Episode Transcript
[00:00:01] Speaker A: Yes, we here. I see my brother Stackstone in the building. I see my brother Rudy Lowe in the building. Brooklyn is up in here tonight.
I see Jennifer. Jennifer Ness. Zaros. What's up? I see Adris the guard. Yeah, we was. Adris was just over on Instagram. April Brown. How are you doing? That is a member of the channel. Foxy Brown. Xoxo. What's up, Nate Jackson. What's up, King Michael Coy. What's up, Watch Slice is in the building. Heritage hip hop is here.
We got Marty cone in the building. I gotta like that name.
Merciful Shalom. What's up, ec? That is definitely a member of the channel. Yu Gi oh Realm. What's up, Mad Society? What's up, Saul Perez? What's up, Shadow Proverb? What's up what Breadth. Thirsty too. And don't forget doggy Diamonds did this. Lucky. What's up, young y'all? What is up, Reggie T? What's up, Eric Brown? Make sure you get them likes up because you're not gonna get.
You not gonna get what you gonna get tonight. Nowhere else. You're about to get a hip hop history lesson. For real, for real. From one of the people who was there. I wasn't there. Hip hop is open to me. So all I could do is do research. But we're gonna hear it right from one of the horse's mouth. Chief Red Hair, Brown Eyes is in the building. 789 is in the building. Rock Parker 7 Bernadette. Bernie is always here. Tara Muhammad. What's up? Is in the building. Turk Links. Eric Brown, Reggie T. Is in the building.
We got Big Ma, one of the moderators in the building. Coaches in the building. Jonathan David. What's up, Bled777. Sexy Six65 is in the building.
Make sure to hit them. Like, we got to make this. We got to make sure this go out. Storming Norman. I see you. Check Viz online. What's up with you?
We gotta make sure this go out. And don't forget, doggy Diamonds did this. Yes, I did this.
Ellmatic. What's up, man? I reached out to a legend.
[00:02:09] Speaker B: And.
[00:02:10] Speaker A: He said, sure, let's do it. See, that's what I love. Khalilah Austin. How you doing, Sharif? Gunnar, what is up?
Real to real. What's up? Y'all here? Y'all gotta hit the like.
Y'all gotta hit the like.
What it do, Matt Con Yak. What's up?
That's my bro, Ludy Rudy Low in the building, man. See, I was about to say, man, listen, that's Rudy Lowe.
That's one of the ones up in the building. So without any further ado, let me bring Ho, ho, ho, who I got with me tonight.
That's where you come at. You gonna look up Raheem.
[00:02:56] Speaker B: What up, doggy?
[00:02:57] Speaker A: What's going on? All right, all right, all right, all right. Listen, I know who you are.
Many people know who you are, but many people might not know who you are. They might say, who the hell is this?
[00:03:10] Speaker B: Right?
[00:03:10] Speaker A: Let's give them something where they definitely know you from.
[00:03:16] Speaker B: Hold on. Let me. Let me grab something for you.
[00:03:17] Speaker A: Okay. All right, let's do that. Rudy. Rudy Lowe is in the building. Like I said, that's my comrade right there. My Brooklyn brother. Brooklyn is in the building. Heavy. We got queens here. We got all over in the building. Your whole. What? He went and grabbed.
Damn.
What is that? Tell them what that is.
[00:03:37] Speaker B: This is a Rock and Roll hall of Fame induction trophy.
[00:03:40] Speaker A: Goodness.
[00:03:42] Speaker B: All right. We became the first rap group to get inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame March 12, 2007. And here is a Grammy lifetime achievement award.
[00:03:59] Speaker A: Wow. And you said we. Who is the Wii?
[00:04:01] Speaker B: We talking about Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five. I'm one of Furious Five, Raheem.
In all the ladies dreams.
You know, I. I started out with the Funky Four. First, breakout DJ Baron, the original Funky Four MCS. And then we battled Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Four May 11, 1979, at the Webster Avenue pal. Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 4 won the battle. But a few days after the battle, Melly Mel, and at the time his name was Mr. Ness, later changed to Scorpio, showed up at my mom's crib and asked me if I would be down to join their group, because I was the only one of the Funky Four who actually went at them in that battle.
[00:04:49] Speaker A: Shout out to the big bro, Scorp. That's my dude right there, man. Shout out to Scorp. That's my bro right there.
You. You also got a legendary verse. I don't know if you remember. You remember your legendary verse?
[00:05:02] Speaker B: Which one is that?
[00:05:04] Speaker A: It's from a song called A Message.
[00:05:06] Speaker B: Oh, my son said, daddy, I don't want to go to school? Cause the teacher's a jerk. He must think I'm a fool. All the kids smoke reefer? They could be cheaper if I just got a job Learning to be a street. Sweet.
[00:05:16] Speaker A: That's all we needed. That's all we needed, yo. Wow. I. I like. I like to say that I'm Happy that you're here. I'm honored that you here and you always been 1000 with me. Never act funny. Anything I ever text you, ask you any information about this culture. You always been on deck. And I'm only saying that because I want y'all to know that this man is attainable. You can hit him up. He don't act funny. You could DM him. This is one of the legends of our cultures, one of our OGs that's here. And he rapped on, if not the greatest record of all time. Definitely top five of all time. I say top three. You understand what I'm saying? And he got a verse on there, and that's you doing the chorus, too, right now.
[00:06:06] Speaker B: Okay, so let me. Let me. Let me clarify some. Okay, so as far as the message goes, was not written in its entirety by the Furious 5.
[00:06:22] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:23] Speaker B: A guy named Ed Fletcher.
[00:06:25] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:26] Speaker B: Booty, the musician who put the track together, also wrote the majority of the lyrics, with the exception of the last verse.
[00:06:34] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:06:35] Speaker B: First, a child is born with no state of mind, which comes from a previously recorded song of ours called Super Rap.
[00:06:42] Speaker A: Wow. Wow. So we.
[00:06:46] Speaker B: We.
[00:06:46] Speaker A: I guess you fit all the qualifications of a legend. You from the bx Facts, Lambert Houses, and when Hip hop. Because this is the thing, and you've been very, very vocal, and I respect you for that because you didn't duck no smoke. You definitely spoke out. That in particular, Fat Joe don't know what he talking about when he say, puerto Ricans help invent hip hop. Because when we say somebody helped vent hip hop, that means they're telling you who was there, who helped invent it.
[00:07:22] Speaker B: That's correct.
[00:07:23] Speaker A: And you dispute those claims about Puerto Ricans being there? Now, I want to ask you, did you grow up around Puerto Ricans?
[00:07:34] Speaker B: Absolutely. I grew up in the Bronx. And, you know, there were Puerto Ricans, blacks. You know, we. We definitely grew up in the same environment, same community, but growing up in the 70s, this is how it was. It was. It wasn't segregated in that, you know, not a. Not a.
Not a segregated thing as far as, you know, the local community made it so that we segregated from each other. Blacks hung with blacks. Puerto Ricans hung with Puerto Ricans.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:08:13] Speaker B: Whenever you saw a Puerto Rican or Puerto Ricans hanging out with black people, usually it was because they was either one or absolutely down by law, and they was like that ride or die Puerto Rican that rock with the blacks, or they were shunned from their people and their culture and estranged from their culture and they hung out with the blacks because of that. Because otherwise, when the jams were going on in the parks, Puerto Ricans was doing their own thing. They'd be in the parks too, but they was doing their own thing. They had, you know, congas and timbales and, you know, they would. They rock out like that. And we was doing jams.
And so when you saw Puerto Ricans at the jams back in the days, it was sprinkles of them, you know, it was a handful of them.
And Puerto Ricans and blacks, even if they. Even if they were. Even if they was down with each other, like, if you like. Like if I like the Puerto Rican chick back in the days in the 70s, and she liked me, she liked me. When she wasn't around her people.
[00:09:29] Speaker A: Damn. Got you.
[00:09:31] Speaker B: Got you.
Eventually that, you know, that changed. But back then, that's what it was.
So when you saw Puerto Ricans at hip hop jams, it was because, like I said, they was either down by law and shunned from their people. And as far as the.
The inception of hip hop goes with regards to innovations, the Puerto Ricans and the Jamaicans or people from the Caribbean overall, they were onlookers, watched and they listened to what the American kids were doing.
[00:10:21] Speaker A: Say that again. Say, no, you got to do that. We don't want that to go over. Nobody has. Say those lines again. I think that's the first line. Say that again, bro.
[00:10:30] Speaker B: So with regards to being innovators, black American teenagers, who were the innovators and. And there were definitely Puerto Ricans there.
I would never dispute their presence. They were there, but they were not innovators in the beginning. They were onlookers. They watched and they listened.
And once they understood what it was the black kids were doing, that's when they became practitioners with regards to rapping and dj.
Now, as far as other, you know, facets of the culture, graffiti, break dancing, you know, stuff like that, they were. They were involved. But as far as being innovators in the scope of the music culture.
[00:11:28] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:11:29] Speaker B: As it pertained to rap or it pertained to DJing. They were not innovators.
[00:11:36] Speaker A: So what is some of your earliest memories of the thing that was. Became hip hop? Because what was it called before it was called hip hop, bro. So I asked you that. We had a sidebar, but what was that called? I think because as. As we. As is known, the people don't know. Cowboy is credited for terming, coining the phrase hip hop in 1978. What did y'all call it before it was called hip hop?
[00:12:02] Speaker B: Well, it wasn't really called anything, really. Like, we didn't really have a name that encompassed the whole culture.
[00:12:10] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:12:12] Speaker B: And, you know, Cowboy mistakenly coined the phrase, and it wasn't a conscious and deliberate thing. As far as the term hip hop, those. He didn't say. He didn't say.
He didn't call the culture hip hop. He coined the phrase hip hop as a result of him giving a shout out to his man who was going to the military. And hip hop was a word that he used in order to emulate, like a drill sergeant calling cadence, you know, like, you march.
And so that's how that term derived. And then a few years later, Bambaata coined the phrase, and.
Excuse me, not Bambada. I'm sorry, Lumbbug Starsky coined the phrase. Then Bambaata encompassed all of the other elements of. Of the culture and called it hip hop.
[00:13:22] Speaker A: Right, right, right. So what was it called? You. You, you, you, you. It was just.
[00:13:26] Speaker B: You called it BB Music because it was from the Bronx. So it was Bronx beat music.
And it was called the Boy Oyoin because, you know, when you went down on the floor and you popped back up, it was like, boing. Know, it was the get down. If any of y'all ever seen that original Netflix series.
[00:13:54] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:13:55] Speaker B: It was actually called the get down because that's when all of the B boys and B girls would hit the floor when the get down part came up.
[00:14:04] Speaker A: Right, right, Yep.
[00:14:06] Speaker B: So.
And by the way, in case y'all don't know, Nas and myself wrote all of the rap lyrics in the Netflix series to get there.
[00:14:15] Speaker A: Get the hell out of here. You wrote to get down raps?
[00:14:18] Speaker B: Yes.
Wow.
[00:14:21] Speaker A: Yo, yo, look, look, you know what, man?
We gotta make sure you not only get your flowers, you get all the trophies and everything, because again, you're so immersed in the culture more than we know, you know what I'm saying? Not only on the legendary records, not on, but you were there. And that's why I had to get you, bro. Me and you've been building for some years now, but I had to get you because you were there. It's you older than me, if you don't mind. Could you tell the people how old are you?
[00:14:52] Speaker B: 61.
[00:14:53] Speaker A: Damn. Yo, you don't look no 61. No. God damn. I hope when I get 61 I look like you. So you 61. So you're older than hip hop?
[00:15:01] Speaker B: Yeah.
[00:15:02] Speaker A: Wow. So who were some of your contemporaries? Who were rapping in. In this culture when you started.
[00:15:11] Speaker B: So there weren't a whole lot of us. When I started.
I became an emcee in 1978. And the year that I became an emcee, just a few months later, I joined my first rap group. And my first rap group was legendary DJ Breakout DJ Baron and the Funky Four.
And so at the time, there was no Cold Crush Brothers.
Great Grandmaster Cast. He was a solo dj. He wasn't even emceeing at the time.
Let's see.
Oh, Treacherous Three, they were. They were definitely around.
Crash Crew, Spoony G. Wow. Wow.
[00:15:58] Speaker A: Yeah. Shout out to. Yup, yup.
[00:16:05] Speaker B: Jimmy Spicer.
[00:16:07] Speaker A: Yes. That's the Bubble Buns, right?
[00:16:10] Speaker B: Yep. Absolutely.
[00:16:11] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah.
[00:16:13] Speaker B: And. And Curtis Blow came a little bit. A little bit late.
[00:16:19] Speaker A: Got. Got you. So you.
[00:16:23] Speaker B: Far from. From the inception.
[00:16:26] Speaker A: So when did Melly Mel K. Creole score? When did they start MCing? If you know.
[00:16:32] Speaker B: So Melly Mel, Kid Creole and Scorp. So Scorp joined Flash and Limbs group right before me when I joined the funky four in 78.
Scorp joined the.
He became a member of the Furious 4 in 78.
[00:17:00] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:17:01] Speaker B: And Melly Mel and Kid Creole and Cowboy were the first. Were Flash's first MCs, and they were called the three MCs. And that was in 1970, either the end of 77 or the beginning of 78.
[00:17:19] Speaker A: So.
All right. The issue that we have in Bro is that we have a legendary date that said, this is when hip hop started. But you predate that date.
[00:17:32] Speaker B: Well, yes, I predate that date, but I wasn't a practitioner in 73.
[00:17:37] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:38] Speaker B: I mean, you know, I'm 61 years old. I was born in 1963. So in 73, I was 10 years old.
[00:17:44] Speaker A: Right.
[00:17:44] Speaker B: I was not. I was not yet a practitioner. I didn't become a practitioner until 1978. However, I. I saw and I heard and. And I was on my. On my block.
My OGs, who. Who had a hangout card before I did, they went to, you know, all of the. All of the jams of the people who preceded me, Grandmaster Flash and what have you. Right? So.
So.
So arguably, Kool Herc, to many, is regarded as the father of hip hop.
Not based on so much the party that happened in the Community center in 1973.
That could be some people's, you know, reasons.
But for me, I went along with that narrative. Narrative, because most of the.
I would say a lot of the terminology that derived that we now use to describe certain things that have to do with hip hop came from Kool Herc's parties, not necessarily Kool Hercules.
[00:19:15] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.
[00:19:17] Speaker B: From his jams. And so, you know, and so now Bambada, he was not DJing in 1973.
[00:19:26] Speaker A: Damn.
[00:19:27] Speaker B: Bambada didn't come along until like 76.
[00:19:31] Speaker A: So could I ask you something?
So do you agree that at one point they was crediting Bam over everybody?
[00:19:38] Speaker B: At one point, yeah, that's so. So they were crediting Bam over everyone because of the fact that Bam was instrumental in helping to bring the elements of the culture together.
[00:19:56] Speaker A: Right.
[00:19:58] Speaker B: That. That weren't together.
[00:19:59] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:00] Speaker B: So B boys and B girls and DJing and emceeing, that was all together already. Right. But graffiti, you know, I guess human.
[00:20:11] Speaker A: Beatbox dress, the way we dress and everything. Yeah.
[00:20:16] Speaker B: So. So now people were dressing already the way that is indicative of someone who is in. Engulfed in the hip hop culture. We were dressing like that prior to, you know, all of the elements of the culture coming together.
[00:20:33] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:34] Speaker B: But no one had the foresight to say, okay, let's. Let's encompass all of this together under one umbrella and call this whole conglomerate Hip hop facets. Hip hop.
[00:20:51] Speaker A: Right.
[00:20:52] Speaker B: So that's the reason why the people who go hard for Bambada, that's the reason.
[00:21:00] Speaker A: So do you feel like they moved him out the way because of the controversy and they made Herc like the forefront. Cause remember, they was champion Bam for a long time and then now they'll say, no, it's Herc, it's Hercules Hurt. Do you feel like that's what happened?
[00:21:13] Speaker B: No, actually that was the people from the Zulu nation posturing and putting Bam before Herc. But again, Bambaata didn't start.
[00:21:25] Speaker A: Right.
[00:21:26] Speaker B: Start DJing until about 1976. Now, if you want to put anyone in the argument who could possibly be the father of hip hop, Disco king Mario, Goodness gracious.
[00:21:42] Speaker A: And he's from Bronxdale.
[00:21:44] Speaker B: Yes, absolutely. He could be in that conversation because he and Kool Herc played. They were playing music around the same time. You know what I mean? Bambaata used to borrow disco king Mario's sound system before he had his own sound system, but that was later. And Kool Herc was the person who actually introduced Bamba to the hip hop audience because he let him play with him at the Pal.
[00:22:14] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:22:15] Speaker B: So, so, but.
And then the Source magazine kind of did this thing. They did a cover, the holy trinity of hip hop. And they put Herc, Bam and Flash.
[00:22:30] Speaker A: Flash.
[00:22:32] Speaker B: And so, you know, in all fairness and honesty.
You know, history is a set of agreed upon lies.
[00:22:47] Speaker A: Wow. Yeah, right, right, right, right, right.
[00:22:52] Speaker B: So. And, and the people who have always had the benefit of being able to tell history, usually so, so usually the history was told by the victors of war.
[00:23:06] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:23:08] Speaker B: The war happened. So the people who had the benefit of telling the history of hip hop and have it, have it resonate or be consumed by the masses.
People who are the most popular.
[00:23:28] Speaker A: Right.
[00:23:28] Speaker B: Thus we have people like Fat Joe.
[00:23:31] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right, right.
[00:23:35] Speaker B: Respectfully, you know, I got mad respect for them both and their artistry, but they were not present during the inception of hip hop. So therefore, to me, they should respectfully not try to tell that story and simply tell the story of their beginning.
[00:23:54] Speaker A: Right, right.
And it's another one who happens to me to be Jamaican. Charis 1. Did you ever hear some of his stories?
[00:24:06] Speaker B: So, all right, so KRS 1.
I have a tremendous amount of respect for, for his artistry.
You know, he's a, he's a dope ass live performer. He's crazy off the, off the dome lyricist. He's made some classic, classic hip hop songs. But so the teacher, the whole teacher thing.
[00:24:35] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:24:36] Speaker B: For me that's a gimmick.
[00:24:37] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:24:40] Speaker B: You know, because teachers don't deliberately disseminate wrong information. Wow. You know what I mean? And I've been going at him for. Forever, publicly.
[00:24:57] Speaker A: Yes, yes, my dude.
[00:24:59] Speaker B: Like, give me all the smoke.
[00:25:03] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right, right, right, right.
[00:25:05] Speaker B: I dispute what you're saying because you were not there.
Like he, he's, he's saying, he's spitting a rhyme on stage, naming and dropping dates when different legends of hip hop came up. And the majority of those dates are absolutely wrong. Wow. Like. And he, he had Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady Crew being on the scene in 1978. I think I remember that right in the date that he said Crazy Legs was not a noble B boy in the seventies at all.
[00:25:53] Speaker A: Damn. So he, so he started with Beat Street. You think?
[00:25:57] Speaker B: Who? Crazy Legs.
[00:25:58] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:25:59] Speaker B: Crazy Legs didn't become a known B boy until the 80s.
So I don't, I don't know, you know, so this, there's a conglomerate of people, right? And they have this, they have this little committee and they all corroborate each other's stories. And so you notice you don't ever see me on, you know, speaking on many, you know.
[00:26:27] Speaker A: Yeah, right, right, right.
[00:26:29] Speaker B: Me to tell this story because my story doesn't corroborate with their.
[00:26:34] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:26:35] Speaker B: Problem with Me because of that.
[00:26:37] Speaker A: Right.
So. So, okay, where do you think.
Who's feeding Fat Joe Buster? Who's feeding them this information? Do you think it's somebody in particular or somebody's or. Is what you said? It's. It's. It's to.
Because it's monetized. And they say, hell, we gonna get this money, but we gonna say, we did this, and let's omit certain people from it so they can't get none of the monies, can't get none of the credit. And we gonna run with. It's Jamaicans and Puerto Ricans and Blacks. Y'all was. You know, we helped y'all. Do you think it's that?
[00:27:16] Speaker B: I think it's that. I think. I think that, you know, like everything else that we black Americans innovated or created, I think that, you know, the powers that be don't really want to see us, you know, benefit from that completely. You know, they throw us little crumbs here and there, but for the most part. And, you know, there's a few of us that might slip through the cracks, but for the most part, we're. We're being looked over. You know, they're like, you know, keep them over there, and let's make sure we get our people, you know, when.
[00:28:01] Speaker A: Hip Hop 50 come up. Well, how much were you involved in Hip Hop 50?
[00:28:06] Speaker B: I mean, I was on.
I performed On Hip Hop 50 Grammys presentation, but that's only because Grandmaster Flash said that he would not perform unless I was there.
[00:28:22] Speaker A: Salute to him for that.
[00:28:24] Speaker B: Right.
And I performed on the VMAs with. With the rest of the crew.
But. But other than that, I haven't really benefited much from Hip Hop 50 at all, so.
[00:28:40] Speaker A: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. So you telling me 50 years of hip hop? Fat Joe was hosting the BET Awards, which was like, what the hell is Black Entertain. Black Entertainment Television?
[00:28:50] Speaker B: I wasn't even there.
[00:28:52] Speaker A: Well, he wasn't at the hip.
[00:28:54] Speaker B: I wasn't even invited.
[00:28:58] Speaker A: Oh, so you, who is a part of one of the most iconic legendary records in hip hop of all time. That, again, might be the number. I think it was voted the number one record of all time in hip hop.
[00:29:12] Speaker B: Right? Yeah. Yeah. Rolling Stone at one point, did vote the message.
[00:29:17] Speaker A: Number one, you're on that your vocals is on that record and you don't get no credit. And then you wrote the verses to the Get Down. You also have ties to the West Coast?
[00:29:33] Speaker B: Yeah, I was a staff producer for Dr. Dre right before Eminem signed To him, I was a staff producer with Teddy Riley when he was producing the group Black Street.
I wrote, produced, sung, and rapped on a song that I got a gold record for on the Juice soundtrack called does your man know about me.
I've been around for a little while.
[00:29:59] Speaker A: And you sent me some music, and I. You let me hear something, I'm like, bro, you better put this out.
[00:30:05] Speaker B: Yeah, I'm working on a. I'm working on a solo project right now, but.
[00:30:09] Speaker A: I'm just saying, I don't think they understand. Respectfully, you not on that bomb. You not on that. Raheem is rapping like 20, 26.
[00:30:18] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah. You know, I pride myself on. On, you know, keeping my sword sharp. And, you know, I love rap, so just because I'm 61, that don't mean I have to stop doing it right?
And I got. And I got skin in the game, so.
[00:30:39] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right. You got some say so. Yeah, you had. Actually, I seen you at Reply everything. You don't duck no smoke when they. When they erroneously say things about hip hop. What makes you so brave?
[00:30:54] Speaker B: What makes me so brave?
[00:30:57] Speaker A: Because, you know, everybody be like, oh, you don't want no smoke with. So, you know, they start talking to stupid, ignorant street stuff, you know, and the streets has nothing to do with the music. And if you could speak and you could say what you want, why shouldn't you?
[00:31:13] Speaker B: Right?
So. So I'm not intimidated by right, right words or by. By reputation. Like, I ain't never seen nobody reputation whoop nobody ass.
[00:31:30] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right.
[00:31:32] Speaker B: You got the.
If you want to put hands on me, come put hands on me if that's what it is. But I got hands and feet, so I ain't worried about that. But as far as, you know, intellectually, you know, my sword is sharp, too, so I can have dialogue with anybody. We can discourse, you know, and I'm going to get my point across clearly. And if your information is on point, then I'm.
I'm gonna know, and I'm. I'm a salute you. I'm gonna agree. But if your shit is not on point, then that's a problem because I'm not gonna. I'm not gonna go along just to get along. I don't. That's not how I'm wired.
Like, for me, the truth means everything to. To some people, you know, I'm a problem because I. Because I want to tell the truth, but for me, that's their problem.
[00:32:35] Speaker A: Right? So, you know, so. So I wanted to say like, that's always been my problem in the culture. I'm a truth teller. So I'm always omitted from the little parties and the little award shows because they know, again, I'm a walk in the room and say, hold on, it's a big ass elephant in here. And, you know, they used to say, what elephant? I don't see an elephant, yo. You don't see that? You know, so people like us, and that's why it was important for you to be here. Because we got the platforms, and if we stick together and it's not about what nobody else say, it's about the truth. And nobody can dispute you being it.
[00:33:14] Speaker B: Right?
[00:33:15] Speaker A: Nobody could dispute you being there. Could you? The members of the Funky Four plus one. Could you say the members of that group?
[00:33:21] Speaker B: Okay, so. So the Funky Four plus one. I wasn't a member of that.
[00:33:27] Speaker A: What was the group you was a member of?
[00:33:29] Speaker B: The original Funky Four. Oh, K.K. rockwell. Keith. Keith Shah Rock and Raheem. That was the Funky Four. The original Funky Four.
[00:33:40] Speaker A: So KK Rockwell from Double Trouble.
[00:33:43] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:33:44] Speaker A: Yo, that's. Yo, that kk, you know, one down below. I got rounds good. Yo, that's one of my friends. Rave. Yo, that I ain't going front. I love his voice, yo. I love. I think he. He remind me so much black thought. Remind me of him.
[00:33:56] Speaker B: I can see that.
[00:33:57] Speaker A: The way he. The way. The way. It's just. It's just, you know, and. And a lot of people don't know that. That routine. Because y'all used to call it routines, right?
[00:34:05] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[00:34:06] Speaker A: That routine is in wild style. So they came out with the mobs and the guns. So that's Double Trouble. And it got.
And that Rodney C. Is Angie Stone's original baby father, right?
[00:34:22] Speaker B: Correct.
[00:34:23] Speaker A: Right. So, you know, this is hip hop history. So you're not a part of the plus one, but you did rap with the. Somebody who's credited is the first female rapper of all time. Right?
[00:34:34] Speaker B: Right.
[00:34:36] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:34:37] Speaker B: So. So the Funky Four.
So Shy Rock was.
She was among the first female rappers.
[00:34:49] Speaker A: Okay, okay.
[00:34:51] Speaker B: There were other female rappers at the same time, during the same time as Shah Rock, but she was the most popular.
And then. So I made up the group's routines.
[00:35:04] Speaker A: Right.
[00:35:05] Speaker B: I was the dude. I was. I was Drake before there was a drink.
[00:35:10] Speaker A: Qualify. Because we spoke about that. But quality. Qualify that. Go ahead.
[00:35:14] Speaker B: All right, so basically, I was the one to sing and rap together, making up routines. Like, I would take, like, Jackson five songs and remix them and, you know, I singing my. My pseudo Michael Jackson voice. And. And do you know the routines? One of the routines that people might know from one of our old joints is just, I'm not a good voice.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Right, right, right. But, hey, it sound better than what I'll do. Hey, go ahead, though, bro.
[00:36:00] Speaker B: So basically, those types of routines, I was the one that started that I implemented that style. And that was the reason why Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 4 wanted me to be down with them. Because when the Funky Four battled the Furious Four at the Webster Pa. Webster Avenue Pal March 11, 1979.
Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Four, they were like.
They were like the top crew at the time.
We were like the heir apparent, basically, right? We were coming for the number one slot, right? We had the whole North Bronx supporting us, and they had the whole South Bronx supporting them. And so when we got to the show to the pal, we expected that Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 4 would go on after us because they were more popular, so they were like the headline.
But instead they opted to go on before us. And that's because secretly they had, I guess, saw us perform a few times, and they decided to put similar routines together. So they did all of the things that we were going to do before us. So that's why they went on before us. And when it was time for us to go on instead of. Because I was the one to lead off our show, because I made up all of the routines, so I was the first one to get on the mic. So instead of me going into the routines to. To perform with the group, I said, fuck it. And I did an AI his rookie season in the NBA. And I passed the mic.
[00:37:57] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:37:59] Speaker B: That I ever wrote until I ran out of rhymes. And then I dropped the mic and walked off the stage. But the whole time I was doing that, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 4 was in the crowd ice grilling me at first. But then after I went so hard for so long and the audience was cheering me on, they started cheering me on, too. So when I got off the stage, they came over to me and dapped me up.
And the rest of the Funky Four didn't even perform.
And so a few days after that, Melly Mel and Mr. Nestle later changed his name. Scorpio showed up at my mom's crib and asked me to join their group. That's the reason why they asked.
[00:38:42] Speaker A: So y'all was. Did a lot of show at this time. The showcases was where pal parks. What? What.
[00:38:49] Speaker B: Parks? You know, 63 park on Boston Road, on 100.
I wouldn't say 63rd Street. 23 park over near Forest Houses.
Mapes park, where Mapes pool is on 180th between Southern Boulevard and Mapes have. Let's see. And there was. We rocked at the Renaissance Ballroom. That's in Harlem, I think that was on 137th and in seventh grab.
It was a Hotel Diplomat that was. It was like Christmas Eve 70, 79. Christmas Eve at the hotel. The Hotel Diplomat was in Midtown. That was like, around the Times Square area.
[00:39:54] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:39:55] Speaker B: We rocked that.
[00:39:56] Speaker A: But I say y'all felt like y'all made it. You know, you hit Times Square. You from New York. We like, oh, we bought. We out here. We made it. Yup.
[00:40:03] Speaker B: Look, before we released any records, before we recorded our first record, we were doing like three shows a night.
That's how popping we were, right? And.
And then once we made the record, once we got to a certain level of popularity, like not. Not yet, to the point where we was touring with Rick James and all of that yet. But like this. This white rock group, punk rock group.
[00:40:34] Speaker A: Called the Clash, that's rocking the Cast Bar, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
[00:40:39] Speaker B: Open for the Clash.
[00:40:41] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:40:42] Speaker B: Barnes International, which was in Times Square.
And we were like, the only black people in the spot.
[00:40:50] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:40:53] Speaker B: And we got pelted with all kinds of debris while we were performing, like, was throwing full cans of beer, all types of shit at us. And we was just ducking shit and still performing. Like we was getting paid. We got paid 18,500 to do one show. And we got two shows that night to open for the class. So we got 36,000, 37,000 that night to do two shows for the Clash.
[00:41:23] Speaker A: That's a lot of bread. So what.
So what was your first, earliest memory of a Puerto Rican mc?
[00:41:34] Speaker B: MC Whip A Whip. Prince Whip A Whip.
[00:41:37] Speaker A: And what year. What year was this romantic.
[00:41:41] Speaker B: That was. That was in. You know, that was during the. During the same time. So MC groups, okay, didn't really emerge until the end of 77, beginning of 78.
[00:41:54] Speaker A: Okay.
[00:41:56] Speaker B: And pardon me, I mistakenly omitted the Fantastic Five. They were definitely there as one of the first MC groups that were on the scene.
So Prince Whiplewhip was definitely one of the first Puerto Ricans that I know that was, you know, involved in the culture. DJ Charlie Chase was actually the first DJ to rock for the Furious Five. Because we were beefing with Grandmaster Flash when we became the Furious Five. And so Flash and us didn't work together when we first became the Furious 5. Charlie Chase was our first DJ. And the first joint, first spot that we performed that was Forest Houses Community Center. And that's the first show that I performed as a member of Furious 5. And that was in 79.
[00:42:59] Speaker A: So what about the first Jamaican emcee?
[00:43:04] Speaker B: So the first Jamaican. So now, during that time, during the 70s, there could have very well been, you know, Jamaican MCs, but they did not.
They did not let on. They didn't reveal that they were Jamaican to anyone.
There was. There was a crew in the North Bronx called the Chaos Crew.
And I believe that the majority of that crew were Jamaicans and they were dope, but they didn't really have any notable dope emcees. Their DJ, DJ Little Rock, was dope, but notable dope MCs that could propel their DJ, you know, further, you know what I mean? So they kind of fell off.
And as far as, you know, Caribbean people's involvement in hip hop culture, I'm sure there were a lot. I'm Caribbean, of Asian descent, you know what I mean? And so.
But a lot of what, you know, some of our brothers are claiming nowadays lend more to social construct than anything else.
Busta Rhymes. He says he's Jamaican, right? I say you're not Jamaican. You're of Jamaican descent because you were born in America. So, you know, perhaps your parents are Jamaican. But you're American, right? And Jamaican descent, right?
Fat Joe, same thing. He was born in America. He was born in the United States, in the Bronx. He's of Puerto Rican descent.
That's a social construct that, you know, everybody. The people who make that argument are saying that, you know, Jamaicans and Puerto Ricans were intimately involved in the creation of hip hop. It's just not.
[00:45:30] Speaker A: So the first, earliest MC that you could remember who's credited for that?
[00:45:35] Speaker B: The first MC that I remember.
So, okay, so the first emcee that I remember is really not credited by many for being the first emcee. And I would really attribute that to the style. To his style. And that's DJ Hollywood. Wow. DJ Hollywood, I would say, is the prototype. He was the first mc.
He did not really say long form rhymes. He was more of, you know, the crowd motivator.
[00:46:15] Speaker A: But that's an mc, though. But that is an mc. Yeah.
[00:46:19] Speaker B: You know, long form rhymes didn't. Didn't come into play until the 3MCS and 3MCS. Yep.
[00:46:31] Speaker A: So DJ Hollywood, if I'm not mistaken, say he predates all the DJs. He was there before everybody. What does he have a claim to that as well.
[00:46:44] Speaker B: Okay, so, so as far as DJs go, yes, DJ Hollywood was DJing before Cool Herc. Wow. Probably before Disco King Mario. Right.
[00:46:56] Speaker A: Wow.
[00:46:57] Speaker B: But here's the, here's the distinguishing difference between DJ Hollywood and somebody like Kool Herc or.
Okay, let's, let's. I'm just leaving right there. DJ Hollywood. Cool Herc. So DJ Hollywood, he played mostly top 40.
So he played top 40 and he played for a mature audience. He played for my older brothers.
[00:47:27] Speaker A: Right, right.
[00:47:30] Speaker B: And to get in a DJ Hollywood's party, you had to wear slacks and shoes and button down shirts.
So that wasn't hip hop for us. That was disco.
[00:47:41] Speaker A: Right.
[00:47:42] Speaker B: So that's the reason why DJ Hollywood is not really recognized as the, the, I guess the father. But then the other thing is that DJ Hollywood didn't, he didn't showcase or highlight the breaks.
You know, they were top 40 songs, so most. And, and even if they had a break in them, he played the record from the beginning.
[00:48:13] Speaker A: Right.
[00:48:14] Speaker B: And Cool Herc. Right. But the difference between the two was that once Kool Herc realized that the B boys and B girls reacted to the break parts and Clark Kent, the original DJ Clark Kent was the first one to give Kool her two copies of the same record.
Then began to highlight the break. The breaks. Even though Kool Herc never scratched. He never backspun word. No, never. Wow. And any depiction of like documentaries that depict Kool Herc scratching or back spinning is absolutely false. He doesn't know how to do it and he never did.
[00:49:07] Speaker A: But wow.
[00:49:09] Speaker B: And DJ Clark Kent actually was trying to convince her to put Flash down with him because Clark Kent knew that Hercules, none of them could do what Flash could.
[00:49:24] Speaker A: So Disco King Mario is omitted from hip hop history. Why do you think that is?
[00:49:30] Speaker B: I think that Disco King Mario is omitted from hip hop history to a large degree is because people don't know him. You know, most, a lot of people don't know him. And then, you know, the people who do, who do know him are largely from the Bronx and the people. There's a contingency of people from the Bronx that, that kind of hoard everything, hoard all of the credit, they hoard all of the, you know, acknowledgement and whatever. And so, you know, if like, like for example, you know, respectfully, Grandmaster Cass, he's a dope mc, but his lyrical body of work, his catalog does not say that he should be in the top five.
But there are, there's a contingency of people who keep him in that slot, Right?
[00:50:48] Speaker A: You told me something about cast. I don't know if you want to say it online in front of people.
[00:50:54] Speaker B: Say whatever.
[00:50:55] Speaker A: But you said sidebar, you said that that Rapper's Delight rap was not solely written Big Bang Hank. Rap was not solely written by Grandmaster Caz the way people think.
Could you. Could you. Could you. Could you explain that?
[00:51:14] Speaker B: Okay, so. So my. My older brother was locked up in Attica with H. Rap Brown.
H. Rap Brown is an activist, and he wrote a book, and he gave it to my brother. And my brother knew that I was involved in rap at the time. And so I read H. Rap Brown's book, and I took a couple of words from it, and I put a rhyme together, and it goes, I'm Hemp the dip, the women's pimp. Women fight for my delight. Right?
And I added some more stuff to it, right? But then Big Bank Hank, he was.
He was a bouncer at the time, and he worked at a club called the Sparkle.
And then there was a record shop called Rhythm Ben in the Bronx on Tremont Avenue that was owned by this dude named Richard T. Who owned a club called the T Connection. And so anybody who performed at the T Connection, Richard T. Recorded their performances, and he would sell cassette tapes out of his record shop, Rhythm Den.
[00:52:37] Speaker A: Right?
[00:52:38] Speaker B: And so that's how Big Bang Hank got wind of my lyric, and then he used a piece of my lyrics, and then he used the majority of Grandmaster Cast.
[00:52:53] Speaker A: So why you say that? So how does his rhyme start again?
[00:52:57] Speaker B: Who?
[00:52:58] Speaker A: Big Bang Hank.
We're talking about rappers alike. That's credited as the original first hip hop record, right?
[00:53:06] Speaker B: The Women's pimp Women fight for Monday night with the three mcs.
[00:53:16] Speaker A: So what did. What was your line again?
[00:53:19] Speaker B: The women's pimp Women fight for my delight Because I'm the kid of free dance, the kid of romance all the young ladies want to give me a chance.
Damn, I don't remember the whole.
[00:53:29] Speaker A: So he stole. So, okay, so why don't Kaz say, that's Raheem in the beginning, and then that's me when he's changed his name? Why don't Cash say that? Because Kaz is credited for writing that rap. You know that, right?
[00:53:45] Speaker B: So? So sometimes the truth is stranger than fiction, they say, right? So I actually heard Cass say this before.
He said, you know, if I'm around somebody, if I'm around another MC and I feel like they got something in their repertoire that I don't have, I am going to do whatever I need to do to make what they have money.
So. So fast forward.
Long story short, Cass is a bit.
[00:54:31] Speaker A: Damn.
[00:54:32] Speaker B: Cass is a bite. And the reason why I say that is because.
And I respect him as an emcee and I think, you know, and he's legendary, and he's dope at what he does, but sometimes, you know, like. Like, biting has always been frowned upon in hip hop. In hip hop.
[00:54:57] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:54:58] Speaker B: So. So one time. Now, Kaz and I, we lived in the same projects at one time.
[00:55:04] Speaker A: Oh, word. So you know him, know him.
[00:55:06] Speaker B: I know him, know him.
[00:55:07] Speaker A: Got you.
[00:55:08] Speaker B: Like, I see him every day, right? We were tight like this at one time, right?
And so during the time that I'm about to tell you, this is when we was tight like this. So I had a studio on 187th and Webster Avenue, and I was on my way to the studio working on some music, and I would go by Cass's crib almost every day and be like, yo, what's up? Come with me to the studio.
Let's lay something. But he wasn't actively writing at the time, so he, you know, that didn't resonate with him. So one day I go to the studio and I put a track together, and I come up with a concept called before, right? And so I wrote. I wrote a verse and I recorded it. And when I came from the studio, I let. I stopped by Kaz's crib and I let him hear. He was like, yo, this is flames. He like, yo, you mind if I could I borrow the CD so that I could write a verse in the same flow as yours? And. And we could. We could do this joint together. I'm like, I bet. So I give him the CD and he writes a verse in the same pattern as the flow of my verse.
We plan to record this song, right? But in the interim, we started getting opportunities to perform together. So we would perform all over. And we started performing before, right? And so we were getting a lot of attention and notoriety for it. And then Dougie Fresh called Cas to perform with him at the VH1 Hip Hop Honors one year, and Cass accepted, and I was. I was present at the Hip Hop Honors.
[00:57:12] Speaker A: But what year was this?
[00:57:15] Speaker B: I want to say 2002.
[00:57:19] Speaker A: Okay. Yeah. So, bro, in the chat. CDs was out back then. Okay? He's talking about 2002. Go ahead.
[00:57:27] Speaker B: So. So he.
He performed with Dougie Fresh. And then during Dougie's set, he.
He let Cass spit freestyle or whatever. So instead of Cass fitting a Freestyle. He spits his verse to my concept before. So he spits no problem. I'm in the audience.
You know, I ain't feel no type of way about it because I didn't have. Because Dougie Fresh invited him to go up there. And so he spit that verse because that's probably the best verse that he ever wrote in my flow.
[00:58:12] Speaker A: Right, right, right.
[00:58:13] Speaker B: And I'm not saying that arrogantly. If you listen to Grandmaster, to every verse that Grandmaster Cass has ever written, and then you listen to the verse that he wrote in my flow for before, you'd be like, oh, nah, that's different. That don't sound like none of that. So.
So then one day I get a call from LL's like, Yo, did you hear the new promo for Rock the Bells radio?
I'm like, nah. He like, I'm gonna send it to you. Tell me what you think. So he sends me the link. I click on the link and it's cast. Spinning that rhyme before for the Rock the Bells promo. And so I hit LL back and I'm like, so you know that's like my concept, right?
Like, what you talking about? I said, so I explained the whole thing to him. And then he had flown all of us out to LA to attend the Rock the Bell's Radio Premier party.
Kaz was there. And so he. We were all on the stage at the time. And so he asked Kaz in front of an audience how he came up with the concept or before. But.
And. And Kaz and I weren't speaking at the time because there had been much too much time that lapsed to me that he. Oh, I left out a part. He was in Ice T's movie, the Art of Rap.
That verse as well.
[00:59:57] Speaker A: Oh, so he'd been running with your cadence for a while. Right, right, right, right, right.
[01:00:02] Speaker B: Never credit. Never telling anyone that he got this from me.
He spit it for. For.
Oh, wait. So then DJ Hollywood, DJ Hollywood decided to.
To start spitting the verse that Cass wrote to before. And he spit it for Snoop and Too short at Yankee Stadium.
[01:00:31] Speaker A: Hold up. So he bit Cash rhyme in the style that he got from me. Wow.
[01:00:37] Speaker B: Look, wait, wait, wait. Here we go. Let me see.
Let me see something.
This is.
This is some of the war. Check it out.
Who said lightning can't strike?
My bad.
Who said lightning can't strike in the same place twice? Trailblaze the game Made for life Stay nice Get you rate the top five don't mention my name had you open before Crack cocaine, bro. Man, before the Fever before Missy's first misdemeanor before runs first pair of Adidas got jeters and I pop pop, pop pop heaters stop dealers on my block was the first hot thriller Cause I got skrilla not pillow then got driller if a shot killer don't come blaming the top Villa blue shows for 30 for the south got dirty four jams all y'all cats was worthy, you heard me before Hova cop the platinum Range Rover for KRS Told y'all the bridge was over Kept a bankroll Fly chip, thick chain I rob Been getting cheese like this since Rick changed till the script change I'm a split flame thick and ditch DS on the bandwagon till I switch lanes Hit planes where I hit rich D that was glittered up before most of y'all was old enough they even get enough now Hit the block, split it up, caught the quarter rock went to the fever, snipped it up before thugs was trendy before it was for the love of the game, fella not just for the love with the Benji I reminisce on how I love the ry Put the flame to the split Now I'm sipping on the mug full of henny it was a simpler time Cash in the hand was meant for mine Back then my model was pimp or die Before Kurt tried blow before Anyone heard of 504 the first chirping with the high pro glow and transcended the game and in the process made it so I can't spend a change to get mama about the project's turn Casanovas from black spades cop new ropes was for the whole squad oh God Rap while flourish career got hot as a furnace make your blocks hot color if you got in the skirmish we bust shots but the cops never hurt us Offensive line try to throw the block but they ain't stopping the murders before common made sense hose and made them paying homage with their wallets Where I give you the straight tonic God body but flow so wicked it's satanic Any rapper slash thug could get it if they want it Back when LL was taking out grandma's trash I had backstage trying to get raw ass jealous Haters rather see me dead split my cash let the BX that Lambert Rottweiler BS you got beef need to come see us and you can get yourself full of them things after we pump these up it's been a long uphill climb but this time the cup feels mine Let this nut building climb cut it cooked up when you forced to play the hand you was dealt when as the main man you was felt so you taste life again and this time you find that it's bittersweet Bottom line is quitter eat to the 10th power, my dudes, it's the M hour if remains sweet or if it goes sour this fiscal year, it's crystal clear Got a lot to lose, Keep the pistol here all my soldiers on the front line like deep from pillar to post the heart of the struggles Damn.
[01:04:17] Speaker A: So. So that's the realm of the flow that he bit.
[01:04:21] Speaker B: That's the flow he bit. Wow.
[01:04:22] Speaker A: And when you wrote that, what year?
[01:04:25] Speaker B: I wrote that in, like 20.
Let me see. Khalifa.
I would say 2007.
[01:04:38] Speaker A: Damn.
Whoa. That's. That's crazy. So he's been running with that style?
[01:04:46] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:04:47] Speaker A: And he never heard that style, had that style until you gave him that style.
[01:04:53] Speaker B: If you. If you. If. I'm sure there are, like, quite a few videos.
[01:04:58] Speaker A: I find it. I find it.
So let me ask you something else. You also told me a sidebar that you went into. I don't know if it was the PLO or the Jam. And there was a busy rapper that was up on the stage kicking your raps. Who was that?
[01:05:14] Speaker B: Busy Bizzy B.
He was Disco King Mario's MC at the time. And it was kind of unheard of at the time for an emcee that was down with one crew to even go behind the ropes of another crew. Right. So Mario invited me to Junior High School 123 to get on the mic.
I didn't know that Busy Bee was going to be there.
And so I got there, and when I walked into the gym, because the jam was in the gym, I walk in the gym, and Busy Me is on the mic saying all my rhymes. I'm like, oh. And I go over to him, and I'm. I tap him on the shoulder. I'm like, yo, hey, bro, yo, that ain't your stuff. You saying right there, like, who is that? He like us to suck a Raheem. I'm like, yo, my man, he told.
[01:06:06] Speaker A: You it's this sucker Raheem.
[01:06:08] Speaker B: He ain't. He ain't know who I was. I'm like, oh, really? I'm like, yo, I'm that sucker Raheem. You wanna. You wanna fall back off my homie?
[01:06:18] Speaker A: So he admitted to you that he stole somebody else raps and didn't even know it was you?
[01:06:24] Speaker B: Facts. Yep, yep, yep, yep.
[01:06:29] Speaker A: I like Suicide, though.
[01:06:30] Speaker B: I like that. Suicide. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Melly Mel wrote that.
[01:06:34] Speaker A: What?
[01:06:35] Speaker B: Melly Mel wrote that. Melly Mel ghost wrote Suicide for Busy Be. Man.
[01:06:41] Speaker A: I was just in here giving them all that credit today. I just listened to Suicide today. Cause all I remember is Busy B being called on response. I don't remember him for no lyrics. So when I was listening to Suicide Today, I'm like, yo, hold up. Nah, he was. He went off on that Melly Mel real good.
[01:07:00] Speaker B: Yep.
[01:07:02] Speaker A: So goodness gracious, man, I don't think my stomach hurt now. Damn. Melly Melrose Suicide.
[01:07:09] Speaker B: Yeah, bro. Yep.
[01:07:11] Speaker A: Damn.
[01:07:12] Speaker B: And wait. And Spoony G wrote our song Survival.
Only the strong Can Survive. It's called Survival. Yep.
[01:07:25] Speaker A: So Ghost riding has been around since the beginning of hip hop.
[01:07:29] Speaker B: Yeah. Yeah. You know, so. So record labels, they don't give a. About, you know, if. If you know, you. Whether you a real MC and you write your lyrics or not, because it's the music business.
They. They just care about selling music.
[01:07:48] Speaker A: Makeup. Make. Yeah, make. Make a record. Make a. Make a hit record.
[01:07:52] Speaker B: And so they want you to implement all of, you know, the tools necessary to make the kind of record that they need you to make in order for them to distribute it, promote it, and it be a. It'd be a hit.
And so, you know, ghostwriters, you know, it's not. It's. It's frowned upon in hip hop because, you know, rap. Rap artists allegedly are supposed to write, you know, our. Our own lyrics. But at the end of the day, if the record label wants hits and you're. And you don't have a hit in you, you better find somebody who does.
[01:08:40] Speaker A: Right. So were you jerked by Sugar Hill Records?
[01:08:45] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely.
[01:08:47] Speaker A: Goodness gracious.
[01:08:48] Speaker B: Cross. Cross your heart, bra. Move on.
So.
[01:08:52] Speaker A: So, all right, you bit it. So. Damn. You've been in the culture since early on. What type of record deals was y'all signing back then?
[01:09:00] Speaker B: So. So I was. I'm the youngest member of Grandmaster Flash and Furious Five, by the way.
[01:09:07] Speaker A: Okay.
[01:09:08] Speaker B: And so I was not of age to sign the contract for myself, so my mom had to sign. Right.
But my mom was the only parent out of everyone in the group's parents to take it upon themselves to take our contract to a lawyer.
So after she took the contract to a lawyer, our lawyer was like, don't y'all dare sign this book.
So she was like, all right, no problem. We not signing.
So let me see. I was. I was 16. 16. And so Sylvia Robinson, she kept threatening me. She kept threatening that I wasn't going to be able to record with the group.
My mom didn't Sign. But then, you know, I guess one thing happened after another and it kind of.
It wasn't in. In the forefront of her memory at the time or something. And so maybe. Or maybe she just decided she was gonna wait until I became of age, which is two years later, and pressure me into signing the contract myself, which that's what happened. And I wound up signing the contract myself.
And so we got our contract, allowed for us to get 9% of 90% of our record sales.
[01:10:51] Speaker A: What?
[01:10:52] Speaker B: 9, 9% of 90%. Not 9% of 100%. 9% of 90%. Because 10% of the sales were held back for returns because those were records. And so records. All of the records.
[01:11:09] Speaker A: When a record store, if you didn't sell them all out, you had to pay for the records to come back.
[01:11:14] Speaker B: Well, no, when the record store didn't sell all of the records, Record store would ship those records back.
[01:11:22] Speaker A: Right. And you had to pay for. That was. That was on you. That's what I'm saying. So. So there. So you didn't get no publishing.
[01:11:30] Speaker B: Oh, absolutely not. That was unheard of. We didn't get no publishing.
[01:11:33] Speaker A: Right. Because I wanted to. I wanted to inform the people that publishing was just included in the royalty rate. He was not. Didn't care who wrote the lyrics. It was just the record label on the lyrics and they own the song. You just got basically a performance fee.
[01:11:50] Speaker B: Yeah, yeah, right.
[01:11:52] Speaker A: And that was your royalty. Your royalty was a performer because you performed the record. And if it's so certain amount, you would get this.
[01:11:58] Speaker B: So you get advances.
[01:12:00] Speaker A: Right, right.
[01:12:01] Speaker B: Like, for example, I remember this was Christmas Day.
Christmas Day, and the message was on fire. This was like. Right. Right after the message was released. So the message was on fire. Christmas Day, we took the bus from the Bronx to Inglewood, New Jersey, to Chappelle Record Studios.
And we're walking from the bus stop down west street to go to the studio. And as we're walking to the studio, we hear the message blaring from a car that's approaching.
And as the car pulled up, it's a canary yellow Porsche convertible, and it is Sylvia Robinson's son Joey driving it. And it has a red ribbon tied around it. So that was his Christmas present.
And we took the bus.
[01:13:06] Speaker A: Wow.
[01:13:07] Speaker B: Right. And the largest advance that I have ever received from Sugar Hill Records, no matter how. No matter how many records we sold, was $5,000.
[01:13:23] Speaker A: Five racks.
[01:13:25] Speaker B: That's it.
[01:13:26] Speaker A: In your whole life?
[01:13:28] Speaker B: In my whole life. From. From Sugar Hill Records, as far as advances or royalties net. But now, you know, moving like. Like, recently, we won a lawsuit settlement.
[01:13:43] Speaker A: So I'm getting, you know, getting some.
[01:13:45] Speaker B: But.
[01:13:45] Speaker A: But is it back money or is it for it.
[01:13:48] Speaker B: It's forward.
[01:13:49] Speaker A: So you don't get none of that retroactive bread.
[01:13:52] Speaker B: Nope.
[01:13:54] Speaker A: Goodness gracious.
Goodness gracious. That. That's. That's nasty work right there. As we said, that's.
[01:14:02] Speaker B: That's the kind of work that make you want to go visit somebody.
[01:14:05] Speaker A: Absolutely. One of them passed away, too, right? For.
Yeah.
[01:14:10] Speaker B: Sylvia and her husband passed away. And then Joey, her oldest son, passed.
[01:14:16] Speaker A: The one that had the Porsche.
[01:14:18] Speaker B: Right.
Her youngest son, Scutchy, he passed. There's only one of them left now. That's Lulu.
[01:14:25] Speaker A: Wow. So. So before. Before we. Before we close out, how could the people stay in contact with you, question you and talk to you? What is your social media?
[01:14:37] Speaker B: My social media, mostly on the gram. Right, Raheem. R A H I E M.
Raheem.
[01:14:48] Speaker A: Official. Okay.
[01:14:51] Speaker B: You know, whatever. Whatever you want to hit me up about, get at me. I mean, it's all good.
[01:14:56] Speaker A: And. And again, you. I've seen you at reply. You. You want all the smoke you at reply. People who blocked you. None of them blocked you.
[01:15:06] Speaker B: Nah, nah, they don't block me.
[01:15:08] Speaker A: So Fat Joe ain't block you. Buster ain't block you. None of them blocked you.
[01:15:13] Speaker B: You know what they. No, no. So I don't follow Fat Joe.
[01:15:17] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
[01:15:18] Speaker B: I have my reasons for not following Fat Joe, other than. Other than the foolishness that he's recently got involved, you know, talking about. But Buster, I saw buster at the Grammy 50, and, you know, everything was. Everything, we cool.
But I don't think that. I don't think he knows, like, my. My position.
I don't have a problem letting him know my position.
[01:15:49] Speaker A: Right.
[01:15:51] Speaker B: You know, anyone who.
Who takes the inception of hip hop, you know, anyone who talks about the inception period of hip hop who wasn't there, I listen very closely.
[01:16:07] Speaker A: Right.
[01:16:08] Speaker B: Pay attention. You know, in social media, I don't always want to engage and, you know, be oppositional to people, you know, when they post this information, like inaccurate information. But I do feel like a guardian of the truth.
[01:16:30] Speaker A: Right, right.
[01:16:31] Speaker B: Of the culture that I helped put here.
[01:16:33] Speaker A: Right.
[01:16:34] Speaker B: And so, you know, while I'm here, I want all the smoke.
[01:16:38] Speaker A: Right, right, right, right. So. So for the record, you said Puerto Ricans and Jamaicans were onlookers when it comes to the creation.
[01:16:47] Speaker B: They were not innovators. They did not innovate anything that had to do with the music. Of the hip hop culture during the inception period. They were not the innovators. They were onlookers. They watched and they listened until they understood what we were doing. And then once they understood what we were doing and then knew how to do it, then they became practitioners. Not until then.
[01:17:12] Speaker A: So them being 50. 50 is cap.
[01:17:15] Speaker B: That's dead and sticky.
[01:17:16] Speaker A: Yeah, dead and sticky. So, Raheem, you know, like I said, you also did the Gangster Chronicle. Shout out to my part partner still, you know what I'm saying? So who was it? Was it just you? And still or eight was there, too.
So he. He's on the Gangster Chronicles. Make sure you watch his interview. It was my partner, Norman Steele Raheem and the legendary West Coast MC8. You know what I'm saying? So I'm pretty sure. And. And like I said, Raheem is not Hollywood. He will respond to you. DM them any questions, concerns, and. And he's on there. I think y'all should follow him. He posts a lot of stuff. He's always in the gym, you know what I'm saying? Like. Like, we stay in that gym.
And again, I appreciate you being here, and hopefully more y'all will reach out to him and get him on your platform because his voice needs to be heard. He was there for a lot of stuff, and, you know, he's gonna give credit where credit is due, and he deserves a lot of credit. What are you listening to right now, though?
[01:18:21] Speaker B: Because I'm actively working on a project, my solo project. I really try hard not to listen to anything that's current because it might sneak in and influence me some kind.
[01:18:35] Speaker A: I know what you're saying. Yeah.
[01:18:37] Speaker B: So actually, I listened to lot of.
A lot of old school 60s and 70s R B because it. It gives me great musical ideas.
I do production, so I work on the music. And then, you know, as far as who I like, you know, other rap artists that I like. I like a multitude of rap artists, you know, for different reasons. I like Busted Rhymes. I like krs, I like Nas. Right?
[01:19:20] Speaker A: We never said none of them is not talented. I don't want anybody to think. And. And even I like, I like. I got a lot of Fat Joe in my own. Yeah, yeah.
[01:19:29] Speaker B: You know, I like some of Fat Joe's joints.
My crew actually discovered Big Pun.
[01:19:36] Speaker A: What?
[01:19:37] Speaker B: My crew, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious 5, actually discovered big Pun because we used to have a show on Hot 97 called the Mic Check show, right?
And we used to have the listening audience display any talent that they had on The Air and Fat, not Cad Joe. Big Pun was our weekly caller winner for, I think, about a month or two months straight. And then we had a remote location set up at this strip joint called the Playhouse. And Big Pun came there and won the contest. And our ex manager, Mickey Benson, who also managed Ice T in Fat Joe, made the plug from Big Pun to Fat Joe.
[01:20:28] Speaker A: So this is Big Moondog. This is not even Big Pun, Right. Like, Big Moondog. Punishment was his name, I think his first name.
Damn, that's crazy. So, yo, bro, I appreciate you for. For, For. For giving me something that I don't even know. You know what I'm saying? So what. What I want to ask you, though. So why wasn't you in some of these movies, though? You wasn't in Beach Treated. You was in B Street?
[01:20:52] Speaker B: No, no, because the original group, Grandmaster Flash, myself and Kid Creole, we split from Melly Mel, Cowboy and Scorpio because they opted to stay signed to Sugar Hill Records.
[01:21:07] Speaker A: Right.
[01:21:07] Speaker B: We sued Sugar Hill Records and got released and got signed to Electric.
[01:21:13] Speaker A: So, hold up. You said Kid Creole ain't him and Melly Mel brothers? Yes, they are blood brothers.
[01:21:18] Speaker B: Right, Blood brothers.
[01:21:19] Speaker A: And he went against his brother?
[01:21:21] Speaker B: Yes. Kid Creole is older than Melly Mel.
[01:21:25] Speaker A: So what did they say he came up with?
[01:21:28] Speaker B: Who?
[01:21:28] Speaker A: Kid Creole.
[01:21:30] Speaker B: Kid Creole.
[01:21:33] Speaker A: So is it. Yes, yes. Y'all wanted him or something like that, right? Wow.
[01:21:38] Speaker B: You know, he. Yes, yes. Y'all was used, like, as a segue before you, you know, go into a run.
[01:21:47] Speaker A: So before we close, the. The thing was debunking Fat Joe, and then we got into Jamaicans. Do you think Fat Joe is racist?
[01:21:57] Speaker B: Absolutely.
[01:21:59] Speaker A: So besides.
[01:22:00] Speaker B: Besides what reason why I think Fat Joe is racist?
I'm sorry. I don't think Fat Joe is racist. I know he is, you know, because I was seeing a woman and her cousin was seeing a dude.
So the woman was like. Not the woman. I was seeing her cousin. She was like a video vixen. And she was in one of Fat Joe's videos, and her man is black, and so.
And she's Puerto Rican.
And so when Fat Joe was on set with her, he's in her ear or whatever, and he was like, yo, you know, like, you. You making. You making our people look bad with these monkeys. What?
Facts, bro.
[01:22:56] Speaker A: Repeat that whole.
What did he. What did he. What the. So the female told you that he said this?
[01:23:04] Speaker B: Yes, that's right.
[01:23:05] Speaker A: Repeat what you just said.
[01:23:07] Speaker B: So you're making our people look bad with these monkeys.
[01:23:10] Speaker A: And this was a Puerto Rican woman that he was telling a Puerto Rican woman, you say. Say it again.
[01:23:18] Speaker B: Yo, what you doing? You making our people look bad with these monkeys.
Yep.
[01:23:25] Speaker A: Raheem, I don't even know. We can't even say nothing else after that. That's. That's the ender right there.
[01:23:30] Speaker B: That's nasty work.
[01:23:31] Speaker A: Nasty. Work. Nasty. Nasty. So. Yo, bro, I follow you. You know we always in tune. When I called, you pick up the phone, call me right back.
No funny thing. Like I said, I always want y'all to know this man don't have no funny style bone in his body. He show him the trophies again because that was in the beginning. Let's show them the trophies again and explain what they are.
[01:23:54] Speaker B: This is Rock and Roll hall of Fame induction trophy.
[01:24:00] Speaker A: Okay?
[01:24:01] Speaker B: We became the first rap group to get inducted into the Rock and Roll hall of fame March 12, 2007.
And it's Grammy lifetime achievement.
And that was 2020.
[01:24:21] Speaker A: And this is for what group? Let them know.
[01:24:22] Speaker B: The legendary group Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five.
[01:24:27] Speaker A: That's it. Raheem, man, I appreciate you. Legendary. Good, dude. My big bro, man, like I said, man, I appreciate you, man. And we'll build later on, man. Thank you for coming here.
[01:24:38] Speaker B: Thank you for having me.
[01:24:39] Speaker A: Peace. All right, y'all, man. So this was Doggy Diamonds. No, for the. Hold on. Let me give y'all hold on. There we. There we go, man. Raheem, man, that was. I hope y'all appreciate that. I hope y'all receive what we put on for y'all tonight. The display that we put on for y'all tonight. Listen, man, without.
I am the undisputed interview king. As you see, this is how you conduct interviews. This is how you promote and make Hip Hop content.
Content. And what I need y'all to do, I need y'all to hit that, like, button. I. I need y'all to follow Raheem, and I need y'all to share this right here, because this is important. I'm Doggy Diamonds. This is Doggy Diamonds tv. Please leave a comment. I appreciate each and every one of you for being here tonight. On that note, y'all know what I do. See, y'all say, oh, no interviews. No interviews. That's what I brought you. Until next time, I'm out. Peace.
