Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up.
Speaker 2: It's June and that means it's Black Music Month, and
Speaker 2: every year on Questlove Supreme and now The Quest Love Show,
Speaker 2: we honor it by bringing you an episode every day
Speaker 2: that celebrates black music, its history, and its impact. My
Speaker 2: team and I have selected episodes from our archive that
Speaker 2: we feel are specially relevant to the celebration, offering history,
Speaker 2: insight a little fun along the way. So be on
Speaker 2: the lookout for four brand new episodes throughout June, each
Speaker 2: connected to the past president future of Black music. You're
Speaker 2: going to highlight trail blazers, innovators, cultural conduits, and revolutionaries
Speaker 2: whose word continues to shape the world around us. Happy June,
Speaker 2: Happy Black Music Month.
Speaker 3: Suprema So Sun Supremo roll call, Supreme Son Son Supremo,
Speaker 3: roll called Suprema son Some Supremo roll called Suprema Son
Speaker 3: So Suprema roll call.
Speaker 2: I had a brilliant ro call Yeah for Curtis Blow.
Speaker 2: But for some reason, you ain't never going.
Speaker 4: To know it.
Speaker 5: Oh Supremo Sun Sun Supremo, roll called Supremo Son Son
Speaker 5: Supremo roll call.
Speaker 1: My name is Sugar, Yeah, I love you.
Speaker 6: All.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but once and for all. Yeah, Baseball Supremo, Roll Supremo.
Speaker 1: Suck some Supremo.
Speaker 2: Roll call coming off the cuff.
Speaker 1: Yeah, rummer words in English. Yeah, so why it doesn't
Speaker 1: have to be so damned.
Speaker 5: Supreme So Supremo roll call Suprema Son Supremo.
Speaker 4: Roll calls em. Yeah what curt is blown?
Speaker 7: Yeah?
Speaker 4: If your hip hop, yeah, you should already know.
Speaker 5: Ro call Suprema Son Sun Supremo ro Cal Supreme.
Speaker 1: Can't believe my Supremo roll.
Speaker 7: Call one, two, three, four hit it yeah now yeah,
Speaker 7: I'm gonna spit it.
Speaker 1: Supremo. Roll come come back, Suprema.
Speaker 8: Son Sun Supremo, Roll cal Supremo Son Son Supremo. Roll
Speaker 8: call Suprema Son Supremo roll call.
Speaker 2: Right, ladies and gentlemen, this is Court Love Supreme. I
Speaker 2: forgot the name of my own show. We are at iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Thank you very much. We're here with Team Supreme. Unpaid
Speaker 2: Bill and here is not here. You are not a
Speaker 2: paid bill, you are a boss bill.
Speaker 1: Wow. I knew what I was saying. I knew I
Speaker 1: was just testing to see if you knew who you were.
Speaker 2: Of course, we got a sugar Steve and we have
Speaker 2: a laia with us on paid Bill right now is
Speaker 2: doing his thing.
Speaker 1: And Broadway, yeah yeah, whenever, whenever he's hit on Broadway,
Speaker 1: he don't have time for us. No more.
Speaker 2: Ladies and gentlemen, plain and simple. You know you hear
Speaker 2: of kings and pioneers and people bragging about their status
Speaker 2: and this culture. I'm sure you, ladies and gentlemen, uh
Speaker 2: that the gentlemen that we're about to introduce is literally
Speaker 2: the pioneer of this amazing art form that has made
Speaker 2: trillions of dollars. What can I say, first rapper on
Speaker 2: a major label, first rapper to get a gold plaque,
Speaker 2: first rapper to cover a song, first rapper to make
Speaker 2: a love ballot, first rabitatur overseas. I mean his production
Speaker 2: credits looming large. I mean, for God's sakes, he produced
Speaker 2: the record that was Jay Z's very first purchase of
Speaker 2: a full hip hop album. Speaking of the Fat Boy's debut,
Speaker 2: I mean, through this man like this is how we
Speaker 2: know he was. He was the entry of Russell Simmons
Speaker 2: into the world, a run into the world of full force,
Speaker 2: into the professional world of Alison Williams, of the Great
Speaker 2: Unhurled Larry Smith and his production credits. The aforementioned Fat Boys,
Speaker 2: not to mention, gave Salaam Remy his first start in production.
Speaker 2: Oh yes, a yeah, fourteen year old. Yes do we do?
Speaker 2: We do our homework. Not to mention, Uh what I what?
Speaker 2: I credit as one of the rare legit hip hop
Speaker 2: movies about hip hop culture. This man is starred in
Speaker 2: as a political activist working with anti apartheid Sun City Project,
Speaker 2: not to mention organizing the King Celebrate holiday. There's so many,
Speaker 2: so many credits. Oh Jesus, we for a lot of
Speaker 2: us are entry to Bob Dylan and if our culture.
Speaker 2: This dude, Yes, I'm pointing to the one and only
Speaker 2: first rapper on Soul Tree. You know, Soul Tree means
Speaker 2: everything to me, Ladies and gentlemen. I'm so honored to
Speaker 2: have on Quest Love Supreme, the one and only Curtis.
Speaker 1: Bloke. It's a Quest Love Supreme.
Speaker 2: Thank you, Thank you man. Uh, this is a long
Speaker 2: time coming. We have a gazillion questions. This this is
Speaker 2: like a this show is such a it's nerd out
Speaker 2: culture going awry. So it's it's just bear with us.
Speaker 2: If we asked too many nerdy questions.
Speaker 7: That that intro was so incredible. I mean you kind
Speaker 7: of like had me shook there for I didn't know
Speaker 7: I did so much stuff I was here. Yes, wait
Speaker 7: a minute, I remember things.
Speaker 2: We're we're literally about giving flowers where they're due.
Speaker 7: Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, there's so much more that you're doing.
Speaker 2: I've been known to make like fifteen minute intros and
Speaker 2: then it's time to gorl. Right, So what I really
Speaker 2: this is this is like one of our first chances
Speaker 2: to interview someone that was there for the beginning of
Speaker 2: hip hop culture before it came a professional business. So
Speaker 2: I have so many questions about it's starting its formation
Speaker 2: in the Bronx to like the parties and all those things. Well,
Speaker 2: for those that don't know that listen to us that
Speaker 2: are that are younger, where were you born?
Speaker 7: I was born and raised in Harlem.
Speaker 2: Okay, Harlem Worm Okay, yes, yes, sir, So could you
Speaker 2: give us kind of a, I guess, a prototypical idea
Speaker 2: of what the environment was when hip hop was just
Speaker 2: a local block party thing, when it was just yes,
Speaker 2: you know, like on a Saturday, let's let's pick a
Speaker 2: Saturday in nineteen seventy eight, before it was a business.
Speaker 1: Oh man, what was You probably go back before Sudny.
Speaker 7: It's really amazing and it's a story that you know,
Speaker 7: the energy and the vibe and the spirit that was
Speaker 7: going around New York City the Five Boroughs during that
Speaker 7: time was something that's so hard to explain. You really
Speaker 7: had to be there to really understand that energy that
Speaker 7: was happening. See, we were all like a group of
Speaker 7: people who understood and really related and loved this culture
Speaker 7: way before it became a culture. So it was just
Speaker 7: like something new that we were trying to do and represent.
Speaker 7: Of course, you had disco on this side of the fence,
Speaker 7: and then you had R and B soul music, and
Speaker 7: most of us grew up on soul music, and we
Speaker 7: love James Brown and the Motown sound and the Isisley
Speaker 7: Brothers and all of that stuff and soul music. We
Speaker 7: started playing soul music when disco became the most prominent
Speaker 7: thing that you heard on the radio. But if you
Speaker 7: remember the Motown sound that we grew up on in
Speaker 7: the sixties, the snare drum, we're talking music theory now.
Speaker 7: The snare drum was on the one, two, three, and
Speaker 7: the four pop pop pop boom babe, babe baby, you know,
Speaker 7: and and then disco comes out and it went back
Speaker 7: to the same four on the floor of the floor
Speaker 7: there talking about the kick drum right, the boom boom
Speaker 7: boom boom. So that beat for us wasn't like James Brown,
Speaker 7: because James Brown, in between disco and motown, had a
Speaker 7: musical revolution with the sound that we call boom.
Speaker 1: Bat So the boom back, syncopated rhythms.
Speaker 7: Syncopated rhythms, and the drummer, you know, Clyde Stubberfield, was incredible.
Speaker 7: So as kids, when we heard this new sound, we
Speaker 7: were like, we lost our minds. Everybody wanted to be
Speaker 7: James Brown and dance like him. And uh, that's when
Speaker 7: we started going down to the floor whenever we heard
Speaker 7: the break because the break of the music was the
Speaker 7: most important part of the song. That's when everyone did
Speaker 7: their best dance moves. That's when we created the circle.
Speaker 1: So people just literally wanted to wait for the breakdown, like.
Speaker 7: Okay, that's what it was five, that's what it was
Speaker 7: really going to get crazy And I'm talking in nineteen
Speaker 7: seventy two, seventy three, So here comes cool Herk, the
Speaker 7: DJ who understood this that the break was so very important,
Speaker 7: and we were B boys and B girls because we
Speaker 7: danced to the breaks that Cool Herk would play. And
Speaker 7: he would play these funky, incredible songs like give It
Speaker 7: Up a Turn It Loose, or getting Into Something by
Speaker 7: the Isley Brothers, or or Listening by Baby Hughey or
Speaker 7: Jimmy Cast has Just Begun, the Mexican you know, the
Speaker 7: Melting Pot Apache, you know all these incredible songs. They
Speaker 7: were soul music, but they were fast and it was
Speaker 7: the same kind of tempo as disco music. It was
Speaker 7: dance music. I call it obscure dance music. It was funk,
Speaker 7: and we just lost our minds. So we represented and
Speaker 7: created those circles around us, just like Saturday Night Fever,
Speaker 7: you know the movie with John Travolta with the white
Speaker 7: suit on. You creates this circle around him and pretty
Speaker 7: soon somebody comes in the circle and they do a
Speaker 7: competition and a battle, and the winner of that competition
Speaker 7: was the most popular guy. He was the hero of
Speaker 7: the story, right, And so that's what happened at the
Speaker 7: Cool Hurt clubs. Around twelve one o'clock in the morning,
Speaker 7: he played this give It Up a Turn and Loose,
Speaker 7: and everybody was standing around waiting for the break. When
Speaker 7: that break came, we went off. And that was hip
Speaker 7: hop the first early days.
Speaker 2: Now, God, now for that particular record that you gave
Speaker 2: an example of, give It Up for Turn It Loose,
Speaker 2: which that particular recording was made in nineteen sixty nine.
Speaker 2: So even though James Brown himself was trying to keep
Speaker 2: up with the trends of the day and make disco records,
Speaker 2: you're basically saying that you guys never left those records alone.
Speaker 1: So a song like Get on the.
Speaker 2: Good Foot still had life way beyond it's nineteen seventy
Speaker 2: two release, like It's still was something in seventy four,
Speaker 2: seventy five, seventy six, as long as it had.
Speaker 1: A funk break.
Speaker 2: So did you guys look at the commercial music at
Speaker 2: the time as kind of like how we look at
Speaker 2: modern pop radio now, Like I don't listen to that.
Speaker 1: I listened to No, it was cool. It was cool.
Speaker 7: It was a you know, we you know, we listened
Speaker 7: to it. It was on the radio, but.
Speaker 1: Somebody was break dancing to like Stevie Wonders. I wish
Speaker 1: you know.
Speaker 7: No, it was more like, you know, the village people.
Speaker 1: Why Okay? So like the commercial disco stuff, Okay.
Speaker 7: Down a Summer and stuff like that, You're like, yo,
Speaker 7: we want James Brown, you know what I mean? So,
Speaker 7: so the hip hop became that rebellion to disco. I
Speaker 7: call it, you know, ghetto disco.
Speaker 2: Okay for those that been collecting tapes and and really
Speaker 2: keeping up in sort of the early formation of what
Speaker 2: hip hop was. The role that MC was once the
Speaker 2: co star to who the DJ was? So can you
Speaker 2: What I want to know is, and I've heard like
Speaker 2: some of these.
Speaker 1: Like DJ Hollywood tapes.
Speaker 2: Right where in my mind he had an endless vocabulary,
Speaker 2: an endless combination of rhymes that came up nowhere. Now,
Speaker 2: I mean most of them season I know, really have
Speaker 2: a good fifteen to twenty minute repertoire before they run
Speaker 2: out of space and steam and you know, don't know
Speaker 2: what to do. But he's his things seemed endless, Like
Speaker 2: who was who in your mind were like the top five?
Speaker 1: First of all? Who was the one? Was Hollywood?
Speaker 2: The pioneer of the calling response rhyming k ice right
Speaker 2: at least in the hip hop sins, I know there's
Speaker 2: Jocko Henderson and all that stuff back, yes, of course,
Speaker 2: of course, but who was in terms of hip hop
Speaker 2: was DJ Hollywood first? Like where does Hollywood? And Eddie
Speaker 2: Chiba and like all these other mcs that really weren't
Speaker 2: making records.
Speaker 7: Okay, so after herk okay, you have to see there
Speaker 7: there there were two different kinds of crowds, Okay, first
Speaker 7: and foremost, you know Flash Grandmass and Flash calls them
Speaker 7: the shoe people and the sneaker people.
Speaker 1: Oh okay, you know the sneaker people.
Speaker 7: You know, we partied at the block parties and the
Speaker 7: community centers, and the park jams and and and and
Speaker 7: the the small around the way clubs, you know, like
Speaker 7: three seventy one Disco Fever up in the Bronx and
Speaker 7: places like that. But you know, Grandmaster Flash was so
Speaker 7: very important to this transition from the DJ being the
Speaker 7: focal point of the party. He controlled the music, He
Speaker 7: controlled the ambiance, he controlled the lights, he controlled the
Speaker 7: tempo of the songs he was playing. He hired, he
Speaker 7: hired and fired the mcs. The mcs were first a
Speaker 7: diamond dozen. All we did was we we we we
Speaker 7: went to the house and we got the equipment and
Speaker 7: took the equipment to the gig and set it up,
Speaker 7: and at the end of the night we break it
Speaker 7: down and carry it back to the house, and the
Speaker 7: DJ would let us in free, you know.
Speaker 1: So that's your plus, that's your getting on the guest list.
Speaker 7: And so you know, if we were nice to him,
Speaker 7: or if he was nice to us and feeling good,
Speaker 7: he would let us make announcements like, Yo, Joey, your
Speaker 7: mom's outside is ten o'clock, you're gonna go, you know,
Speaker 7: sound okay, Sam, your car is getting told, you know, okay?
Speaker 7: And so Flash, you know, now herk played a whole song.
Speaker 7: He had the most incredible playlist, all the songs I named,
Speaker 7: and they were about twenty five to thirty songs, maybe
Speaker 7: even fifty soul music in a club. And so Flash
Speaker 7: understood that the most important part of this song that
Speaker 7: he played was the break, because he knew all the
Speaker 7: bee boys would go down to the floor and start
Speaker 7: doing their best moves. Everyone got crazy and started yelling
Speaker 7: and screaming, you know when the break came. And so
Speaker 7: he wanted to try to find a way to extend
Speaker 7: his break because the break was only fifteen twenty seconds long,
Speaker 7: And so he got two copies of the same record,
Speaker 7: and he started playing the break. Her would play a
Speaker 7: whole song and you have to stand up waiting for
Speaker 7: the break to come. Right, Flash went there. He just
Speaker 7: started the break at the top of the song. You know,
Speaker 7: he'd played a break, and when it got to the
Speaker 7: end of the break, before the singing started coming back in,
Speaker 7: he played the beginning of the break again. So he
Speaker 7: actually extended this break and made it from fifteen twenty
Speaker 7: seconds to three four minutes, right, So we had to
Speaker 7: do more as MC's than make announcements.
Speaker 9: So I have a question at the time, what was
Speaker 9: the transition because are people then are we scratching yet?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 7: He started scratching and oh he was very very fast
Speaker 7: because you had to go from one turntable to the
Speaker 7: other to catch the beat before it ended and got
Speaker 7: to the whack part, right, And so he extended the
Speaker 7: break and then shuts right.
Speaker 1: Listen to the show. He'll get mad, Yes scratch, yes, yes,
Speaker 1: we love you.
Speaker 7: And so you know it was like DJs like that
Speaker 7: that gave us the opportunity to shine. So we became
Speaker 7: like instead of standing on the side of the turntables
Speaker 7: just making announcements, we went out front and started rocking
Speaker 7: the crowd and we had to do more, so we
Speaker 7: started telling stories and rapping in rhythm and you know,
Speaker 7: using crowd response, throw your hands in the air and
Speaker 7: all of that stuff, and that's how you know, it
Speaker 7: really came off. So Hollywood get into Hollywood. He was
Speaker 7: a master at the crowd response, and he had a
Speaker 7: Puerto Rican DJ by the name of DJ Junebuck Rest
Speaker 7: in Peace and best DJ Iver saw in my life,
Speaker 7: very fast, accurate, would keep the beat going for Hollywood,
Speaker 7: and he was just tearing it up. When I saw
Speaker 7: Hollywood at this club three seventy one, it blew my mind.
Speaker 7: I never knew that there was something like this possible,
Speaker 7: You know, that a guy could just take control of
Speaker 7: an audience and have them eating out of the palm
Speaker 7: of his hands, just by the way that he was
Speaker 7: rapping in rhythm. First time I ever heard rhythmic rap
Speaker 7: was DJ Hollywood. You know, of course, there are other
Speaker 7: MC's before him, like KC, the Princess Soul JJ to
Speaker 7: Disco King you had up in the Bronx with HERK
Speaker 7: you had Coch He was the first MC up in
Speaker 7: the Bronx, rock and just talking smack on the microphone,
Speaker 7: you know, but Hollywood put it together with rhythmic chance
Speaker 7: like throw your hands in the air and way. I'm like,
Speaker 7: you just don't care. And if you got on clean underwear, somebody.
Speaker 1: Say, oh yeah, yeah.
Speaker 10: Everybody, you gotta say, oh yeah, you know I got
Speaker 10: I don't commander, Yeah, mama got clean on the So
Speaker 10: it's was that a Eureka moment for you?
Speaker 7: Like it was a Eureka moment, you know? Just seeing
Speaker 7: herk the first time I saw herk. It blew my mind,
Speaker 7: just to the fact that he had this big, huge
Speaker 7: Mungo's sound system and he was playing these songs that
Speaker 7: I grew up with that I just thought that, you know,
Speaker 7: give it up a turn and lose. It was my
Speaker 7: favorite song and he played it loud and and everyone
Speaker 7: went crazy. And then you had Grandmaster. Flash was another
Speaker 7: one blew my mind with the speed on the turntables.
Speaker 7: This guy had white gloves on with rings on and
Speaker 7: they would just flashing, He's going to turntable. I saw
Speaker 7: him at the Hotel Diplomat one time, and that was
Speaker 7: just amazing to see how fast he was and keeping
Speaker 7: that beat going. And it's real what we call turntablism.
Speaker 7: This evolution of the turntable, the DJs and flash gave
Speaker 7: us the opportunity along with Hollywood. Everyone mimicked Hollywood when
Speaker 7: he came out. He blew my mind as well.
Speaker 2: Did you guys ever venture out of the Burroughs? So
Speaker 2: was there a thing of like, you know, was touring
Speaker 2: for you back then, like Okay, I'm gonna do a
Speaker 2: party in Queen's Or would Long Island be a part
Speaker 2: of this folklore as well?
Speaker 1: Staten Island even like new or was it just or
Speaker 1: even newer?
Speaker 2: Like were or did Burroughs just like stick to themselves
Speaker 2: until rat became a business?
Speaker 1: Well? Me, I was a traveler.
Speaker 7: I went from Harlem, you know, I had fourteen years old,
Speaker 7: fifteen years old, travel on that number four train riding
Speaker 7: up to the Bronx, you know, to check out cool
Speaker 7: Herk at the Executive Playhouse. And and it was scary.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: That was during the time when Roots had came out,
Speaker 7: Alex Haley's Roots, and so there was a lot of that,
Speaker 7: you know, right straight out of the Civil rights movement,
Speaker 7: and cats were like feeling themselves and there was a
Speaker 7: lot of violence on that train. You know what I mean,
Speaker 7: a lot of.
Speaker 1: People you risked everything just to see men. It was worth.
Speaker 2: That's why I want to know what makes that's the
Speaker 2: one the one thing I didn't have, Like I had
Speaker 2: strict parents that were just like, no, you ain't going
Speaker 2: so whenever I hear like, uh, the generation after you
Speaker 2: talk about the Latin quarter right right, and I'm like, yo,
Speaker 2: y'all could.
Speaker 1: Have y'all risking y'all lives to hear this, like you
Speaker 1: might get stab shot, killed her. But I understand understand.
Speaker 7: There were so many things u going around in the
Speaker 7: community in New York City that was happening during that time.
Speaker 7: And I'm telling you hip hop was like a saveror
Speaker 7: you know, like like you know, we had the gangs,
Speaker 7: the gangs like that that movie The Warriors was real.
Speaker 7: There were a lot of gangs. I remember running home
Speaker 7: from school, you know, in the early early seventies, because
Speaker 7: all you had to do is say they coming and
Speaker 7: were out, you know what I mean, you know, going
Speaker 7: to the corner store from my mom. It's like, yo,
Speaker 7: you want me to go to store rial.
Speaker 1: Okay, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one
Speaker 1: that would go to crazy And then you had for
Speaker 1: toilet paper, and then then you had to map out.
Speaker 7: You had the drug wars of the Bronx and Harlem
Speaker 7: coming out of the Frank Lucas story American gangster, right,
Speaker 7: you know when he went to jail, and I think
Speaker 7: it was nineteen seventy four seventy five, they had a
Speaker 7: big drug war. Everybody was fighting for his territory. So
Speaker 7: there were a lot of murders and gunshots and all
Speaker 7: around people were just dropping like flies, you know, So
Speaker 7: it was kind of dangerous. It was dangerous living during
Speaker 7: that time. So for me, you know, it was my savior.
Speaker 7: I used to love to go to the club and
Speaker 7: just you know, go to the speaker and stick my
Speaker 7: head and the speaker and the base was rumbling all
Speaker 7: the way through my toes and I just closed was
Speaker 7: worth it. I closed my eyes and go off. And
Speaker 7: that's hip hop.
Speaker 1: He just told me the story of the first time
Speaker 1: I ever went.
Speaker 7: To a club, Like everyone has put your head in
Speaker 7: the speaker and it just changes your life.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yep.
Speaker 2: What do you think hip hop culture would have been
Speaker 2: if there was no blackout of nineteen seventy seven.
Speaker 7: A lot of a lot of cats talk about that
Speaker 7: because a lot of Equick equipment was obtained doing those
Speaker 7: years doing that that that Blackout nineteen seventy seven. But
Speaker 7: for me, it was more like, you know, we hit
Speaker 7: the local bike store and I got like three bikes.
Speaker 1: So you wanted to travel travel? I told you you
Speaker 1: didn't want to do that train. Yeah, no more for
Speaker 1: a train.
Speaker 4: That's a long ride to the Bronx.
Speaker 1: Yeah it is, it is.
Speaker 7: But you know, just traveling around New York City was
Speaker 7: was was special for me. I just thought that, you know,
Speaker 7: I had cousins out in Queens and and and forty
Speaker 7: Projects and and Cambria, and aunts and uncles all around Queens.
Speaker 7: So you know, I used to spend my summers out
Speaker 7: in Queens. Actually, you know how how how we all
Speaker 7: used to go South Where.
Speaker 1: I'm going to Atlanta? Where you going? I'm going North Carolina?
Speaker 1: Where you going? Kim and Kirk, We're going to Queens.
Speaker 1: So it's like another world probably.
Speaker 9: You know.
Speaker 7: And and if Suburbia.
Speaker 1: That part of Queens okay, yeah yeah.
Speaker 7: And so just spending my days out there whenever I could,
Speaker 7: you know, having a lot of family out and Queens.
Speaker 7: I hung out with with Russell Simmons, because I met
Speaker 7: him in college and he was from Hollis, Queens. And
Speaker 7: we opened up a club in nineteen seventy eight called
Speaker 7: Disco Fever, I mean night Fever.
Speaker 1: Disco Okay, okay, so wait you for that club.
Speaker 7: And that was two hundred and first Street in Hollis Avenue,
Speaker 7: and that's where I really got good as a DJ,
Speaker 7: you know, DJing and the club and four year and
Speaker 7: then we actually used propaganda and Russell started putting my
Speaker 7: name on flies Queen's number one DJ, Curtis Blow.
Speaker 2: Okay, So he built the folklore of Curtis Blow.
Speaker 7: And Russell was a sociology major, you know, so he
Speaker 7: understood about the masses and the spectrum and the different
Speaker 7: movements of people and what they would like and stuff
Speaker 7: like that. So he convinced me to let that propaganda happen.
Speaker 2: So is he the one that talked you into Would
Speaker 2: you say that your entry into hip is what really
Speaker 2: put the focus on the MC as opposed to the DJ.
Speaker 7: M No, because I think Hollywood did that. He was
Speaker 7: actually the first king of rap.
Speaker 1: He was so hot. He was the first guy that.
Speaker 7: Charged five hundred dollars. Before that, we were making thirty
Speaker 7: forty dollars a night MC's or you know, the the
Speaker 7: popular ones were getting one hundred, one hundred and fifty
Speaker 7: dollars a night. But Hollywood was the first to charge
Speaker 7: five hundred. You want five hundred dollars.
Speaker 1: But Hollywood at your partyment guaranteed, you know.
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, it was pack You have a line around
Speaker 7: the corner, you know. And so Kat started, you know,
Speaker 7: trying to charge five hundred dollars a day.
Speaker 1: They were like, shit, nigga, you made Hollywood.
Speaker 2: So I guess technically your first single was Christmas Wrapping.
Speaker 1: Correct, Yes, nineteen seventy nine.
Speaker 2: Okay, so please, how did that come about? And how
Speaker 2: did you avoid Sylvie Robinson and Enjoy? And also Bobby
Speaker 2: Robinson Enjoy there's no relationship between the two, right, Like
Speaker 2: they just both coincidentally have a name, right Robinson, So Enjoy,
Speaker 2: Bobby Robinson and Sylvie Robinson were not related, correct.
Speaker 7: Yeah, Bobby Robinson was from Harlem. He had that store
Speaker 7: on one hundred and twenty fifth Street. Bobby Bobby's records, you know,
Speaker 7: and he goes back to the to the forties and fifties.
Speaker 7: You know, he has a lot of contacts. Everybody knows
Speaker 7: him and soul music and R and B music, and
Speaker 7: so you know during that time, of course, sugar Hill
Speaker 7: Gang when they came out, Well, well let's give a
Speaker 7: shout out to King Tim the third that was actually
Speaker 7: the first personality. Jock, you're listening to the town, but
Speaker 7: I'm gone and I am here, and so here comes
Speaker 7: sugar Hill. Every bus, every car, every train and wanted
Speaker 7: to play that Rappers Delight song.
Speaker 1: I said it him. You don't stop the record.
Speaker 7: Every taxi, every boom box, every record store was playing
Speaker 7: at twenty four to seven. And so we were in
Speaker 7: the studio in October and so we were trying to
Speaker 7: get a record deal. I think I got my record
Speaker 7: deal because Rappers Delight was so hot. We went to
Speaker 7: twenty two different labels, though nice and everybody hated the
Speaker 7: record except for two people. The first guy.
Speaker 1: Liked it.
Speaker 7: He wanted to sign it up, sign me up. So
Speaker 7: he took it up the flagpole to the vice president
Speaker 7: and president and they said no.
Speaker 1: So label was that.
Speaker 7: That was the guy's name was Corey Robbins. Okay, Now
Speaker 7: Corey quit his job because of this, and he went
Speaker 7: and started his own label, and two years later he
Speaker 7: signed run DMC and the label is called Profile Records.
Speaker 7: So the next guy is an English fellow, John Staines,
Speaker 7: he's ain't on director for Mercury PolyGram Records over in
Speaker 7: the UK in London. He said, we can recoup this
Speaker 7: record in six months, let's sign them up. So actually,
Speaker 7: actually I became a British artist really signed to a
Speaker 7: company called Mercury Phonogram out in the UK and my
Speaker 7: records came back to America on an import.
Speaker 1: Wow. Crazy deal.
Speaker 4: So they had you first and they knew you first.
Speaker 7: Yes, so I was the first artist signed to a
Speaker 7: major label.
Speaker 1: So can I assume that you're in r was the
Speaker 1: was the person that said why was the night before Christmas?
Speaker 2: Before you interrupted them with that wait, hold that wait?
Speaker 2: Was he was either twice the night that's him. Just
Speaker 2: put two and two together. The guy was English and
Speaker 2: you know, and that's those it's you know a lot
Speaker 2: of the records. It's really weird, especially with your catalog,
Speaker 2: a lot of your catalog.
Speaker 1: And I hope I'm not opening up.
Speaker 2: Well, hopefully the grace period is over. Even as I
Speaker 2: was recapping your catalog, I didn't realize how much, in
Speaker 2: particular the Bomb Squad when Public Enemy was making Nation
Speaker 2: of Millions, used a lot of your records as the
Speaker 2: basis for their rhythms, which I just found out today
Speaker 2: that from the back Popular Demand album, one of those
Speaker 2: songs is the basis for the Night to Living bass
Speaker 2: Heads remix, which is weird. They could have just sampled
Speaker 2: James Brown, but they were like, all right, let's sample
Speaker 2: this meta like, let's sample Curtis Blow sampling James Brown
Speaker 2: with the extra kicks in there and all that stuff.
Speaker 1: So anyway, I'm falling in a rabbit hole.
Speaker 2: But my point is, yeah, you were one of the
Speaker 2: very first rappers to travel overseas. So what is that
Speaker 2: like literally being the Trojan Horse or the the Neil Armstrong,
Speaker 2: the or the flag I don't want to say Christopher
Speaker 2: Columbus because I don't believe I'm just saying on Columbus
Speaker 2: day right exactly, like to be the flag bear of
Speaker 2: Like was there a resistance?
Speaker 1: Was there? Or did you find that You're.
Speaker 2: Like they were really more open because you also at
Speaker 2: the top of the pops right right right?
Speaker 1: Yes? What was that like?
Speaker 7: Man, it's like a dream world.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: I tell people this many at times that that my
Speaker 7: life is like a dream world. It's hard to understand
Speaker 7: reality when you when you're you know, in the right
Speaker 7: place at the right time, and you know, big shout
Speaker 7: out to Debbie Harry who actually flew me out to
Speaker 7: the UK for a big, big, big, big press conference.
Speaker 7: And you know, being on a major label that means
Speaker 7: you know, major press, that means we have a major
Speaker 7: office and every major city around the world. And being
Speaker 7: a college student, you know, I want to work the system.
Speaker 7: And so I went to the publicity department. I said, man,
Speaker 7: send me everywhere. I want to travel all over right,
Speaker 7: you know. And when I got there, I sat up
Speaker 7: in the conference room and we had all the press
Speaker 7: you know, lined up from print, magazines, newspapers, radio, television.
Speaker 7: It was incredible and awesome to just be a part
Speaker 7: of all of that stuff. And it was documented, you know,
Speaker 7: this new thing called hip hop and I was representing this.
Speaker 1: So was it tiring, like trying to explain to people
Speaker 1: know what this was? No in the history of it. No.
Speaker 7: No, being a communications major as I love to talk,
Speaker 7: so and then it was so very very important, like
Speaker 7: you said, you know, we had to actually you know,
Speaker 7: be good on stage, you know, because that was very
Speaker 7: very important to the success of the culture. When people
Speaker 7: see you live on stage and during that time, if
Speaker 7: you didn't have a good show, people the next day
Speaker 7: would not go out and buy your record.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: That's how you know the music business operated. You know,
Speaker 7: you go out on tour and you sing your new song,
Speaker 7: your new album, and then the next day everyone goes
Speaker 7: and buys a record. This is how they support it.
Speaker 7: And so going out there on stage for the first
Speaker 7: times and seeing these audiences and the audiences seeing me
Speaker 7: for the first time, or seeing hip hop for the
Speaker 7: first time, a lot of that, you know, where's your band,
Speaker 7: you know, but at the end of the show they're
Speaker 7: all saying, oh, you know, and and it was so
Speaker 7: very important for us to rock the house. And that
Speaker 7: was key to you know, my experience and being in
Speaker 7: New York City around the Five Boroughs, just you know,
Speaker 7: playing the clubs and you know, like the night Fever
Speaker 7: Disco and the Hotel Diplomat three seventy one, Skull Fever,
Speaker 7: you know, the block parties and the park jams.
Speaker 1: Just being.
Speaker 7: Used to handling a microphone and mic control and MC
Speaker 7: means my control, and it was so very important I
Speaker 7: just thank God that I had that experience seven eight
Speaker 7: years in the biz before I made my first record.
Speaker 2: So in touring behind the single, especially mainstream, assuming that
Speaker 2: you did tours with regular acts and whatnot. Yeah, okay,
Speaker 2: so I know now, I mean especially with I mean
Speaker 2: even in modern times like watching the Wu Tang series
Speaker 2: that's on TV right now, and it's to the point
Speaker 2: now where at least of this recording where like there
Speaker 2: is a starting the tour and what I call like
Speaker 2: wrapper problems, like with the monitors not working and you know,
Speaker 2: the proper channels for the DJ and you know all
Speaker 2: those things and the MIC's not working. Like how difficult
Speaker 2: was it as far as like opening first of all,
Speaker 2: like what mainstream bands were you touring with back during
Speaker 2: this period?
Speaker 1: Like who were you opening for in America at least?
Speaker 7: Okay, people like Cool and Gang and the Gap Band
Speaker 7: and Comfunction. I remember going on tour in nineteen eighty,
Speaker 7: the All Platinum Tour with the Commodoores. The Commodores were
Speaker 7: really really hot Lineo Richie had all those ballads and stuff,
Speaker 7: and while we did about one hundred and twenty shows
Speaker 7: around the country and they took me places I never
Speaker 7: heard of before, like Tupelo, Mississippi, you know, and a
Speaker 7: lot of college towns. It was incredible just being a
Speaker 7: part of that tour and meeting people. And for me,
Speaker 7: it was like, you know, I had this thing I
Speaker 7: had to. It became a mission of mine to meet
Speaker 7: my heroes that I grew up all though, so singers
Speaker 7: that I that I listened to as a kid. I
Speaker 7: just wanted to meet them and hug them. And so
Speaker 7: I had again, my record company set it up. The
Speaker 7: publicity department, Beverly Page. She set it up with people
Speaker 7: like I met Aretha Franklin really over and she invited
Speaker 7: me for lunch over at Hitsville Studio and we sat
Speaker 7: and talked for an hour.
Speaker 1: And you know, and this just talk about her rapping son.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I'm sorry.
Speaker 2: Like, if you if you have any dealings, if you're
Speaker 2: in the Hip Found Nation and you have any dealings
Speaker 2: with Theretha Franklin, trust me, her son's name's going to
Speaker 2: come up.
Speaker 1: I know. Yeah, my sister went to high school with him.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, he's looking for a deal right now.
Speaker 9: Wait, how earlier on was the Aretha meeting? Because I'm wondering,
Speaker 9: I'm like, how did she know that she needed to
Speaker 9: have a conversation.
Speaker 1: Eighty one, nineteen eighty one. Uh, you can't understand he
Speaker 1: was a start out the gate.
Speaker 9: I understand especial Franklin to understand that as a whole number.
Speaker 2: Lie Like well, especially with roller skating culture like really
Speaker 2: hitting its zenith in like nineteen, like The Breaks. To me,
Speaker 2: that song was tailored me for roller skating culture, like
Speaker 2: between seventy eight Boom and eighty three at least roller
Speaker 2: skating culture. So it was like, I feel as though
Speaker 2: that's roller skating cultures would allow boogie music, Like The
Speaker 2: Breaks wasn't a disco song, so it wasn't like but
Speaker 2: it still had a groove to it that was like
Speaker 2: disco but slower so and it made it easier to
Speaker 2: navigate on skates.
Speaker 4: Yeah, all levels, all levels.
Speaker 2: And so yeah, they're like I don't recall, like we
Speaker 2: went roller skating every Sunday in the summer of nineteen
Speaker 2: eighty and The Breaks had to been played five times,
Speaker 2: five six times, like without between like Curtis Blow and
Speaker 2: Rick James, Like it.
Speaker 1: Was like the battle of who owned roller skates?
Speaker 2: So how important our relationships Because I also know that
Speaker 2: it's kind of weird. I'm a soul trained expert. So
Speaker 2: here's the thing about your particular episode. So when Don's
Speaker 2: talking to you, and this is something that he's known
Speaker 2: for every episode, he kind of lets in a snarky
Speaker 2: thing like I'm an old guy.
Speaker 1: I don't understand, but you know, the kids love it.
Speaker 1: I don't get it.
Speaker 2: Whatever, But I mean, at least the resistance. How much
Speaker 2: resistance did you have to go, not only to get
Speaker 2: your record deal, but like, what was it just like
Speaker 2: for people not to see the future because people hate
Speaker 2: change more than anything. Well, even if it's good for.
Speaker 7: Them, there's a story behind that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: Again, it is nineteen eighty right, and I was just
Speaker 7: coming off a tour in Europe.
Speaker 1: Okay, I think I.
Speaker 7: Did about thirty shows in thirty three days or something.
Speaker 7: Monumental tour. But during that time, but nearly over in
Speaker 7: Europe was the hottest thing on the press with the rest.
Speaker 7: Everyone was talking about them and their show, their live show,
Speaker 7: their lip singing. Okay, right, and it was like the
Speaker 7: record company came to me, the promoters came to me,
Speaker 7: Oh you can't lip sing. Make sure you don't lip sing.
Speaker 7: I'm telling you they're gonna boo you and this and that.
Speaker 7: We don't play that over here in Europe, and you
Speaker 7: got to do an hour and a half, you know, right,
Speaker 7: And so I'm like, okay, no problem. And you know
Speaker 7: I'm made for that because I have a on every song,
Speaker 7: most every song about the ten first ten singles I have.
Speaker 7: The B side has an instrumental and I rap live.
Speaker 7: You know, we call it half playback. So I got
Speaker 7: through the tour. But when I came back to America
Speaker 7: and I'm setting up for Soul Train, I'm sitting in
Speaker 7: the makeup room and Irene Carr is sitting right there,
Speaker 7: and at the forefront of my mind, I'm thinking about,
Speaker 7: you know, Millie Vanilli and what's going on there. And
Speaker 7: I know that, you know, they lip sing on Soul
Speaker 7: Train their policy. So here comes down Cotney. Oh well,
Speaker 7: the stage manager comes in with the microphone and microphones,
Speaker 7: got this phony little plug, right, It's all right, you
Speaker 7: gotta lip sing and make sure you know you you
Speaker 7: word the words, you know your mouth the words just
Speaker 7: like the song, and and and and be in rhythm.
Speaker 7: I'm like, look, we're weird, right, I am not gonna
Speaker 7: lip sing. That's not what I do. This is hip hop.
Speaker 7: We do hip hop here. This is live I need
Speaker 7: and plus I got crowd response. I need to say
Speaker 7: these these words the crowd response and have the whole
Speaker 7: audience answer back to me.
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.
Speaker 7: It's very important.
Speaker 1: This is hip hop.
Speaker 7: I'm not lip singing. And they were like, oh, Don
Speaker 7: Cornelius came in, what do you mean You're not gonna
Speaker 7: live sing. This is our rules, this is our policy.
Speaker 7: They're just say, well, look, mister Cornelius, I'm going home.
Speaker 7: How about that one? Irene Carroll looked at me like, boy,
Speaker 7: you crazy, right?
Speaker 1: And so because.
Speaker 7: Isn't it everyone's dream to be on Soul Training. Yes, yes,
Speaker 7: and and it was a big thing. But I did
Speaker 7: not want to get the Europeans and and and and America.
Speaker 7: Hasn't you know, gotten his news yet about Milli Vanilli yet,
Speaker 7: Well you're predating and you mean stuff. I didn't want
Speaker 7: to have that that reputation. So I was the first
Speaker 7: artist to sing live the breaks on Soul Train. So
Speaker 7: that's why Don comes out with snorky. You want to
Speaker 7: know what everybody's making so much big fuss about this?
Speaker 7: He said.
Speaker 1: It was a little it wasn't like.
Speaker 7: And I was shocked because I looked at him like
Speaker 7: I didn't know you did.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: So by this point, was Run your DJ? On this
Speaker 2: initial Run?
Speaker 1: Yes? Yes, yeah?
Speaker 7: Oh but no no, no, no, after that, after the
Speaker 7: before the Commondoer's tour. Here's a story about Run was
Speaker 7: my DJ before the Commodore's tour All Platinum tour. So
Speaker 7: Run was out playing basketball with this guy down the
Speaker 7: block named Jason Mizelle. Right, So he breaks his arm
Speaker 7: playing basketball, and so I'm like, yo, we gotta go
Speaker 7: on tour.
Speaker 1: Man.
Speaker 7: I was asking his dad. His dad's no, you can't
Speaker 7: go out onto please Dad, let me go.
Speaker 1: Let me go.
Speaker 7: He said no, no, you got to stay in school.
Speaker 7: He said no, please dad, let me go on to you. Look,
Speaker 7: you got one arm, you can't DJ. Yes, I can't
Speaker 7: look back right right. And so he didn't get to
Speaker 7: go and he stayed home. So when I got back
Speaker 7: off a tour about about four months later, that's when
Speaker 7: I heard that he started a group called Run DMC
Speaker 7: with his fellas that were up in the attic practicing
Speaker 7: and hanging out with him. And so the story is,
Speaker 7: if if Run didn't break his arm, there would be
Speaker 7: no run DMC.
Speaker 1: He had just been your DJ. Yeah.
Speaker 2: If Russell didn't have enough pool to be like dad,
Speaker 2: I'll take care of him. Like was Russell also traveling
Speaker 2: with you at.
Speaker 7: The non Dad was running the show?
Speaker 1: Yeah? Yeah, dad.
Speaker 7: Dad was very powerful. He bought Run the Turntables.
Speaker 9: Three brothers right like Danny Russell and run right. And
Speaker 9: this is because I was getting okay, yeah, okay, I
Speaker 9: was wondering.
Speaker 7: Russell's the middle child and Joey is the run the youngest.
Speaker 7: Can I ask you a question that explain so much
Speaker 7: Russell's the middle child? Oh?
Speaker 1: Yeah, you gotta make yourself distinct. What's your question about touring?
Speaker 9: Because I know, since you were the first to ever
Speaker 9: tour like this internationally, there had to be like some mistakes.
Speaker 4: There had to be like some.
Speaker 9: Moments where you and you and Russell were like, okay,
Speaker 9: so we're not going to do this like that again.
Speaker 9: Like there were just so many new things to you guys,
Speaker 9: Like did you even know about writers?
Speaker 4: Did you know? Like what didn't you know that you
Speaker 4: learned in.
Speaker 7: Your first Yes, I had to learn it all.
Speaker 1: I learned it all. Fly. Oh it was incredible.
Speaker 7: I was I was the most sought after live act
Speaker 7: because it was just me and my DJ, just two people,
Speaker 7: two people, two turntables in a microphone.
Speaker 9: Really yes, so not the first to start the entourage,
Speaker 9: right right, So you easy to work with.
Speaker 7: But then Russell in eighty one, Oh boy, yeah, so
Speaker 7: here he comes with Larry Smith. Larry Smith was playing bass,
Speaker 7: play bass on the breaks and Christmas rap and.
Speaker 1: So Larry Smith produced Orange Crust was the band for
Speaker 1: all those for Christmas rap.
Speaker 7: No no, no, no, no, no, not Orange Crushed. That
Speaker 7: came after Russell took forty thousand dollars of my money
Speaker 7: and bought all his band and he gave it to Larry.
Speaker 7: Larry bought the band equipment and they said, all right,
Speaker 7: you're going out with the band. I'm like, what, how
Speaker 7: could you do that? I didn't okay this? He said, way, Hey,
Speaker 7: I'm the manager.
Speaker 2: You built Larry Larry uh Smith's career.
Speaker 7: Well, I got to give props to him because he
Speaker 7: was excellent musician, incredible producer. You know. I remember many
Speaker 7: of the nights we sat up and talked about, you know,
Speaker 7: my sound and trying to get a sound that was
Speaker 7: in between James Brown and Chic and Larry was the man.
Speaker 1: He was definitely the man.
Speaker 2: I love him so who worked on like Christmas wrapping
Speaker 2: and rapping blow.
Speaker 7: And yeah, that was Larry. Larry was on the base.
Speaker 7: But you had John Trope, I was on guitar. And
Speaker 7: we had Jimmy Braylile who actually went on to become
Speaker 7: a Len drum an drum programmer, and he was on drums.
Speaker 7: And you know, so during that time, you know, we
Speaker 7: recorded in the studio like the seventies, in the sixties,
Speaker 7: it was a live band, you know what I mean,
Speaker 7: And and and we had to rehearse and you know,
Speaker 7: let's play it one more time and record it and
Speaker 7: hopefully it would come out.
Speaker 6: Okay, I'm sorry, And we do White Guy in the
Speaker 6: Corner As a question, Yes, John Tropia.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the guitarist.
Speaker 6: Yes, so was he the guitar He's a to me,
Speaker 6: he's the famous jazz guitarist, right and.
Speaker 7: He's on the breaks. Wow, that's his work, that's his
Speaker 7: his work on the break.
Speaker 2: Run DMC stuff that was not well Edie did Martinez,
Speaker 2: Eddie Martinez Eddie.
Speaker 6: Wow, No, I need to process. I'm not schooling on anything,
Speaker 6: but I don't know too much about about him, I
Speaker 6: just I have a few records.
Speaker 4: You know, he don't get blown away easily, but it
Speaker 4: is Curtis.
Speaker 7: That's just so really yeah, unexpected, it was unexpected name yeah, yeah,
Speaker 7: but he's a legend, definitely a legend. And you know,
Speaker 7: I remember seeing him in the studio because of my producer, JB.
Speaker 7: Moore was also a guitar player, and he couldn't do
Speaker 7: the guitars right the way we wanted it and the
Speaker 7: way he wanted it actually, and so when John came
Speaker 7: in and played.
Speaker 11: It perfect, perfect rhythm, and it was just immaculate drives.
Speaker 2: So for your first album, like, whose idea was it
Speaker 2: to do? Like taking care of business?
Speaker 9: Girl?
Speaker 4: What's the other one? That the slow one?
Speaker 1: That's like all.
Speaker 7: Fine that girl.
Speaker 2: People don't even credit that as the first love ballot.
Speaker 2: So it's like for you, you were making in a
Speaker 2: format that was palatable. The radio was like Frankie Crocker
Speaker 2: in your mind, like okay was.
Speaker 1: The label saying we need something that you know right? Well?
Speaker 7: It was all by design, of course, you know, we
Speaker 7: wanted to you know, have a fusion with other forms
Speaker 7: of music because it was so brand new, this thing
Speaker 7: hip hop and rap, you know, so why not rap
Speaker 7: over a rock and roll song? Why not have a
Speaker 7: reggae rap? Or I was the first to do a
Speaker 7: country in Western rap, that Way Out West song. You know,
Speaker 7: you know we we we just tried to be different
Speaker 7: and tried to give something new.
Speaker 1: Was a limit, man.
Speaker 9: I feel in retrospect, though, do you see how like
Speaker 9: free you were in that moment, Because I feel like
Speaker 9: a lot of EMC's today out the gate couldn't just
Speaker 9: say I'm producing that in this different genre.
Speaker 4: I'm like, they won't they wi be allowed to?
Speaker 7: Well, here's the thing. I always wanted to be a singer,
Speaker 7: and I remember singing those singing songs that every album
Speaker 7: I'm put on the singing But listen, folks, it took
Speaker 7: me a couple of weeks to do those.
Speaker 2: So in eighty three, uh in Philadelphia, Uh, Party Time record, Yes,
Speaker 2: which of course you know, well you would know that
Speaker 2: Tracy Lee like try to bring try to bring that back.
Speaker 2: So that was the first time I ever heard Full
Speaker 2: Force on record. So how did you how did you
Speaker 2: hook up with those guys as far as like did
Speaker 2: they produce that record?
Speaker 1: Were they just a band? Or like what was how
Speaker 1: did you guys.
Speaker 7: They became producers after that because we sat in the
Speaker 7: studio and talked about you know, uh JB. Moore and
Speaker 7: Robert Ford and what they were doing on my stuff
Speaker 7: and how they wanted to do the same thing but
Speaker 7: differently more funkier or more creative.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 7: So they were incredible. I met them through JB. Moore
Speaker 7: and Robert Ford and very very very talented musicians and singers,
Speaker 7: and it was incredible just to be a part of that.
Speaker 7: But the Go Go song, talk about it, Trouble for Wow,
Speaker 7: Trouble that was EU you So here it is on
Speaker 7: my birthday, I turned twenty one years old. I had
Speaker 7: the number one record in the country, and so I'm
Speaker 7: going down to play the Capitol Center down in d C.
Speaker 7: So I had my band, remember the Orange Crushed band.
Speaker 7: I ain't got ten Bali's and oh man, we got
Speaker 7: eight eight nine pieces.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: We rolled down into the Capital Center and I'm headlining
Speaker 7: this concert and they have all these local bands there
Speaker 7: and I didn't know what they were, you know what
Speaker 7: it was. So I'm walking the spot.
Speaker 1: I'm here.
Speaker 7: First time, that first time I'm here in gog Tell
Speaker 7: me you were you the whole crowd is going crazy.
Speaker 7: I'm saying, oh, I'm about to tear this.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 7: So they were going crazy and it was a band
Speaker 7: called Trouble Funk. Then another band came on, you Freeze right.
Speaker 7: They went on the same thing, and the crowd is
Speaker 7: going crazy again, even more crazy. So I'm like, wow,
Speaker 7: Chuck Brown was it? Oh my god, right the Godfather.
Speaker 7: He comes out and tears up the spot too. So
Speaker 7: it's my turn. So I locked.
Speaker 1: It, let me music up.
Speaker 7: I throw on Christmas Wrapping. Were playing Christmas Wrapping. The
Speaker 7: band is tight, clean and everything, but the crowd is
Speaker 7: like this looking at us like I'm like, oh my gosh,
Speaker 7: I'm we better get to the breaks and you know
Speaker 7: quick on this one here, right, So I'm speeding through
Speaker 7: the set and then we throw on the brakes. Clap
Speaker 7: your hands there were right, right, and then like.
Speaker 1: Still right. Number one record in country.
Speaker 7: And so that night I got my butt tore up
Speaker 7: three or four different times. And for me it was
Speaker 7: like my mom's always said that you can't beat them,
Speaker 7: join them.
Speaker 1: Hell yeah.
Speaker 7: So I got all that numbers.
Speaker 1: Nice. Nice.
Speaker 7: Next year, I called my boys sugar.
Speaker 1: Bear and Sugar Band playing party.
Speaker 7: We did party time damn. Okay, yeah, okay, and it's
Speaker 7: just wonderful to have them in the studio just doing
Speaker 7: that thing live.
Speaker 4: And how many pieces in the studio in that moment?
Speaker 7: Oh yeah, it was like seven eight pieces.
Speaker 9: Yeah, and so you were the first for that too,
Speaker 9: I'm guessing the first to do a Go Go collap.
Speaker 2: Well, because Flashing them did they did a live version. Well,
Speaker 2: they actually signed Trouble Funk two records. The first live
Speaker 2: Go Go that I've heard it was Trouble Funk Live
Speaker 2: on Sugar Hills.
Speaker 1: So the Robinson's got there early on that.
Speaker 7: And then actually actually the first sample loop right was
Speaker 7: on the song if I Ruled the World, and and
Speaker 7: the sample was Trouble Funk you know that Pump Pump
Speaker 7: Pump push. I took the percussion part and laid it
Speaker 7: under if I Rule the World.
Speaker 2: Okay, Okay, how did that feel for you to have
Speaker 2: that song come back and for people to learn that
Speaker 2: you're you know, you're the origin of of of.
Speaker 1: That particular song, because that's all means so much to fans.
Speaker 12: And he got better harmonies okay, you know it was
Speaker 12: just you and Alison Williams.
Speaker 1: Actually right, that's Alison singing yes, yes, yes, yes, and
Speaker 1: Audrey Wheeler Yes.
Speaker 4: Yes, yes, yes, and harmonies were better.
Speaker 1: It was awesome.
Speaker 7: It's it's the ultimate inflattery to to hear your song
Speaker 7: on the radio that you recorded some time ago. I
Speaker 7: remember when Sony sent me the tape. They sent me
Speaker 7: a cassette tape, and it was awesome. I sat there
Speaker 7: and played the tape in my car for about three hours,
Speaker 7: kept rewinding and rewinding it.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 7: It was like, Oh my god, that's gotta be Laurence Hill.
Speaker 1: That's gotta be Laurence Hill. You know. So I called
Speaker 1: them back.
Speaker 7: I said, look, Sony, you guys got a big, major, major,
Speaker 7: monster hit on you. You better put all your promotion in
Speaker 7: this because this is going platinum. It went triple platinum.
Speaker 9: Yeah, Now, did you think that we're too close or
Speaker 9: the same thing?
Speaker 7: You heard it, but I didn't hear it. I didn't
Speaker 7: hear that song. Like like I sat and you know,
Speaker 7: listened to if I the World because I feel like the.
Speaker 9: Checks are the same, like that song that's played more
Speaker 9: than the World right about next to close.
Speaker 7: It was. It was huge, yet one song of the
Speaker 7: year I think in nineties something Jesus Christ.
Speaker 2: I forgot about Next Day Christ.
Speaker 9: That song like the song that you get annoyed because
Speaker 9: it just played all the time.
Speaker 1: That the dance work.
Speaker 2: You know, as a DJ, I need that song. So
Speaker 2: I get it. I know, uh, I don't want to
Speaker 2: skip eighty four. And I know that your involvement in
Speaker 2: the King celebration thing, yes, it was important. Can you
Speaker 2: tell the story. I've heard the story about you personally
Speaker 2: like Prince funding miss.
Speaker 4: Is this celebrates yeah King?
Speaker 1: Yes, So how did the idea come to be?
Speaker 7: Well, I got a phone call from Dexter Scott King,
Speaker 7: Martin Luther King's son, and it was incredible. Here he goes, hello, Curtis,
Speaker 7: this is Dexter Scott King and I'm the son of
Speaker 7: Martin Luther King. And he sounds like I want you
Speaker 7: to produce.
Speaker 1: A song about my fall.
Speaker 7: So no, no, I hung up on him, right. I
Speaker 7: thought it was a prank. He called me back. I
Speaker 7: hung on him again. So the third time I listened
Speaker 7: to him, I was like, well, he's got to be real.
Speaker 7: He's calling three times. So we got together, became good friends.
Speaker 7: To another guy, Philip Jones, who was the other producer
Speaker 7: on the set, and I went to back to Mercury
Speaker 7: PolyGram and convinced them to sponsor this song, and uh
Speaker 7: they paid for the studio and I called all the
Speaker 7: artists it was no one said no. So the idea
Speaker 7: was to use all the people that weren't in We
Speaker 7: Are the World right.
Speaker 2: And so.
Speaker 7: Houston Whitney said yes, and uh Stephanie Mills said yes, man,
Speaker 7: no with Ricky it was incredible.
Speaker 1: You give us one note?
Speaker 2: Who was the one artist is like mm, yeah, I'll
Speaker 2: make it and then didn't know.
Speaker 7: Everyone said yeah, it was incredible. It's such a meaningful song,
Speaker 7: you know. To be a part of that, and it was.
Speaker 7: It was a lot of fun to make, you know.
Speaker 4: Uh.
Speaker 7: So, so the record company did not want to pay.
Speaker 1: For the video the music video, okay, so.
Speaker 7: Uh dexter dex went and and and got with Prince
Speaker 7: and asked Prince when he paid for it. And he
Speaker 7: calls me up and said, Prince said he's gonna put
Speaker 7: up ninety thousand dollars for his music video. And I
Speaker 7: was like, oh my gosh, yes it did. And Prince
Speaker 7: and I became friends after that. I mean, he was
Speaker 7: really really a nice guy. I forgot and you know me,
Speaker 7: I'm trying to, you know, hang out with all the
Speaker 7: stars that I could. And so I went back to
Speaker 7: my record company and said, ook o.
Speaker 1: Something for me and Prince. We got to do something together.
Speaker 7: So they did Beverly Page. She hooked up this picture
Speaker 7: autograph session with me and Prince. I think we were
Speaker 7: in Detroit somewhere, and the club was packed. There's a
Speaker 7: line outside of all these women, right, and so Prince
Speaker 7: signs about fifteen hundred autographs and takes about fifteen hundred
Speaker 7: pictures and me, I took about ten pictures.
Speaker 1: Really, he was a big he was superstar. People loved him. Man,
Speaker 1: what a great guy. Wow, yep, yep. Still uncharacteristic of them. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you never know.
Speaker 2: Working on the Crush Groove sound movie, Yes, well obviously
Speaker 2: you know we know that's based on the life of
Speaker 2: Russell Simmons. But how was that experience for you in general?
Speaker 7: Well, it was it was a lot of hard work.
Speaker 7: I'll tell you the truth, because during that time I
Speaker 7: was a producer, and so I was producing the Fat
Speaker 7: Boys second album and producing my America album with If
Speaker 7: I Row the World on it, and also the Crush
Speaker 7: Groove soundtrack. So I was producing three albums at one
Speaker 7: time and had deadlines and all that. So I was
Speaker 7: going to three different studios every day.
Speaker 12: You know.
Speaker 1: It was hard work, hard work.
Speaker 7: And then I had to wake up at six in
Speaker 7: the morning to get on film set, you know, to
Speaker 7: do the movie. And it was a lot of work.
Speaker 7: As a matter of fact, I kind of like took
Speaker 7: a break.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: The last thing I did was a Martin Luther King song,
Speaker 7: and then I took a break for about five years.
Speaker 7: Didn't go into the studio, couldn't go in.
Speaker 1: Too much working. It was too much because he didn't
Speaker 1: produce the third Fat Boys record. No, what was it like?
Speaker 1: Just man, Well, were you managing them at the time
Speaker 1: or just not using them.
Speaker 7: Their manager was a guy by the name of Charlie
Speaker 7: Stetler from Right Right and he also manages Scribbles, DJ
Speaker 7: Scribbles and Doctor Dre and ed Lover from your MTV raps.
Speaker 7: But Charlie was their manager and they were signed to
Speaker 7: Suture Records and Mars Levy it was it was.
Speaker 1: Marsh Levy on Sutra.
Speaker 7: Yeah, oh wow, oh yeah, yo.
Speaker 1: That explains a lot.
Speaker 2: I never thought after Rule Records and the hit Man Book,
Speaker 2: I thought mars Levy.
Speaker 1: You got hit Man, like is not good book is
Speaker 1: hit Man? You know right sleeve owns Sutra.
Speaker 7: But they were some good guys man, you know from Brooklyn,
Speaker 7: good Fellas and None the Fat Boys, you know.
Speaker 2: Those guys man Jesus Christ. Yeah, Like for me, that
Speaker 2: album managed you captured their their humor spirit in a
Speaker 2: way that you know, hip hop hadn't seen before. And
Speaker 2: especially that first record like that. I think everyone that's
Speaker 2: of my age now like that was their first experience,
Speaker 2: either that or the run DMC record. But yeah, just producing,
Speaker 2: I mean, how hard was it trying to explain like
Speaker 2: they don't need music and just beat the culture beatboxing?
Speaker 2: And how how did you manage it? How many takes
Speaker 2: would it take to get like those songs?
Speaker 1: They were great in the studio. It was awesome them.
Speaker 7: What is on the record that humor that that that
Speaker 7: that genuine personality comes through? Because I just you know,
Speaker 7: let the record button go and I remember buff rest
Speaker 7: in peace. He said one time he said.
Speaker 1: Yo yo yo, Kurt Man, Yo yo, All I want.
Speaker 7: Is a call. He got two houses and all of
Speaker 7: this stuff. Man, and these guys were incredible and they
Speaker 7: love music. I found out as a producer. The basic
Speaker 7: job of a producer is to make people's dreams come true.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: You take them around a basis and bring them home
Speaker 7: and when you get home, you know you have that
Speaker 7: finished product. And that's our job.
Speaker 2: Well, how where was it letting a fourteen year old
Speaker 2: produce you because salam Remy got to start as a
Speaker 2: fourteen year old kid.
Speaker 7: Well, like, he had the tracks, you know, and I
Speaker 7: wanted to give him a shot. His dad was a
Speaker 7: very good friend. He worked at the record company. He
Speaker 7: was one of the promoters promotion department. He actually introduced
Speaker 7: me to his son and said, you know, he's got
Speaker 7: some good stuff. And I said, well, I'll give him
Speaker 7: a shot.
Speaker 1: How about that? You know.
Speaker 7: So he did the back by Popularity the Man song,
Speaker 7: you know, and that was great. He actually asked Molly
Speaker 7: mar to do the scratches on it, and Mally came
Speaker 7: down to the studio really because of his kid, and
Speaker 7: got on the record and started scratching and wow, the
Speaker 7: rest is history.
Speaker 1: It's crazy.
Speaker 2: So, at the end of the day, what do you
Speaker 2: want your legacy to be? As far as your I mean,
Speaker 2: you've done so many things to be first of this
Speaker 2: and first of that, like where do you see the
Speaker 2: history of hip hop as far as like preserving it
Speaker 2: and those types of things like how do you want
Speaker 2: to see the culture preserved?
Speaker 1: Well, what do you think of rap today? That question?
Speaker 7: Well, you know, there's there's a project we're working on
Speaker 7: called the Universal Hip Hop Museum where we want to
Speaker 7: document this history and put it in a brick and
Speaker 7: mortar location where the whole world can come and visit
Speaker 7: and see and be a part of it. And just
Speaker 7: you know, the many stories, the many uh lives, and
Speaker 7: the many careers and and the so much talent that
Speaker 7: has been a part of this way of life that
Speaker 7: it needs to be documented. It needs to be stored
Speaker 7: and cherished and supported in one place, and we're doing that,
Speaker 7: working on that right now. So you can go to
Speaker 7: u h h M dot org to find out more
Speaker 7: information about the Universal Hip Hop Museum. But as for me,
Speaker 7: I want people to remember me as as a guy
Speaker 7: who actually was a big part of practical study, so
Speaker 7: very important even in music. Whatever it is that you
Speaker 7: want to do in life, I think that practical study
Speaker 7: is very important. You go and do your research in
Speaker 7: that field of whatever it is. Doctor lawyer, businessman, rapper, singer,
Speaker 7: DJ doesn't matter. Study the history of it, and within
Speaker 7: that history, find out someone who was successful and study
Speaker 7: the steps that they took to achieve that success, and
Speaker 7: then repeat those steps, mimic those steps, and then I
Speaker 7: guarantee you also will achieve success.
Speaker 9: So do you think then, basically, since you were the
Speaker 9: first in so many situations, Because I'm thinking as you're speaking,
Speaker 9: I'm like Curtis Blow is sitting next to us. He
Speaker 9: was the first person to get a major endorsement deal, right,
Speaker 9: nineteens are just bloomer endorsement deals. Basically, it seems like
Speaker 9: it should be a part of the education matriculation of
Speaker 9: an MC right to have a Curtis Blow education since
Speaker 9: you were reverse right, I mean there are other classes
Speaker 9: on others.
Speaker 7: Well, I'm a big, avid supporter of education.
Speaker 1: Education.
Speaker 7: Education is the key to success, is the key to
Speaker 7: getting out of the ghetto. Research, you know, bring the
Speaker 7: classroom into the culture, and the culture into the classroom.
Speaker 7: Very important doing your research, like I said, and we
Speaker 7: as rappers just speaking on rap, you know, the oratory,
Speaker 7: we are orators, we are communicators. So I majored in
Speaker 7: communications and studied the greatest orators of our time like
Speaker 7: Barbara Jordan and Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Malcolm X.
Speaker 7: And I found out that we have all of these
Speaker 7: options and windows that we can open, doors that we
Speaker 7: can open as the orators of this culture, like for instance,
Speaker 7: public speaking politics. You have broadcasting, you know, uh, television, radio, broadcasting, journalism.
Speaker 1: Uh, here's one for your preaching. I've got you our
Speaker 1: father Walker, you're.
Speaker 7: Correct ordained minister and and so and so you know,
Speaker 7: and study your all. Studying all of the great orators
Speaker 7: of our time, I found out that the most passionate
Speaker 7: of the speakers, the oratory or the orators were the
Speaker 7: preachers and the reverence. You know, many of those speeches
Speaker 7: like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. You know that
Speaker 7: gave me the fortitude and and the will and want
Speaker 7: to take it to the next level in this field.
Speaker 7: And as an MC, that means that you're a master
Speaker 7: of the ceremony. It doesn't matter what the ceremony is.
Speaker 7: You can be on the street corner and a circle
Speaker 7: full of twenty people. You can you at a club,
Speaker 7: you can be at a block party or a park jam.
Speaker 7: You can be at a community center. You can be
Speaker 7: at a concert with five people or twenty thousand. You know,
Speaker 7: you can be at a bar mitzvah, you know, wherever
Speaker 7: it is. I've played a couple of bar mins for
Speaker 7: in my time. Yes, yes, and you know so that
Speaker 7: is the story. You are a master of any ceremony.
Speaker 9: I don't know anybody who has used their communications degree
Speaker 9: to the levels that you have. In this moment, I
Speaker 9: just realized that I was like all my life, I
Speaker 9: think as a communications major, I was like, maybe I
Speaker 9: should have did business and something like that.
Speaker 4: But now that you've broken it down like that, No, you.
Speaker 7: Got some windows, you got some communication.
Speaker 1: You're literally I.
Speaker 9: Am, but I you know, you got to have some
Speaker 9: multiple hustles, as you know yourself as a former radio host.
Speaker 1: Yes, yes, I.
Speaker 7: Just want to stay away from politics these days.
Speaker 2: More people like you, you know, and in front of
Speaker 2: the masses. You know, what can I say? Wait, I
Speaker 2: want to mention that the please I totally forgot. I'm
Speaker 2: still caring in the history, I totally forgot. So yeah,
Speaker 2: the hip Hop Nutcracker explained to me this project, like how.
Speaker 7: Wow, Well, the hip Hop Nutcracker is a modernized version
Speaker 7: of the classic Tchaikovsky's incredible classical music. We are now
Speaker 7: uh doing hip hop dance and break dancing and and
Speaker 7: and ballet and and and uh bringing the story uh
Speaker 7: to the masses with the the culture of hip hop
Speaker 7: in the forefront. And so it's a new modernized version.
Speaker 7: Is really something that every family should see is doing
Speaker 7: the holiday season, you know, when when when love is
Speaker 7: in the air and everyone's hugging on each other and
Speaker 7: trying to thank each other for putting up with you
Speaker 7: all year long. You know, just go out and have
Speaker 7: a great time seeing this classic, classic rendition of Chaikovsky's hit.
Speaker 2: But so like all the songs are filtered through hip hop,
Speaker 2: so there's like trap versions of the sugar Plum song.
Speaker 1: Thing thing thing I might need to do that.
Speaker 7: It's incredible because we have a DJ who is actually
Speaker 7: playing beats under this classic music, and we have an
Speaker 7: electric violinist who's doing their things. But the creators of
Speaker 7: Jennifer Weber want to give her a shout out. She's
Speaker 7: also the choreographer and director and Michael Fittterson Uh put
Speaker 7: together this piece that is a great, great holiday family
Speaker 7: fun classic. So it's it's it's a it's it's a
Speaker 7: show that everyone needs to see. All ages, all races
Speaker 7: don't matter. It's incredible. It's it's really a good look
Speaker 7: for hip hop and a good look for music in general.
Speaker 1: That's good. I mean for you being on the forefront of.
Speaker 2: One of the first hip hop ballets, and I mean
Speaker 2: you were there when hip hop was in stadiums with
Speaker 2: the Fresh Fest.
Speaker 1: And to go from there all the way.
Speaker 2: To to where we are now, that's that's quite a journey.
Speaker 2: We thank you for coming on the show.
Speaker 7: Yeah, I thank you for having me, you know, and
Speaker 7: a big shout out to all the dancers who are
Speaker 7: part of that because we have so much talent that's
Speaker 7: out there.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 7: These young dancers are coming out, you know, from all
Speaker 7: over the world, and they have so much mad flavor,
Speaker 7: so many different styles from power moves to you know,
Speaker 7: to to the wave to pop locking. You know, it's
Speaker 7: incredible to see how it's all look together and how
Speaker 7: Jennifer whoever did this thing and the choreography is incredible.
Speaker 12: Wow.
Speaker 1: Oh thank you.
Speaker 9: Can I thank John and your wife Shirley too, because
Speaker 9: this has been like a year and a half in
Speaker 9: the work. We're here, like thank you, Shirley, thank you,
Speaker 9: Thank you.
Speaker 2: Well, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the crew, the
Speaker 2: Team Supreme, Unpaid, Bill Boss, Bill Sugar, Steven Laia, This
Speaker 2: of course, Love, thank you very much.
Speaker 6: Uh whose formats for?
Speaker 1: Did you? Did you pleasure? I know them? We are
Speaker 1: stopping right here, you know this, of course, Love Supreme.
Speaker 1: We'll see you on the next one round.
Speaker 7: Thank you.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.