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