March 16, 2023 • 27 mins
Clive Campbell emigrated from Jamaica, at the age of 12 years old, to the Bronx New York. The New York City Boro would later become known as the birthplace of Hip hop. This episode takes a journey back in time to the musical stylings of DJ Kool Herc, the man credited as the originator of Hip Hop and tells the story of how a culture consumed worldwide fifty years later, was birthed from a place filled with grit and grime. Episode guests include Fat Joe. Peter Gunz. DJ Kid Capri. Russell Simmons. Grandmaster Caz. Grandmaster Theodore. Grand Mixer DXT. Grand Master Flash.
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Speaker 1 (00:03):
From I Heart podcasts, I Am five five Freddie and
This is fifty Years of hip Hop podcast series. Born
April sixteenth, nineteen fifty five, Clyde Campbell aka DJ Coolhirk
is a Jamaican American DJ recognized for contributing to the
development of hip hop music. Pirk is considered a founding
(00:26):
father who played an integral part in raps beginnings. DJ
Coolhirk was a part of laying the first building blocks,
that's right, the foundation of hip hop. Known for hosting
parties in his building at fifteen twenty Cedric Avenue back
in August eleventh, nineteen seventy three. That's when he gave
the first party, him and his sister, Cindy Campbell. It
(00:47):
was a back to school jam and DJ Coolhirk. He
was a DJ and the MC that got that party
going and flowing. And a lot of other early cats
that would go on to blow up and become major
influences and forces in hip hop they were at that
party too. It's had this whole hip hop thing starts
to roll and take control. Grandmaster Kaz Rapper, extraordinary songwriter
(01:11):
and DJ member of the legendary hip hop group The
Code Crushed for others. They got a reck room inside
the building where they live at. A reck room is
a room that everyone in the building has access to.
Some people call it the community room, all right, So
if you have it, if the buildings having a bake
sale or whatever, they have it in a community room.
And they have a tenant meeting or whatever, they have
(01:32):
it in the community room. So Cindy wanted to throw
a party in there, make a couple of dollars for
some school clothes. They charged twenty five cents for girls.
If the cents for guys and a lot of people
are purported or we're purportedly in that particular party, but
as cool Herker himself will tell you that's not the true. Okay,
(01:54):
fifteen twenty Central Gavel is a residential apartment building. But
that reck room only about eighty people, Okay, a hundred
if you dance real close together, and that don't count
to the room for the equipment and everything else. So yeah,
it's a small space and it was basically family and
friends orientated. No, I wasn't here. I was too young, okay,
(02:16):
but I caught the vibe up the block and just
living two blocks away, you know, we got the word firsthand.
Whatever went on, Like the older kids from the block
would go to Cool Hurt parties. So I'll blocked with
clear autum and everybody like, Yo, what's up with y'all going?
We y'all going? You know we're shore, He's that, what's up?
We are going? What y'all doing? Oh, we're going to
cool Hurt party. We're going to cool Hurt party. And
(02:38):
all the cool dudes. If all the block girls go
down to cool Hurt party and we just left on
the block. And so that's when I went upstairs and
got my turntable. I'm like, well, and I would play
like Cool Hurt too. Hurk was known, you know for
playing basketball. My older cousin, Butchie used to play basketball
with Cool Hurt down that Roberto Clemente State Park. That's
(02:59):
another way that I that I knew of him. But
as far as the party is concerned, it was just
like this name, you know, this image almost like godlike
you know what I mean, Cool Hurt. You know, back
then people take it for granted now, you know, because
we're around the same man. We're about five years maybe
four or five years in major part when I was
thirteen fourteen, years old. Who Herkle was God. If you
(03:22):
love hip hop, if you love music, if you love
break dancing, then Cool Hercles God Grand Wizit did pioneering
hip hop DJ. Credited as the inventor of the scratching technique.
Coolherd came over from Jamaica. When he came here from Jamaica,
he had to Americanize himself. He had to get used
(03:42):
to this coachure here and that's when he met Koklerock
and cookel Rock introduced her to the culture there was
Hurt started playing music. He had the big giant speakers,
he had the big thrown turntables. So Herd played a major,
major part in hip hop. You know, people come to
his um parties that come to us block parties. And
(04:05):
I remember when I first went to one of her
block parties. He was one sixty nine Street and Washington Avenue.
And when I came and seeing those big giant speakers
and the way to speakers sound, I was just mesmerized, man.
And hrk was like even thought he was like ten
feet tall, you know, and the system sound is so nice, man.
(04:29):
And that's that's what the memories that I had A
Cool Hirk and I'm just so glad that I was
able to experience that, and then going to see the
twins dancing, and then you know, all the people hustling
in the park, hustling in the you know, Cooler play
a major, major part this off form, this culture that
(04:50):
we call hip hop now. When cool Hirk and his
sister Cindy gave that first party back in nineteen seventy
three in their building at fifteen twenty Cedric, what he
did was not yet called hip hop, but once again
he laid those important first bricks in the foundation of
what grew to hip hop music today. And also because
(05:11):
cool Her came from Jamaica, the birthplace of reggae and
dancehall music, a close cousin to the rapping part of
hip hop, these forms developed almost simultaneously, yet independent and
unaware of each other, but they were both largely influenced
by black radio DJs, Jamaican sound system DJs. They can
(05:32):
tune in on a late night to radio stations from
New Orleans and Florida that would make it over to
the island of Jamaica. Yeah, that was the biggest inspiration
down there. And DJs like Cox and Dodd and Lee,
Scratch Perry and those guys took it to the next
level as the first producers of reggae music. Brand Mix
of DXT, one of the earliest to use turntables as
(05:55):
a musical instrument and the first turntableists. We call her
the Father because he gave us. He gave us a platform,
he gave us a space to do what we do,
and he kept feeding us the music the dancers. You know,
he could have he was much older, he could have
went to the old the crowds and played for them.
(06:16):
He stayed with us. That's why we called him the Father.
And so again it's a being boys story. We went
to herts parties because he was playing hit records that
the radio didn't play. They were hits for us, but
the radio wasn't played. And some of those records were new,
they weren't old, they were new records, and his playlist
(06:39):
spoke to the dancers, and so he played that music
that we danced to. Russell Simmons record executive and entrepreneur
Cool DJ Herder is the founding father. He is the
person who most responsible and most visible as the godfather
hip and there's a party in nineteen seventy three that
(07:03):
documents for us for now and fably forever, the founding
date for hip hop. It's party by Flyer and he
had a rapper Coopla Rockets who GJ Hirk rapper I'm
not mistaken, and he was said to be the first
rapper and Cool Hirk was said to be the first
hip hop DJ. So so we created hip hop as
(07:24):
a response to being locked out of you know, have
to create all because they sed up our music as
they had every generation before us, and so we created
hip hop. Peter Gunns hip hop artists and Bronx representative
Cool Hirt was you know, I was four years old
when Cool Hurt was doing that thing. So from the
(07:46):
godfathers and the people I grew up with under Grand
Master Kazz, he explained to me that Hurt was, you know,
bringing the system out and you know DJ and doing
what other people were doing. And he said the stage
for you know, flash Bamboda. A lot of people don't
like you know at this point, understandably, so you're bamboos flowers,
(08:11):
but you got to give credit where credit due, whether
you like to or not. And Boa plays a very
big part of this coaching. I grew up across the
bridge from from one standing fourth vice that's right across
the bridge literally called Bronx River Projects. That's where ban
Bodin was set off. And as far as all alleged
doctors off to give ban bot a lot of propers
(08:32):
to just as well as Core, they give Bamboo's property
as well. Is one of the main innovators of what
we all do. Is innovation is chewing out loud that
we call scratching. There are no creations and inventions in
hip hop. They're all innovations. Core is the main reason
(08:56):
why most of us are doing what we're doing because
what he did was he created the platform for us
to reconnect to that energy. Hip Hop doesn't start in
the Bronx, starts in a people. It's not from the Bronx,
it's from a people, and so here we are. It's
(09:17):
amazing to me that it's been fifty years since hip
hop was born in the Boogie Down Bronx. Hip Hop's
foundations were being laid in the nineteen seventies brick by
brick by mobile DJ's playing disco and other forms of
black music all over the city. But it was at
fifteen twenty Sedgwick Avenue, an apartment building in the mars
(09:39):
Heights neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City. The location
respected and historically believed to be the birthplace of hip hop.
Underneath the grit, grime and spreading violence, a new form
of music was created while large parts of the Bronx
was abandoned, burned, and forgotten. Welcome to the Bronx, New
York in the ninth teen seventies pretty much um. Back
(10:03):
in summer seventy seven, one of the hottest summers on
record here in New York City, there was a blackout
at the time. Other blackout. I was playing in the park.
I was battling a crew, the master Plan Bunch. We
were set up side by side and then the same
park where we fell wild style. Okay, EBB Park, We're
(10:24):
about to go in. So I set up my records
boom boom, and I mean to put the first one
on the intron, like yeah, okay, I'm about to get
it right now. I got my next joint, The next
joint I'm about to drop. It's gonna bust y'all in
the head. Y'all might as well pack up and leave.
Once the drop. Okay, gave it a little zigger ziggle boom,
brought that shit in. That's she said. Lovel bloom gloo.
(10:54):
Turntable cut off, Then the other turn table cut off,
then the mix of cut off, then the amps it off,
and then I looked over at them. They cut off
two and then I'm looking up at the light poles
in the street, and one by one, every light pole
in the street is going out, one by one, not
all together, one by one, poo poo, poo, poo, poop poop,
until the whole street was dark. Now we all standing around.
(11:17):
The crowd is buzzing like what the is going on?
And everybody got the realization at the same time. Oh,
blackout hit the stores. Yet I was purported to have,
you know, gotten some ill gotten gains out of the blackout. Okay,
maybe so, maybe so, but not not a lot. And
(11:41):
actually one piece. I got one piece out of the
place where I bought my first set of DJ equipment,
which I think they overcharged me for anyway, So I
just was getting back some of that. Um, I got
a mixer. The whole thing was trying to get the
fuck out of that park, all right. It was pandemonium
going on in the streets, and everybody was just You've
(12:02):
seen people walking down the street with couches and furniture,
and I mean it was crazy. I remember back when
that riot, when them riots went down in seventy seven, Man,
it was crazy. It was a heat wave in New
York City. People were already outside all day, all night,
all the time because very few people in the hood
had any kind of air conditioning. But yeah, man, it
(12:22):
was crazy back at seventy seven. When the lights went out,
people went to go get what they never could have
access to, you know what I'm saying. And a lot
of Bronx DJs, A lot of DJs were created after
the blackout in nineteen seventy seven. Man, a lot of
people helped themselves to recording equipment and some of those
major stares back then and at the same time devastating
(12:42):
a lot of neighborhood citywide. But it was a big
growth to the development of hip hop music. Fat Joe
recording artists, Bronx hip hop legend and author. You know,
at that time, it wasn't much gun violence. You know,
crack wasn't out just yet, so it was really family oriented.
(13:04):
We were really really poor, but nobody knew what they
was missing. Everybody protected each other. Coming in the Bronx,
I mean it looked like a war zone and you
would have to put pictures and slides up for this
fat five Freddie was there and it looked like they
bombed the whole Bronx. The Bronx looked like Ukraine. Don't
(13:24):
ask me why we didn't have parks. We would have
like pissy mattresses and we would jump on mattresses and
played with straight dogs. But you know, most of all,
we had family. You know, the drug element didn't destroyed
black and brown households like it would in the future.
(13:45):
You know, the drugs split up the family. The father
went to jail and got killed and raised with your grandmother.
It was still a family oriented and even though we
didn't have much, it was like community village. You did
some to a little girl out there to hope and
hold up the state of what things were, you know,
(14:08):
single parent holes man. People were using drugs in the streets,
gang activity everywhere. The government they want to put them
more money back into the city. I remember Ronald Reagan
came to the Bronx and standing in the rubble and
people were screaming and young at him, telling them like,
why does this place look like this? Then you had
people who coming from Vietnam because I know my uncle
(14:29):
was in Vietnam. People were trying to find jobs. It
was like the state of the New York was like
a really a mess. Man. We had a lot of
things man that was against us, man, and we basically
had to rise up from that. It was it was hard, man,
it was really it was really, really, really hard. And
that's why I feel the DJ turned to music, MC
(14:53):
turned to lyrics and rhymes. The B boys turned to
be boy in and getting that energy out of and
the graffiti artists started painting on the trains and stuff
like that. I started seeing like Castle de Felly, Ghosts
and Spider Man and Superman and all these pretty murals
(15:13):
man on the train. Man, I'm like, wow, this is crazy.
You know. So a lot of people was trying to
do something to take their minds off of everything that
was going on in the city. And that's how that's
how hip hop was reinvented. Man. You know, I just
want to set the scene for what it was really
liking the streets back then, you know, I mean for
(15:35):
young folks. You know, this was pre cell phone, pre
video game, pre PlayStation, all that stuff that we deal
with now. I mean, you went outside and you played
street games like Skelly ring a, Leevio, handball, punchball, stick ball, girls,
was jumping rope and playing hop scotch. I mean, that's
how you spent a lot of your time. But in
(15:57):
the Bronx, y'all landlords, particularly in the South Bronx, they
were burning the buildings down to collect the insurance money.
I remember it was a World Series game at Yankee
Stadium in nineteen seventy seven, and while watching the Yankees
play the World Series, you can see fires glowing in
the night sky. In the Bronx. It was really, really bad.
(16:21):
I didn't realize just how stup it wasn't until, you know,
untill I got older. But as a kid growing up,
it was rough. Bronze was burned down. You know, at
one point my building was the only building on the
block that wasn't burned. They started burning the bronze down
(16:45):
available So in the seventies, you know, I was a child,
but I remember, you know, the bronze burning in the
late seventies and Bronx looking crazy, man, especially where I
grew up at Hunt Setting four Vice album. If you
go back and look at the the footage, that's where
President came and it was like Jimmy Cardon came to
(17:05):
the Bronx. I was like, I can't believe this is
New York City, this is America, New York. At that
it looked like a third world country. He was. He
was in shop that was literally two blocks away from
where I'm born and raised. That so it was rough,
but at the same time, it duke you for anything,
and to watch hip hop flourish out of those ashes.
(17:26):
You know, I watched the ship come out, make nothing,
you know, come from nothing, tagging, graffiti on trains, breakdanto,
electric boogie, all that was just a culture that, you know,
made you kind of escape what your reality was. Your
reality wasn't that great, but those park gyms, those cardboard
boxes down I was spending on my back and all that.
(17:48):
So it, you know, the Bronx, that culture was raised
out of those ashes. And when people talk about hip hop,
people only think about the music side of it. There's
a whole culture, you know, So I haint when people
debate that, Yo, what started. We'll started the whole culture,
you know what I mean, and you mix that in,
you lumped that in with the rest of the South's end,
(18:09):
all that stuff that Boston b X we made. We
made this trillion dollars business from the ashes Kid cal
Prit Grammy Award winning DJ and producer. I can tell
you this. In the Bronx, if you go on my
side of the Bronx, it was the good side. You
go to the South bombs, everything was tore down. It
(18:30):
looked like a war zone. If you went down and Harlem,
a lot of those buildings was so abandoned. Everything a
whole line a buildings of abandoned. You know when at
the time, nobody thought about buying these buildings. Level's course
of the dollar. Now the justification came in and all
those buildings is built up where imingers of ballars. Nobody
(18:51):
was thinking at the time. Yeah, it was. If you
go to South Box, it's dangerous, very dangerous. You know,
which they show is the truth. It's you know, unfortunate
out they live on that side. I live on another side,
living on the Kings bed side. So you know, we
will walk through to these places and see because we
walked a lot back in the days that we will
walk to South Balks and Southern Southern Boulevard and all
(19:13):
those places where a lot of bad builders was, you know,
burned down and you know, abandoned and just see it.
And when you're living that, you're gonna get climbed. You're
gonna get You're gonna get there because people have no
way out. This is all these seat. They wake up
to this, they go to sleep to this every day.
All they know is that they don't see nothing bigger,
you know I'm saying, So you get climb you don't
get nobody coming in to the rescue to make sure
(19:35):
the city has taken care, and it goes off for
years until somebody does something. Before all those years, people
were distressed because there was no way out. I mean, yeah,
the South Frances looked like people had dropped mad bombs
on it, you know, like it was a war zone.
It looked like a war zone. But once again, the
South Francs looked really bad back then, like people had
(19:56):
dropped arms all over the place. They were U apartment
buildings or most of those blocks in the Bronx. There
was really a block that had all the buildings intact
and fully operated. It's a real shocking scene. The Bronx
is the lowest on the total pole as far as education,
as far as if you look it up best in
(20:17):
your mind, it's called one or four six sold I
was born to raise that, you know, the lowest in
the country and education and the lowest income in the
country as well. It's ports. Stuff still is bad and
it's always been so. To come from a spot where
they expect you to not succeed at all, you know,
(20:37):
death jail or just die poor or drug addict. To
see the flowers that grew out of the circumstances that
you would put in, it's this. It means everything, right,
you know. Me being from the Bronx, I'm gonna say,
maybe they wouldn't be a hip hop you know, it's
because it's a culture. Who knows, you know what I mean.
(20:59):
But one thing we know for sure, as if it
wasn't for the Bronx, shrap probably never will be going off.
And also, street gangs dominated a lot of neighborhoods in
the Bronx back then, crazy street gangs that wore wild
outfits and colors and you know, names like the savage skulls,
savage nomads, the ghetto brothers, black spades and javelins dominated
(21:24):
some of these neighborhoods. Real wild, crazy, dangerous stuff. You
ever seen the movie Warriors, y'all? This was the real deal.
The Blox we was birth buildings. You were like, you know,
I don't go to the Bronx. You know what I'm saying,
You may not make it out of the Bronx and
to create something so great. I remember telling Hurt one time,
(21:45):
who Hurt? I hope you did think it was gonna
stay in the Bronx. You know what I'm saying, It's
too big now. Now it's now is where it is.
The sad thing is that the people that came before
don't get the credit or get the recognition or the
money that came later. You know what I'm saying. That's
(22:06):
why they're my hero because they didn't get what I've gotten,
or people came and gotten after me, or you know,
but data ones that built it from the ground up.
So when you speak on where it came from the Bronx,
gott speak on who's the ones that made it, who
lifted it? Kaz and Mellie mel and furious all those dudes.
You can't you can't speak on hip hop and say
(22:28):
nothing without mentioning them because data ones that gave you
a job. You know what I'm saying. You have a job,
and you're rich, and you're a billion in all those
things because of what these dudes do. So now, with
your billions that you have, how do you not go
back and set up something for these dudes to get
money for theirselves. I feel like a lot of people
might feel like, oh yeah, y'all started it, but we
(22:48):
took the next level and we did what other people pointed.
But that's what it's poor. Well. I love that. I
love that you're taking it. Do your thing with it,
you know what I mean? But please don't forget where
it man, and don't forget, you know, pay a little warhammed,
show a little more love. I see a lot of
people out there debating whether you know the culture started here?
That annoys me. Just paying homage, you know what I mean?
(23:12):
It don't cost you nothing, and paying hommage, you know
what I mean? That shot was fired out to South
Prownce problem. I lived five minutes away from her from Cool,
her living on kings Terrace, he lived on Sea the
Afno It's building fifteen twenty. See, the park was right
next to it. Katona Park was on the other side
of the Bronx, you know, So I was right there
(23:34):
up the street from where herk was at. And at
the time, as a young kid, I didn't realize that
it was the Bronx that started it until I started
hearing the takes started started, you know, getting a little older,
started learning things that, you know. But I was right there,
you know what I'm saying, and being there at the
(23:56):
time it started, and being and just getting there right
before it started, being a part of it. You know.
It's it's a big thing for me because it wasn't
something like it was a bandwaggon thing I jumped on,
not saying anybody else jumped on the bandwaggon, but it
was something I was at the core of it, right
at the beginning of it. That's why my movie is
called Mister every Other, because I was through every ever
of it. I've seen every other. You know, At first,
(24:18):
it was like I didn't feel like it was being
given up to the Bronx. I felt like, damn, do
they even know where they started that? Because you gotta
remember besides terrorists Juan and Fat Joe and a few others,
slick Rick. They don't want to give us slick Rick
because they always say in London, but no slick was
raised in the Bronx, you know, So we didn't have
(24:39):
the rappers, you know, you know, all the hot rappers,
all the dudes that was popping was coming from Queens
and Brooklyn and you know they start Nowland and you know,
all of them and all that. So I think people
forgot and that's what inspired me to do that hook
that the whole world started singing at one point. Brosses right,
(25:02):
probably never would be going on to tell me when
you farm up town, maybe up town, maybe we get
down maybe for the Crown. Maybe now if it wasn't
for the Brons. They emphasize that two or three times
on that hook, like yeah, they paved the way. But
you know, I might say one of the most controversial
answers of this interview, somebody else would it? Did it?
(25:27):
And the Bronze they did it? Somebody else would it?
Did it? Our people were so beautiful, man, and they're
so innovative and visionaries, and somebody else would it? Did it?
You know what I'm saying. So the Bronze started the foundation.
If it would have started in Atlanta, who knows. But
it needed to started the Boss because the Boss was
(25:50):
the Monk and mud. It was like you at the bottom,
you know what I'm saying. So something great had to happen.
Manhattan was always known for getting money, good or bad,
whether it's drug l and whatever it is. Matt was
mad Queen's. They got beautiful houses out there, beautiful landscaping,
Brooklyn Wallace, but Biggie So there's a lot of money
(26:12):
in the blocks, Birthful Down Facts Hallim was burned down,
but the whole man, you know, give me with it.
Burn Down Down didn't getting money to me here, y'all whatever,
but the blocks, you know. So something great had to happen,
and hip hop was it. On the next episode of
(26:34):
fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series, we look at
the DJ's essential role in the creation of rap music
and find out who really coined the term hip hop.
This episode has been executive produced by Dolly S. Bishop,
hosted and produced by your Boy Fab five Freddie, Produced
by Aaron A. King Howard, edit Nick sound by Dwayne Crawford,
(26:59):
Music scoring by Trey Jones, Taling Booking by Nicole Spence
From I Heart podcasts, I Am five five Freddie and
This is fifty Years of hip Hop podcast series. Born
April sixteenth, nineteen fifty five, Clyde Campbell aka DJ Coolhirk
is a Jamaican American DJ recognized for contributing to the
development of hip hop music. Pirk is considered a founding
(00:26):
father who played an integral part in raps beginnings. DJ
Coolhirk was a part of laying the first building blocks,
that's right, the foundation of hip hop. Known for hosting
parties in his building at fifteen twenty Cedric Avenue back
in August eleventh, nineteen seventy three. That's when he gave
the first party, him and his sister, Cindy Campbell. It
(00:47):
was a back to school jam and DJ Coolhirk. He
was a DJ and the MC that got that party
going and flowing. And a lot of other early cats
that would go on to blow up and become major
influences and forces in hip hop they were at that
party too. It's had this whole hip hop thing starts
to roll and take control. Grandmaster Kaz Rapper, extraordinary songwriter
(01:11):
and DJ member of the legendary hip hop group The
Code Crushed for others. They got a reck room inside
the building where they live at. A reck room is
a room that everyone in the building has access to.
Some people call it the community room, all right, So
if you have it, if the buildings having a bake
sale or whatever, they have it in a community room.
And they have a tenant meeting or whatever, they have
(01:32):
it in the community room. So Cindy wanted to throw
a party in there, make a couple of dollars for
some school clothes. They charged twenty five cents for girls.
If the cents for guys and a lot of people
are purported or we're purportedly in that particular party, but
as cool Herker himself will tell you that's not the true. Okay,
(01:54):
fifteen twenty Central Gavel is a residential apartment building. But
that reck room only about eighty people, Okay, a hundred
if you dance real close together, and that don't count
to the room for the equipment and everything else. So yeah,
it's a small space and it was basically family and
friends orientated. No, I wasn't here. I was too young, okay,
(02:16):
but I caught the vibe up the block and just
living two blocks away, you know, we got the word firsthand.
Whatever went on, Like the older kids from the block
would go to Cool Hurt parties. So I'll blocked with
clear autum and everybody like, Yo, what's up with y'all going?
We y'all going? You know we're shore, He's that, what's up?
We are going? What y'all doing? Oh, we're going to
cool Hurt party. We're going to cool Hurt party. And
(02:38):
all the cool dudes. If all the block girls go
down to cool Hurt party and we just left on
the block. And so that's when I went upstairs and
got my turntable. I'm like, well, and I would play
like Cool Hurt too. Hurk was known, you know for
playing basketball. My older cousin, Butchie used to play basketball
with Cool Hurt down that Roberto Clemente State Park. That's
(02:59):
another way that I that I knew of him. But
as far as the party is concerned, it was just
like this name, you know, this image almost like godlike
you know what I mean, Cool Hurt. You know, back
then people take it for granted now, you know, because
we're around the same man. We're about five years maybe
four or five years in major part when I was
thirteen fourteen, years old. Who Herkle was God. If you
(03:22):
love hip hop, if you love music, if you love
break dancing, then Cool Hercles God Grand Wizit did pioneering
hip hop DJ. Credited as the inventor of the scratching technique.
Coolherd came over from Jamaica. When he came here from Jamaica,
he had to Americanize himself. He had to get used
(03:42):
to this coachure here and that's when he met Koklerock
and cookel Rock introduced her to the culture there was
Hurt started playing music. He had the big giant speakers,
he had the big thrown turntables. So Herd played a major,
major part in hip hop. You know, people come to
his um parties that come to us block parties. And
(04:05):
I remember when I first went to one of her
block parties. He was one sixty nine Street and Washington Avenue.
And when I came and seeing those big giant speakers
and the way to speakers sound, I was just mesmerized, man.
And hrk was like even thought he was like ten
feet tall, you know, and the system sound is so nice, man.
(04:29):
And that's that's what the memories that I had A
Cool Hirk and I'm just so glad that I was
able to experience that, and then going to see the
twins dancing, and then you know, all the people hustling
in the park, hustling in the you know, Cooler play
a major, major part this off form, this culture that
(04:50):
we call hip hop now. When cool Hirk and his
sister Cindy gave that first party back in nineteen seventy
three in their building at fifteen twenty Cedric, what he
did was not yet called hip hop, but once again
he laid those important first bricks in the foundation of
what grew to hip hop music today. And also because
(05:11):
cool Her came from Jamaica, the birthplace of reggae and
dancehall music, a close cousin to the rapping part of
hip hop, these forms developed almost simultaneously, yet independent and
unaware of each other, but they were both largely influenced
by black radio DJs, Jamaican sound system DJs. They can
(05:32):
tune in on a late night to radio stations from
New Orleans and Florida that would make it over to
the island of Jamaica. Yeah, that was the biggest inspiration
down there. And DJs like Cox and Dodd and Lee,
Scratch Perry and those guys took it to the next
level as the first producers of reggae music. Brand Mix
of DXT, one of the earliest to use turntables as
(05:55):
a musical instrument and the first turntableists. We call her
the Father because he gave us. He gave us a platform,
he gave us a space to do what we do,
and he kept feeding us the music the dancers. You know,
he could have he was much older, he could have
went to the old the crowds and played for them.
(06:16):
He stayed with us. That's why we called him the Father.
And so again it's a being boys story. We went
to herts parties because he was playing hit records that
the radio didn't play. They were hits for us, but
the radio wasn't played. And some of those records were new,
they weren't old, they were new records, and his playlist
(06:39):
spoke to the dancers, and so he played that music
that we danced to. Russell Simmons record executive and entrepreneur
Cool DJ Herder is the founding father. He is the
person who most responsible and most visible as the godfather
hip and there's a party in nineteen seventy three that
(07:03):
documents for us for now and fably forever, the founding
date for hip hop. It's party by Flyer and he
had a rapper Coopla Rockets who GJ Hirk rapper I'm
not mistaken, and he was said to be the first
rapper and Cool Hirk was said to be the first
hip hop DJ. So so we created hip hop as
(07:24):
a response to being locked out of you know, have
to create all because they sed up our music as
they had every generation before us, and so we created
hip hop. Peter Gunns hip hop artists and Bronx representative
Cool Hirt was you know, I was four years old
when Cool Hurt was doing that thing. So from the
(07:46):
godfathers and the people I grew up with under Grand
Master Kazz, he explained to me that Hurt was, you know,
bringing the system out and you know DJ and doing
what other people were doing. And he said the stage
for you know, flash Bamboda. A lot of people don't
like you know at this point, understandably, so you're bamboos flowers,
(08:11):
but you got to give credit where credit due, whether
you like to or not. And Boa plays a very
big part of this coaching. I grew up across the
bridge from from one standing fourth vice that's right across
the bridge literally called Bronx River Projects. That's where ban
Bodin was set off. And as far as all alleged
doctors off to give ban bot a lot of propers
(08:32):
to just as well as Core, they give Bamboo's property
as well. Is one of the main innovators of what
we all do. Is innovation is chewing out loud that
we call scratching. There are no creations and inventions in
hip hop. They're all innovations. Core is the main reason
(08:56):
why most of us are doing what we're doing because
what he did was he created the platform for us
to reconnect to that energy. Hip Hop doesn't start in
the Bronx, starts in a people. It's not from the Bronx,
it's from a people, and so here we are. It's
(09:17):
amazing to me that it's been fifty years since hip
hop was born in the Boogie Down Bronx. Hip Hop's
foundations were being laid in the nineteen seventies brick by
brick by mobile DJ's playing disco and other forms of
black music all over the city. But it was at
fifteen twenty Sedgwick Avenue, an apartment building in the mars
(09:39):
Heights neighborhood of the Bronx, New York City. The location
respected and historically believed to be the birthplace of hip hop.
Underneath the grit, grime and spreading violence, a new form
of music was created while large parts of the Bronx
was abandoned, burned, and forgotten. Welcome to the Bronx, New
York in the ninth teen seventies pretty much um. Back
(10:03):
in summer seventy seven, one of the hottest summers on
record here in New York City, there was a blackout
at the time. Other blackout. I was playing in the park.
I was battling a crew, the master Plan Bunch. We
were set up side by side and then the same
park where we fell wild style. Okay, EBB Park, We're
(10:24):
about to go in. So I set up my records
boom boom, and I mean to put the first one
on the intron, like yeah, okay, I'm about to get
it right now. I got my next joint, The next
joint I'm about to drop. It's gonna bust y'all in
the head. Y'all might as well pack up and leave.
Once the drop. Okay, gave it a little zigger ziggle boom,
brought that shit in. That's she said. Lovel bloom gloo.
(10:54):
Turntable cut off, Then the other turn table cut off,
then the mix of cut off, then the amps it off,
and then I looked over at them. They cut off
two and then I'm looking up at the light poles
in the street, and one by one, every light pole
in the street is going out, one by one, not
all together, one by one, poo poo, poo, poo, poop poop,
until the whole street was dark. Now we all standing around.
(11:17):
The crowd is buzzing like what the is going on?
And everybody got the realization at the same time. Oh,
blackout hit the stores. Yet I was purported to have,
you know, gotten some ill gotten gains out of the blackout. Okay,
maybe so, maybe so, but not not a lot. And
(11:41):
actually one piece. I got one piece out of the
place where I bought my first set of DJ equipment,
which I think they overcharged me for anyway, So I
just was getting back some of that. Um, I got
a mixer. The whole thing was trying to get the
fuck out of that park, all right. It was pandemonium
going on in the streets, and everybody was just You've
(12:02):
seen people walking down the street with couches and furniture,
and I mean it was crazy. I remember back when
that riot, when them riots went down in seventy seven, Man,
it was crazy. It was a heat wave in New
York City. People were already outside all day, all night,
all the time because very few people in the hood
had any kind of air conditioning. But yeah, man, it
(12:22):
was crazy back at seventy seven. When the lights went out,
people went to go get what they never could have
access to, you know what I'm saying. And a lot
of Bronx DJs, A lot of DJs were created after
the blackout in nineteen seventy seven. Man, a lot of
people helped themselves to recording equipment and some of those
major stares back then and at the same time devastating
(12:42):
a lot of neighborhood citywide. But it was a big
growth to the development of hip hop music. Fat Joe
recording artists, Bronx hip hop legend and author. You know,
at that time, it wasn't much gun violence. You know,
crack wasn't out just yet, so it was really family oriented.
(13:04):
We were really really poor, but nobody knew what they
was missing. Everybody protected each other. Coming in the Bronx,
I mean it looked like a war zone and you
would have to put pictures and slides up for this
fat five Freddie was there and it looked like they
bombed the whole Bronx. The Bronx looked like Ukraine. Don't
(13:24):
ask me why we didn't have parks. We would have
like pissy mattresses and we would jump on mattresses and
played with straight dogs. But you know, most of all,
we had family. You know, the drug element didn't destroyed
black and brown households like it would in the future.
(13:45):
You know, the drugs split up the family. The father
went to jail and got killed and raised with your grandmother.
It was still a family oriented and even though we
didn't have much, it was like community village. You did
some to a little girl out there to hope and
hold up the state of what things were, you know,
(14:08):
single parent holes man. People were using drugs in the streets,
gang activity everywhere. The government they want to put them
more money back into the city. I remember Ronald Reagan
came to the Bronx and standing in the rubble and
people were screaming and young at him, telling them like,
why does this place look like this? Then you had
people who coming from Vietnam because I know my uncle
(14:29):
was in Vietnam. People were trying to find jobs. It
was like the state of the New York was like
a really a mess. Man. We had a lot of
things man that was against us, man, and we basically
had to rise up from that. It was it was hard, man,
it was really it was really, really, really hard. And
that's why I feel the DJ turned to music, MC
(14:53):
turned to lyrics and rhymes. The B boys turned to
be boy in and getting that energy out of and
the graffiti artists started painting on the trains and stuff
like that. I started seeing like Castle de Felly, Ghosts
and Spider Man and Superman and all these pretty murals
(15:13):
man on the train. Man, I'm like, wow, this is crazy.
You know. So a lot of people was trying to
do something to take their minds off of everything that
was going on in the city. And that's how that's
how hip hop was reinvented. Man. You know, I just
want to set the scene for what it was really
liking the streets back then, you know, I mean for
(15:35):
young folks. You know, this was pre cell phone, pre
video game, pre PlayStation, all that stuff that we deal
with now. I mean, you went outside and you played
street games like Skelly ring a, Leevio, handball, punchball, stick ball, girls,
was jumping rope and playing hop scotch. I mean, that's
how you spent a lot of your time. But in
(15:57):
the Bronx, y'all landlords, particularly in the South Bronx, they
were burning the buildings down to collect the insurance money.
I remember it was a World Series game at Yankee
Stadium in nineteen seventy seven, and while watching the Yankees
play the World Series, you can see fires glowing in
the night sky. In the Bronx. It was really, really bad.
(16:21):
I didn't realize just how stup it wasn't until, you know,
untill I got older. But as a kid growing up,
it was rough. Bronze was burned down. You know, at
one point my building was the only building on the
block that wasn't burned. They started burning the bronze down
(16:45):
available So in the seventies, you know, I was a child,
but I remember, you know, the bronze burning in the
late seventies and Bronx looking crazy, man, especially where I
grew up at Hunt Setting four Vice album. If you
go back and look at the the footage, that's where
President came and it was like Jimmy Cardon came to
(17:05):
the Bronx. I was like, I can't believe this is
New York City, this is America, New York. At that
it looked like a third world country. He was. He
was in shop that was literally two blocks away from
where I'm born and raised. That so it was rough,
but at the same time, it duke you for anything,
and to watch hip hop flourish out of those ashes.
(17:26):
You know, I watched the ship come out, make nothing,
you know, come from nothing, tagging, graffiti on trains, breakdanto,
electric boogie, all that was just a culture that, you know,
made you kind of escape what your reality was. Your
reality wasn't that great, but those park gyms, those cardboard
boxes down I was spending on my back and all that.
(17:48):
So it, you know, the Bronx, that culture was raised
out of those ashes. And when people talk about hip hop,
people only think about the music side of it. There's
a whole culture, you know, So I haint when people
debate that, Yo, what started. We'll started the whole culture,
you know what I mean, and you mix that in,
you lumped that in with the rest of the South's end,
(18:09):
all that stuff that Boston b X we made. We
made this trillion dollars business from the ashes Kid cal
Prit Grammy Award winning DJ and producer. I can tell
you this. In the Bronx, if you go on my
side of the Bronx, it was the good side. You
go to the South bombs, everything was tore down. It
(18:30):
looked like a war zone. If you went down and Harlem,
a lot of those buildings was so abandoned. Everything a
whole line a buildings of abandoned. You know when at
the time, nobody thought about buying these buildings. Level's course
of the dollar. Now the justification came in and all
those buildings is built up where imingers of ballars. Nobody
(18:51):
was thinking at the time. Yeah, it was. If you
go to South Box, it's dangerous, very dangerous. You know,
which they show is the truth. It's you know, unfortunate
out they live on that side. I live on another side,
living on the Kings bed side. So you know, we
will walk through to these places and see because we
walked a lot back in the days that we will
walk to South Balks and Southern Southern Boulevard and all
(19:13):
those places where a lot of bad builders was, you know,
burned down and you know, abandoned and just see it.
And when you're living that, you're gonna get climbed. You're
gonna get You're gonna get there because people have no
way out. This is all these seat. They wake up
to this, they go to sleep to this every day.
All they know is that they don't see nothing bigger,
you know I'm saying, So you get climb you don't
get nobody coming in to the rescue to make sure
(19:35):
the city has taken care, and it goes off for
years until somebody does something. Before all those years, people
were distressed because there was no way out. I mean, yeah,
the South Frances looked like people had dropped mad bombs
on it, you know, like it was a war zone.
It looked like a war zone. But once again, the
South Francs looked really bad back then, like people had
(19:56):
dropped arms all over the place. They were U apartment
buildings or most of those blocks in the Bronx. There
was really a block that had all the buildings intact
and fully operated. It's a real shocking scene. The Bronx
is the lowest on the total pole as far as education,
as far as if you look it up best in
(20:17):
your mind, it's called one or four six sold I
was born to raise that, you know, the lowest in
the country and education and the lowest income in the
country as well. It's ports. Stuff still is bad and
it's always been so. To come from a spot where
they expect you to not succeed at all, you know,
(20:37):
death jail or just die poor or drug addict. To
see the flowers that grew out of the circumstances that
you would put in, it's this. It means everything, right,
you know. Me being from the Bronx, I'm gonna say,
maybe they wouldn't be a hip hop you know, it's
because it's a culture. Who knows, you know what I mean.
(20:59):
But one thing we know for sure, as if it
wasn't for the Bronx, shrap probably never will be going off.
And also, street gangs dominated a lot of neighborhoods in
the Bronx back then, crazy street gangs that wore wild
outfits and colors and you know, names like the savage skulls,
savage nomads, the ghetto brothers, black spades and javelins dominated
(21:24):
some of these neighborhoods. Real wild, crazy, dangerous stuff. You
ever seen the movie Warriors, y'all? This was the real deal.
The Blox we was birth buildings. You were like, you know,
I don't go to the Bronx. You know what I'm saying,
You may not make it out of the Bronx and
to create something so great. I remember telling Hurt one time,
(21:45):
who Hurt? I hope you did think it was gonna
stay in the Bronx. You know what I'm saying, It's
too big now. Now it's now is where it is.
The sad thing is that the people that came before
don't get the credit or get the recognition or the
money that came later. You know what I'm saying. That's
(22:06):
why they're my hero because they didn't get what I've gotten,
or people came and gotten after me, or you know,
but data ones that built it from the ground up.
So when you speak on where it came from the Bronx,
gott speak on who's the ones that made it, who
lifted it? Kaz and Mellie mel and furious all those dudes.
You can't you can't speak on hip hop and say
(22:28):
nothing without mentioning them because data ones that gave you
a job. You know what I'm saying. You have a job,
and you're rich, and you're a billion in all those
things because of what these dudes do. So now, with
your billions that you have, how do you not go
back and set up something for these dudes to get
money for theirselves. I feel like a lot of people
might feel like, oh yeah, y'all started it, but we
(22:48):
took the next level and we did what other people pointed.
But that's what it's poor. Well. I love that. I
love that you're taking it. Do your thing with it,
you know what I mean? But please don't forget where
it man, and don't forget, you know, pay a little warhammed,
show a little more love. I see a lot of
people out there debating whether you know the culture started here?
That annoys me. Just paying homage, you know what I mean?
(23:12):
It don't cost you nothing, and paying hommage, you know
what I mean? That shot was fired out to South
Prownce problem. I lived five minutes away from her from Cool,
her living on kings Terrace, he lived on Sea the
Afno It's building fifteen twenty. See, the park was right
next to it. Katona Park was on the other side
of the Bronx, you know, So I was right there
(23:34):
up the street from where herk was at. And at
the time, as a young kid, I didn't realize that
it was the Bronx that started it until I started
hearing the takes started started, you know, getting a little older,
started learning things that, you know. But I was right there,
you know what I'm saying, and being there at the
(23:56):
time it started, and being and just getting there right
before it started, being a part of it. You know.
It's it's a big thing for me because it wasn't
something like it was a bandwaggon thing I jumped on,
not saying anybody else jumped on the bandwaggon, but it
was something I was at the core of it, right
at the beginning of it. That's why my movie is
called Mister every Other, because I was through every ever
of it. I've seen every other. You know, At first,
(24:18):
it was like I didn't feel like it was being
given up to the Bronx. I felt like, damn, do
they even know where they started that? Because you gotta
remember besides terrorists Juan and Fat Joe and a few others,
slick Rick. They don't want to give us slick Rick
because they always say in London, but no slick was
raised in the Bronx, you know, So we didn't have
(24:39):
the rappers, you know, you know, all the hot rappers,
all the dudes that was popping was coming from Queens
and Brooklyn and you know they start Nowland and you know,
all of them and all that. So I think people
forgot and that's what inspired me to do that hook
that the whole world started singing at one point. Brosses right,
(25:02):
probably never would be going on to tell me when
you farm up town, maybe up town, maybe we get
down maybe for the Crown. Maybe now if it wasn't
for the Brons. They emphasize that two or three times
on that hook, like yeah, they paved the way. But
you know, I might say one of the most controversial
answers of this interview, somebody else would it? Did it?
(25:27):
And the Bronze they did it? Somebody else would it?
Did it? Our people were so beautiful, man, and they're
so innovative and visionaries, and somebody else would it? Did it?
You know what I'm saying. So the Bronze started the foundation.
If it would have started in Atlanta, who knows. But
it needed to started the Boss because the Boss was
(25:50):
the Monk and mud. It was like you at the bottom,
you know what I'm saying. So something great had to happen.
Manhattan was always known for getting money, good or bad,
whether it's drug l and whatever it is. Matt was
mad Queen's. They got beautiful houses out there, beautiful landscaping,
Brooklyn Wallace, but Biggie So there's a lot of money
(26:12):
in the blocks, Birthful Down Facts Hallim was burned down,
but the whole man, you know, give me with it.
Burn Down Down didn't getting money to me here, y'all whatever,
but the blocks, you know. So something great had to happen,
and hip hop was it. On the next episode of
(26:34):
fifty Years of Hip Hop podcast series, we look at
the DJ's essential role in the creation of rap music
and find out who really coined the term hip hop.
This episode has been executive produced by Dolly S. Bishop,
hosted and produced by your Boy Fab five Freddie, Produced
by Aaron A. King Howard, edit Nick sound by Dwayne Crawford,
(26:59):
Music scoring by Trey Jones, Taling Booking by Nicole Spence
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