Random Galore

Eric Orr Interview

HIPHOP ROBOT

I don’t even know if you cats know that I did a hiphop comic book back in the days. Let me see if I can find it (pulls out the comic book “Rappin’ Max Robot”).

I had this comic book out, before all these cats started doing these vinyl toys & everything. This came out in ‘86, so I was way ahead of these cats. I even had Keith (Haring) put his ad in the back of the comic. And if you read it, it’s written like a rap.

I was trying to do these vinyl figures 20 years ago, but at the time, they weren’t doing any short runs of vinyl figures. Everything had to be like 10,000 pieces or more. I went to a company with this plush doll (shows a picture of the doll) , but they wasn’t doing no short runs. They was like “rap’s not gonna last”. But look at it now. It’s everywhere, you know. This doll was made a year after I met Keith (Haring).

KEITH HARING

-How did you meet Keith?

It’s an interesting story. It was in the winter of ’83-84. I was drawing on these black spaces that Keith was also painting & drawing his figures on. But when he would go out of town to do shows overseas, all the spaces was left to me. So I would get ALL the spaces on the 6, 5 and the 4 lines. And when he came back, there was no spaces left for him to draw on! So he was asking people “who’s this cat that keeps taking up all the spaces??”

They had this dance contest at the Roxy. It was actually the Swatch watch breakdance contest. I drew the robot head on my shirt and I went there with my buddy Michael (Easy Mike). We’re standing out there, watching everybody doing their thing. I believe it was Whodini that was performing. Anyway, I see this figure coming at me through the crowd, cuz he saw the robot image on my chest. It was this kid, Keith. He comes up to me and says “oh, so you’re the cat that does the robot head!” Hence the name “robot head”. He basically gave the name to my character. I wasn’t really sure if he was a police or what, cuz you know this white kid coming up to me from nowhere, so I’m like who are you? and he introduced himself and told me that he’s the one that draws the baby characters. He said “everytime I leave town, you’re taking up all the spaces & there’s no spaces for me to draw on!!” So we agreed to get together sometime & do some projects together.

He left for Milan shortly after that, but when he got back in September, he called me up

and asked if I wanted to do some drawings together. So I met him down on Astor, and that whole day, we went from like 59th Street from the 6/4 line all the way down to the Brooklyn Bridge. I did a drawing, he did a drawing, we did a drawing together at every single station on that line! And at the end of the day, I think it was about 7-7:30, we went to get something to eat and then went to his studio. While at the studio, we did some of the drawings we drew at the station on paper. I still have some of those

(shows us some pictures of the drawings). I drew a TV for him and he drew his character inside my TV. He drew a TV for me and I did my character inside his TV, vice versa.

The Keith Haring Foundation gave me permission to make T-shirts and we did a limited run. I was getting ready to do a counting book for kids too, but I’m still working on that.

STRONG CITY



Everybody from that era, from Strong City is younger than me. I met Jazzy in ??? high school in the Bronx. He took carpentry and I took carpentry, but I was a year ahead of him. While we were in the shop classes, he was building speakers and I was building speakers. That’s basically how we befriended each other. And I kinda knew that he was in that whole rap thing, but I didn’t really get into the music cuz I was so into the art. I was still doing early graffiti, meaning that using typography and all that kinda stuff. But one day, because he lived in Bronx River and I lived in Parkchester, we crossed paths.

I had a cousin that lived on Elder Avenue, so I used to be by Bronx River all the time. So I’m over there and I happen to run into him. And he’s like yo I’m starting this company and I’m getting ready to build a studio on Blondel Avenue and I need a logo. Now at the time, no one was doing characters with their logos. It was mostly typed. So I developed this Jazzy logo with the hand scratching. That was the very first logo for Strong City. I did that for him and he went on tour. I believe he was just finishing up the Planet Rock stuff and he had just started working on some Beastie and Slick Rick stuff. But he had the record out with T La Rock, so he was touring & performing with T La Rock, but he was also working in his studio on Blondel with the Slick Rick, L.L., Beastie projects. Bits and pieces of that stuff. Anyway, everybody was digging the logo, so one thing led to another and I made this big banner for the studio. Then Jazzy was approached by Rocky Bucano, who already had Masters of Ceremony. Not really signed to him, but knew of them because they were from the same area. So he brought Masters of Ceremony down to the studio to mix a song they had before “Cracked Out”. I can’t remember the name of the song right now. Anyway, they mixed that one and that’s how the Masters of Ceremony was brought into the mix, through Rocky Bucano at Blondel Avenue. I believe they shopped that record to MCA or someone like that and because they knew Jazzy Jay through Planet Rock, they wanted to start a label. So they got the deal from MCA/Uni. How I came into the play was, Jazzy, because he’s a good brother, said yo I know a cat that’s got the look and knows what’s going on in the streets. We need to bring Eric in so we can make it look like what it needs to look like, this urban look. I came in and designed the Strong City logo. The guy standing with the Kangol on backwards and the letters Strong City in an arch. The funny story behind that was Jazzy loved that logo, but Rocky wasn’t really thrilled with it, so that’s how we got the logo with just the man standing. So the compromise was that we’re gonna keep the man with the strong arm, but we’re gonna lose the Strong City arch and add the boom box, cuz the box was sitting on the floor. By the way, there’s no model to that man. I just came up with that chracter. Another funny thing is now that Jazzy is getting ready to re-issue all the Strong City stuff (through Traffic Entertainment), the original logo (rejected by Rocky) is gonna be on all the re-issues!

So then we got all the groups together and we asked them what exactly they wanted me to do. And pretty much everybody was feeling what I did, so I designed Ice Cream Tee’s logo, Don Baron, Ultimate Force, Nu-Sounds, etc. And by that time, we moved up to Allerton Avenue. The studio was bigger so we had, not only his groups, but we had people come through like (Fat) Joe. Fat Joe’s first demo that got him on was done at the Jazzy Jay Studio. Some of the Tribe stuff from their first album was done at that studio with Skeff Anselm. Guru dropped a tape by to Rocky and Rocky didn’t like it. So that’s how he got picked up by Wild Pitch. It was just countless cats that was coming through and using the facility to make music. Black, Rock & Ron recoded and hung out at the studio. It was the place to be. Bam came through and made a couple of records over there.

-What exactly was Rocky Bucano’s role at Strong City?

He was the president. He was making decisions, not always the “best” decisions. He used to be a switcher for Channel 9 (WORT) in New Jesey. He was definitely into the music. Music and television are kinda close, and he knew a lot of people in the industry like Russell Simmons, etc. I think they went to school together.

It was a good time. I met some good people up there and a lot of good music came through there. Diamond’s first album was done there. I mean, that’s a classic!! Finesse’s stuff was done there. Showbiz & AG, Brand Nubian’s stuff was done there. The pre-production stuff was always done there. If you wanted the stuff to sound grimy, and have that real urban feeling, you’d come up to the studio and vibe with everybody that’s there. Then, you’d want to sharpen it up by taking it down to Calliope or whatever place like that. But to get the real root of the music, it would go on at Jazzy’s studio.

I liked working there a lot, it was pretty cool. And I turned out to be the studio manager, too. I was wearing a couple of hats. I was the art director and the studio manager, so I was making sure people made it on time and stuff like that. It was a good time.

The studio burnt down in the late 90’s, after it moved to Brooklyn. So it was Blondel, Allerton, Brooklyn and now he has one in his house in Brooklyn.

ATLANTA, GA.

When I came back in the winter of 2003, I sort an old friend Lenny, who you probably know as Futura 2000. He asked me if I knew this guy Lev from Toy Tokyo and told me that they’re doing this train show. So I went over to Lev and told him about myself & my icon. I painted up one of the trains for this exhibition and that’s how I got back to the whole graffiti movement.

-Back to the logos

Joeski Love was another cat that lived around here. He saw my Strong City stuff and asked me to do a logo for him. I think he was from Parkchester. As a matter of fact, he lives in Co-op City right now.

-What about WHOP records? Was that label based out of the Bronx?

Actually, I believe it had to do with either Whipper Whip or Vandy C. It was based wherever Vandy was from. . I think he was from Queens. Same place as where Kid ‘N’ Play was from. WHOP is the only thing that I worked on, that wasn’t from the Bronx. Every other logo that I made was from the Bronx.

-The Rhino Committee

It was a group that Bambaataa brought down, but I don’t know too much about them. They were on a compilation that Bambaataa put out.

-Rowdy Records

Rowdy Records was not based in the Bronx. But it kinda came from the Bronx, cuz Rowdy was affiliated with Rocky and Jazzy through Dallas Austin, the same guy that produced TLC. Dallas Austin wanted to work badly with Diamond D, so we brought him up to Jazzy Jay Studio to meet Diamond. Then Rocky and Dallas started talking. I think the first collabo between Diamond and Rowdy was for a group called Illegal. When Dallas was ready to start Rowdy Records, since he liked the old logos I did, he asked me to do a logo for Rowdy. So the label was based in Atlanta, but the artwork was created in the Bronx at Jazzy’s studio. And incidentally, Rowdy stayed in Atlanta for a year or so and then it moved up to New York. It was on 23rd Street for a little bit. I think after Dallas’ brother passed away, it moved back to Atlanta.

-Positive K

Positive K came through via Puba. Him and Puba was really cool, and Positive was cool with Bam, and he was also cool with LG. LG is also a part of the whole Bam thing. Anyway, he was coming out with the single “Night Shift”. He needed a logo for the single and off course he came to me, cuz he liked the look, the grittiness of the sound and it kinda fit together. So I gave him the “+K”. Very simple. I mean, it looks simple, but it took forever to come up with that idea (laughs).

-Busy Bee

You know Busy Bee comes from Strong City, and he grew up with Jazzy. That bee logo is one of my classics!

-Did you mainly do just logos?

I did all of the 12” single covers & the LP covers for Strong City like Jazzy Jay “Cold Chillin’ In the Studio”, Don Baron, Ice Cream Tee, Nu-Sounds, Masters of Ceremony “Dynamite” LP, etc. I also did the Ultimate Force LP cover, which is getting ready to be released for the first time through Traffic in 2006. I did most of the DITC logos like Showbiz & AG triangle logo, Finesse’s logos, Diamond’s logo, etc.

-DJ Fashion

Fashion was from uptown in the Bronx. If you know anything about the whole park situation, when we used to play out in the parks, he was the man to go see uptown in the Bronx, like 223rd. If you went to Bronx River, you’d go see Bam or Jazzy. If you went across town, you’d go see Red Alert or Flash. If you go further down, you’d go see Kool Herc. The man definitely has some history. He goes way back. In the 90s, he toured with Bam as his DJ and worked on a group called Strickly Roots. I think he lives in Florida now.

-Def Duo and other groups on the Jazzy Jay album.

That was Rocky’s crew from Co-op City. I knew everybody on Strong City. The only person that wasn’t from the Bronx was Ice Cream Tee. She was from Philly. And Tony D was from Trenton. I think they were brought in the Jazzy Jay project because Rocky was a friend of a radio DJ in Philly named Lady B. She had Ice Cream Tee and was looking for her deal. So Rocky, in order to get his records played out in Philly, tells Lady B to bring her on. I think that’s how Tony D came in. Tony was friends with either Ice Cream Tee or her DJ, Miz. Everybody knows everybody in this business. That’s why you can’t burn your bridges on your way up man. It’s a small, small universe, nah mean?

Kool Moe Dee Interview

Q: PLEASE TELL US ABOUT THE BOOK “THERE’S A GOD ON THE MIC: The True 50 Greatest MCs”. HOW LONG DID IT TAKE YOU TO COMPILE ALL THIS INTO A BOOK?

A: It only took two and a half months to actually write the book. I’m a hiphop fan as well as an artist, so I’ve always studied and paid attention to everybody. When I buy an album/listen to an artist, I’m not just listening for the hits. Usually, I wanna see what the artist is about, what he’s talking about and where’s he coming from. I’ve always been over-analytical that way. In the last 4-5 years, you saw the Greatest Rock & Roll Artists, Top 50 Greatest R&R Songs, so on & so forth. So you knew at some point, it was gonna get to hiphop. By 2000, BET does its list of greatest MCs, then I saw MTV at the 22 Greatest earlier this year, VH1 had the 50 Greatest Hiphop Artist, etc. The problem is, nobody seems to understand the difference between an MC, a rapper & a hiphop artist. It was a mixture of the same artist over & over again, and everything had to do with making records ONLY. That’s one dimension of being an MC. There’s tons of people who are better live than on wax, and there’s tons of people who are great on wax that can’t do live. So from that point, I said it’s time for me to write a book, and try to give a better balanced description of how many elements there are to being a great MC. You know, I hear MCs like even Jay-Z on his Black Album right now, saying that he’s the greatest MC (all MCs are included). But for me, if you’re gonna claim to be the greatest, you would have had to said more profound things than how much money you make or just making money or being successful. That doesn’t define greatness. You know Michael Jordan isn’t a great basketball player because he’s won championships. Even though the media will plant it that way, that’s the American capitalist way of looking at things. But if you start to break it down, Michael Jordan is great because of his ability to play and how he wins, and how he leads his team or whatever. And then there’s other people who are great like Karl Malone, who hasn’t won a championship, but you can’t say he’s not one of the greatest basketball players that ever played the game. So, I felt the same thing is going on in the world of hiphop. No one seems to be analyzing it from enough of a well-rounded angle. So, you take somebody like Chuck D and all of the profound things that he said throughout his career. That is absolutely of greatness. But for Chuck D to be not be considered “one of the greatest” or even “Top 10 MCs”, to me that’s a travesty. Your substance matters for something. I understood why a lot of people loved 2 Pac, because 2 Pac was absolutely more well-rounded than a lot of other MCs. The way he approached his career, he actually made records & talked about things that the average MC wasn’t talking about. So there’s greatness there & I wouldn’t argue about 2 Pac being great, but even in the tracking from 2 Pac side, from the MC, it was never really very intricately, lyrically done. It was profound in its statement, but it was also simplistic in its form, or in his delivery. So I’m like you know what, there’s a balance here. Some people having an above the rim game, it’s almost like a basketball player have a great jump shot, another one has a great dribble, the other one has a great inside power game, the other one’s a great pass/assist master or whatever. But then you get that one guy that does ALL of that, maybe not at the greatest level, but he does it at a high enough level, that he’s the most well-rounded person, so he might be the greatest based on that & that’s what I was trying to do with this book.

Q: DID THIS ALL STEM FROM THE INSERT OF “HOW YA LIKE ME NOW” (THE REPORT CARD)?

A:When I did How Ya Like Me Now with the report card, that was basically/truthfully my personal way of setting the separation in the public’s eye from myself, L.L. Cool J and Run DMC. That was truthfully the genesis of the report card because so many people were making claims & I said the “hiphop MC ego” is outta control. We all think we’re the best, we all think that nobody can touch us or whatever. And my thing was, it was just amazing to see how somebody can be as simplistic as Run & still say he’s the best, when he KNOWS he’s not doing certain things at a certain level. Didn’t mean he wasn’t a great MC on a certain level, but when you start saying you’re the best, that should mean something. It’s almost like telling somebody that you love them. That should actually mean something. You shouldn’t just say it. So for me, my competitve juices got going. And again, like I said, I was over-analytical with nothing else & I thought that we needed to break this down on a level where peeple could understand there’s different elements to doing what we do. Off course it’s always controversial because you’re dealing with people’s mindsets, emotions and sentiments & what they’re passionate about. And the one thing that’s a real key for the book & for how I view the MC thing is, most fans can not see beyond the beat. If they like the record & they like how you sound on the record, they usually like the MC. And if you can get a series of records that they like, you’re gonna be considered great by fan, because of them loving your records. But I always said that I can see behind the beat. I can see what you’re doing & what you’re not doing cuz the music is not in the way for me. The music can compliment it or you can compliment the music, whichever way you wanna look at it. But for me, I can always focus on the MC and see while Snoop is not a great lyricist, he’s an excellent rapper. Because he flows excellently in the groove, his voice stands out, he has a very very smooth tone & he’s an excellent artist. But that doesn’t mean that I’m sitting there looking at it like it’s Shakespeare, either. Because I understand, in it’s simplicity, there’s the magic. And everybody’s not shooting for the same thing. But when you start to say you’re the greatest, now you get into what we call you need to be scrutinized a little bit differently. So that was the genesis of why I even did that report card in the first place.

Q: WE GOTTA GO HOLLYWOOD. WHATS UP WITH THE MOVIE/ACTING CAREER OF KOOL MOE DEE?

A: (Laughs) Well I’m actually just doing films just because I’m an artist all the way around. I’ve written screen plays & I’m going to do the same thing I did in hiphop with the film side. The only problem I have with the way our entertainment industry works is, I looked at it as an alternative to the corporate structure. I had no idea, naively, of how corporate structure of the entertainment actually is. You’re not gonna get away from big business. It’s all about dollars and cents. You have number crunches making decisions at every level, in every single facet of entertainment. If somebody doesn’t think that they can make a dollar off it, it doesn’t get done. The unfortunate part is art usually is compromised by money, so the long answer of why I’m not really doing but so many films is because I have to control it at this point. I have to write my own screen plays, either direct if not produce or direct, as opposed to just acting it, because I can’t do what I call the audition set in the power structure. I’ve actually just written a film called “The Fat Pack”, but it’s based on the “Rat Pack” like Dean Martin, Sammy & all those guys. It’s 5 old school rappers coming to Vegas & trying to revitalize their careers. So it’s a loose comedy or tramady kinda thing. It’s myself, Big Daddy Kane, Doug E. Fresh, Tone Loc and between Heavy D. & Markie Dee. Heavy D kinda passed on it, but we’ll see if we can talk him into it. It’s a pretty interesting little concept of how we go to Vegas and try to make things happen all over again & find that there is an audience. The irony of this is, it’s reality kinda meets perception because the one thing that we have a problem in hiphop is, old school artists have an audience that the business seem to not believe exist. Yet, we do old school shows & they sell out. And I’m like, wait a minute, you’re telling me that there’s not a hiphop market over 35? But L.L. and Will Smith ARE 35 (laughs). What perception over reality thing do we have going here? You don’t think you can translate into record sales, but don’t people over 35 have more money than children? Tap in! (laughs) There’s a market waiting to be exploited so that’s part of the reason I even started doing the film stuff anyway, because the adult market (musically) doesn’t seem to have an outlet. I’d love to get a new Aretha Franklin album or if Diana Ross did an album I’ll buy it. Stevie Wonder, I don’t have to hear it to buy it. There’s a loyalty among fans that the record industry still hasn’t put together for hiphop, they just don’t understand. I absolutely love Rakim. So if Rakim puts an album out, I’m picking it up. I don’t need to hear a single. The promotion is already done. And it’s done if we sold platinum before, you’re telling me all my million fans died? Every one of them? I don’t think so. So, I’ve gone platinum before, I’m sure that there’s at least half of my people still in the planet & if I come with a half decent record, it’s gonna work. So that’s why I’m in the studio right now.

Q: GOING WAY BACK, WHO CAME UP WITH THE FAST RAPﾓ FIRST? YOU OR SPECIAL K? WHATﾕS THE INSPIRATION FOR IT?

A: The fast rhyme thing comes from me always pushing the envelope. If I took the past & put it in present, I love a lot of what hiphop is doing sonically & collectively. Collectively, as not moving in a direction that seems to be big enough, it’s almost like was stagnated into a one-note money, drugs, bling-bling, party. And it’s like, wow… We don’t have anything else to talk about? So, at this point, I would be doing the same thing that I was doing at that point. At that point, it was simplistic, it was more innocent. But it also had gotten into a one-note party “Say ho!”, “Say blow!”, etc. and I was like, nobody’s doing anything with the rhyme style. Melle Mel, to me, was the best at the time. I just started getting familiar with Grandmaster Caz, who was also one of the best at the time. For me, being known as one of the best at the same time simultaneously, I just felt like I needed to come up with something that would push it. Give it something different that hasn’t happened. And literally, from one little piece I heard Kid Creole pass the mic to Melle Mel & he said “Melle Mel, my flesh & blood is simply being the joint.” And I was like, oh that was interesting. That was a nice rhythm there. And I was thinking, why don’t you keep that rhythm going and do the whole rhyme in a cadence. (Busts a fast rhyme) There it is! I have found the secret! This is the new way!! From that point on, everywhere I went it became the highlight of what it was. And then you know, everybody was very rhythmic & they would move or whatever, so I created this whole robotic persona, so it was almost like it was Max Headroom there. I would lower my voice a little bit, and just robotically machine metronome precision like (busts another fast rhyme) & the crowd would just go berzerk!! My partner Special K (from the Treacherous 3) heard me do it one day in the lunchroom at school. Cuz I never rhymed at school, noone even knew that I rhymed. I was like the silent assassin. And Special K was the exact opposite. He was walking around the school like it was West Side Story, with people behind him clapping their hands & he’d be rhyming. And it was almost like a comedy. I would sit in a math class and hear claps. I’d look out the window and there’s Special K & there’s like 20 heads behind him! And going to the bathroom, I look over the banister, there’s Special K & there’s 20 heads behind him. He was literally like the Pied Piper walking around the school with people following him around, ALWAYS rhyming. Anyway, we were one of the high schools (Norman Thomas) that had music in the cafeteria, which was unheard of back then. And so people from other schools would come to our school at lunchtime, just to come in & see Special K, because he could really really rhyme. And I never rhymed, but one day I decided to get on. So I got a friend of mine, DJ Dano B to play the Headhunters “God Made Me Funky”. Everybody at the time would rhyme off stuff like “Good Times” and Cheryl Lynn’s “Got To Be Real”, you know real dancy things. But I thought that’s the wrong strategy if you’re trying to be known as an MC. I mean you can be known and you can make people dance. But when people are dancing, it’s about them. It’s not about you. I had the narcissistic, ego-centric MC world. Nah, I don’t want you to dance. I want you to LISTEN to me. So play a record that they can’t dance to. (Beatboxes “God Made Me Funky”) Then I put the fast cadence on a slow beat, so now they can hear it clearer. The lunchroom explodes and K looked at me & it was almost like I stole his lunchroom crowd. When I came in with that, it became an instant talk of the town. And I’m just sitting there like a Chinese master like “We only fight when necessary” (laughs). Sure enough, the next day, Special K comes at me. He called me into this little room and did his whole fast rhyme & just walked out. So in other words, he was telling me “I got your style. This may be considered biting but you’re NOT gonna show up at the lunchroom!!” (laughs) I remember when he walked away, I was so impressed first of all, because the rhyme was dope. He caught the cadence overnight. He did it at a masterful level AND this is like taboo back then. This is BITING! But I love it!! So, it was flattering on one hand, but I was really impressed. And right after that, within a week, we went into rehearsal with the original Treacherous Three (Spoonie G, L.A. Sunshine & KMD). And Spoonie has this acetate wax thing and says “I’ve got a little bit of surprise for you guys” and puts it on: “You say a one for the treble, two for the time. Come on y’all let’s rock tha…” and I’m like “You made a record??” We’re at practice for the group and… you made a record?? So I’m kinda happy for him on one hand, but I’m also out of the mix here. WE didn’t make a record. YOU made a record! So, shortly after that, Spoonie went and started doing his own project & we needed a replacement for Spoonie. So I went to K and said “since you’ve seem to have mastered the rhyme thing, do you wanna be down with us?”. And he played poker-face like “okay sure”. I found out years later, he was looking to be in a group because he had just got turned down by the Funky Four. He had auditioned for the Funky Four and they turned him down. So there was like a godsend that we were in the same school and he could come in. That was the other thing, the Funky Four was in the Bronx and we were from Manhattan or Harlem. So me and L.A. Sunshine is from Harlem and K is coming down from the Bronx to rhyme with this Manhattan group, because the Bronx group didn’t accept him. So he had a trip on his shoulder about that or whatever AND he was really good. So that’s the origin of the fast rhyme story & how the Treacherous Three got together.

Q: HOW DID YOU HOOK UP WITH ENJOY RECORDS?

A: Ironically enough, continuing from the Treacherous Three beginnings, Spoonie had a hard time as a solo artist because of the live aspects. I mean he was cool live, but he was a nervous wreck. Spoonie was a guy that would turn his back. Kind of like Miles Davis, without the same cool. It was more like I can’t face the crowd and he would turn his back AND close his eyes. And really really rhyme his ass off at the same time, but he was just one of the shyest people EVER. So I would have to say “Spoonie turn around, turn around!!” Spoonie credits me for being the first person to make him turn around. But sure enough, he went and did his solo thing because his record “Spoonin Rap” blew up. He asked me to do a couple of shows with him, but it was unfortunate because the fast rhyme was so powerful at the time because you didn’t have it on records. So you’d only get it live and there was like a fiending/hunger for it. And even though Spoonie had to go on last to do his hit record, it would be anti-climactical after the fast rhymes. Plus, my record selection, I was never into the fun of hiphop. I was into the awe of it. So to me, I wanted to be in awe or I wanted to put you in awe. So Grandmaster Flash & Furious 5 put me in awe. I was like wow! Backspin, Melle Mel is really rhyming, Kid Creole is doing this crazy hypeman thing, Cowboy’s the coolest call & response. I mean there were party MCs that did call & response, but it wasn’t as cool as Cowboy. Hollywood was one of the best that did it ever. Lovebug Starski at the same time also. And they had all the catchy, colorful sayings. But Cowboy would just sit in a chair and just look at the crowd. Like, I have you in the palm of my hand. Like a king on his throne. He’s on stage in a chair “Clap your hands everybody”, not even looking at everybody! It was crazy! So when I would go on with Spoonie, I would do these segments where I would rhyme on Funky Penguin, Headhunters, once in a while Apache. But Apache was so popular, even though it was a great breakbeat, people would still dance and then breakdancers would dance. I would always tell people, breakdance trumps MC, MC trumps DJ. It started getting to that space where the crowd is only gonna go for whatever’s the most exciting. So if he’s doing the breakbeat and you’re rhyming, if a breaker started breaking, HE’s gonna get all the attention. The DJ can do whatever he did, but once the MC starts rhyming, HE’s the attention. So it was like each one trump the other one. So I needed something that the breakers can’t break on and something that a DJ can’t really really get too crazy on. Never rhyme on horn slashes. DJs can cut, they can mess you up, it’s too much that can go wrong. And again, I was over-analytical, architecting this thing or whatever. So by rhyming on those kinda beats, it was an uplift. It was almost like I was the breakbeat for Spoonie’s show. So it was really hard to go back to the music & he was having a hard time live. And then finally, we started doing our routines with Special K (as Spoonie’s replacement), L.A. Sunshine & myself. One day, Spoonie just walks into our practice at my DJ Lee’s house and says that we should get back together. He says get rid of Special K cuz he’s from the Bronx!! (laughs) But since we already had K as his replacement, my solution was this. Since Spoonie had a record out & people knew his name, let’s call it Spoonie G & the Treacherous Three. Off course that works for Spoonie’s ego perfectly. He gets to be the group AND the lead. Then he says, “How do we split the money?” (laughs) I said whatever money you were giving me as a solo to go with you on tour, I’ll split with the other two. So nothing’s out of Spoonie’s pocket at all. So that worked out for maybe about 6 months. We got to really see how unfair it could be. You know, Spoonie gets $500 and we split $500. So when Spoonie made another record, we knew it was time to do our own thing. And from that point, we did “Body Rock”, “At the Party” and then “Feel the Heartbeat”. When we did “Heartbeat”, it just exploded. So, I hope that answered the question. What was the question anyway??

Q: HOW DID YOU HOOK UP WITH ENJOY RECORDS? (the 2nd time around)

Ah! See, I didn’t answer the question!! Spoonie’s uncle, Bobby Robinson, owned Enjoy Records. When Spoonie made a record, after he left us the second time, he had introduced me to Bobby already. And I said, well Bobby’s Spoonie’s uncle and Spoonie’s not making records with his uncle, let’s just go do it. And that’s when Spoonie came back, and we did Spoonie G and the Treacherous Three. And then we did the fast rhyme record, The New Rap Language. But I just walked into the record shop that Bobby owned and told Spoonie to ask his uncle to make a record. We go in the studio 3 days later & maybe a week, the record was out. So it was like a warped speed kinda thing. So we make those records on Enjoy Records. Right after that, I remember this. We made that record in April. July, cuz we had our novice insight to “you get paid quarterly, don’t you?” So Bobby gives us a little paper bag of money. Literally, I’m not lying here at all. Not even exaggerating one bit. It’s a paper bag of money and tons of $1s by the way! Like this is a record payment? Is this a drug deal or something?? What’s going on here!? So sure ennough, Spoonie gets half. And we split. I think it was like $1600 in there. So Spoonie takes his $800. We take our $800 and split it between the three. And I’ll never forget, it was a heat wave and was about 100 degrees outside. We’re standing there looking at each other like “We can’t do this… I don’t know what we made, but we definitely made more than this!!” (laughs) So sure enough, that was the end of our little Spoonie G & the Treacherous Three thing. And then we realize by September, we hadn’t made another record but Spoonie G signed with Sugar Hill Records.

PAUL C

Question: What’s the next best thing to finding a record that you never knew existed?

Answer: Exhuming new information about a record that you already have. Like the fact that it was issued with a picture cover that you’ve never laid your virgin eyes on.

I was getting ready for my radio show one night (about a month or so ago) and I was perusing through the station’s record library. The Hip Hop collection is probably between 1,500 and 2,000 records. They’re jimmy jam packed into one and a half of those steel shelves that are in everybody’s basements (a typical, but less than ideal scenario for record storage). The WRCT collection is a little bit smaller than my own. In my opinion there’s a little bit too much filler, but you can’t sleep the number of early 90’s promo-only 12”s and mid 80’s test pressings that have survived the years of record library theft.

Anyhow I’m trying to pick out some gems for the evening and what do I find? It was the record you see above, Mikey D. & the LA Posse “My Telephone” with a picture sleeve. I’d dug the record up several years before and I bugged out when I noticed that Paul C. McKasty had produced both sides (now I was looking at a photo of Mckasty, only the third that I’d ever seen). Upon my initial listen, I checked out the second song on the A side, “Dawn” (a Latoya-esque sex rhyme ala Stetsasonic’s “Faye”), and it “dawn”ed on me that the beat boxing sounded an awful lot like Rahzell from the Roots (not shown above). Turns out it was one in the same, only spelled slightly different (R-o-z-e-l-l, but that’s only printed on the sleeve opposed to the label, as I recently discovered). I remember at one point around ’97 or ’98, I’d found my fourth or so copy of the record (all of which were found in generic white jackets) and I tested the waters on Ebay with it. Much to the avail of a well-written description, it got no bites (or bidders either for that matter). Maybe the picture sleeve would’ve made all the difference in the world. I’m guessing no in light of my bias.

You won’t find another un-sought after record with selling points like this one (unless it’s Mikey D.’s second record “I Get Rough” b/w “”Go for it”, which actually features the same Mikey D./Rozell/Paul C. formula). If you’re not in the know, Mikey D. is another MC king from Queens who was penning songs for The Symbolic Three when L.L. was busy giving you more and living with his radio. The first Symbolic Three joint was “No Show” which was a dis/parody (not to be confused with a “disparity” or Super Nature’s “The Show Stopper…” either) of Doug E. Fresh and Slick Rick’s “The Show” (both records released by Reality Records in 1985). Eventually Mikey had a couple of his own releases courtesy of Public (like the one above) and then Sleeping Bag Records. The Sleeping Bag one is a bit more common and the cover features a fresh pic of Mikey and DJ Johnny Quest popping through the sunroof of a convertible. In addition to accumulating a small discography, Mikey’d also acquired the title of New Music Seminar MC Champ. Later he’d replaced The Large Professor as the front man of Main Source (unfortunately that LP got shelved for a majority of the 90’s and was eventually released to an unreceptive listening audience who’d seemed to have forgotten). Not a bad repertoire, but you still can’t sell a Mikey D. record on Ebay (at least I couldn’t in ’97).

In addition to Mikey’s bragging writes, and an early appearance from the Godfather of Noise, there are also the production elements provided by the one and only Paul C. McKasty. The record contains three Paul C. produced joints from the golden year of ’87. If you need help with your Paul C., refer to your Ultramagnetic MC’s and your Organized Konfusion for starters (or cut to the chase and read Dave Tompkins’ definitive article on Paul from Big Daddy #10).

The bottom line is that this record is for the true Hip Hop heads, not your average Ebay shoppers trying to cop the mid 90’s indi-joints that they slept. If you come across the record, picture sleeve or no picture sleeve, I give it my highest recommendation. It’s an obscure and highly interesting piece of Hip Hop history that documents a timeless collabo between Hip Hop artists who were way ahead of the game. In addition to that, it’s a memorable listen as well. “My Telephone” might seem a bit antiquated in the post caller ID era, but the slightest presence of empathy will allow you to commiserate with Mikey and his difficulty differentiating between the scores of females blowing up his phone. You might not be able to resell it on Ebay, but it’ll be a great addition to your middle school Hip Hop collection. If you’re like me you’ll literally get years of shear listening enjoyment from it. And if you do find a copy with the picture sleeve, then you’ll be one up on me (but I’ll trade you something for it). _J Malls (jmalls@hotmail.com)

Public Records discography (still in the works)
’86 PA 005 Heart Beat Brothers “It’s the Beat” b/w “The Shake”
’86 PA 006 Symbolic Three “Extravagant Girls” b/w “Bite it if You Wanna”
’87 PA 008 Mikey D & the LA Posse “My Telephone” & “Dawn” b/w “Bust a Rhyme Mike”
’87 PA 011 Marauder & the Fury “Get Loose Mother Goose” b/w “Terminator”
’87 PA 012 Mikey D & the LA Posse “I get Rough” b/w “Go for It”
’87 PA 013 Special K “…is Good” b/w “Let’s Rock”

Other Mikey D. recommendations
’85 D 250 Symbolic Three “No Show” b/w “We’re Treacherous” (Reality Records)
’88 SLX 40137 Mikey D & the LA Posse “Out of Control” B/w “Comin’ in the House” (Sleeping Bag Records) ?