like, ‘Woohoo! I like that.’ So when me and Chuck started buying our own equipment, the first thing I did was buy some proper turntables, the 1200s, a mixer and a four-track. We used to go to a store called Cintioli Music and that was where we would see all this technology that was out there. Back then all these drum machines were coming out and there were people like Mantronik who were making beats. You might hear someone mention an 808 or something like that, but we didn’t know what that was back then. We’d be like, ‘An 808?! What the f**k is an 808?!’ So me and Chuck learnt the names and then we’d talk to all these guys at the music store who would give us all this information. They’d be telling us, ‘You want to buy this’ or ‘You need to upgrade to that’ and that’s how we first started buying little bits of studio equipment.”

So basically you were studying the records that were being made to point you in the right direction?

“Exactly. In fact, it was the guys from the music stores I was telling you about like Sound Of Market who would talk to us about what other people were doing and then say ‘You could do that.’ Me and Chuck would be like, ‘We could do that? Nah…’ and then they’d pull out a record and show us the address on the back and be like, ‘That address right there shows you who’s in charge of this. Look, there’s the office address and there’s a phone number’ and we were like ‘Ahhhh, okay.’ Then we’d go to the equipment store and tell them that there were artists making music using certain sounds and that they were using drum machines. The guys in the store would be like, ‘Well, look, here’s a drum machine. Let’s plug it up.’ They’d set it up and then play it so we could hear all the different sounds.”

So you’d be listening to them playing the equipment until you heard something that matched the drum sounds you were hearing on people’s records…

“Yeah. Then when they told us you could actually put sounds into it and sample we were like, ‘You can do what?’ When they showed us how to sample we really were like, ‘Are you serious? Show me again! Man, we got to get that!’”

So was that when Chuck Nice started to get into the production side of things?

“As I said, Chuck was known more as a blend deejay, so when he got the chance to do music with the whole sampling thing, he jumped right on that. So I brought all this equipment and we kept a lot of it at Chuck’s house. He only lived about two blocks from where I was. So we had our speakers and everything for the house parties over at Chuck’s and as we got more stuff we put it in his basement. His mom was so nice, God rest her soul, and she let us keep all our equipment down there. So we had everything down in Chuck’s basement, our little drum machine, our four-track, our turntables and all our records were over there. So that basement is basically where we started making music and learning how to use the different equipment we had. As I said, at that point I was an apprentice carpenter, so I would be at work at 7am, home by 3pm, over at Chuck’s house by 4:30pm and then I’d stay over there working on stuff and be back to work the next morning. That’s when we started making songs and sending them to different people who were already making the music we were listening to.”

Were these instrumental tracks you were sending out at that time?

“Nah, they were proper songs. The first emcees we worked with were called the Deuce MCs which was Rick Slick and this other guy we used to call Cosmic C. Me and Chuck thought they were good so we started working with them. Chuck would take some loops and come up with the music, I would cut on it, they would rap on it, we’d mix it down with the four-track, put the songs on cassettes and then give the music to people to see what they thought. We took the tape down to the record store and they were telling us about someone we should get our music to who had a lot of people out already like Super Nature, who were Salt-N-Pepa, Roxanne Shante and others. That person turned out to be Lawrence Goodman and his label Pop Art.”

Ryan Proctor

Lookout for Part Two of this interview coming soon.

Dog’s Gonna Getcha – Ten Of Tim Dog’s Finest Moments (RIP)

Waking up this morning to the news that Ultramagnetic MC’s affiliate Tim Dog had passed away yesterday following a diabetes-related seizure definitely had me wiping the sleep out of my eyes with the quickness.

The Bronx-bred emcee wasn’t the most popular lyricist in the rap game or even the most talented, but for anyone who was listening to Hip-Hop in the late-80s / early-90s he definitely ranks as one of the most memorable. From his one-man war against N.W.A., DJ Quik and various other West Coast gangsta rappers of the early-90s to his entertaining reunion with Kool Keith some years later as the duo Ultra, Tim Dog had a way with words that was equal parts deadpan comedy, bullying bluster and New York emcee bravado.

Tim’s blunt delivery played a huge part in ensuring that his threats of violence, sexual boasts and claims of lyrical superiority always left a mark, with the Dog’s classic 1991 debut solo album “Penicillin On Wax” ranking as one of Hip-Hop’s most hardcore albums yet also one of its most humorous.

Listening to thunderous tracks such as “Step To Me” and “I Ain’t Takin’ No Shorts”, you got the impression that laughing with Tim was fine, but laughing at the D-O-G would result in a good ol-fashioned Bronx-style beatdown.

Although the wider world will no doubt remember Timothy Blair for his 2012 appearance on NBC’s Dateline as a result of his legal issues surrounding an online dating scam, the Hip-Hop world will always remember Tim Dog as one of the game’s most charismatic characters to ever hold a microphone.

So, step to the rear and cheer, Tim Dog will always be here thanks to his many unforgettable appearances on vinyl, tape and CD.

RIP (1 January 1967 – 14 February 2013).

“A Chorus Line” (Next Plateau Records / 1989)

Setting off this classic Ced Gee-produced Ultramagnetic b-side, the Bronx bomber delivered a tongue-twisting verse which officially introduced the Dog’s gruff persona to the world amidst a barrage of what would become Tim’s trademark WWF-style threats, including telling rappers who wanted to play to “go ride a sleigh” and how he’d “bone your girl Emily”. Woo! Hot damn he’s great!

“F**k Compton” (Ruffhouse Records / 1991)

I can still remember the first time I heard this in the summer of 91 on Tim Westwood’s Capital Rap Show here in the UK. Although it was obviously heavily-edited for radio-play, that didn’t do anything to reduce the initial shock value of hearing Tim Dog not just taking shots at N.W.A., but taking on the whole of Compton! And that Michel’le impersonation is still priceless over twenty years later.

“Intro” (Ruffhouse Records / 1991)

The N.W.A. bashing continued on the opening track from Tim’s classic “Pencillin On Wax” album. After a batch of amusing answerphone-style messages from the likes of gangsta-limpin’ Big Earl from Chicago and Houston-based groupie Sheila, the Dog dropped perhaps one of his most stinging West Coast disses, criticising the LA crew for “wearing Raider hats when the Giants won Super Bowl” over their own beat.

“I’ll Wax Anybody” (Ruffhouse Records / 1991)

Baiting sucker emcees to show Tim their “weaky style” before he responded with his “freaky style”, the BX bully obliterated this Moe Love-produced track, punching the competition “in their third eye”, dissing Eddie Murphy and proclaiming his status as a “dope rap idol” over a timeless “Nautilus” sample.

“Bronx Ni**a – The One Seven O Mix” (Ruffhouse Records / 1992)

This remix courtesy of both T.R. Love and Moe Love found the Dog celebrating his old-school roots on what was probably one of my most played 12″ singles of 92. Over another chunk of Bob James’ classic “Nautilus”, Tim shouted out everyone and everywhere from the Zulu Nation and Bronx River to BDP and Soundview Projects, resulting in what must be one of the hardest dedications to the home of Hip-Hop on wax. Word to B.O.!

“Porno Star” (Mercury Records / 1992)

Although Tim had already delivered some outlandish, obscene tales of his own on 1991′s quiet storm classic “Secret Fantasies”, he returned once more in the role of the “Rated-X Man” on this self-explanatory track from Ultra’s “Funk Your Head Up” album. Dropping some of the most amusing explicit rhymes at the time since Kool G. Rap’s “Talk Like Sex” (clarifying that in the bedroom ‘Dog’ stood for “Doin’ it on the ground…”), the brazen emcee proved that it really ain’t no fun if the homies can’t have none.

“I Get Wrecked” ft. KRS-One (Ruffhouse Records / 1993)

DJ Moe Love once again proved his ability to craft perfect breakbeat-driven hardcore bangers on this first single from Tim Dog’s sophomore solo project “Do Or Die”. A high-octane performance from the Blastmaster combined with a ridiculously obese bassline and Tim’s bulldozer-style rhymes resulted in a rough, rugged and raw anthem tailor-made to do the East Coast Stomp to.

“Timberlands” (Ruffhouse Records / 1993)

Speaking of the East Coast Stomp, the NY native delivered a heartfelt dedication to the Rotten Apple’s 90s footwear of choice, helpfully explaining how the hard-wearing boots had practical uses beyond just walking, such as leaving a sole print on someone’s face. ”As long as Tims on my feet, I get much respect…” stated the Ultramagnetic emcee on this sparse, self-produced track. True indeed, Dog, true indeed.

“Industry Is Wak” (Our Turn Records / 1996)

After rallying against fake West Coast studio gangstas five years earlier, Tim reunited with Kool Keith for the Ultra album “Big Time” and turned his attentions to the jiggy trends that were surfacing on the East Coast in the wake of Biggie’s success. Over a head-nodding Kutmasta Kurt beat a rejuvenated Dog summed up his feelings succinctly with the lines, “Rhyming like Nas, Looking like Treach, Beat’s mad weak, Hook I can’t catch…”, speaking for legions of Hip-Hop fans in the process.

“Run Run Run” (Big City Entertainment / 2006)

Produced by the UK’s Zygote and DJ Jazz T of Diversion Tactics fame, this track from Tim’s “BX Warrior” project found the Dog at his growling best, barking over-the-top rhymes about guns, violence and rap dominance as if he was about to burst out of the speaker and punch you straight in the face.

Ryan Proctor

New Joint – DJ Too Tuff / MC Mechanism

DJ Too Tuff ft. MC Mechanism – “With The Quickness” (@DJTooTuff / 2013)

Tuff Crew member DJ Too Tuff has dusted off this 80s Philly gem featuring the talents of MC Mechanism who also appeared on the group’s “Back To Wreck Shop” album.

Old To The New Q&A – Mikey D (Part Three)

In this third and final part of my interview with New York microphone veteran Mikey D, the Queens resident recalls replacing Large Professor in Main Source back in the 90s and also talks about his two forthcoming projects scheduled for release in 2013 – make sure you check Part One and Part Two before reading further.

When you joined Main Source in the 90s was that a tough decision to make knowing you were filling the shoes of Large Professor or was it a case of you using that as an opportunity to get back in the game?

“Yeah, it was a matter of me just wanting to get back into the music and them being the stepping stone for that return. I didn’t know what had happened with the group as far as why Large Professor broke out. At that point I still didn’t know him like that. I thought Large Pro was nice but I didn’t know him and still didn’t recognise him from when he used to be in our studio sessions with everyone else at 1212. At that time, I didn’t know he produced, I didn’t know his history with Paul C., I didn’t know the reasons he left Main Source, I didn’t know none of that when I got together with Sir Scratch and K-Cut. I met them through Jeff Redd who told me to go to this particular address and spit a rhyme for these guys who were looking for a rapper. I remember going to the address and I had crazy toothache on that day (laughs). I spit a rhyme for them and they were saying they wanted to sign me and also wanted me to go to Canada with them to do this, that and the other. So they had me all the way down in Canada and we started working. But I didn’t like Sir Scratch for some reason. I thought he was too much of a momma’s boy and he didn’t want me to go out and explore Canada. He just wanted me to stay in the crib writing rhymes and I didn’t like that. You really can’t pressure me to write rhymes because you can’t rush perfection (laughs). So that was pi**ing me off and I really couldn’t get my vibe right to be able to write. But we did a whole album, presented it to Wild Pitch and they didn’t like it because it wasn’t really me.”

So was it just your contribution to the album Wild Pitch didn’t like or was it the production as well?

“It was a combination of both. I mean, listening to that album was like trying on a shoe that’s too small for you. It just didn’t fit. They’d had me like a hostage out there in Canada trying to write rhymes and the album just didn’t fit together. So then the label told us to come back to New York and record there and that’s when all the old feelings started coming back to me. I’m back in New York, I’m home, I’m feeling right, I can tell my peoples to come up to the studio, I’ve got my vibe back and that’s when I started writing songs that were big and bangin’ them out the same day. Wild Pitch liked that album we did but they just didn’t push it enough. They put us with damn MC Serch as our road manager who was also supposed to be the Vice-President of the label and was also Nas’s manager at the same time. We got all the way to California and the guy’s taking care of Nas’s business on our time. So it was just another disaster. You know God always has plans for you so maybe back then I just wasn’t ready because there was always something going wrong for me (laughs).”

That must have been an extremely frustrating time for you considering the album was so close to being released with the single and video to “What You Need” out, full page ads in The Source etc…

“That was basically it. I wound up leaving Main Source for the same reasons Large Professor did. There were publishing issues, they wanted to tap in on my writers royalties when they didn’t write anything. The group’s manager was K-Cut and Sir Scratch’s mother and she was crooked. Me and K-Cut got along but then I couldn’t really trust him because that’s his brother and mother who were involved as well and family always comes first if you’re loyal. I couldn’t trust any of them so I just had to leave.”

Which was a real shame because “F**k What You Think” was a quality album that would have sat nicely alongside many of the other great albums that dropped in 1994…

“Exactly. They just didn’t push it right. There was just too much going on between Main Source and the label. After Large Professor left I don’t think Stu Fine and the staff at Wild Pitch really liked dealing with Main Source and their management. I walked into the situation blind and walked into a bad position at the wrong time. That’s basically what it was. And see, their mother Ms. McKenzie, I believe her intentions were to get that album recorded, have Wild Pitch pay for the studio time, and then once the album was completed to shop it to another label. I honestly believe that’s what happened, but all of that backfired in her face. But I really didn’t do my research first before getting involved in that situation and I should have known something was wrong when they asked me to make a diss record about Large Professor and I wouldn’t do it. That man did nothing to me, so why would I disrespect him?”

There was a story about a final meeting at the label involving yourself, Ms. McKenzie and a knife…

“Yeah, yeah (laughs). We were at a press conference with all the different magazines like The Source, Right On!, Word Up!, all sat at one table. Ms. McKenzie came in wielding a knife talking about ‘Where’s Stu Fine?!’ So all of that’s going down and then steam starts coming out of my ears and I’m like, ‘Yeah we should get Serch!’ Serch locked himself in the office and I had my two boys with me called the Twin Towers, two three-hundred pound young boys, and they’re trying to get into his office with Serch out on the window ledge. I don’t think we would have hurt Serch, but I’d always had a problem with him since day one and I didn’t really trust him. When I first got with Main Source and went up to the label by myself for a meeting, Serch gave me a lawyer’s card and said, ‘This is the same lawyer that I gave Large Professor. If you tell anybody I gave you this I’m gonna say you’re lying and remember Mike, I know people.’ I didn’t like the threat. It rubbed me the wrong way. The only time I’d met this gentleman before was back at the New Music Seminar in 1988 because he was one of the first people I battled there. But you’re sitting in an office throwing street threats at me? I didn’t like that. Evidently he didn’t know my background (laughs). So when that whole situation at the press conference happened all of that came back to me, the trip to California, everything.”

Have you spoken to Serch since then?

“I spoke to him maybe about two years after that but he still looked a little nervous. That was the last time I spoke to him.”

So after the Main Source situation you stepped away from the industry again…

“Yeah, I chilled out for a minute but I didn’t stop writing or none of that. But I was spending time raising my daughter. I did some features here and there but I really just wanted to let my name die down a little bit and then time myself and get it right. I worked a regular job at the airport for almost eleven years and at times it was frustrating when sometimes people would recognise me. But as time went on and I got out of that space I was in it became like a whole new start for me. I stopped drinking and really got my focus back. Lyrically, I think I’m more dangerous now than I was before. So now when I come out, these young artists just look at me as another artist. They don’t look at me as being an old-school artist because when I spit I don’t sound like that. But the whole time I’ve always stayed in my own lane and nobody will ever push me out of that lane. That’s the whole reason I’m still relevant today because I still do me and haven’t let anything change my lane.”

So bringing things up-to-date explain how the forthcoming Elements Of Hip-Hop project with DJ Mercury came about?

“Well, I met DJ Mercury a couple of weeks before my birthday last year. I’d heard of Mercury through Professor X and I knew he had a radio show but I’d never met him. Johnny Quest still lives down the block in Laurelton and he was selling records, so Mercury came to the block. I said I was having a birthday party about a month later and he said he’d do the party for me. So he brought his equipment out, did the party, I had Ralph McDaniels there from Video Music Box, Tito from the Fearless Four was there, Large Professor showed up, and Mercury was nice on those turntables. I really liked the way he carried himself. I called him afterwards to thank him for doing the party, went to sleep that night, and for some reason I woke up the next day and this Elements Of Hip-Hop thing came to mind and I thought it would be a great name for a group. Now, there are various elements of Hip-Hop, but me and Mercury represent two of them, the emcee and the deejay. Mercury rocks as a deejay the same way I rock as an emcee, none of this digital stuff, just bringing it back to the essence. So I really felt we should do something together. Now, the project is mature Hip-Hop and I feel there’s a market for that right now. The young cats that are out will be able to appreciate what I’m coming with and their parents will be able to appreciate it even more. I’m not killing nobody on this project, I’m not driving three cars at the same time, I’m not doing none of that (laughs). I’m just trying to take it back and show people what Hip-Hop meant to us. I have Grand Daddy I.U. on the project and also my younger brother MC Lotto who was on the “Set It Off” track on the Main Source album. So, the project that’s coming out in a few weeks is called “Calm Before The Storm” and then in the summertime I have another album coming called “Day Of Destruction”. Everybody knows my name is Mikey Destruction and that album is going to be so crazy and I’m just decapitating all emcees on there. I’m bringing back the young Mikey D on that album who used to go around picking and choosing battles (laughs).”

So “Calm Before The Storm” is about you bridging the gap between the different generations of Hip-Hop and “Day Of Destruction” is more about you going back to your original blueprint as an emcee?

“Absolutely. Legalize from Russia is doing the production on “Day Of Destruction” except for one song that I left open for my boy Large Professor. But aside from that, the whole album is produced by Legalize. I’m also looking to do something with Big Daddy Kane and Kool G. Rap on “Day Of Destruction” as well so lookout for that one.”

Are you also still planning to officially release your documentary “The Making Of A Legend”?

“We’re adding some new footage to what we already have and then once it’s done it’ll be out. Aside from everyone who’s in the current footage like Daddy-O and LL Cool J, Big Daddy Kane is in it, Melle Mel is gonna be in it and also some new-school artists who’re relevant to what’s going on in Hip-Hop today. It’s going to be very interesting.”

So it definitely sounds like you’re planning to have a busy 2013?

“Definitely. My mission right now is to save Hip-Hop”.

Ryan Proctor

The Elements Of Hip-Hop album “Calm Before The Storm” will be released on April 2nd.

The Combat Jack Show 07/02/13 – Combat Jack / Dallas Penn / Ralph McDaniels

Video Music Box legend Uncle Ralph celebrates three decades in the game on NYC’s Combat Jack Show and tells some great stories involving Too Short, Big Daddy Kane, Nas, Biggie Smalls and more – take your history lesson here.