August 23, 2023 • 42 mins
Questlove Supreme celebrates 50 years of Hip Hop with a guest who grew up just steps from the culture's birthplace. Kid Capri tells Team Supreme about attending early Hip Hop parties, catching the bug in the mid-1970s, and looking for the perfect beat in the formative years of the culture. Listeners will feel the love in this one.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Scheme Quest Love
your host.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yo, we got teams Supreme with us.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Start with Sugar Steve. Hello, Steve, what's up? Man? Everything's good?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
You know, working half as hard as I normally do,
but still getting.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You're not working half as hard? Man? You got you
gotta you gotta really like monumental jazz.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Sorry, no, I meant getting paid half as much as
I know.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
There you go, Oh my fault. Okay, that's real. I
can't help you there. I'm paid Bill. What's up, bro?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know? Man?
Speaker 5 (00:50):
Halfway through the summer, living life, driving around children's driving
around children. That's what I do. I'm like a bus
service from my kids. That's my life. Getting ready for
the Street, that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Season? What season the Sesame Street? Are you guys about
to get into?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
We're wrapping fifty four maybe and starting fifty five. I
think that's right. Yeah, okay, so September. There you go.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm Paybill was explaining to us that Sesame Street is
exempt from the current writers strike and acting strike yep
as well, so I get.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Paid the same amount of money, Steve sadly Sorry.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Well yeah I saw some up it's crossing the picket
line the other day that show.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
There you go, all right and uh fon Tikeolo what's up? Bro?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I was bro good Man, were getting ready? We just
announced today Made and Durham Little Brother Block Party.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Uh So it's like, y'all, y'all little picnic joined, Like
what is it?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It is one day and one day only and it's
for a limited amount of time for hours and then
we're going to fuck home. So one day go to
the fuck always always.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
He must have the nicest house, Little Brother.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Little Brother, big crid, cool kids on, Tall, Black Guy,
DJ's hour Glass and Wildly Sparks spinning and Sam Jay hosting.
So October seventh, Downtown Durham, A Little Brother n C
hit us up October seventh, October seventh, Yeah, damn okay.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Is this for the twentieth anniversary of the listening? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, twin anniversary with twin averses just a Little Brother period,
you know what I mean? We wanted to do it,
do something in our hometown.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Are y'all doing like the entire album start to finish?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I would never do that shit when people come to
see his little brother, Like, I don't like them whole
We're gonna do the whole album all that. Like people
came here to the jams. So if it's twenty years
we celebrating the whole catalog.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I get it. Okay, that's what's up.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So people, it's of course we all know it's hip
hop's fiftieth anniversary. Pretty much, we are going in heavy
on the conversations with you know, our legends, our participants
are our delegates, our ambassadors of the culture.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And what can I say, our.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Next guest is a legend, a legend of the mix.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I kind of credit our guests for really elevating the
role of the DJ. It was it was through him that,
you know, I first heard the seeds of ideas.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I didn't know we could do.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I didn't know that you could take an a cappella
from one record and mix it with another record. And
you know, just the amount of road trips that I've
done in my life, even pre roots with his mixtapes
as the soundtrack, you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Just it's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
To me some of some of the best moments of
my life hanging with my friends high school and early
early college years for me, our guest raps. He produces
definitely a very recognizable voice and screen and his DJ
echo voice game is unmatched. He's been in the culture,
(04:06):
uh three decades plus and counting, you know, Grammy Award
winning albums and and you know ship he's he has
one aclade that you and I don't have unpaid bill. This,
this gentleman is on a Pulitzer Prize winning record.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Of course, younger fans might know of him as the
narrative voice of Kenney's Damn Album, you know, right exactly.
But you know, our guess is has just been ubiquitous
with probably the best things about the culture, like one
of the best party DJs ever. What can I say,
(04:43):
ladies and gentlemen, welcome Kick Capri to Quest Love Supreme in.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Nice Get Better.
Speaker 6 (04:51):
I did all that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You know, it's time for that, man, It's time for that.
How are you today?
Speaker 7 (04:58):
Man?
Speaker 6 (04:59):
What you call?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Where you speaking to us? From where you right now?
Speaker 6 (05:02):
In my studio?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Okay, you're still in New York. I assume New Jersey.
I consider Jersey New York.
Speaker 8 (05:09):
Everybody's on top of each other in New York. I
had to get away to come over to Jersey. When
I want to go to New York and go over
come back to Jersey.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Let me ask you, because you know, a lot of
the soldiers or the participants of the part of hip
hop culture that I grew up on and I'm a
part of, and that you're part of as well, a
lot of them probably in the mid to late nineties
decided to migrate down south. You know, a lot of
(05:39):
our New York legends like went to Maryland and then
to North Carolina and Atlanta and whatnot. For you, though,
like what has kept you in the city of New York,
LIKEJZ don't live in New York no more. Like it's
almost like I'm pressed to find any hip hop legend
that's not still living in New York.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Yeah, it's my feel, man, it's the feel.
Speaker 8 (06:02):
It's what I grew up on. I've been around the world.
I've been many places. There's places that I will go
and move, but I know I will move there for
a short period of time. But it's just something about
being around New York. I'm not even in I'm New Jersey.
I'm right over the bridge, but I can get to
New York when already, you know. But it's just the
feel of New York of everything I come from, the Bronx.
(06:26):
I was born in Brooklyn, I was raising the Bronx
home and hip hop. I was raised five minutes away
from her or kingsbas Terrace to see the Avenue is
five minutes away. So it's just that feel of it.
But then also my daughters is there, you know, my
engineers there on my role. Man, everything I need is
right here. I'm looking for a house right now in
this area, a new house and in this area right
(06:47):
now to move into. But I counsider moving in Atlanta
before in Houston, and the price of living is way different,
It's way better. But I just feel like I need
to be here. I need to If I move somewhere else,
I'm gonna look something. So that's what it pretty much
is for me. Okay, homeless home, I get it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I want to talk about your beginnings of the culture,
like for you, well, okay, you're a DJ. First of all,
what like what environment did you grow up in as
far as like your your love of music? Did you
grow up in in a sort of an open format
household where music was prevalent or.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
My dad was a soul singer.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
He sung.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
He was the first soul singer to sing with the
Lebron Brothers.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
Le Bron Brothers is a Latin band, that's a well
Latin band that's tours the world right now. They made
an album in nineteen sixty They made two albums. They
made one to sixty eight and one sixty nine. He
was the first soul singer with a Latin band. And
then he left and started doing northern soul himself and
he became really good. He had a record called Baby
Hard Times and seventy three. They did good for him.
So he was always, you know, doing this thing. My
grandfather what was his Dave Love He had called Baby
(07:53):
Hard Times. And his father, my grandfather, he was a
trumpet player, which I have as trumpety in nineteen forty.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
He used to sit in with Miles Davis, count Basie.
Speaker 8 (08:03):
The alone is he's sitting with all these guys and
all these sessions and play with them. So the music
always been in my family had always been around. At
four years old, I started playing drums about that, started
playing drugs at four years old and at the time
we had a record player that you had to stand
over and look over and there's the big TV on
the record player.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
You had to look over into the turntable. I used
to play the turntay.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
I didn't know what I was doing, you know, DJing or nothing,
but I was playing these James Brown records and you know,
these records with breaks in it, and it just it
was just attractive to me as a little kid.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
So at eight years old.
Speaker 8 (08:35):
When hip hop came alive, that's when I started DJing
and from there on I never stopped. And you know,
it all came from me growing up knowing all the music,
all the funk music and the soul music for my
father and my grandfather.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
It's rare for us to have someone that was actually
raised in the epicenter of the culture. Could you typically
just walk me through walk me through a day in
which you are experiencing what we know is hip hop culture.
What days do these block parties happen? Like, what's what's
(09:08):
typical for Like what their DJing? What did the speakers
look like? What or does the equipment look like? Just
walk me through your observation of like a typical Bronx
hip hop experience back in the.
Speaker 8 (09:19):
Days before there was hip hop records. It was just
the break beats. It was just the MC's rhyming over
the break beats, DJ's arguing over which records they could cut,
like Freedom and Apache and I can't stop the records
like that, arguing argument like it would be it would
be crazy because it would be seven to eight DJs
in one MC, right, and because the DJ was so
(09:43):
much more.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
It was so much more.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
To remember, the MC didn't come and be so prevalent
until records came out. But when you had the Furious Five,
you had Fantastic, you had Cold Crush. It was always
the DJ first, Charlie chasing the Cold Crush, Grand Master
Flash and the Furious five, you know, Grand Wizard theory
on the Fantastic. So it was always about the DJ
more so they would argue about who would cut each
(10:06):
records they were cut because with so many DJs on
this party. So that's what it was that it was
going to the record, stop trying to find the records
and standing in the in the block parties in DJ
and in the rain while it's raining and the crowd
still coming and they stand out.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
There and party with you.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
You ain't making no money, You're blowing your equipment up
all that, but it was so much of we wanted
to have so much fun and want people to see
what we're doing.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
Now, we didn't mind it. We just had.
Speaker 8 (10:33):
We just went out there and did our thing, and
it didn't matter what block it was at. We were
set up on a pole, plug up to a pole,
and that was the beginning of it, and we would
just keep going from there. And this went on for
a lot of years before records even came about, and
even after the records came about, it still went on.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
But before records came about, it was more contained, you know.
Speaker 8 (10:51):
And keep in mind, this is the time when they're
telling us that's just noise y'all doing. It ain't gonna
last long. The ain't gonna be here long. What are
y'all doing? Fifty years later on over here talking with
quest love?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Thank you all right?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So technical questions I always wanted to know or get
answers to, so you know, everyone knows, or at least
for those who don't know. The legend, of course, of
the first hip hop party. August eleventh, nineteen seventy three,
cool Urk throws a party for his baby sister Cindy
and he gets this epiphany that he's just going to
(11:29):
instead of making you wait for the highlight, which, of course,
like if you're playing a six seven minute jam, there's
always like a sixteen bar part of the song. That's
the breakdown, that's the best part of the song. It's
just the drums and everyone goes crazy for those sixteen
bars and then it's over. And of course cool Work's
idea was like, let me just play all the drum
(11:51):
breaks at once, you know, play give It Up for
Turn and Loose by James Brown, and then play some
by the you know, incredible bongo band. Just play the breaks.
So I'm under the impression that these parties last for
what five hours at least.
Speaker 8 (12:07):
The first time I heard hip hop, I'm on my
block this kid named this guy named Joe's.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
He has some dice in his hand.
Speaker 8 (12:12):
He's going, yes, ches, Shaw took the beach, y'all, and
he's throwing the.
Speaker 9 (12:16):
Dice and I'm standing there looking at him. I said,
what do you mean, yes, yes, seaw. What is he saying?
He's kept saying it, yes, Yes, Shaw took the beach, y'all.
I'm like, you know, what's he saying? So that Friday,
I went to Marlby Little Projects.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
They used to have the parties in the community center
and you get to pay for a dollar to company
to go see Rock one Incorporated, the DJ b Wald, Kenny,
keV Rockwell, all them. They were right there and I
seen DJ b Ward playing and I've seen the EMBc
on the mic with the echo yes ches shaw y'all
to the beat, y'all y'all. I said, oh shit, so
I'm standing there watching and then I ran home.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
I said, your mom, I want to be a DJ.
She said, what's that? She brought me a mixer that
had no headphone home. It was a Gemini mixer.
Speaker 8 (12:57):
It was a phono one phono two orcs and might
no headphone, no plug to plugging in, and I had
to guess all the spots on the record. That's how
I got better than everybody else in the neighborhood. I
had headphones to work with, right, I had no headphones
away and I'm eight years old standing on top of
the milk create these older dudes looking at me like
this little kid's bugget no headphones, busting their ass. And
(13:18):
the girl named all the carter that was all that
was an circle the younger. She was thirteen years old
at the time. She said, Ki Ki Creese, I liked
a good name for a DJ.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
At the time. My name was DJ Doctor Spank.
Speaker 8 (13:28):
It was a terrible name, but she said, kick cries
for DJ while we're going in the classroom.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
I ended up trying to name.
Speaker 8 (13:36):
Six months later, she was shot and killed by a
straight brother by accident.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So I had to keep it the name.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Yeah, her name was all Va Cartera and I end
up keeping the name. Took me to the top, but
I was there from the beginning, watching all this and
being a part of it and seeing what it is.
That's why I appreciate my career so much because it
wasn't something that was just giving to me. It was
something I went through, all of the phases of getting
doors closed and everything that had to do with just
(14:01):
having just learning the business and being a part of
it and learning to appreciate what you.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
Have when you and knowing when you didn't have it,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
And I was dere for that, So I appreciated in
a big way.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
When you're spending these records and of course, like you know,
if you study the B boy Bible of course. Now,
like people know, like the foundational breaks of the culture,
you know, like you're let's dance by Pleasure or get
up and dance by uh, you know, Freedom, or those
(14:37):
particular records which weren't necessarily hits. You know, these weren't
songs that were played on radio. So what I want
to know is, all right, so take take a break,
like catch a Groove by Juice, a song that was
not a radio song. It was not a hit, but
(14:58):
yet was a staple for hip hop parties. How do
you like what is? What is what would be a
DJ's version of like cash Box Billboard Magazine to know,
Oh man, I got to get Planetary Citizen because that
is a drum break in it, Like and how how
(15:18):
do you find these breaks?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Like back in between, you know, seventy seven to even.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Eighty four, before like the Ultimate Beats and Breaks compilations
were made which put all those breaks on one record.
I mean, how typical was it for you to go
to a local mom and pop record store to see,
you know, a bunch of James Brown give it up,
a turner loose or funky drummers just like in the bin.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
You had to go to certain stores and what would
happened is a lot of stories started bootlegging records when
hip hop started, like blow your Head. Blow your Head
was never a forty five or never a twelve weeks
they made a white label or blow your Head, So
that was became so big.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
James, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (16:04):
All the apaches that came out was all bootleg a
patches there were. It was different different labels that put
it out, like different I guess independent labels or.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Whatever labels, and was Paul Winley labels.
Speaker 8 (16:18):
Paul Whinley was official. Paul Whinllley was the one that
put out the super disco breaks. He would get claimers
for all these break beats and put him on these
albums and put these albums up. But Paul Whinley was
the first one, was the one that put Cheapa Chieba
out with George.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Besson, right yo.
Speaker 8 (16:33):
So he did that before the super disco base, so
he was in in that realm and he did it.
He kind of did it the right way. But a
lot of times, like the records was in Downstairs Records
on forty thirstet, they would take these forty fives and
make these forty fives of these downstairs records, and these
forty fives would become justice s portant. It's finding the
original record because there was a limited amount of Like
(16:56):
my man Louis Lui, he still have those downstairs records.
Those downstairs records were like Planetarian Citizen and records like that.
These was were recorded planet Taverceiver was never forty five.
So to have that it is like a gym, you
know what I'm saying. Lewis Forrest, No, my mother May
and Louis Lou, Louis Lou down downtown, Louis Lou Downtown.
(17:16):
We grew up together. He was in eighty two, eighty three.
This dude would have he was they used to call
little Bam body. He had so much stuff way back then.
And he's still collecting, like he's still doing it. So
you know, we was way ahead of the game. But
a lot of stuff, like I said, a lot of
stuff got bootlegged on forty five, and that's how we
got it because a lot of times we didn't know
the names and stuff, we didn't know what it was.
(17:38):
And even more now that I got older, I didn't
realize how much stuff was in the world. I got
so much from work Brazil and just so many different
places around the world. But when we were coming up
with the essential break Beats, we didn't think that far.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
You know what I'm saying. We would we were we
were going about what Bam.
Speaker 8 (17:55):
Was playing, but Charlie Chase was playing, what Flashing was playing.
We would That's how we knew what to play, and
how we found out the names is because they were
bootleged the records, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
So that's how we would go. We go to the
record shop a whole boot leg section, which is brad
we needed. We had it.
Speaker 8 (18:10):
I can't stop white label like it was. That's how
we got our beatle.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Oh okay, that explains it because uh, I was going
to say, maybe five months ago, Coolhirk had auctioned off
a good portion of of of his gyms and whatnot,
some artworks, flyers, memorabilia, and some of his records. So
(18:36):
I copped like four or five of those records and
I was like, wait, wait a minute, these are just
white labels.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
These aren't the original ones.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
But always wanted to know like how prevalent and how
and how much of an abundance was like and impeach
the president back in seventy nine, eighty one, eighty two.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
You know what, if peace got more rare road to
get in the later years, earlier years it was a
little easier to get, but it still wasn't It still
wasn't something that anybody could just get, you know what
I'm saying, Like you had to really know that beat,
like like Louis. Louis was the first one I heard
play that, and you know, he was just so in
depth with what was going on, you know what I'm saying.
(19:20):
But the regular person that just wanted great beats, they
didn't know Impeach, they didn't know, they knew, they knew
the regular things that they heard in the tapes and
then later on in Peach became more prevalent.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
What year would you say was like the the the
highlight of or the pinnacle of Downtown records, Like for
you if you're an upstart DJ post say, if you're
like Pioneer one point five, this is what I took
from l Pioneer one point five, like Post Flash, Post
Theodore and post Bam and hurt Is Downtown records, like
(19:56):
your your mecca is that the only place?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Like where would you shop for the Records in New
York City.
Speaker 8 (20:01):
Oh downtown, All and All Record on ford Them Roll
Music World on thirty fourth Street. But what was interesting
is that they used to be a Crazy Eddie on
Fordham Roll in the Box. When I was in Crazy
Eddy this day right hip the South, I was in
Crazy and Cowboy and Mister Ness Scorpio. They walked in
(20:25):
Crazy Eddie. They had on boots and leather and feathers
and all that, but they would right stars to be
was like, look at these dudes, Like right okay.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
So they came in seeing them, they left and this.
Speaker 8 (20:37):
Dude walks in with a box. Now what they used
to do with Crazy Eddy. They would take the new
record that's out and put it on top of the
counter and play the album out in the store.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
This dude comes in with a box. They pulled the.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
Record out and it was Captain Sky Super Sperm. He
puts it on top of the counter, he plays the album.
The Super Sperm part comes in. I hear it, run
to the front, do what the hell is that? Give
me two of those. I bought two of those, and
I brought two seas for cookies. I think I'm the
very first dude with Super Sperm Man because I was
dead the day came in and it wasn't out before that,
(21:14):
so I think I'm the very first dude with Supersper.
But then they did uh and then they remade the
album and put Doctor Rock on the album.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Okay, yeah, right right, so but the.
Speaker 8 (21:23):
Original super Sperm album didn't have Doctor Rock on it.
And I was dead that day and Crazy Eddy the
day it came in, so I was there in the
I was trying to get everything at this time, but
there wasn't a lot of places. I didn't know a
lot of names and stuff, so I would just get
it as I go. But Crazy Eddy started started bootlegging
some records and they started putting stuff in.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (21:45):
Put And then of course the street right directed across
the street from Crazy Edi was R and R Records,
and they had all the breaks there. They had a
lot of stuff there, so people would go over there
and buy their stuff, but it was it wasn't a
lot of places. Yea Burnside Avenue in the Bronx Dad
hast over there that we used to always go to,
and they's had a lot of bootleg twelve inches and
stuff like.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
That, and that's how we got it.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Okay, so, and and forgive me for asking a lot
of pedestrian DJ questions, but I feel like, you know,
a bird in the hand is two in the bush,
and like you know, you're you're the closest to this era,
so I can get all my questions out.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So how old were you when you first started DJing?
Like your first block party? You your first party?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I okay? So equipment wise, how are you transporting this? Like?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
How far from your house is the destination for which
you're going to DJ the gig?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
And how do you get it there?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Like, I know, if you're a nine year old, you're
not carrying one turntable at a time, one mixer at
the time, the table, So.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Like, how do you organize?
Speaker 8 (22:54):
My building was here, the total park was right up
the street, set up right in front of the tot
of park, and then of course the street was my
school director of cross the street from my house, Like
look out my window looking in the schoolyard. John Peter
TikTok won forty three. We used to do parties up
in there in there. Everybody just come grab the equipment,
bring it up, bring it down the street. And that's
how we did it, plug it up to the pole
and we was out there all day and then we
(23:15):
would go to other blocks.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Two questions. One, how loud is the system? And wasn't
loud enough to rock a party area?
Speaker 8 (23:26):
My block, first of all, was the main block everybody
would come to because it was the fly dudes on
the block. We just we just had a way of
carrying ourselves from our block, so all the different areas
would come. So whenever we was out there with the system,
that shit was super loud, and people would just know
from Fordham, from Marble Hill, from ford Independence, from Heath Avenue,
(23:47):
from Bailey Avenue University, they would just hear the music.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
They would just know. It didn't the word of mouth.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
Forget around two, you know kid is rocking out there,
they doing a block party whatever.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
Next you know the whole block is swamp Okay, it
used to be crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So my second question is how are you protected? Like,
you know, as a nine year old, you're with turntables
and a mixer and your records and whatnot. Is there
any situation of like, first of all, are other boroughs
allowed to come to your borough to represent? Like as
(24:22):
a Bronx child, are you allowed to go to Brooklyn
to spend that block party, or like are you staying
just where?
Speaker 6 (24:29):
You know? No, I will go with I.
Speaker 8 (24:32):
Was invited everywhere because I got at a young age
early on, my name travel real quick, so I would
go anywhere the problem was. But you could go anywhere.
But if you wasn't good, you get your gass beat.
So it's like if you cover the balls, you go
to Brooklyn and you was not good, you may have
a problem.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
If you don't they love. So it was that type
of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Has there So I wanted to know has there been
situations of like yo're we're taking his turntables or never,
we're still not for you. But do you know stories
of like ah, man, he got his mixture.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
Oh yeah, I've been to block parties where dudes got
guns put DJ's gotta put guns put out on.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
How are you protected from that action? And how often
would that happen?
Speaker 8 (25:19):
It never happened to me because I was rolling. I had,
you know, my dudes just wanna make sure I was
all right. But I think I'm gonna tell you this question,
even to now all the you know all to try
two on the shows a year, even that it's the
I don't carry that all that people.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
Wanted to do things to me, and you know, it
was never like that.
Speaker 8 (25:39):
I never I never went another but people's neighborhood and
active funny or you know, treated people funny. You know,
I just never did that. So I never had that problem.
But what you're doing here, we're gonna rob you or.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Any of that.
Speaker 8 (25:50):
I never had that energy, but I always had people
around me to make sure that I was straight. You
know what I'm saying that I never went places that
I didn't. I wasn't straight. I mean, I've been in
some dangers, sat the places, but right I was always good.
But my energy make people feel a certain way. So
I don't really get David the most gangs to his dudes.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
You know the reason why I asked you this question
because I actually asked Dre this question. Uh you know
pre mwa where you know, so if you remember the
scene in Straight out of Compton where he is about
to play marve Lett's uh please wait mister Postman and
he mixes it with Planet Rock and Dre explains to me, like, yo,
(26:34):
that was like such a risk for me to do
because he was like unlike those other parties you know,
like at any other party, they might give you one
chance to spin a dud that they don't feel and
you might have twenty seconds to fix it. But you know,
(26:56):
Dre was explaining to me that he was spinning out
a spot that was absolutely relentless and not forgiving at all,
for like the wrong record. So for him to take
such a risk, like he knew in order for him
to make a mark, he had to take a risk.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
And it's like, all right, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Make them think I'm gonna play some old motown shit,
then they ain't gonna get upset.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Then when I plant rock, they're gonna be like, oh shit.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
So he was like purposely saying that he had to
lower expectations, but just fast enough to elevate them. So like,
what space does that leave you as a creative? You know,
because you know I told you, as I explained at
the top of the show, that you were big on
like these these classic mixes of like mixing R and
(27:43):
B with hip hop and this acapella with that song,
and you know, things that at least for you know,
maybe it was typical in New York, but I wasn't
getting that in Philly. So like you were the first
tape DJ that I was getting in the late eighties
early nineties, like when I was in high school?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
What not? So how would you find a space?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Like when did you start figuring out like ways to
make your trademark noon?
Speaker 8 (28:10):
Well, first, let me say this. I'm a fan. I'm
a fan of great things. I'm a fan of good music.
I'm a fan of good groups and just music, just
everything about it.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
I'm a fan.
Speaker 8 (28:22):
When I go to my shows and do my shows,
I look at myself as a person in the crowd
watching myself, And how would I want to feel if
I was that person watching me? What would make a
promoter want to bring me back? What would make these
people want to pay to come to see me again?
I think like them? So with that, I like things
that are good. I don't put a date on things.
(28:43):
If it's good, it's good. And when it's good, it's
timeless to me. And I could take something that will
be unusual, nobody ever heard before, never heard it, don't
know nothing about it, and make it sound like it's familiar.
Speaker 6 (28:56):
It's just the way, it's just the way it comes.
Speaker 8 (28:58):
Of course, keep in mind question love We DJ's anybody
can play these records. Anybody can play these records. It's
how you play it. It's the impact you give. I'm
always an impact due to the element of surprise. What's
gonna make it go to the next level. What's gonna
make these people feel better than they did before they
seen me? Well, you know what I'm saying. How can
(29:20):
I make them feel like they're never gonna ever go
to another event that's gonna be better than this. They're
never gonna feel that feeling. That's my focus. So with that,
I'll try certain things. Even if you know I was
the one that started playing records and taking it off
in the fourth ball And the reason why I was
doing it is because I had that comedy Jane Tellervison
show and I was doing the concerts and I only
(29:41):
had a fifteam in the set, so I had to
play records quick.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
And I'm watching these people go into a frenzy.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
Every time I play this record quick, I throw one
on and if you pick and if you don't throw
the right one on after each other, you'll piss somebody off.
So it has to be the right one that's gonna
make them forget that one and they like that they
want to hear it.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
You're cutting off.
Speaker 8 (30:00):
So I'm watching these big crowds losing their minded us
to this. So I applied it to the parties and
then I've seen it work in the parties, and you
know DJ's followed that.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
But you don't need a whole lot. Sometimes you play
a record too long against boring. Sometimes the hook is
just the best part. Sometime this the count off is
the best part. Sometime the intro is the best part,
and the leading to something else. But that's building a continuity.
That's building.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
That's that's painting a picture for people and kind of
giving them a story from beginning the middle of it,
and you kind of tell the story. And I've had
somebody tell me that. He was like, Yo, i've seen you.
I've been the six of your shows. It's like you're
trying to talk to us. It's like you're trying to
tell us the stormy And that's exactly what I'm doing.
So if you play I can play Sad for the
Son Christy Jones, Sad for the Sun Boom boo boo
(30:48):
right in the middle of the party. The way I
play it make the crowd go crazy. But if I
play it in a different way. They look at me like,
what the hell's he doing?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Right?
Speaker 8 (30:56):
So it's all the way, it's all in the presentation,
it's all high you deliver it, and I've been very
lucky with that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
What year did you really start DJing? Like what's your
actual like first year?
Speaker 7 (31:13):
Nineteen seventy six, Okay, in that period in which you're
collecting records and doing this, what was the holy grail
of breaks or records that wasn't available or as prevalent
as it is now for you back then?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Like what was like, Oh my god, I found it,
like even though I never used it, Like finding funky
drummer on forty five meant something to me. But I
found funky drummer on forty five, Like yeah, what like
ten twelve years ago, you know, like, oh I never
knew they made this on forty five and then I
found a bunch of them. But for you, like what
(31:54):
was that record? Like, oh my god, Like I can't
wait to what was the hardest record to a choir
back then in your formative years rocking in the pocket?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yo?
Speaker 5 (32:05):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Can you explain to me, like as as a break
Officionado and I get it like I've I've heard many
of those mixtapes, cats rhyme over whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Right now as I speak to you, I'm on a
break uh Rehearson with ll even l goes on.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
They're like, yo, we gotta do something.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
The Rocket in the pocket, We gotta do something rocket
And like, what is it?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's rocking in the pocket.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
And Saronne Sarnetch Yeah, Sarne is a French drummer. Rocket
in Pocket is kind of like a break of his.
I don't know if this is a live album or not.
There's a crowd in it.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
Yes, it's a live record, and we had to put
it on forty five forty five.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I was about to say it was very slow. Yep,
what is it about that record?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
So when that album first came out back then like
all of you all, we're going to eight chip like
I gotta get rocking in the pocket.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
I got damn mind. Whenever I remember, it was a pool,
a pool woom, there was a pool wom one.
Speaker 8 (33:09):
He fathol in the Bronx and Louis came to the
pool room and they did his party in there.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
Louis was DJ and he played rock in the pocket Man.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
It was like the whole room just stopped, like everybody
was like, what the fuck's that? And he played it.
He played every time he cut it. People you just
seen it was just crazy. And then from that day on,
that's the next time I heard it was with Cold Quest.
But from that day on, Rock in the Pocket was
like one of the top joints. And you couldn't find
it nowhere because there was two rocking in the pockets.
(33:39):
There was the one, there was the studio rock in
the Pocket right, and then it was the lid one.
The live one is the one, so it was hard
to hit that lid one, so they bootlegged it.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Ah, I gotta when when you spin it on forty five,
it sounds it sounds kind of a little early because
you know, the the guitar is kind of on top
of the snare, so it does it it sounds like
some futuristic ship, which it just sounds like an industrial
(34:11):
break beat.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So okay, Rocket and Pocket, that makes sense. Yep?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Was King Tim the Third? In your opinion? Was that
a pioneering moment for you guys or was it just
sort of like shrug? Okay, King Tim the Third, no
big deal? And What was your reaction to rappers delight
like hearing what you're you're involved with on a local
kind of a local basis. Now being on a record,
(34:37):
what was your reaction to it?
Speaker 6 (34:39):
Well, let me say this. First of all, Bill Curtis
from the Fat Bat Ben is my uncle. Oh wow,
oh word, yeah, he's mouchel. I just so. I interviewed
him recently on ig.
Speaker 8 (34:49):
He gave me some du He gave me some two
inches of some of their old stuff from the seventy stuff.
I ain't going through it yet. I just I just
did a record form that you were real good in London.
You have his masters over here.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And Wiki wacky Yeah, I got.
Speaker 8 (35:05):
That's what I wanted to use. I wanted to do
Wicki waki yoga. That's crazy, you said, yo, what yo yo,
that's crazy.
Speaker 6 (35:12):
I did. I did it. I did the beat. I
just didn't like the vib yet. But the beat is done.
But that's crazy, he said.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
We just got back from London with the Chili Peppers
and I did a DJ gig. I didn't realize that
Wiki Wacky is a religion, and it wasn't until Giles
Peterson reminded me that.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Even on the song Maureen by Shade.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
She mentions like a good time in her life was
her and her girlfriends dancing to Wiki Wacky in the nightclub.
And I didn't realize that when I put that song on,
it was like I put on smells like teen spirit.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Back in the day, Yo.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
Bill.
Speaker 8 (35:51):
My uncle man Very chiny I produced the records for
them recently called Bang Bang Bang. That's doing real good
in you for them, it's doing real good as a
matter of fact. And he's ninety years old. Man, he's
still going, still going, still touring, still traveling, still in
the studio, comes over here to my crib everything, So
he's really moving.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
But to ask you a question, let's go back.
Speaker 8 (36:15):
Because people think hip hop started with rappers, Delight, what
records started with rappers alike?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
All right?
Speaker 6 (36:22):
King Tim The third was the personality Job was the
first rap.
Speaker 8 (36:25):
Record in our way of doing rap, in our way
of doing hip hop.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
But rap started way in the forties.
Speaker 8 (36:32):
The first rappers was the Jewbileese, a group called the
Jewbilees for for a singer, gospel kind of singers, but
they rhyme just like a rapper. If you go and
you listen to the listen to go pull up their
video on YouTube. They rhyme exactly with the bars, with
the flow, with everything. It's it's amazing. And this is
in the forties. The first time a rap record was
(36:54):
made was here Come to Judge from Pigmy Market, pig
Me Mom, Mark Him Comedian. He had his record Here
Come to Judge, had the crazy heartbeat to it. But
James Brown was the one that gave the format of
where hip hop was going to be. Pigmy Martin was
pig Me Mark Kim was the first one to rhyme
as a rapper, as in a rap in a wrap
(37:18):
way on that type of music. So it was already here,
what we're doing is just a remix now in our way. Yes,
Hurts came in seventy three and into this room when
he's playing these these soul records, you know, and that
was the beginning. But I remember being that young watching
everybody break dancing and seventy three, seventy two, seventy three,
(37:40):
seventy four, I remember watching people break dancing and just
begun the James Brown pat hands and fast leg of
potential records like that. This was back then, I and
you know, I was a young kid watching this. So
eventually it grew into when seventy seven came around and
DJ started, all that was tied together. But it was
started way before we even.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
Was even born. M You know, it's just that, you know,
black people.
Speaker 8 (38:08):
It created so many things that got overlooked, you know,
so many things that was pushed it aside, and this
was one of them.
Speaker 6 (38:16):
You know.
Speaker 8 (38:16):
It just it just took many more years for us
to really catch on to make it prevident, but it
was going rap was going on since back then.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
What do you consider because you know, I, in my eyes,
I consider you like the first generation of superstar DJs
where you know, just way past the pioneering stage of
like where Flashingmbada took it like you as a product,
but for you, like coming out the starting gate. I
(38:45):
knew of you, and I knew of ron G like,
but for you, who were the the main the forefathers
of the superstar DJ errors where you're making mixtapes, where
you're tearing up black colleges, where you're starting to get
mainstream love on like television shows like who Who do
you consider? Who's the peer group of the superstar DJ era?
Speaker 8 (39:10):
For you, I got to put Red Alert up there.
I got to put fan Master Flaship there, I got
to put Charlie Chase up there. And the reason why
I say these names because it hurt, of course, because
they were the ones that was there first.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
They were the ones that you know, I always say
this like I work with everybody.
Speaker 8 (39:32):
Everybody. You see my bet performance I put. I curated
a whole BT show. My whole thing was to make
to get a course that the young and the old
party together and enjoy theirself.
Speaker 6 (39:42):
And I think I hit that mark.
Speaker 8 (39:44):
But you know, my heros is always the dudes that
came before me, the dudes that didn't make the money
I made or got the fame that I might have gotten,
order the accolades I've gotten, but they built it from
the ground up. You know a lot of times some
of our elder statesmen, they get stuck in their school
way of thinking and they don't want to change, you
know what I'm saying, And change is going to happen.
I remember had a talk with her one time and
(40:06):
I told herk I said, it hurt, you know that
it wasn't going to just stay in the Bronx. It
was gonna go a worldwide, you know, because what happened
was a lot of times we got selfish. We was
in the bronx, we made it, We wanted to stay there,
like this was something that the world was going to
take over, you know what I'm saying. So a lot
of times the world could be harsh to the ones
that helped build it, and it makes those people that
(40:28):
help build it feel a certain way. So now when
they say something, it looks like they're being old. It
looks like they mad at somebody, it looks like.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
They bitter, you know.
Speaker 8 (40:37):
But what it is is that they feel like they
didn't get fulfilled in the way that they think they should,
you know. And that's why Hip hop fifty is great
because now it's no it's a balance. It's everybody's being seen,
everybody's making money, everybody is being appreciated, and the young
dudes are seeing how important these older dudes were are
(41:02):
and what they've done in the path that they put
forty younger dudes. But the older dudes got to understand
that the younger dudes is going to change and do
what they want and what's relevant to them and what
they like. You don't have to like it, but you
cannot days are going to change.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Hi, folks, this is Shugar Steve and right here is
where we're going to pause this interview.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Check back next week. We're looking your podcast feed for
part two.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
In that conversation, Kid Capri speaks about his transition to
album making and production, how Bismarck he helped him get
a deal, and what motivates him today. Thank you for
celebrating fifty years of hip hop with Questlove Supreme. If
you haven't already, please check out our interviews this month
celebrating hip hop innovators. In addition to Kid Capri, we
have conversations with Styles P and slum Village.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. Ladies and gentlemen,
Welcome to another episode of Quest Love Scheme Quest Love
your host.
Speaker 2 (00:16):
Yo, we got teams Supreme with us.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
Uh.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Start with Sugar Steve. Hello, Steve, what's up? Man? Everything's good?
Speaker 4 (00:25):
You know, working half as hard as I normally do,
but still getting.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
You're not working half as hard? Man? You got you
gotta you gotta really like monumental jazz.
Speaker 4 (00:36):
Sorry, no, I meant getting paid half as much as
I know.
Speaker 1 (00:39):
There you go, Oh my fault. Okay, that's real. I
can't help you there. I'm paid Bill. What's up, bro?
Speaker 2 (00:49):
You know? Man?
Speaker 5 (00:50):
Halfway through the summer, living life, driving around children's driving
around children. That's what I do. I'm like a bus
service from my kids. That's my life. Getting ready for
the Street, that's right.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Season? What season the Sesame Street? Are you guys about
to get into?
Speaker 5 (01:04):
We're wrapping fifty four maybe and starting fifty five. I
think that's right. Yeah, okay, so September. There you go.
Speaker 1 (01:11):
I'm Paybill was explaining to us that Sesame Street is
exempt from the current writers strike and acting strike yep
as well, so I get.
Speaker 5 (01:23):
Paid the same amount of money, Steve sadly Sorry.
Speaker 4 (01:25):
Well yeah I saw some up it's crossing the picket
line the other day that show.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
There you go, all right and uh fon Tikeolo what's up? Bro?
Speaker 3 (01:36):
I was bro good Man, were getting ready? We just
announced today Made and Durham Little Brother Block Party.
Speaker 1 (01:43):
Uh So it's like, y'all, y'all little picnic joined, Like
what is it?
Speaker 3 (01:48):
It is one day and one day only and it's
for a limited amount of time for hours and then
we're going to fuck home. So one day go to
the fuck always always.
Speaker 4 (02:02):
He must have the nicest house, Little Brother.
Speaker 3 (02:05):
Little Brother, big crid, cool kids on, Tall, Black Guy,
DJ's hour Glass and Wildly Sparks spinning and Sam Jay hosting.
So October seventh, Downtown Durham, A Little Brother n C
hit us up October seventh, October seventh, Yeah, damn okay.
Speaker 2 (02:23):
Is this for the twentieth anniversary of the listening? Yeah?
Speaker 3 (02:26):
Yeah, twin anniversary with twin averses just a Little Brother period,
you know what I mean? We wanted to do it,
do something in our hometown.
Speaker 2 (02:32):
Are y'all doing like the entire album start to finish?
Speaker 3 (02:35):
I would never do that shit when people come to
see his little brother, Like, I don't like them whole
We're gonna do the whole album all that. Like people
came here to the jams. So if it's twenty years
we celebrating the whole catalog.
Speaker 2 (02:48):
I get it. Okay, that's what's up.
Speaker 1 (02:50):
So people, it's of course we all know it's hip
hop's fiftieth anniversary. Pretty much, we are going in heavy
on the conversations with you know, our legends, our participants
are our delegates, our ambassadors of the culture.
Speaker 2 (03:08):
And what can I say, our.
Speaker 1 (03:10):
Next guest is a legend, a legend of the mix.
Speaker 2 (03:16):
You know.
Speaker 1 (03:16):
I kind of credit our guests for really elevating the
role of the DJ. It was it was through him that,
you know, I first heard the seeds of ideas.
Speaker 2 (03:26):
I didn't know we could do.
Speaker 1 (03:27):
I didn't know that you could take an a cappella
from one record and mix it with another record. And
you know, just the amount of road trips that I've
done in my life, even pre roots with his mixtapes
as the soundtrack, you know, it's.
Speaker 2 (03:43):
Just it's it's it's.
Speaker 1 (03:45):
To me some of some of the best moments of
my life hanging with my friends high school and early
early college years for me, our guest raps. He produces
definitely a very recognizable voice and screen and his DJ
echo voice game is unmatched. He's been in the culture,
(04:06):
uh three decades plus and counting, you know, Grammy Award
winning albums and and you know ship he's he has
one aclade that you and I don't have unpaid bill. This,
this gentleman is on a Pulitzer Prize winning record.
Speaker 2 (04:21):
You know.
Speaker 1 (04:21):
Of course, younger fans might know of him as the
narrative voice of Kenney's Damn Album, you know, right exactly.
But you know, our guess is has just been ubiquitous
with probably the best things about the culture, like one
of the best party DJs ever. What can I say,
(04:43):
ladies and gentlemen, welcome Kick Capri to Quest Love Supreme in.
Speaker 2 (04:48):
Nice Get Better.
Speaker 6 (04:51):
I did all that.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
You know, it's time for that, man, It's time for that.
How are you today?
Speaker 7 (04:58):
Man?
Speaker 6 (04:59):
What you call?
Speaker 2 (05:00):
Where you speaking to us? From where you right now?
Speaker 6 (05:02):
In my studio?
Speaker 1 (05:03):
Okay, you're still in New York. I assume New Jersey.
I consider Jersey New York.
Speaker 8 (05:09):
Everybody's on top of each other in New York. I
had to get away to come over to Jersey. When
I want to go to New York and go over
come back to Jersey.
Speaker 1 (05:16):
Let me ask you, because you know, a lot of
the soldiers or the participants of the part of hip
hop culture that I grew up on and I'm a
part of, and that you're part of as well, a
lot of them probably in the mid to late nineties
decided to migrate down south. You know, a lot of
(05:39):
our New York legends like went to Maryland and then
to North Carolina and Atlanta and whatnot. For you, though,
like what has kept you in the city of New York,
LIKEJZ don't live in New York no more. Like it's
almost like I'm pressed to find any hip hop legend
that's not still living in New York.
Speaker 6 (05:58):
Yeah, it's my feel, man, it's the feel.
Speaker 8 (06:02):
It's what I grew up on. I've been around the world.
I've been many places. There's places that I will go
and move, but I know I will move there for
a short period of time. But it's just something about
being around New York. I'm not even in I'm New Jersey.
I'm right over the bridge, but I can get to
New York when already, you know. But it's just the
feel of New York of everything I come from, the Bronx.
(06:26):
I was born in Brooklyn, I was raising the Bronx
home and hip hop. I was raised five minutes away
from her or kingsbas Terrace to see the Avenue is
five minutes away. So it's just that feel of it.
But then also my daughters is there, you know, my
engineers there on my role. Man, everything I need is
right here. I'm looking for a house right now in
this area, a new house and in this area right
(06:47):
now to move into. But I counsider moving in Atlanta
before in Houston, and the price of living is way different,
It's way better. But I just feel like I need
to be here. I need to If I move somewhere else,
I'm gonna look something. So that's what it pretty much
is for me. Okay, homeless home, I get it.
Speaker 1 (07:05):
I want to talk about your beginnings of the culture,
like for you, well, okay, you're a DJ. First of all,
what like what environment did you grow up in as
far as like your your love of music? Did you
grow up in in a sort of an open format
household where music was prevalent or.
Speaker 6 (07:23):
My dad was a soul singer.
Speaker 2 (07:26):
He sung.
Speaker 6 (07:26):
He was the first soul singer to sing with the
Lebron Brothers.
Speaker 8 (07:29):
Le Bron Brothers is a Latin band, that's a well
Latin band that's tours the world right now. They made
an album in nineteen sixty They made two albums. They
made one to sixty eight and one sixty nine. He
was the first soul singer with a Latin band. And
then he left and started doing northern soul himself and
he became really good. He had a record called Baby
Hard Times and seventy three. They did good for him.
So he was always, you know, doing this thing. My
grandfather what was his Dave Love He had called Baby
(07:53):
Hard Times. And his father, my grandfather, he was a
trumpet player, which I have as trumpety in nineteen forty.
Speaker 6 (08:01):
He used to sit in with Miles Davis, count Basie.
Speaker 8 (08:03):
The alone is he's sitting with all these guys and
all these sessions and play with them. So the music
always been in my family had always been around. At
four years old, I started playing drums about that, started
playing drugs at four years old and at the time
we had a record player that you had to stand
over and look over and there's the big TV on
the record player.
Speaker 6 (08:22):
You had to look over into the turntable. I used
to play the turntay.
Speaker 8 (08:24):
I didn't know what I was doing, you know, DJing or nothing,
but I was playing these James Brown records and you know,
these records with breaks in it, and it just it
was just attractive to me as a little kid.
Speaker 6 (08:34):
So at eight years old.
Speaker 8 (08:35):
When hip hop came alive, that's when I started DJing
and from there on I never stopped. And you know,
it all came from me growing up knowing all the music,
all the funk music and the soul music for my
father and my grandfather.
Speaker 1 (08:47):
It's rare for us to have someone that was actually
raised in the epicenter of the culture. Could you typically
just walk me through walk me through a day in
which you are experiencing what we know is hip hop culture.
What days do these block parties happen? Like, what's what's
(09:08):
typical for Like what their DJing? What did the speakers
look like? What or does the equipment look like? Just
walk me through your observation of like a typical Bronx
hip hop experience back in the.
Speaker 8 (09:19):
Days before there was hip hop records. It was just
the break beats. It was just the MC's rhyming over
the break beats, DJ's arguing over which records they could cut,
like Freedom and Apache and I can't stop the records
like that, arguing argument like it would be it would
be crazy because it would be seven to eight DJs
in one MC, right, and because the DJ was so
(09:43):
much more.
Speaker 6 (09:44):
It was so much more.
Speaker 8 (09:45):
To remember, the MC didn't come and be so prevalent
until records came out. But when you had the Furious Five,
you had Fantastic, you had Cold Crush. It was always
the DJ first, Charlie chasing the Cold Crush, Grand Master
Flash and the Furious five, you know, Grand Wizard theory
on the Fantastic. So it was always about the DJ
more so they would argue about who would cut each
(10:06):
records they were cut because with so many DJs on
this party. So that's what it was that it was
going to the record, stop trying to find the records
and standing in the in the block parties in DJ
and in the rain while it's raining and the crowd
still coming and they stand out.
Speaker 6 (10:21):
There and party with you.
Speaker 8 (10:22):
You ain't making no money, You're blowing your equipment up
all that, but it was so much of we wanted
to have so much fun and want people to see
what we're doing.
Speaker 6 (10:31):
Now, we didn't mind it. We just had.
Speaker 8 (10:33):
We just went out there and did our thing, and
it didn't matter what block it was at. We were
set up on a pole, plug up to a pole,
and that was the beginning of it, and we would
just keep going from there. And this went on for
a lot of years before records even came about, and
even after the records came about, it still went on.
Speaker 6 (10:48):
But before records came about, it was more contained, you know.
Speaker 8 (10:51):
And keep in mind, this is the time when they're
telling us that's just noise y'all doing. It ain't gonna
last long. The ain't gonna be here long. What are
y'all doing? Fifty years later on over here talking with
quest love?
Speaker 2 (11:03):
Thank you all right?
Speaker 1 (11:04):
So technical questions I always wanted to know or get
answers to, so you know, everyone knows, or at least
for those who don't know. The legend, of course, of
the first hip hop party. August eleventh, nineteen seventy three,
cool Urk throws a party for his baby sister Cindy
and he gets this epiphany that he's just going to
(11:29):
instead of making you wait for the highlight, which, of course,
like if you're playing a six seven minute jam, there's
always like a sixteen bar part of the song. That's
the breakdown, that's the best part of the song. It's
just the drums and everyone goes crazy for those sixteen
bars and then it's over. And of course cool Work's
idea was like, let me just play all the drum
(11:51):
breaks at once, you know, play give It Up for
Turn and Loose by James Brown, and then play some
by the you know, incredible bongo band. Just play the breaks.
So I'm under the impression that these parties last for
what five hours at least.
Speaker 8 (12:07):
The first time I heard hip hop, I'm on my
block this kid named this guy named Joe's.
Speaker 6 (12:11):
He has some dice in his hand.
Speaker 8 (12:12):
He's going, yes, ches, Shaw took the beach, y'all, and
he's throwing the.
Speaker 9 (12:16):
Dice and I'm standing there looking at him. I said,
what do you mean, yes, yes, seaw. What is he saying?
He's kept saying it, yes, Yes, Shaw took the beach, y'all.
I'm like, you know, what's he saying? So that Friday,
I went to Marlby Little Projects.
Speaker 8 (12:28):
They used to have the parties in the community center
and you get to pay for a dollar to company
to go see Rock one Incorporated, the DJ b Wald, Kenny,
keV Rockwell, all them. They were right there and I
seen DJ b Ward playing and I've seen the EMBc
on the mic with the echo yes ches shaw y'all
to the beat, y'all y'all. I said, oh shit, so
I'm standing there watching and then I ran home.
Speaker 6 (12:50):
I said, your mom, I want to be a DJ.
She said, what's that? She brought me a mixer that
had no headphone home. It was a Gemini mixer.
Speaker 8 (12:57):
It was a phono one phono two orcs and might
no headphone, no plug to plugging in, and I had
to guess all the spots on the record. That's how
I got better than everybody else in the neighborhood. I
had headphones to work with, right, I had no headphones
away and I'm eight years old standing on top of
the milk create these older dudes looking at me like
this little kid's bugget no headphones, busting their ass. And
(13:18):
the girl named all the carter that was all that
was an circle the younger. She was thirteen years old
at the time. She said, Ki Ki Creese, I liked
a good name for a DJ.
Speaker 6 (13:26):
At the time. My name was DJ Doctor Spank.
Speaker 8 (13:28):
It was a terrible name, but she said, kick cries
for DJ while we're going in the classroom.
Speaker 6 (13:34):
I ended up trying to name.
Speaker 8 (13:36):
Six months later, she was shot and killed by a
straight brother by accident.
Speaker 2 (13:39):
So I had to keep it the name.
Speaker 8 (13:40):
Yeah, her name was all Va Cartera and I end
up keeping the name. Took me to the top, but
I was there from the beginning, watching all this and
being a part of it and seeing what it is.
That's why I appreciate my career so much because it
wasn't something that was just giving to me. It was
something I went through, all of the phases of getting
doors closed and everything that had to do with just
(14:01):
having just learning the business and being a part of
it and learning to appreciate what you.
Speaker 6 (14:05):
Have when you and knowing when you didn't have it,
you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 8 (14:09):
And I was dere for that, So I appreciated in
a big way.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
When you're spending these records and of course, like you know,
if you study the B boy Bible of course. Now,
like people know, like the foundational breaks of the culture,
you know, like you're let's dance by Pleasure or get
up and dance by uh, you know, Freedom, or those
(14:37):
particular records which weren't necessarily hits. You know, these weren't
songs that were played on radio. So what I want
to know is, all right, so take take a break,
like catch a Groove by Juice, a song that was
not a radio song. It was not a hit, but
(14:58):
yet was a staple for hip hop parties. How do
you like what is? What is what would be a
DJ's version of like cash Box Billboard Magazine to know,
Oh man, I got to get Planetary Citizen because that
is a drum break in it, Like and how how
(15:18):
do you find these breaks?
Speaker 2 (15:19):
Like back in between, you know, seventy seven to even.
Speaker 1 (15:25):
Eighty four, before like the Ultimate Beats and Breaks compilations
were made which put all those breaks on one record.
I mean, how typical was it for you to go
to a local mom and pop record store to see,
you know, a bunch of James Brown give it up,
a turner loose or funky drummers just like in the bin.
Speaker 6 (15:44):
You had to go to certain stores and what would
happened is a lot of stories started bootlegging records when
hip hop started, like blow your Head. Blow your Head
was never a forty five or never a twelve weeks
they made a white label or blow your Head, So
that was became so big.
Speaker 2 (16:02):
James, Yeah, Yeah.
Speaker 8 (16:04):
All the apaches that came out was all bootleg a
patches there were. It was different different labels that put
it out, like different I guess independent labels or.
Speaker 2 (16:13):
Whatever labels, and was Paul Winley labels.
Speaker 8 (16:18):
Paul Whinley was official. Paul Whinllley was the one that
put out the super disco breaks. He would get claimers
for all these break beats and put him on these
albums and put these albums up. But Paul Whinley was
the first one, was the one that put Cheapa Chieba
out with George.
Speaker 2 (16:31):
Besson, right yo.
Speaker 8 (16:33):
So he did that before the super disco base, so
he was in in that realm and he did it.
He kind of did it the right way. But a
lot of times, like the records was in Downstairs Records
on forty thirstet, they would take these forty fives and
make these forty fives of these downstairs records, and these
forty fives would become justice s portant. It's finding the
original record because there was a limited amount of Like
(16:56):
my man Louis Lui, he still have those downstairs records.
Those downstairs records were like Planetarian Citizen and records like that.
These was were recorded planet Taverceiver was never forty five.
So to have that it is like a gym, you
know what I'm saying. Lewis Forrest, No, my mother May
and Louis Lou, Louis Lou down downtown, Louis Lou Downtown.
(17:16):
We grew up together. He was in eighty two, eighty three.
This dude would have he was they used to call
little Bam body. He had so much stuff way back then.
And he's still collecting, like he's still doing it. So
you know, we was way ahead of the game. But
a lot of stuff, like I said, a lot of
stuff got bootlegged on forty five, and that's how we
got it because a lot of times we didn't know
the names and stuff, we didn't know what it was.
(17:38):
And even more now that I got older, I didn't
realize how much stuff was in the world. I got
so much from work Brazil and just so many different
places around the world. But when we were coming up
with the essential break Beats, we didn't think that far.
Speaker 6 (17:53):
You know what I'm saying. We would we were we
were going about what Bam.
Speaker 8 (17:55):
Was playing, but Charlie Chase was playing, what Flashing was playing.
We would That's how we knew what to play, and
how we found out the names is because they were
bootleged the records, you know what I'm saying.
Speaker 6 (18:06):
So that's how we would go. We go to the
record shop a whole boot leg section, which is brad
we needed. We had it.
Speaker 8 (18:10):
I can't stop white label like it was. That's how
we got our beatle.
Speaker 1 (18:14):
Oh okay, that explains it because uh, I was going
to say, maybe five months ago, Coolhirk had auctioned off
a good portion of of of his gyms and whatnot,
some artworks, flyers, memorabilia, and some of his records. So
(18:36):
I copped like four or five of those records and
I was like, wait, wait a minute, these are just
white labels.
Speaker 2 (18:43):
These aren't the original ones.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
But always wanted to know like how prevalent and how
and how much of an abundance was like and impeach
the president back in seventy nine, eighty one, eighty two.
Speaker 8 (18:58):
You know what, if peace got more rare road to
get in the later years, earlier years it was a
little easier to get, but it still wasn't It still
wasn't something that anybody could just get, you know what
I'm saying, Like you had to really know that beat,
like like Louis. Louis was the first one I heard
play that, and you know, he was just so in
depth with what was going on, you know what I'm saying.
(19:20):
But the regular person that just wanted great beats, they
didn't know Impeach, they didn't know, they knew, they knew
the regular things that they heard in the tapes and
then later on in Peach became more prevalent.
Speaker 1 (19:31):
What year would you say was like the the the
highlight of or the pinnacle of Downtown records, Like for
you if you're an upstart DJ post say, if you're
like Pioneer one point five, this is what I took
from l Pioneer one point five, like Post Flash, Post
Theodore and post Bam and hurt Is Downtown records, like
(19:56):
your your mecca is that the only place?
Speaker 2 (19:59):
Like where would you shop for the Records in New
York City.
Speaker 8 (20:01):
Oh downtown, All and All Record on ford Them Roll
Music World on thirty fourth Street. But what was interesting
is that they used to be a Crazy Eddie on
Fordham Roll in the Box. When I was in Crazy
Eddy this day right hip the South, I was in
Crazy and Cowboy and Mister Ness Scorpio. They walked in
(20:25):
Crazy Eddie. They had on boots and leather and feathers
and all that, but they would right stars to be
was like, look at these dudes, Like right okay.
Speaker 6 (20:34):
So they came in seeing them, they left and this.
Speaker 8 (20:37):
Dude walks in with a box. Now what they used
to do with Crazy Eddy. They would take the new
record that's out and put it on top of the
counter and play the album out in the store.
Speaker 6 (20:49):
This dude comes in with a box. They pulled the.
Speaker 8 (20:51):
Record out and it was Captain Sky Super Sperm. He
puts it on top of the counter, he plays the album.
The Super Sperm part comes in. I hear it, run
to the front, do what the hell is that? Give
me two of those. I bought two of those, and
I brought two seas for cookies. I think I'm the
very first dude with Super Sperm Man because I was
dead the day came in and it wasn't out before that,
(21:14):
so I think I'm the very first dude with Supersper.
But then they did uh and then they remade the
album and put Doctor Rock on the album.
Speaker 2 (21:21):
Okay, yeah, right right, so but the.
Speaker 8 (21:23):
Original super Sperm album didn't have Doctor Rock on it.
And I was dead that day and Crazy Eddy the
day it came in, so I was there in the
I was trying to get everything at this time, but
there wasn't a lot of places. I didn't know a
lot of names and stuff, so I would just get
it as I go. But Crazy Eddy started started bootlegging
some records and they started putting stuff in.
Speaker 6 (21:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 8 (21:45):
Put And then of course the street right directed across
the street from Crazy Edi was R and R Records,
and they had all the breaks there. They had a
lot of stuff there, so people would go over there
and buy their stuff, but it was it wasn't a
lot of places. Yea Burnside Avenue in the Bronx Dad
hast over there that we used to always go to,
and they's had a lot of bootleg twelve inches and
stuff like.
Speaker 6 (22:04):
That, and that's how we got it.
Speaker 1 (22:06):
Okay, so, and and forgive me for asking a lot
of pedestrian DJ questions, but I feel like, you know,
a bird in the hand is two in the bush,
and like you know, you're you're the closest to this era,
so I can get all my questions out.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
Okay.
Speaker 1 (22:22):
So how old were you when you first started DJing?
Like your first block party? You your first party?
Speaker 2 (22:31):
I okay? So equipment wise, how are you transporting this? Like?
Speaker 1 (22:39):
How far from your house is the destination for which
you're going to DJ the gig?
Speaker 2 (22:44):
And how do you get it there?
Speaker 1 (22:45):
Like, I know, if you're a nine year old, you're
not carrying one turntable at a time, one mixer at
the time, the table, So.
Speaker 2 (22:52):
Like, how do you organize?
Speaker 8 (22:54):
My building was here, the total park was right up
the street, set up right in front of the tot
of park, and then of course the street was my
school director of cross the street from my house, Like
look out my window looking in the schoolyard. John Peter
TikTok won forty three. We used to do parties up
in there in there. Everybody just come grab the equipment,
bring it up, bring it down the street. And that's
how we did it, plug it up to the pole
and we was out there all day and then we
(23:15):
would go to other blocks.
Speaker 1 (23:17):
Two questions. One, how loud is the system? And wasn't
loud enough to rock a party area?
Speaker 8 (23:26):
My block, first of all, was the main block everybody
would come to because it was the fly dudes on
the block. We just we just had a way of
carrying ourselves from our block, so all the different areas
would come. So whenever we was out there with the system,
that shit was super loud, and people would just know
from Fordham, from Marble Hill, from ford Independence, from Heath Avenue,
(23:47):
from Bailey Avenue University, they would just hear the music.
Speaker 6 (23:50):
They would just know. It didn't the word of mouth.
Speaker 8 (23:51):
Forget around two, you know kid is rocking out there,
they doing a block party whatever.
Speaker 6 (23:55):
Next you know the whole block is swamp Okay, it
used to be crazy.
Speaker 1 (24:00):
So my second question is how are you protected? Like,
you know, as a nine year old, you're with turntables
and a mixer and your records and whatnot. Is there
any situation of like, first of all, are other boroughs
allowed to come to your borough to represent? Like as
(24:22):
a Bronx child, are you allowed to go to Brooklyn
to spend that block party, or like are you staying
just where?
Speaker 6 (24:29):
You know? No, I will go with I.
Speaker 8 (24:32):
Was invited everywhere because I got at a young age
early on, my name travel real quick, so I would
go anywhere the problem was. But you could go anywhere.
But if you wasn't good, you get your gass beat.
So it's like if you cover the balls, you go
to Brooklyn and you was not good, you may have
a problem.
Speaker 6 (24:51):
If you don't they love. So it was that type
of thing.
Speaker 1 (24:55):
Has there So I wanted to know has there been
situations of like yo're we're taking his turntables or never,
we're still not for you. But do you know stories
of like ah, man, he got his mixture.
Speaker 8 (25:09):
Oh yeah, I've been to block parties where dudes got
guns put DJ's gotta put guns put out on.
Speaker 1 (25:13):
How are you protected from that action? And how often
would that happen?
Speaker 8 (25:19):
It never happened to me because I was rolling. I had,
you know, my dudes just wanna make sure I was
all right. But I think I'm gonna tell you this question,
even to now all the you know all to try
two on the shows a year, even that it's the
I don't carry that all that people.
Speaker 6 (25:35):
Wanted to do things to me, and you know, it
was never like that.
Speaker 8 (25:39):
I never I never went another but people's neighborhood and
active funny or you know, treated people funny. You know,
I just never did that. So I never had that problem.
But what you're doing here, we're gonna rob you or.
Speaker 6 (25:50):
Any of that.
Speaker 8 (25:50):
I never had that energy, but I always had people
around me to make sure that I was straight. You
know what I'm saying that I never went places that
I didn't. I wasn't straight. I mean, I've been in
some dangers, sat the places, but right I was always good.
But my energy make people feel a certain way. So
I don't really get David the most gangs to his dudes.
Speaker 1 (26:09):
You know the reason why I asked you this question
because I actually asked Dre this question. Uh you know
pre mwa where you know, so if you remember the
scene in Straight out of Compton where he is about
to play marve Lett's uh please wait mister Postman and
he mixes it with Planet Rock and Dre explains to me, like, yo,
(26:34):
that was like such a risk for me to do
because he was like unlike those other parties you know,
like at any other party, they might give you one
chance to spin a dud that they don't feel and
you might have twenty seconds to fix it. But you know,
(26:56):
Dre was explaining to me that he was spinning out
a spot that was absolutely relentless and not forgiving at all,
for like the wrong record. So for him to take
such a risk, like he knew in order for him
to make a mark, he had to take a risk.
Speaker 2 (27:12):
And it's like, all right, I'm gonna.
Speaker 1 (27:14):
Make them think I'm gonna play some old motown shit,
then they ain't gonna get upset.
Speaker 2 (27:17):
Then when I plant rock, they're gonna be like, oh shit.
Speaker 1 (27:19):
So he was like purposely saying that he had to
lower expectations, but just fast enough to elevate them. So like,
what space does that leave you as a creative? You know,
because you know I told you, as I explained at
the top of the show, that you were big on
like these these classic mixes of like mixing R and
(27:43):
B with hip hop and this acapella with that song,
and you know, things that at least for you know,
maybe it was typical in New York, but I wasn't
getting that in Philly. So like you were the first
tape DJ that I was getting in the late eighties
early nineties, like when I was in high school?
Speaker 2 (28:00):
What not? So how would you find a space?
Speaker 1 (28:03):
Like when did you start figuring out like ways to
make your trademark noon?
Speaker 8 (28:10):
Well, first, let me say this. I'm a fan. I'm
a fan of great things. I'm a fan of good music.
I'm a fan of good groups and just music, just
everything about it.
Speaker 6 (28:21):
I'm a fan.
Speaker 8 (28:22):
When I go to my shows and do my shows,
I look at myself as a person in the crowd
watching myself, And how would I want to feel if
I was that person watching me? What would make a
promoter want to bring me back? What would make these
people want to pay to come to see me again?
I think like them? So with that, I like things
that are good. I don't put a date on things.
(28:43):
If it's good, it's good. And when it's good, it's
timeless to me. And I could take something that will
be unusual, nobody ever heard before, never heard it, don't
know nothing about it, and make it sound like it's familiar.
Speaker 6 (28:56):
It's just the way, it's just the way it comes.
Speaker 8 (28:58):
Of course, keep in mind question love We DJ's anybody
can play these records. Anybody can play these records. It's
how you play it. It's the impact you give. I'm
always an impact due to the element of surprise. What's
gonna make it go to the next level. What's gonna
make these people feel better than they did before they
seen me? Well, you know what I'm saying. How can
(29:20):
I make them feel like they're never gonna ever go
to another event that's gonna be better than this. They're
never gonna feel that feeling. That's my focus. So with that,
I'll try certain things. Even if you know I was
the one that started playing records and taking it off
in the fourth ball And the reason why I was
doing it is because I had that comedy Jane Tellervison
show and I was doing the concerts and I only
(29:41):
had a fifteam in the set, so I had to
play records quick.
Speaker 6 (29:43):
And I'm watching these people go into a frenzy.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
Every time I play this record quick, I throw one
on and if you pick and if you don't throw
the right one on after each other, you'll piss somebody off.
So it has to be the right one that's gonna
make them forget that one and they like that they
want to hear it.
Speaker 6 (29:59):
You're cutting off.
Speaker 8 (30:00):
So I'm watching these big crowds losing their minded us
to this. So I applied it to the parties and
then I've seen it work in the parties, and you
know DJ's followed that.
Speaker 6 (30:11):
But you don't need a whole lot. Sometimes you play
a record too long against boring. Sometimes the hook is
just the best part. Sometime this the count off is
the best part. Sometime the intro is the best part,
and the leading to something else. But that's building a continuity.
That's building.
Speaker 8 (30:27):
That's that's painting a picture for people and kind of
giving them a story from beginning the middle of it,
and you kind of tell the story. And I've had
somebody tell me that. He was like, Yo, i've seen you.
I've been the six of your shows. It's like you're
trying to talk to us. It's like you're trying to
tell us the stormy And that's exactly what I'm doing.
So if you play I can play Sad for the
Son Christy Jones, Sad for the Sun Boom boo boo
(30:48):
right in the middle of the party. The way I
play it make the crowd go crazy. But if I
play it in a different way. They look at me like,
what the hell's he doing?
Speaker 2 (30:56):
Right?
Speaker 8 (30:56):
So it's all the way, it's all in the presentation,
it's all high you deliver it, and I've been very
lucky with that.
Speaker 1 (31:08):
What year did you really start DJing? Like what's your
actual like first year?
Speaker 7 (31:13):
Nineteen seventy six, Okay, in that period in which you're
collecting records and doing this, what was the holy grail
of breaks or records that wasn't available or as prevalent
as it is now for you back then?
Speaker 1 (31:34):
Like what was like, Oh my god, I found it,
like even though I never used it, Like finding funky
drummer on forty five meant something to me. But I
found funky drummer on forty five, Like yeah, what like
ten twelve years ago, you know, like, oh I never
knew they made this on forty five and then I
found a bunch of them. But for you, like what
(31:54):
was that record? Like, oh my god, Like I can't
wait to what was the hardest record to a choir
back then in your formative years rocking in the pocket?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Yo?
Speaker 5 (32:05):
What is it?
Speaker 2 (32:05):
Okay?
Speaker 1 (32:07):
Can you explain to me, like as as a break
Officionado and I get it like I've I've heard many
of those mixtapes, cats rhyme over whatever.
Speaker 2 (32:18):
I mean.
Speaker 1 (32:18):
Right now as I speak to you, I'm on a
break uh Rehearson with ll even l goes on.
Speaker 2 (32:26):
They're like, yo, we gotta do something.
Speaker 1 (32:28):
The Rocket in the pocket, We gotta do something rocket
And like, what is it?
Speaker 2 (32:33):
It's rocking in the pocket.
Speaker 1 (32:34):
And Saronne Sarnetch Yeah, Sarne is a French drummer. Rocket
in Pocket is kind of like a break of his.
I don't know if this is a live album or not.
There's a crowd in it.
Speaker 8 (32:47):
Yes, it's a live record, and we had to put
it on forty five forty five.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
I was about to say it was very slow. Yep,
what is it about that record?
Speaker 1 (32:57):
So when that album first came out back then like
all of you all, we're going to eight chip like
I gotta get rocking in the pocket.
Speaker 6 (33:03):
I got damn mind. Whenever I remember, it was a pool,
a pool woom, there was a pool wom one.
Speaker 8 (33:09):
He fathol in the Bronx and Louis came to the
pool room and they did his party in there.
Speaker 6 (33:14):
Louis was DJ and he played rock in the pocket Man.
Speaker 8 (33:17):
It was like the whole room just stopped, like everybody
was like, what the fuck's that? And he played it.
He played every time he cut it. People you just
seen it was just crazy. And then from that day on,
that's the next time I heard it was with Cold Quest.
But from that day on, Rock in the Pocket was
like one of the top joints. And you couldn't find
it nowhere because there was two rocking in the pockets.
(33:39):
There was the one, there was the studio rock in
the Pocket right, and then it was the lid one.
The live one is the one, so it was hard
to hit that lid one, so they bootlegged it.
Speaker 1 (33:48):
Ah, I gotta when when you spin it on forty five,
it sounds it sounds kind of a little early because
you know, the the guitar is kind of on top
of the snare, so it does it it sounds like
some futuristic ship, which it just sounds like an industrial
(34:11):
break beat.
Speaker 2 (34:11):
So okay, Rocket and Pocket, that makes sense. Yep?
Speaker 1 (34:15):
Was King Tim the Third? In your opinion? Was that
a pioneering moment for you guys or was it just
sort of like shrug? Okay, King Tim the Third, no
big deal? And What was your reaction to rappers delight
like hearing what you're you're involved with on a local
kind of a local basis. Now being on a record,
(34:37):
what was your reaction to it?
Speaker 6 (34:39):
Well, let me say this. First of all, Bill Curtis
from the Fat Bat Ben is my uncle. Oh wow,
oh word, yeah, he's mouchel. I just so. I interviewed
him recently on ig.
Speaker 8 (34:49):
He gave me some du He gave me some two
inches of some of their old stuff from the seventy stuff.
I ain't going through it yet. I just I just
did a record form that you were real good in London.
You have his masters over here.
Speaker 2 (35:01):
And Wiki wacky Yeah, I got.
Speaker 8 (35:05):
That's what I wanted to use. I wanted to do
Wicki waki yoga. That's crazy, you said, yo, what yo yo,
that's crazy.
Speaker 6 (35:12):
I did. I did it. I did the beat. I
just didn't like the vib yet. But the beat is done.
But that's crazy, he said.
Speaker 1 (35:19):
We just got back from London with the Chili Peppers
and I did a DJ gig. I didn't realize that
Wiki Wacky is a religion, and it wasn't until Giles
Peterson reminded me that.
Speaker 2 (35:30):
Even on the song Maureen by Shade.
Speaker 1 (35:35):
She mentions like a good time in her life was
her and her girlfriends dancing to Wiki Wacky in the nightclub.
And I didn't realize that when I put that song on,
it was like I put on smells like teen spirit.
Speaker 2 (35:48):
Back in the day, Yo.
Speaker 6 (35:51):
Bill.
Speaker 8 (35:51):
My uncle man Very chiny I produced the records for
them recently called Bang Bang Bang. That's doing real good
in you for them, it's doing real good as a
matter of fact. And he's ninety years old. Man, he's
still going, still going, still touring, still traveling, still in
the studio, comes over here to my crib everything, So
he's really moving.
Speaker 6 (36:11):
But to ask you a question, let's go back.
Speaker 8 (36:15):
Because people think hip hop started with rappers, Delight, what
records started with rappers alike?
Speaker 2 (36:21):
All right?
Speaker 6 (36:22):
King Tim The third was the personality Job was the
first rap.
Speaker 8 (36:25):
Record in our way of doing rap, in our way
of doing hip hop.
Speaker 6 (36:29):
But rap started way in the forties.
Speaker 8 (36:32):
The first rappers was the Jewbileese, a group called the
Jewbilees for for a singer, gospel kind of singers, but
they rhyme just like a rapper. If you go and
you listen to the listen to go pull up their
video on YouTube. They rhyme exactly with the bars, with
the flow, with everything. It's it's amazing. And this is
in the forties. The first time a rap record was
(36:54):
made was here Come to Judge from Pigmy Market, pig
Me Mom, Mark Him Comedian. He had his record Here
Come to Judge, had the crazy heartbeat to it. But
James Brown was the one that gave the format of
where hip hop was going to be. Pigmy Martin was
pig Me Mark Kim was the first one to rhyme
as a rapper, as in a rap in a wrap
(37:18):
way on that type of music. So it was already here,
what we're doing is just a remix now in our way. Yes,
Hurts came in seventy three and into this room when
he's playing these these soul records, you know, and that
was the beginning. But I remember being that young watching
everybody break dancing and seventy three, seventy two, seventy three,
(37:40):
seventy four, I remember watching people break dancing and just
begun the James Brown pat hands and fast leg of
potential records like that. This was back then, I and
you know, I was a young kid watching this. So
eventually it grew into when seventy seven came around and
DJ started, all that was tied together. But it was
started way before we even.
Speaker 6 (38:03):
Was even born. M You know, it's just that, you know,
black people.
Speaker 8 (38:08):
It created so many things that got overlooked, you know,
so many things that was pushed it aside, and this
was one of them.
Speaker 6 (38:16):
You know.
Speaker 8 (38:16):
It just it just took many more years for us
to really catch on to make it prevident, but it
was going rap was going on since back then.
Speaker 1 (38:24):
What do you consider because you know, I, in my eyes,
I consider you like the first generation of superstar DJs
where you know, just way past the pioneering stage of
like where Flashingmbada took it like you as a product,
but for you, like coming out the starting gate. I
(38:45):
knew of you, and I knew of ron G like,
but for you, who were the the main the forefathers
of the superstar DJ errors where you're making mixtapes, where
you're tearing up black colleges, where you're starting to get
mainstream love on like television shows like who Who do
you consider? Who's the peer group of the superstar DJ era?
Speaker 8 (39:10):
For you, I got to put Red Alert up there.
I got to put fan Master Flaship there, I got
to put Charlie Chase up there. And the reason why
I say these names because it hurt, of course, because
they were the ones that was there first.
Speaker 6 (39:26):
They were the ones that you know, I always say
this like I work with everybody.
Speaker 8 (39:32):
Everybody. You see my bet performance I put. I curated
a whole BT show. My whole thing was to make
to get a course that the young and the old
party together and enjoy theirself.
Speaker 6 (39:42):
And I think I hit that mark.
Speaker 8 (39:44):
But you know, my heros is always the dudes that
came before me, the dudes that didn't make the money
I made or got the fame that I might have gotten,
order the accolades I've gotten, but they built it from
the ground up. You know a lot of times some
of our elder statesmen, they get stuck in their school
way of thinking and they don't want to change, you
know what I'm saying, And change is going to happen.
I remember had a talk with her one time and
(40:06):
I told herk I said, it hurt, you know that
it wasn't going to just stay in the Bronx. It
was gonna go a worldwide, you know, because what happened
was a lot of times we got selfish. We was
in the bronx, we made it, We wanted to stay there,
like this was something that the world was going to
take over, you know what I'm saying. So a lot
of times the world could be harsh to the ones
that helped build it, and it makes those people that
(40:28):
help build it feel a certain way. So now when
they say something, it looks like they're being old. It
looks like they mad at somebody, it looks like.
Speaker 6 (40:35):
They bitter, you know.
Speaker 8 (40:37):
But what it is is that they feel like they
didn't get fulfilled in the way that they think they should,
you know. And that's why Hip hop fifty is great
because now it's no it's a balance. It's everybody's being seen,
everybody's making money, everybody is being appreciated, and the young
dudes are seeing how important these older dudes were are
(41:02):
and what they've done in the path that they put
forty younger dudes. But the older dudes got to understand
that the younger dudes is going to change and do
what they want and what's relevant to them and what
they like. You don't have to like it, but you
cannot days are going to change.
Speaker 4 (41:18):
Hi, folks, this is Shugar Steve and right here is
where we're going to pause this interview.
Speaker 2 (41:22):
Check back next week. We're looking your podcast feed for
part two.
Speaker 4 (41:26):
In that conversation, Kid Capri speaks about his transition to
album making and production, how Bismarck he helped him get
a deal, and what motivates him today. Thank you for
celebrating fifty years of hip hop with Questlove Supreme. If
you haven't already, please check out our interviews this month
celebrating hip hop innovators. In addition to Kid Capri, we
have conversations with Styles P and slum Village.
Speaker 1 (41:51):
What's Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. For more
podcasts from iHeart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Hosts And Creators
Laiya St. Clair
Questlove
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