Interview with B-Boy Craig Butler (The Soundview Crew / The Shaka Zulus)

                            Interview with B-Boy Craig Butler (The Soundview Crew / The Shaka Zulus)

                                               

B-Boy Craig Butler (Soundview Crew / Shaka Zulus)

                                            conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where were you born?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I was born in 1962 in the Bronx. Actually, I was born around University Avenue in the Bronx and then we moved to Soundview."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you moved to Soundview?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I moved to Soundview Projects when I was like 4 or 5 years old."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To what kind of music were you exposed as a child?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Okay, so I started dancing  when I was around 4, 5. Maybe a little earlier but I don't remember  that. My mom used to listen to Rock 'n' Roll and my brothers they used to listen to The Beatles and stuff like The Beach Boys. You know, the Monkees...you know, stuff like that, man! My moms she also used to listen to that Motown music. She really was into that Motown music. She listened to James Brown, Michael Jackson even though that was a little too early. It was like that, man. It was Rock 'n' Roll first because Motown didn't come into the set until some years after that. Even Michael Jackson was little. He was a kid, you know? But he was singing. So I was brought up on stuff like that. Like on Rock 'n' Roll, you know? Like I said...The Beatles and stuff like that. And we used to dance and my brother used to wear wigs and all that (laughs).So that's how it all started in the house."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall the occasions on which you used to dance as kid?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, we used to dance at family get-togethers 'cause I had three other siblings. Me, Abdul, Ty and Michael. That was the immediate family in the house. So the house was kinda crowded, you know? My moms had a 3 bedroom apartment and so my two older brothers would sleep together. They had their own room. And me and my little brother we had our own room. And my moms had her own room, you know?" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you watch Soul Train with your siblings?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Righ, right! Yes, Soul Train and Dick Clark ...American Bandstand. That's how we got together and started dancing. My moms would put on these shows and we'd be just dancing away."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was dancing at that point already competitive or did you just enjoy the music together?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"We would enjoy the music together but at the same we was also competing with each other 'cause we was always in competition with each other, you know? Yeah, always, man!! Then we would imitate the Soul Train stuff. We would always imitate the dance moves and stuff like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you think of James Brown back then?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, he was like my hero, man! We copied his moves and made some of our own moves. Michael Jackson and James Brown were like our favourites. When the TV shows were over my moms would put on her little stereo and my oldest brother Michael would play the music. Albums and 45s. Actually, I would follow behind Michael and Ty because they were my B-Boy heroes, you know? When I was eleven years old they used to take me to the parties. Well, my mother had them taking me with them. That's  how I started B-Boying through my brother Ty. He was also a Writer. He wrote Pase 161. He died. I wish he was here to see Marky Mark The Puppetmaster (legendary Shaka Zulu B-Boy from Harlem; check out the interview I did with him) again. Ty and Puppetmaster went to Samuel Gompers High School together and they would also dance together. Puppetmaster, his brother Mike  and 3D they had a B-Boy Crew and I used to follow behind them. Puppetmaster's sister was fine!!! She was like a beauty queen! Oh, my God!! But yeah, Puppetmaster was the baddest! 3D was a lightskin dude. He was nice with his, too. I remember when they battled Amad (Zulu Kings) and them in Bronx River and burnt them!! And I'm not talking about a regular burn! Those are the guys I used to follow! I used to follow my brothers and them. I was like 11 years old, man. They was soo good, they used to get in the parties free. Back then it was more a block party thing than parties though. You know, that's how it started out. It started with the block parties. B-Boying outside!! We used to dance on concrete. No cardboards, none of that stuff!" 

B-Boy Puppetmaster (The Shaka Zulus) 1976

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did B-Boying look like when you saw it for the first time in 1974? Was it already focussed on doing moves on the floor?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"It wasn't. It started out like Uprock. Like doing moves on top, like doing Uprock.  See, they would go down on the floor from time to time but it was more like a kneel move or something like that. Then some of them would go into a puppet style of stance or they would do the Robot. We....like my generation..we brought in that floor stuff, you know? "

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were the places that your brothers would take you to where you would see them dance?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Bronx River, Soundview Projects, Monroe Projects.....those were the main projects. And Bronxdale....Mario was in Bronxdale. That's where we would have these big B-Boy get-togethers. Like the projects would battle each other. We were all Black Spades first. My brothers was in the Young Spades. But later all that fighting really turned into dancing, you know? "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the describe the scenery at these parties!"

CRAIG BUTLER:"The music was just incredible, man! Nothing like the block parties today 'cause back then everybody was just so much together, man. One project....we all stuck together. Once you got to the block party everybody was so friendly. I mean, things happened but it was just amazing, man. We didn't have all these crazy rules that they have now. So it was just awesome, like a spectacle, you know? People would start to dance and they would have the crowd gathering around them and everybody was in a crew. I was in the Soundview Crew. Bronxdale and Bronx River they had their crews but then we all knew each other 'cause we was all in the Black Spades, you know what I'm saying? But each project had their own style of B-Boying. So we would battle each other but now if somebody else was to come within the projects we would stick together and battle them."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How much older than you are your brothers Ty and Michael?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, Ty is two or three years older than me and Michael is even more older than me. Maybe four or five years. They used to take me everywhere. I was brought up as a Muslim so my mother was very strictly up until a certain time until The Honourable Elijah Muhammad died in 1975. You know, actually my mother never used to let us go outside after a certain time when we was younger.  By 6 o'clock we had to be in the house."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you know where your brothers picked up B-Boying?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"They were in the Black Spades and like I said all the projects used to dance in the block parties. It would be big giant gatherings. Picture a big park jam that people heard about. DJ Mario had these huuuuuuge speakers!! I mean bass ass kicking speakers. You could hear the music from miles and miles away!!! So once somebody started kicking it in the park, like they set up....everybody can hear the music and word spreads like a wildfire. And before you  know it, man....like one hour...it's like 100 people.....another two hours....350, 400 people. I mean, we 're talking about total excitement and joy because everybody knew each other. That's how they started 'cause everybody was dancing, man. You know, if they wasn't doing the Hustle , they was doing some type of Freestyle Uprock Hiphop thing. See, my brothers came out before me. I was one of those B-Boys that came up with that floor stuff.  You know, like the helicopter? You know, I invented the helicopter stuff. It's like throwing one leg over one leg. I started that in the 1970ies, man!!! And it took flight because a lot of people started doing it. So I was like, "Man, these people try to take credit for my move!" But I ain't never worried 'cause I knew what the real deal was."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So did you ask your brothers how to do B-Boying?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"No!!! I was with my brothers. We would just dance, man. Like we had a saying in dancing back then, right? When you feel it, go for it! It's in your soul. It's in your spirit, you understand? So you hearing these big giant speakers and that bass is thumping and you out there....it's your spirit, man!!! You go with the flow, man!!! (excited) So that's the motto: When you feel it, go for it!! No holding back!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"You really loved it when DJs like Kool DJ Dee were playing B-Beat music in the park."

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yeah...Kool DJ Dee, his brother DJ Tyrone The Mixologist....I know all those guys personally 'cause I knew them from dancing. I would make the parties happen. Me, my brothers and the other B-Boys...You know, the Ni***er Twins...I knew them also 'cause I used to dance against them. You see, the Zulus would be Breaking against the Herculoids. I was all a part of that because I was good at dancing. After a while I didn't need my brothers no more and you know I got to know Afrika Bambaataa so good that I spent a night in his house. If you know him, you could ask him. All you gotta do is say, "Craig Butler.". Or my fathers name, "Muhammad Abdul Aziz." and he'll know exactly who you are talking about. I know him personally. So I became a Zulu."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please expound on that!"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Okay, I became a Zulu because like I said when my brothers used to take me to all the block parties and I would dance I got popularity from dancing. I knew everybody and everybody wanted to know me 'cause I was burning people, you know what I mean??!!! (laughs) But it was all about the fun and the spirit, man. And that's how I met Bam. Actually, Bam came to me 'cause he knew my father, too. It's a lot of history behind my name. All about the Malcolm X thing and my father got exonerated. He got falsely accused and went to prison for 20 years for a crime he didn't commit but they exonerated him two years ago and he got millions. Actually, my father just moved to Africa last year. So that's how I got to know Bam even that much more. It's like they used to guard me, man. You know, they ain't let nothing happen to me. So I knew Crazy Mike, Crazy Phil, DJ Afrika Bambaataa's bodyguards. It was like I was introduced to a whole new different world once I got down with the Zulus. I knew everybody....Pow Wow, Cholly Rock....So I got inducted into the Zulu Nation and Wade's Shaka Zulus because I knew everybody very well and also through my dancing 'cause I was really good. I came out with moves that none of them had. It was that next generation thing, you know?"

Official B-Boy membership list of the Shaka Zulu Crew compiled by its founder and president Wade. Craig Butler and his brother Tyrone aka Pase 161 are both on it.

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you would come up with these new spectacular moves!"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, I would practice in my house or in a park outside. You know, I would practice my moves. I would also try to do other peoples' moves and then once I figured their moves out I would introduce my own brand into it and make something new of it. I would try their stuff out but I wanted to be original and through practice I started coming up with ideas or by accidents, too. You'd be saying, "Oh, wow!! Let me do this shit!!" And you'd practice it and it became something of yours. I would practice anywhere I felt I needed to practice. Mainly like after coming home from school. I would do homework and then I'd go outside. After a while my mother wasn't so strict anymore and I was the first one to move out of my house. I moved out of my house when I was 16 years old. I had my own place. I bought my first motorcycle when I was 17. I mean that big motorcycle,  not that little mini bike. I bought a Honda CB 360. Then after that I bought a bigger one. I bought a Yamaha XS 500....140 mph on the speedometer. So I was the dude. I used to hustle in the supermarkets to make money. Like when I was 16 I had about 10000$ in my shoebox from making money. Everytime I got money I would save it. Everytime I would want something I would put away money and I would get the biggest boom boxes. See, that's another reason why I attracted a lot of attention because I always had a gigantic boom box. I'm not talking about nothing little, I'm talking about a gigantic boom box. We're talking about maybe 2 feet in length and five inches wide. You know, JVCs....I had the biggest one they made. That shit cost me 400$, 500$ back then. I was really making money 'cause I used to sell weed, too. I mean everybody sold something in Soundview back then.  Everybody knew I was that guy with money." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"It seems that by 1975 B-Boying had shifted its focus to moves down on the floor. That means that you probably witnessed that change..."

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yes, because my brothers were older than me. So I was younger. So I was that next generation, you understand? So yeah, I was part of that movement. Actually, I was one of the B-Boys who really started that floor stuff. I ain't gonna lie though the Ni**er Twins and Clark Kent.....Kool DJ Herc's B-Boys....they did that also. I know what I'm talking 'cause I was there, man!! And I remember when I used to breakdance against Clark Kent....oh my God!!!! Yo, them dudes were bad, man!!!!! But I had my own moves and I was killing it. And then I had the power of the Zulu Nation. Pow Wow, Marcus Rockwell, Cholly Rock, Shaka. Soundview was with Bronx River.....and Bronxdale with Black Jack...he was a B-Boy, too.... we was all together. The Herculoids was like from over there...The Nine Projects and you know, University Avenue. It was a spectacle and we was like famous in our own right. That's how I got popular, man!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did these B-Boy battles take place when Kool DJ Herc played with DJ Afrika Bambaataa?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yes, yes...actually it would be a battle between the B-Boys AND the DJs 'cause Bambaataa would be battling Kool Herc. Herc's B-Boys would be battling against us. That's how it was and there would be times where they would be side by side battling! Oh God, I wish you was there! They don't even do stuff like that anymore. They don't know how to have fun like we had growing up. It was amazing, man!!! Amazing!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Well, I guess a big part of it was the music because back then you had really great musicians who put out incredible music. Unlike today where it's just pieced together stuff without any soul."

CRAIG BUTLER:"Exactly!! Vibration was totally different."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So who were the B-Boys of the Soundview Crew?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"The main crew was my brothers, me, Buppy and his little brother Sharky. You know, they used to dance, too. Some other people, man, but it's so hard to remember. Damn, man! We was like really the main B-Boys out of Soundview. Everybody used to call us The Butler Brothers." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"You said that you and your brothers battled the B-Boys from Bronx River and those from Bronxdale like Lil Black Jack and them. How often did you battle against each other? Once or numerous times?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Numerous times. That's how we got to know each other. I mean we know each other from the Black Spades but not as personal. I was a Baby Spade. I had my colors and everything. When you start dancing and all of that it get's a little more personal. You begin to respect one another in certain ways and that's how we became even closer."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did these battles take place at? Bronx River Center? JHS 123?"

CRAIG BUTLER:" Yes, but Soundview Center, too, and Soundview Park. That's where everything used to happen. But there were also DJs playing music in the middle of the projects." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly is Soundview Center located at?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Oh, it's like across the street from Sack Wern Houses and it's like maybe 200 yards away from the main park where they used to do the block parties, too. In the beginning the block parties would happen in the middle of the projects, man. Soundview Center was a rec room. It was small. I would say maybe 300 people fit in there. Maybe a little more but there would always be a lot of people outside in front of it. They didn't give parties there until after  because the block parties were so hot, man! It would last all night. They would start like maybe 8 o'clock and they would last until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. It wasn't like now where you need a permission to to do it. Back then you didn't need a permit and all that crazy stuff. But when fights would break out and stuff like that's when they introduced permits in New York." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the main DJ in Soundview who DJed for the B-Boys?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Okay, so on my side the main DJs were Kool DJ Dee and DJ Tyrone The Mixologist. They were the main DJs back then in Soundview. Bambaattaa was in Bronx River. Mario was in Bronxdale. His partner was Tex DJ Hollywood."

SIR NORIN RAD:"From where do you know T.T. La Rock?"

CRAIG BUTLER:" I met T.T. La Rock in a block party in either Soundview or Bronxdale. We used to get down in the circles. He was nice. I used to call him Big T back then." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also tag up your name?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I would tag up my name with a Magic Marker but not like my brother. He wrote Pase 161. He was awesome, man. He used to bomb the trains back in the days."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did also encounter the Little Zulu Kings?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yes, we never battled against each other though. Beaver took my helicopter move and he made it his own. He could do it both ways. I couldn't do that. I could only do that with one leg."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are your favourite breakbeats from back then?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"It's Just Begun"! That was my favourite, man!!! Well, actually "Apache" was my favourite! That and "It's Just Begun". Then after that it was "Bongo Rock". Once one of those records came on back then it was mayhem!!!!! But I mean like a dance mayhem! It was just amazing! Everybody's soul and spirit was just on the dance floor! I get teary-eyed when I think back to those days. "Listen To Me" by Baby Huey, too.  That record was an absolute mindblower, man! Everybody used to get nuts on the dancefloor, man!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did B-Boys dress back in your era?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"B-Boys would dress like fly. They wore Pro-Keds with some fly jeans...you know, Lee Jeans. To make 'em look fly we would take the strings out and they would have strings coming out of them. You know, we would take the stitching out....like around the circles and the stitching would come down. So it was like the pants had a certain hair style. Your pants would look like a little mini mock. We would do it like for maybe half an inch. Some people would do it an inch long. You know, we would dress like that. We would put two different pairs of shoe laces in our Pro-Keds. I would have red on one side and black on the other side or intertwine them, you know? Back then the Pro-Keds was the flyest shoes out. We would also wear mocknecks, suede fronts and plaids if we wanted to get real fly. See, I was one of the fly B-Boys I would outdress everybody. I would buy my gear at Jew Man's and A.J. Lester. That's where everybody went. Jew Man had everything A.J. Lester had but for cheaper (laughs). Stick-up kids were always around but nobody would ever mess with me 'cause everybody knew the Butler Brothers." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your most memorable battle?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Battling the Ni**er Twins and Clark Kent in Bronx River and battling Lil Black Jack in Bronxdale and Soundview. That battle against the Ni**er Twins and Clark Kent kinda ended in a draw 'cause I was still learning but I had those moves that they had never seen before."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take to stand out as a B-Boy during the 1970ies?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I would say your dance moves and the way you would dress but then again that didn't really matter that much. I would say your dance moves and how strong you would be because it takes a lot of endurance, you know? And conviction, too, I would say. You also had to know people because you couldn't just go and dance somewhere if you didn't know somebody, you know what I mean? Sometimes people would come up from nowhere and do some moves and somebody would get mad because they would be like, "Who is this dude???!!" And he would get punched in the face. That's what I mean by that. Having style and finesse was mandatory. You had to have that!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you like to give shoutouts at the end of this interview?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, I'd like to give shoutouts to my man Marky Mark The Puppetmaster, my man Big T otherwise known as T.T. La Rock, The Ni**er Twins, Clark Kent, DJ Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Herc, Kool DJ Dee, DJ Tyrone The Mixologist, DJ Mario, Tex DJ Hollywood, Wade....and everybody else in the community that was there with us Breaking. My shoutouts go out to all of you!! I love you all!! AND I thank my man Sir Norin Rad for doing this interview with me! God bless you! Thank you because you had made my day! All those memories...you took me back! It was overwhelming, man! Love is Love!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you and thanks to T. T. La Rock for making this interview possible! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! UKUMBAMBISANA!! Shout outs to Pete Nice! Shout outs to my mentors Trixie, Dancin' Doug, Cholly Rock, Sondance, Puppetmaster, Wayne Will (RIP) and of course Mr. Wiggles!! Shout outs to Troy L. Smith!" 

   

Interview with Kool DJ Dee (The KD Crew)

                                                           Interview with Kool DJ Dee 

                                                 

Kool DJ Dee (The KD Crew)

                                          

                                        conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where were you born?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I was born on October 20th, 1956 in Wilson, North Carolina."

SIR NORIN RAD:"At which age did you move to New York City?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"My mother got me in New York City when I was around seven years old."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To which part of New York City did you move?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, at seven we moved to Harlem. I think it was 127th Street & Morningside Avenue. From there we moved to Brooklyn. Then we moved to the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you moved to the Bronx?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" Well, I was in junior high school so I'm thinking I was about 16 or 17."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did living in Brooklyn differ from living in the Bronx?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, in Brooklyn it was a completely different thing. I was running around riding bicycles, learning how to talk to girls and shit. I got suspended from school for fighting. In Brooklyn I was introduced to the world or whatever. I was just learning things in Brooklyn.  I wasn't interested in music right there and then. I didn't do that until I got to the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"After you had moved to the Bronx you became a member of the Black Spades, right?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yes, when I got to junior high school I was from Brooklyn so I was dressing different than the other kids. So I had this one kid who picked on me and who wanted to fight me. I think he was in a different gang. I think he was in  the Ghetto Brothers. He said to me,"See you at 3 o'clock!" I was like, "Okay." And then a Black guy came to me and said,"Yo, man! This guy is in a gang. You need to join the Spades then we can make sure that you have a fair fight." I was like, "I don't know. I know nothing about gangs." He said, "Okay, we gonna stand there with you anyway." So then 3 o'clock came and I had to fight and then David saw me fight he was the head of the Black Spades. He said, "Oh man, you're good. You're big for your age. We'll put you in the Young Spades." I said, "Okay! Alright." So that's how that started. And then from there I moved up to the president of the first chapter of the first division of the Black Spades. David wanted me to be the president of the first chapter of the first division to recruit more people into the Spades....younger guys like myself. And so that's more or less what I did. You know, Bambaataa and them and their projects and other projects in Soundview. We went around beating up people. You know, it was a whole different thing then. I was wild."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To what kind of music were you exposed as a child?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"James Brown, Otis Redding, Joe Tex  and Motown...the Supremes, Sam Cooke. You know, it was your urban music that they was playing. Every now and then my mother would play some Rock music. Like Mandrill. My mother was young. She was a young mother. She had at me at 16." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What caused you to become a DJ?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I used to go this club in the Village on West 3rd Street when I was 16. I was already living in the Bronx by that time. It was a club called "The Duke. It was a small club, you know? And we used to go there and the DJ there had big speakers. I looked and I was amazed how he kept the music going. He was mixing well. I wanted to know how he did it so I looked inside the DJ booth. He didn't really have a mixer. He had levels on the turntables where he would tap one up and at the same time he would tap the other level down. I started talking to him, "How are you doing this? What's all this about?" So he started explaining to me about the volume and the mixing. It was crazy! At the time they didn't call it BPM. They called it strobe light. You had to watch the strobe on the bottom of the turntables where these little squares turn into one line  and then when both squares is in one line on both turntables it's in the same beat. So yeah, I had to learn. I saw that and I got interested in that. So I started going to other clubs where I saw Pete DJ Jones and Grandmaster Flowers. Like Flowers...oh man, when you talk about blending a record that man could blend a record like you would never believe and I was in awe. I was dancing and listening to him. And Pete DJ Jones..the same thing. Pete DJ Jones had a different style though. I noticed that there was a different style between the two. So I incorporated some of Pete DJ Jones' style and some of Grandmaster Flowers' style into me. And also DJ Plummer! Ron Plummer. So that's what got me interested in it. My mother always used to give parties. So the music was already there. When she didn't have money for rent and she had to pay the rent she would give rent parties where people would come and pay and she would sell drinks and fried chicken sandwiches. " 

SIR NORIN RAD:"You have said that Grandmaster Flowers and Pete DJ Jones had different styles of DJing. What do you mean by that?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Alright! Grandmaster Flowers..he's a blender. He blends most of his records, right? And sometimes he blends music that people don't know just to have it blend well before he puts in another record that people do know. So to me he loses the interest of the crowd in one way or another some time. Pete DJ Jones only played the contemporary music. He only played what was in style and he didn't mix at all. He wouldn't blend no record at all. He would extend the front part of the record or whatever part he wanted. Grandmaster Flowers didn't do that. He didn't extend nothing. So there was a difference in their style. So you could say that Grandmaster Flowers mixed and Pete DJ Jones mostly cut."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe what you did in order to get your own DJ equipment together!"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I was a messenger at the time in Midtown Manhattan. I worked down there and so I delivered letters and packages to people. So I walked past these electronic stores and I would look in the window. So I walked into one electronic store  and I met this salesman and we was talking. He would show me the equipment. He would show me the GLI speakers, he would show me the GLI mixer. He showed me amps. He would explain everything to me. That's when I started learning about distortion rates. He was good though. We would put a package together. He said, "This is gonna cost you so much. You can pay on it each week." So I put my first 50 $ down. I think it cost 4000 $ in the beginning. It was a lot of money and my mother came in and put the rest and then that's how I got started-"

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did your brother DJ Tyrone The Mixologist join you?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"He joined me later on. My brother was slick. He waited till everything got off the ground  then he wanted in. He saw that the girls liked the DJ and so he told me, "Hey, I want in!" I had to teach him how to mix and he took it from there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your very first party as a DJ?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" My first party when I didn't have no equipment I gave myself a party in Monroe projects where I had little speakers. I took my mother's set apart and I used to use a component ampifier where I turned from phono to auxiliary and stuff like that. That's my first party. It sounded terrible. That was in the center in Monroe projects. Then after I got my equipment my first professional party where I got paid was at a place called Spaghetti Works. At that time they used to take restaurants and turn them into clubs at night time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you get to play there?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I was playing in the park and these promoters walked up to me. They said, "We like how you sound. We're giving this party and we need you to play down there."  Spaghetti Works was on 86th Street & Lexington Avenue. I'll never forget that. I only had limited records. You understand? You know, I had the hits but it was limited. Like what? Maybe 20 albums and a couple of 45s, right? I had to make it last so I took the music but I had to mix it in different ways so that they didn't realize that I'm playing the same music over and over again.  That was my first professional party and it was very successful. Those guys hired me again to do a pool party. Before I had my own equipment I was in a DJ crew called Fantasia which was from Brooklyn. It was DJ Chips, DJ Larry B and me. We played against DJ Plummer."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever go to the Tunnel where DJ John Brown was DJing at?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yeah, I have been  to the Tunnel with Mario. We had fights in there and stuff like that. I was in the Spades and I was young so we was having fights in there.We went in there one time. I wasn't really listening to the music though. I heard about this guy DJ John Brown but I wasn't really listening to the music 'cause I was drunk as hell. I was in a different frame of mind then but I been there, yeah."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What exactly is the difference between Disco DJing and Hiphop DJing from your point of view ? I noticed quite early that DJs such as DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flowers etc. are not being recognized as Hiphop DJs by the original Bronx and Harlem B-Boys but are considered to be Disco DJs. You obviously DJed in both realms so please highlight the distinction!"

KOOL DJ DEE:" The discotheques I played for in Manhattan would have people who dressed well.  You know, they was older people maybe in their 20s. The music that I played is the same music that they played in Hiphop.  That urban disco sound is different from that Saturday Night Fever type disco sound. That Studio 54 disco is different disco music. We didn't play that. We only played so much if the record was funky enough. We might play KC & The Sunshine Band or maybe the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees had one record that we might play. I forgot the name of it. We played the records straight through, you know? We might extend one part of the record one or two times then we would let the record go on. It wasn't like in the Bronx. They didn't wanna hear the beginning of the record or whatever. They wanted you to get right to the breakpart. You come down on the breakpart and you keep the breakbeat going. When I first came outside in the park in the Bronx I didn't realize that so I was playing the records the wrong way, like I was playing them down in Manhattan, right? I saw that they stood around until that breakpart came on and then they started jumping all over the place!! I was like,"Okay! So this is what y'all like!"So then I started just extending the beat parts and I was doing this so well because I was already familiar with extending certain parts of the record. So it was nothing for me. That's the difference! The breakbeat part! Playing it non-stop."

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which parks of the Bronx did you play that Breakbeat music for the B-Boys?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I played in Bronxdale Projects. I played in  Rosedale Park that's outside the Bronxdale Projects. I played in Bronx River. I played in Monroe Projects. I played in 100 Park. I played in Seward Avenue Park in Soundview and I played in Hunts Point. Oh, and I played in the Valley Park Uptown, too."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly did you live when you started playing in the parks for the B-Boys?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" 1121 Elder Avenue. Apartment C4 between Westchester and Watson Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about the indoor spots?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I did Bronx River Center with Pete DJ Jones and JHS 123 with DJ Mario. And I played in many different other indoor spots."

                                                            

                                            

DJ Afrika Bambaataa & DJ Mario

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so when Pete DJ Jones played  with you in Bronx River Center what kind of DJ style did he use? Disco or Hiphop?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Pete was playing club style. I was cutting up the breaks."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it true that DJ Afrika Bambaataa did his first parties on your soundsystem?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, he saw my system. DJ Mario was the one who lend Bambaataa equipment to do his first parties. It was Mario."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So is it accurate to say that you were DJing for B-Boys before DJ Afrika Bambaataa?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yes, I was playing before Bambaataa."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain the importance of records for Hiphop back then."

KOOL DJ DEE:"Records at that time...you had to be able to have your records lined up in the order you was going to play them other than the computer today where you just put them in a file. You wanted to get albums that had three or four good songs on it 'cause that's what you gonna need. You would match and mix your music and you tried to do it gently because you don't wanna scratch up your records. You gotta get your 45s and play them also. Now I have been playing the computer lately and I got all my music that I had in the 1970ies on my computer now.  So I basically like the computer because you don't have to carry a lot of records.With the records...I used to take like 12 crates of records with me in every gig. So that's hard. Those things are heavy when you have to go upstairs and stuff like that. Oh man! So that's the difference. Records are good and the clarity of the record is better than that of the files. They say the computer is supposed to be better than the vinyl but it's not. Original vinyl is much better because you hear all the instruments and you DON'T HEAR all the instruments in digital. That's why the vinyl is better. I like records. Back then records were held in such high regard by us because it's like having a gun with bullets. If you ain't got no bullets you can't hurt nobody in warfare, right? So with your records you gotta have records that sound good and that make people dance or that the other DJs don't have. That makes you a better DJ now, you understand? That's what was going on with DJ Afrika Bambaataa. Bambaataa had records nobody else had. That's what makes the people want to come to your party because they be like, "Oh he's playing records that Kool DJ Herc don't have! Or Dee don't have!" You know? Your records are your ammunition. You need that!! Especially in a battle! Like you're playing against another DJ? When you come on you gotta play your secret weapons!!! Records that he ain't got!!! The B-Boys are gonna be like, "Oh!!! We never heard that beat before!" And they are Breaking on the floor to it. So yeah, records are your ammunition. You definetely need that!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What went through your head when you were playing with DJ Afrika Bambaataa in Bronx River and you noticed that he had this incredibly huge arsenal of breakbeats?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, Bambaataa was the extension of me. That's the way I felt. And I was proud of him with all the records he accumulated. At that point I knew he was gonna be impactful as a DJ. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever ask him for titles of  specific records?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I never asked him for titles of the records but I do believe that if I would have asked him he would have told me the names."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who helped you to move your records and your DJ equipment to the parks, rec rooms and clubs?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, I had a crew called the KD Crew. You know, it was my MC and some other guys. They would help me.  I had a lot of people that helped me. Once people knew they could get to a party for a free you had guys volunteering to carry equipment to get in the party for free. You don't have to do nothing. They wanna carry your stuff so they can get in free. That was a whole clique.  We didn't pay them, you know? They would do it every week. Everytime I did a party they wanted to go. So all of a sudden they became a part of my crew. Matter of fact, I had about nine guys with me. Let me see...it was Fever Dee, Willy, Lee, Stanley, Timmy, Omar, Norman, Norman's brother and CV."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did anybody ever try to step to you in order to take your records or your equipment from you?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, that wouldn't happen."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you usually start your parties? Like what kind of records would you play? How would you proceed from there and how would you end your parties?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, to start out...I would set up and stuff like that. And you know, at the beginning I wouldn't play the hot stuff yet. I'd play what you call meantime music.  You know, a lot of people are walking in and everybody is talking. So they come in. So then when I saw I had enough crowd then I started hitting them with the good stuff. I may throw in some Cheryl Lyn or James Brown. Stuff that's gonna make them move. Boz Scaggs "Dirty Lowdown". Stuff like that. Then once I got them moving I start hitting them with the hot stuff. But it was a difference. See, in the Bronx I would play the good stuff and fast music all through the party. In Manhattan there's a difference. At 12 o'clock  I would hit them with slow jams. So the guys and girls could get together and talk, hold on to each other or whatever. I'd play about three of those and then I got back  into the fast music again. We used to play from 9 o'clock till 4 o'clock in the morning.  So at 2 o'clock I'd play more slow records and I then I'd get back to fast music till the end of the night."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So in the Bronx you did not play any slow jams at all?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, they didn't wanna hear slow joints. I mean in the begining I tried but you know, they would go outside and then later on they'd come back. It was like they was waiting for you to get back into the fast music, the beats. So I said to myself, "I'm not gonna play slow music anymore." So I focussed on the breaks all the time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever go to a DJ Smoke party?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, that's the part...people say he was out at the same time that Herc and I was out but I didn't hear of him. I only went to the West BX to play music once and that was at the Executive Playhouse and that's when I saw Kool DJ Herc on a Friday and I was supposed to play there Saturday. So I just went there to check out the club. Then I did my thing there on Saturday but I never heard of DJ Smoke at all. I met him at this anniversary thing. He told me they was out but I never met him back then."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, let us talk about DJ Mario. When you met him was he already playing breakbeats for the B-Boys?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Okay, when I met Mario he was basically with me as my manager. There's a picture I took...I don't know if you have seen that...it's a picture I took with J.J. The Disco King and we're in a bar and it says 2$  for the drinks or whatever...the sign behind us. Mario got me that gig.  So he was more acting like my manager and while he was going with me to different places he had liked the way J.J. The Disco King was talking on the microphone. So every now and then he would pick up the microphone and start saying things. He gradually got into it. Gradually!! So I would think that he saw how I hooked up the equipment and what records was going on and stuff like that. Then when he got his equipment he took it from there. He already knew how to do things.  I more or less tutored him into what I did. Each one teach one. It's sort of like me watching DJ Plummer where I saw what he had when we played against him with Fantasia. That's what happened, you know what I mean?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were DJ Mario's DJ partners?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Tex DJ Hollywood....he was a Puerto Rican DJ. Tex was hanging out with us every now and then, you know? He would carry our equipment to the outside jams. Then he started getting his own equipment. I think he started with DJ Sinbad. Tex DJ Hollywood started playing outside, too. You could say he was the first Puerto Rican DJ to play Hiphop or Breakbeat music. Then there was DJ Nicky Dee. He was just living in the projects or around the projects. He used to always laugh. He was playing music for Mario when Mario got his system. You also had DJ Ronnie Ron who was DJ Mario's cousin."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you think when you became aware of Grandmaster Flash's invention the backspin which revolutionized Hiphop?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I have seen the backspin in the NBC radio station as a little kid. They would take us down to the radio station down in Rockefeller Center. There was a big glass so you could see the DJ on his large turntables and he would spin the record backwards and then forward to just stop the record before he put it on. So I have seen that before but I have never seen it done by a DJ in Hiphop until Grandmaster Flash did it and perfected it. When I heard him first he wasn't always on beat when he did it. I was playing with Flash before he got together with Melle Mel and them.  So there was no MCees at that time and he would do it. People would stand and watch him and I was like,"Okay!" This seemed nice and shit. I liked it. It did change Hiphop. It was like an exhibition for me. It's like a show. He did that. I give him that much."

July 1st, 1978: Kool DJ Dee & DJ Tyrone are rocking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem along with Grandmaster Flash & The 3 Mcees and Kool DJ AJ 

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you describe your late brother's style of DJing?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, he complemented me. See, he had certain records that he would play and I had certain records that I would play. Sometimes he would take records from my crate. He was more innovative than I was 'cause he came up with this scratch thing. Everybody says Grandwizard Theodore came up with the scratching but Tyrone was doing something like that before Theodore. You know, he did it by accident in a club. He caught the record but he did it differently. He was playing "Apache", he caught it and brought it back while the crossfader was still in the middle so he had to do something. So he rubbed it and then let the record go on beat and everybody went crazy 'cause they ain't never heard anything like that before. And then he started doing it outside. But I think he did it a little bit differently than Theodore. He called it The Rub."

DJ Tyrone The Mixologist (RIP) / The KD Crew - Kool DJ Dee's brother

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you buy your gear at? You look fly on all your pictures."

KOOL DJ DEE:"I used to get Blyes and Slacks from A.J. Lester's in Harlem. You know, when I wasn't being in the gang I was dressing like a kool guy. They called it, "Dress like a kool guy." when you wasn't wearing your gang colors. I also loved Playboys."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your top 3 breakbeats?"

KOOL DJ DEE:""Scorpio", "Catch The Beat" and "Blow Your Head". Most of the original Hiphop records...and I'm not talking about Rap records...had movement. You know, different ups and downs. Those records gave the B-Boys the opportunity to show their creativity and it gave them time to think about what they would do when the break part would come in. It was the same thing with "The Mexican". It has movement in the music. THE RECORDS NOW THESE DAYS DON'T HAVE MOVEMENT (excited). It's all one strict thing. They don't have movement no more. Like James Brown's music had movement. It had horns and drums and stuff like that..real instruments. It had different sections of different movement.  THAT'S HIPHOP!! You understand? It got to have different movements to be original Hiphop music. You have to understand that Hiphop music is a mixture of different music. It's not one genre. Jazz, Funk, Rock...it's all mixed together there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So as long as a record has a funky beat it is HipHop and you can rock it? Is this accurate to say?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"That's accurate. You're right on the money. The music has to be funky, it has to be good in order for you to do that!! Certain records you would play straight through like Jimmy Castor "It's Just Begun".  You don't just play the breakpart you play it straight through. James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose" You don't play that in parts. You let that go straight through because of the movement in the music. Thats real Hiphop."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you also play some Kool Out Joints?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" Yeah, yeah, yeah...you know, Deniece Williams "Silly". That shit that girls like. Earth, Wind & Fire "Brazilian Rhymes".

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and what about your favourite slow joints?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Oh man (laughs) I do The Moments and The Delfonics "For The Love I -Gave To You". And Black Ivory "You And I" and "Don't Turn Around"."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever carry a Pilot marker with you and tag up your name?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yes, and I did use a Pilot marker. We used to steal them from the art store in Manhattan along with spray paint."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you write?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Kool Dee. I wasn't a major Writer like Super Kool 223  though. I just hit the insides of the 6, the 2 and the 5 whenever I was on the train. I would also hit the busses. I got turned on to Writing when I lived in the Bronx, not in Brooklyn. The guys in the Bronx was doing it, so I was doing it with them."

Hit (Tag) of Kool DJ Dee on of his record sleeves from the 1970ies).

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you write?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Around 1971."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do these days of rocking jams in the parks in the 1970ies mean to you?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"When I think about those days it makes me so happy because I was young and everything was moving so fast. You know, like when you're young and you're moving around and you're playing music. I was doing something that I loved  doing. You understand? I love it. It's no other feeling. And when you're rocking the park outside and you're connecting with the people. It is NOTHING like it, man!! It is nothing like that feeling!! It was like you can do nothing wrong. It's a spiritual thing when you got everybody in the same mindset at the same time. It's just fucking great, man! And I wish I could have that feeling all the time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you like to give some shoutouts at the end of this interview?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I would like to give a shout out to my brother. He is not alive. I wish he was here. My mother, Mario...God bless them! I'd like to shout out my KD Crew! That's about it!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much for this interview! ! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! UKUMBAMBISANA!! Shout outs to Pete Nice! Shout outs to my mentors Trixie, Dancin' Doug, Cholly Rock, Sondance, Puppetmaster, Wayne Will (RIP) and of course Mr. Wiggles!! Shout outs to Troy L. Smith and T.T. La Rock!" 

 

                                                

Interview with B-Girl Beedie B (Hunts Point)

                                                     Interview with B-Girl Beedie B  (Hunts Point)

                                 

Original South BX B-Girl Beedie B 

                                           conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where were you born?"

BEEDIE B:"I was born in Manhattan, New York.....in Harlem in 1963."

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which neighbourhood did you grow up? I know that you're from Hunts Point but when did you move there?"

BEEDIE B:"I moved to the Bronx in the early 1970ies. I was about maybe 10 or 11 eleven years old."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To what kind of music were you exposed as a young girl?"

BEEDIE B:"I wanna say Soul music. I grew up listening to Marvin Gaye, The Spinners, The Temptations, The Dells. I'm the youngest of five so the music that was played in my household by my mother and father and my elder siblings is the music I grew up on basically."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"At what point in your life did dancing come into play?"

BEEDIE B:"Growing up I always loved to dance. I just loved it! It just brought joy to me. Dancing does something to me I don't know exactly what it is but I love to dance. As a child...like when I was 6 or 7 my mother said I would always dance when the family came around."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did living in Hunts Point differ from living in Harlem?"

BEEDIE B:"Living in Harlem I only knew Black people and White people 'cause it was the Black people from the neighbourhood and the White teachers that came to the schools to teach us. In the Bronx I encountered Hispanics for the first time. I adjusted and I learnt about their way of life. They spoke a different language and they dressed differently. You know, there were a lot of differences but it all turned out very well."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you encounter breakbeats and B-Boys for the very first time?"

BEEDIE B:"That would have to be in 1975 when I was in 7th grade. I was about twelve. Like when I was in junior high school I was getting exposed to breakbeats like "Apache" and all of that. I would be hearing them 'cause they would be giving jams in the parks and stuff like that. I wasn't really able to attend a lot of them because of my age. My parents weren't strict but we had to follow certain rules."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what are your earliest recollections of Breaking?"

BEEDIE B:"First it was just the guys and then as it started to grow they would always have like one female in their crew that would be with them and then she would start Breaking. I saw that and I was like,"Oh kool, I could do that!" And then I would go with my crew of guys and if like a female would start Breaking then they would send me in to burn her with my moves."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what were the parks that you and your crew went to in order to dance?"

BEEDIE B:"23 Park. I think it was 131 Park over there on Bronx River side. 75 Park, 48 Park. Those are basically the ones I remember off top."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Iconic B-Boys like Cholly Rock from the Zulu Kings and Sondance from the Rock City Crew as well as T.T. La Rock have told me about a spot in Hunts Point which they referred to as the Garrison. What kind of location was that?"

BEEDIE B:"It was a club. It was Garrison. That's where the Black Hats...a group of brothers and cousins.....they used to come and they would be breakdancing there. It was like five or six of them. They used to wear black velours hats. They were very good and they basically came from our side. I don't remember their names though. They were all young black guys.See, Garrison was the side I was from. Remember I was telling you that I came from the side where it was only tenement buildings. It wasn't that many DJs. So our DJs and MCees weren't as exposed as the DJs and MCees that was running with the popular crews. Like you know MC Smiley and Sha Rock  they came from those popular DJs. They used to have a lot of battles. It was a lot going on back then. Garrison was our indoor spot where we gave parties during the winter time. Afrika Bambaataa and them, they used to give their parties in the center. We had no centers on our side of the Bronx. So the man who owned the club, his name was Mingo. He used to let us do parties there. " 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the resident DJ of the Garrison?"

BEEDIE B:"No, it was not like a resident DJ. Maybe like DJ Dice which was the DJ from our side. He would go to Mingo and tell him,"Let me give a party here!" It was not like a regular DJ. Flash and them would come and get that spot and do parties there. It was just a club."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was Mingo Puerto Rican?"

BEEDIE B:"No, he was an older Jamaican man."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did the inside of the Garrison look like? How many people fit in there?"

BEEDIE B:"It was just a big open space. It had like a little bar to the side but it was just a big room where you could set up DJ equipment. They had two bathrooms. It was a nice spot for parties. It held a lot of people. At least close to like 150, 175 people. Yeah, it was a big place. It was also a pleasant place to be. There was no static, nothing. It wasn't really decorated. You had some little designs on the walls but it was basically just a big open space. Mingo allowed us to do parties there because it was a struggling business. He knew that he could bring people and money in by renting it out to the younger generation because that's what Hiphop was really about. In the winter time it was hard for us to find places to have parties."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of effect did those breakbeats have on you when you would hear them at the jams?"

BEEDIE B:"Well, first of all the music would run through my body because when they played that music you felt free! You got on the floor and you did your thang!! It was a beautiful feeling. That's how we all felt! It was such a joyful and happy time in my life when I used to do that! When I used to breakdance, when I used to be around my crew and watch other people with their moves."    

 SIR NORIN RAD:"What prompted you to pick up Breaking?"

BEEDIE B:"I started Breaking because that was what was in and if you wanted to be a part of what was in you had to do what was popular at that time. I watched the guys practicing, I watched their moves, you know, I played around with them. I mimicked their moves and then I started practicing seriously and I became fairly good. They started hyping me up,"Yo, you good!!!! So then when the females came I did what they taught me and basically that's how it started."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were your mentors as far as Breaking is concerned?"

BEEDIE B:"From my B-Girl days? Tim (T.T. La Rock) he was one of them. Gregory Martin aka G-Man, George Brooks aka Lil G. Who else used to dance with us? Moe Gator. It was quite a few guys but those were the ones that had the best of moves. When our opponents sent out their heavyhitters, then we would send out T.T. La Rock, G-Man and Lil G. Those were the top of the line B-Boys from our side. They would sure enough put in work as they would say and they would mostly win the battles."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you meet all of them?"

BEEDIE B:"We all went to school together. Well, me and G-Man we went to public school together. We went to P.S. 28 together, we went to I.S. 74 together.  I ran a game room for this Italian man in Hunts Point where everybody hung out. T.T. La Rock used to come from the other side from Simpson Street where Casita Maria was at. Casita Maria was a night center. So we basically knew each other from school and from the neighbourhood and then we just hung out together. Not everybody was able to go to these parties back then 'cause peoples' mothers were strict, very strict. That's why I wind up being the only female and then Barbara Jones. We was like really the only B-Girls from our side. Our parents were strict but not super strict. You know, they gave us a little leeway so we were able to hang out and go to these parties."

                                                  

Melle Mel & T.T. La Rock at T.T. La Rock's birthday party

SIR NORIN RAD:"What's your fondest memory of the Casita Maria? I have recently watched a video dating back to the 1970ies which features Grandmaster Flash cutting up "Apache" on the roof of the Casita Maria and he has the people in the crowd doing the Hustle to that."

BEEDIE B:"Yeah, we did the Hustle, too. I was very good with the Hustle. Me and Barbara Jones we did the Hustle! All the parties that I went I didn't breakdance. I just danced. I only went in when they had females 'cause it was like female against female and male against male."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did the parties at the Garrison differ from those at the Casita Maria?"

BEEDIE B:"Okay, see..Garrison..when they wasn't having a party it was like a place to hang out and to play pool and stuff like that. You could maybe get a beer or something. Casita Maria..it was no alcohol because it was run by a Catholic priest. Father...I forgot his name. Casita Maria..if they wasn't giving parties it was just basketball tournaments and stuff of that nature. Like different projects would come over and play ball there. Casita Maria they had a lot of parties but it wasn't consistently like every weekend. Once a month Grandmaster Flash might have come there or something like that...to my knowledge. It wasn't like every weekend we're going to Casita Maria. No, because the DJs bounced around. But when Flash and them did come to Casita Maria it was a turnout! I mean packed back to back, wall to wall. Back then it was project rivalry. So everybody couldn't come to Casita Maria. We coming out of Hunts Point we didn't have that problem because we were like nobodys. Put it like that! We attended every party 'cause we was neutral. Nobody cared about us. So we were able to go everywhere."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"So Hiphop was very territorial back then?"

BEEDIE B:"Right, right! There was shootouts. I'm not just gonna tell you about the good part. I'm gonna tell you what really happened. Sometimes they had a center...like Monroe Center and they played music there and then sometimes the other housing projects would come and shoot up the place. You really took a chance sometimes going to these parties but we were risk takers so me and my crew we went to these parties regardless. We knew about the dangers that might incur. You know, thank God we never got caught up in nothing but it was happening. In the Bronx you had to be built a certain way in order to survive."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever feel that you were oppressed by the males around you? Like they made it harder for you to shine since you're a female?"

BEEDIE B:"No, I never felt that way. Everybody makes their own shine! MC Smiley, Sha Rock and the Mercedes Ladies they were females and they were on the map because of who they MCeed for!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where was your B-Girl partner Barbara Jones from?"

BEEDIE B:"She was from Hunts Point, too. I met her through my son's father. We was kool. We never went against each other."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the way females dressed back then!"

BEEDIE B:"Back then a lot of females wore the turbans, the different color turbans to match their outfit and things like that. Back then they stood heavy on fashion! You know, like the Lees. You had to have your creases. I didn't dress too feminine. I used to wear mocknecks and stuff like that because I used to steal my brother's clothes. A lot of them was like fascinated with me 'cause my brother dressed his behind off!!! A.J. Lester's!! All the fly stuff 'cause he was a Hustler from Harlem. I will put that out there. I used to steal his stuff. So when he had new mocknecks, alpaca sweaters or suede fronts me and my sister we would take it. Back then we had our sheepskin coats, our sheepskin hats, cowboy boots...all of that!!! We was heavy on fashion. The girls would also wear big collared shirts. We would get the leather coats with the white fur and the fur was from Delancey Street.You had to have one of them to be in fashion as well. The Marshmallow Shoes...all of that. "

                                                

The Marshmallow Shoes

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did the girls also wear Cortefiel coats?"

BEEDIE B:"No, the females didn't wear the Cortefiel coats but what was popular was the peacoat. I remember the Cortefiels though. All the guys wore that. I remember no female wearing the Cortefiel coat. No, 'cause I would have had one."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of jewelry was worn back then?"

BEEDIE B:"Oh, the medallions! You had to have at least two medallions on your neck! First they came out with the silver medallions but you was really doing something if you was able to get a gold medallion!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What other shoes besides the Marshmallow Shoes would the females wear?"

BEEDIE B:"Okay, well you had to shop at Fred Braun's on 3rd Avenue. Your shoes had to come from there to know that you got on what you were supposed to have on. Yeah, those were good shoes!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did the girls also wear Pro-Keds?"

BEEDIE B:"Of course! Of course! I couldn't wait when them Super Pro-Keds with the red and blue stripes on the side came out. Yeah, you had to have everything that came out. If you was about something, you had it. And if you didn't you stayed in your mother's and father's hair until you got it. You had to be in style!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told that most guys would wear the Champagne cologne.."

BEEDIE B:"Champagne! Champagne! That's when you was getting money! That's all hustling ni***rs....oh, excuse me! I'm sorry! You're taking me back places and I'm getting hyped. Yeah, that's all you smelled....Champagne!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which perfume did the females wear?"

BEEDIE B:"What was that green one? We always wore that. It was Chanel but it is not the Chanel now. That's all we wore. It was actually two popular fragrances but I can't recall the name."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did your brother react when he found out that you had worn his gear?"

BEEDIE B:"Oh, he was tight. He was super tight. Let me tell you I was one of the flyest ones in Stevenson High School when I used to come. He had every color. Every color mockneck 'cause they had two mocknecks. Then they came out with the new mockneck. It had to come out in 1976 or whatever. Now the reason that me and my sister  got caught......that is the funny part....is because we got breasts and the mark of our nipples would be on his shirts. That's how he found out. He was mad. He used to have his own closet with a lock on it. We opened it and took his stuff and put it back before he got home from school. He was older than us and he was getting money in the streets in Harlem. He had all the shoes in every color. British Walkers, Playboys, Clarks, all that.." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on what you remember about doing the Hustle at the parties back then?"

BEEDIE B:"The Hustle...well, everybody had their own style of the Hustle. Some people they would Hustle and then they would bust a move and then they would get back to the Hustle. Some people used to like the Hustle and do the dip. It was a lot of styles of Hustling. Me personally I liked them all. I did not do them all but  I liked them all. My Hustle partners were Barbara and G-Man. Everything was basically from the people from my side 'cause like I said...projects people...if you wasn't from their projects they wasn't really messing with you unless you had a bond. It was crazy back then. It was nice with the parties but then you had them other little areas with the project versus project. There was also a lot of beef in the schools . A lot of them went to Adlai E. Stevenson High School but they came from all the projects. I also attended Adlai E. Stevenson High School." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Now the beef that you are talking about was that only between males or did females have beef as well?"

BEEDIE B:"It was males AND females because  not for nothing a lot of them guys in the projects they was messing with two girls or two girls had a baby by the same guy. That caused a lot of beef amongst the females.  It was just a lot or if a guy had a misunderstanding with a female and then her crew would come. Many fights broke out because you're talking to somebody else's girl or the girl was talking to somebody else's guy. It was a lot with them projects. It was crazy!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"From what I have heard so far Breaking went through different phases. In the early 1970ies the dance did not involve a lot of moves on the ground. Instead, B-Boys and B-Girls danced mainly on top and then when the break part of the record set in they would  pull out their best moves..."

BEEDIE B:"Right! That's when they would hit the floor! B-Boys would do certain gestures to clown or to intimidate their opponents. Then they would stand like, "I burnt you!" They would play like they would move your head and then hit it with a baseball bat and stuff like that or put it on the floor with a robot type of move and then step on it and then they would be like, "It's over! You're done!!" I liked to do the one where I would smash your head off and then throw it and then hit it with a bat and I would be like, "You're out of here!!!" You're taking me places.......if you notice my hypeness."

SIR NORIN RAD:"That's because you're a B-Girl for life. It will never leave you. What's your most memorable B-Girl battle?"

BEEDIE B:"It probably was at the Garrison when they brought some females over to Garrison that was supposedly their best B-Girls. But being that they were in my turf, in my Garrison club I could not let them outburn me. So I had to put the fire to the butt!

SIR NORIN RAD:"How important was the music to what you were doing as a B-Girl?"

BEEDIE B:"It was the Breakbeat that just made you go off! You felt it in your soul and you wanted to show it. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your top three Breakbeats of all time?"

BEEDIE B:""Apache" was number one. "The Mexican"....."Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose", "It's Just Begun". Later on it was beats like "Dance To The Drummer's Beat"."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you feel when "Rock Creek Park" by the Blackbyrds came on?"

BEEDIE B:"Oh my God!!! (sings) Doing it in the park........See now you getting me hyped again. You're taking me back to the part of my life when I was young, music was good,  life was good."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also go to DJ Afrika Bambaataa's parties?"

BEEDIE B:"Oh yes, I did! JHS 123.....Bambaataa's joint over there. I remember I got locked in one of those parties because he also used to give them on school nights. We went...me and G-Man and I guess it was a lot of people going in and out. I don't know what happened but they locked the door and they was like,"Nobody gonna leave out of here until 12.30!!" Oh my God! I had a 11 o'clock curfew! I had to go back to Hunts Point! But yeah, Bambaataa had the crowd hypnotized through his beats. "

                                           

B-Boy G-Man & B-Girl Beedie B at T.T. La Rock's birthday party

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you go against the Zulu Queens over there?"

BEEDIE B:"No, I didn't dance against them. I really didn't like to break against females outside of my neighbourhood because if they lost now they wanna fight and if Barbara wasn't with me then I was the only female and then the guys would have to get in. You understand? So we avoided that. It wasn't really safe. If we won, if the crowd gave us more applause then it could turn into something else. Nobody wanted to be embarrassed on their home turf."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To which indoor parties of Grandmaster Flash did you go?"

BEEDIE B:"1111 Fox Street, Mitchell Gym, The Dixie..."

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which regard did outdoor jams differ fom indoor parties?"

BEEDIE B:"There was more people and the outdoor jams were more safe because you didn't have to worry about looking for no exit if anything was to pop off. But as far as the music and the quality of the music it was basically the same."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay and how would you get ready for a party?"

BEEDIE B:"We would do our rollers and stuff, you know? Get our hair together. We would get our outfit. We we would lay it out, take a shower, get dressed. Like back then we didn't really wear make-up but we used to put the vaseline with the black eyeliner..... that was our lipstick. And we would put on our best smelling perfume that we had and we would go and party! We would make sure that we was done. Our outfits we matched. They was color coordinated to the tee. We had our earrings, you know? We would have to take an O' Jay cab to the party because we knew the guys was out there, looking good, smelling good. That was life, yo!!! That was beautiful! That was really life! "

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did take to stand out as a B-Boy or B-Girl in the 1970ies?"

BEEDIE B:"It was all about fashion, charisma and skills. Dressing fly was definetely part of the culture. Your dancing skills had to be on point and you couldn't be scared. You had to go out there and give it all you had. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"You told me that you were also MCing back then. Please elaborate on that!"

BEEDIE B:"My MC name was Baby B. My sister's boyfriend he started calling me that when I started rapping because I had no MC name. He was like,"Baby B! Baby B!" So that's what stuck with me. I MCeed under DJ Dice and also under DJ Sam. He owned a club called Windy City which was on 144th Street in Harlem. DJ Dice was our neighbourhood DJ. He came from Bruckner Boulevard. I was from Hunts Point Avenue &  Lafayette Avenue. Lafayette Avenue is also on the other side where the projects is but no, we are not that part of Lafayette. It was Hunts Point Avenue, Lafayette Avenue, Faile Street, Manida Street, Coster Street, Spofford Avenue...those are all considered the Hunts Point area.  DJ Dice would come out to 48 Park and he would come out to 75 Park. He would come to the Casita Maria as well. I was doing whole rhymes and I would shout out my crew. It was beautiful. That's all I can say."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you become the MC for DJ Dice?"

BEEDIE B:"Like with me running with G-Man..his cousin was DJ Dice...so we practically always stayed at his house and then I started messing with the microphone and then I became his MC. DJ Sam and DJ Dice they never DJed at the same time. DJ Sam was the other DJ that we had. DJ Sam's partner was DJ Ray. DJ Ray used to live on Bryant Avenue and Sam lived on Casanova Street. They also DJed at the Garrison. They were Black DJs."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who inspired you to start MCing?"

BEEDIE B:"I had been doing a lot of poetry from a young age. I'm not tooting my own horn but my poetry was good and then once I started hearing MCees rhyming at the parties I was like,"This is poetry that they are doing!" So I just started writing rhymes about my crew. Like when I got on the mic I would represent them because DJ Dice the only MC he had was me. And then I just kept doing it, making more rhymes. I became more creative and I wrote deeper rhymes and I was able to say things on the microphone that related to a lot of the situations that was going on in the street. Stuff like that. A lot of pieces of my lifestyle, of my life I incorporated in my rhymes.  We also had mic wars, too. You would battle on the mic.  Somebody would say something on the mic and you would want to top that. It was just another competition like Breaking."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were those battles as disrespectful as they are today?"

BEEDIE B:"Oh no, they wasn't. That's why I can't get with Rap Music now because all that stuff is negative to me and it is poisoning the minds of the youth. Music is supposed to free you. This Rap Music here is all about killing. All this disrespect that they have for other people, all the disrespectful things that they're saying would have never been said in our time!! The original Hiphop wasn't about that. We would say things like, "My rhymes are better than yours. My voice is better than yours. My crew is better than yours. I dress better than you do." That's it.  Now it's mostly negativity. I have a great interest and concern about that. This is not what I want my great-grandkids to grow up with but you can't keep them from it because they're exposed to it no matter how hard you try to avoid it."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"How do you feel about the state of Hiphop today?"

BEEDIE B:"Since Hiphop became a money-oriented establishment with record labels and all of that I think it became separated from its roots. Before it was out of fun. Like just the love for Breaking, just the love for MCing, you know? But when the money came in it separated it from its origins and it caused a lot of beef. The money changed a lot. Back then we didn't speak opnely about sex the way they do now. We never said stuff on the mic like, "Eat the pussy cat like a bowl of cereal." Come on! This is inappropriate!  And God forbid...like the fashion. The females....we never exposed our bodies like that ...the way they dress now. This is slutville dressing that they're doing now. In Hiphop we would never get up there like that. I enjoyed Hiphop when it was just about people getting together having fun all in one place. We didn't do what they're doing now. Hiphop back then was pure, now it is tainted."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you like to shout out anyone at the end of this interview?"

BEEDIE B:"Wow, I'd like to shout out my Hunts Point Crew. I'd like to give a RIP to DJ Dice. Shoutouts to Tim (T.T. La Rock), G-Man, Barbara Jones....Yeah, my family and that's it!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much for this interview! Shout outs to T.T. La Rock for making this happen! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! UKUMBAMBISANA!! Shout outs to Pete Nice! Shout outs to my mentors Trixie, Dancin' Doug, Cholly Rock, Sondance, Puppetmaster, Wayne Will (RIP) and of course Mr. Wiggles!! Shout outs to Troy L. Smith." 

Interview with B-Boy TT La Rock

                                                        Interview with B-Boy TT  La Rock

                                                

                                           

B-Boy T.T. La Rock

                                    conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where were you born?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I was born in the Bronx in Jacobi Hospital in 1961."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To what kind of music were you exposed as a child?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"It was music that my mother liked, old time music from my mother's and my father's era and then when I turned 13 I started buying 45s and LPs.....you know, albums. We saved our money and got a component set to play our records on. Me and my brother...'cause I had a older brother that I grew up with and I had two more brothers but they lived in Ohio. So me and my older brother we used to buy posters and records and we would go to the movies and stuff like that. We would combine our money so we could get what we wanted. My parents listened to James Brown and Little Richard and all those guys from back then. My mother was in love with Little Richard. So we had a lot of Little Richard albums around the house. Gladys Knight & The Pips, The Whispers, Earth, Wind & Fire...yeah you know, it was mostly groups back then. R&B groups."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you got into B-Boying!"

T.T. LA ROCK:"As I grew up I started liking music and I started dancing. I started dancing to like Hiphop music (the breakbeats). I was born in 1961 so by 1971 I was ten years old and I was probably in the 3th grade. I had asthma when I was young so I used to be sick a lot. I used to stay out of school and then I used to be home a lot. So sometimes I used to run around and leave the house and go outside. I wasn't supposed to do that. I was supposed to be sick but I started feeling better while I was at home and I would sneak outside to go run around and then I found myself being around other people. You know, that was outside, that didn't go to school and stuff like that. And one of my partners became Georgie Brooks. A little guy. He was a Muslim. His whole family was Muslim. That's how I became introduced to the teachings of the Nation Of Islam. Me and him we were in the same grade in P.S. 39 on Longwood Avenue in the South Bronx. So when I started hanging out with him he took me to this basement area one day in Hunts Point on Garrison Avenue. It was on Garrison & Irvine and it was in the basement and they was playing music down there. I had never been to a basement party before. I had been to house parties before that. This guy Ray was down there DJing. I think his name was Ray or something like that. That was the first time I saw somebody DJing. They was like moving the speakers around and trying to do a sound check and all that. Then they started playing the music. Then people started dancing and then I started seeing people Breaking on the floor. There was a group of B-Boys who all wore black velours hats. I was like,"What are they doing?" 'cause I didn't know what they was doing so I asked Georgie, "What are they doing?"It was me, him. Then he went and got his cousin Gregory Martin who went by the name of G-Man and he also went and got Lil' Tim. I was Big Tim and he was Lil' Tim. He was G-Man's little brother. They was from Bruckner Boulevard and their older brother was DJ Dice. Then they went and got this big guy.... he was about my size or a little bigger... named Terry.  He was all over the place 'cause he was big. He used to do spins and jumping around and floating all over the place. So I was really like, "What is he doing? He is going wild!!" So they was telling me that they was Breaking but I liked the way that they was doing it 'cause they was doing with the style!!!!  They had a little style with the kicking their feet and spinning around! They was doing all the moves and stuff! So I was like,"Wow, man!! You gotta show me how to do that!" So the next day when we met up we was in the hallway 'cause we used to meet up in the hallway and we used to buy liquor  and cigarettes. We was young. So we couldn't let people know that we was drinking and smoking cigarettes. We were little bad boys. I ain't gonna lie. So they started showing me how to go down. They called it "Going down". The first move was how to go down. You know, where you kick your feet and then you put them together and you spin down and you go down and you touch the floor and then you start kicking your feet forward and all that. Then they showed me how to do some spins and turns and freezes. You know, how to freeze and stop with the beat. They would teach me like a little bit at the time. Step by step. Different little moves and everything. Moves that they liked to do. Each of them had like different moves that they liked to do, that they considered their best moves. Moves that they did when they wanted to impress people around them. So I started gathering up all the moves, learning all the steps from everybody that was there in the hallway. So then I started to go to parties with them more and then in the party I started dancing myself. I started B-Boying in the party with all of us in the group. I became like a part of their group. They had a girl in their group named Beedie B. She was a female and she used to Break with us, too. We were around for quite some time. I got introduced to DJ Mean Gene (from the L-Brothers) one time. I was going up on Boston Road but we lived on 163rd & Simpson Street. So we used to call that 163rd. 163rd Street ran from Southern Boulevard all the way over to Webster Avenue or whatever, right? We travelled a lot but this time I just went up on Boston Road for the first time and they had a little minischool up there on 169th Street or 168th Street and DJ Mean Gene was playing in the minischool. That's first I seen Mean Gene DJing and playing music and he used to B-Boy, too!!! He had big feet so we used to call him Big Feet Gene. A lot of people don't know that about him. He was from the L-Brothers. He used to be with Cordie-O and Theodore and all them. So I met him up there and so I knew him as a street DJ. He was a guy that was DJing in the street. That was the first time I saw a DJ in the street. I was used to be in a club and then I saw him and he was in the street. We used to go all around our borough. It was like a big adventure. I didn't start going out my borough until later. When I first was in the public school P.S. 39 on Longwood Avenue...that was my area, you know? Union Avenue, Intervale Avenue all those areas in the South Bronx where they have the police station Fort Apache. That was my police station, the 41st precinct. We came up in a rough gang area. When I graduated from P.S. 39 I went to I.S. 116 when they first opened up. Everybody else used to go to JHS 133 but I didn't go to JHS 133 'cause they opened up a new school called I.S. 116. So I went to that school 'cause it was right up the street from where I was living. I lived on Barretto Street and the school was on Fox Street. But we used to play basketball against JHS 133. I used to go over there and I used to see Melle Mel and them B-Boying in JHS 133 'cause they was B-Boys, too!! It was Mellle Mel and Mr. Ness. They was B-Boying in JHS 133, in the gym, in the yard. " 

 

Original South BX B-Girl Beedie B

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever run into a B-Boy by the name of Bruce Lee who was down with the Casanovas?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Oh yeah, yeah!! I was a Casanova! I was in the Casanova Crew with Tiny and them. Bruce Lee, Papa Smurf, Nunu, Cletus, Little Peanut that died. It wasn't a lot of them though that were B-Boys.  Most of the ones that was B-Boying from the Casanovas  was me and Bruce Lee. A lot of them did security. I ain't gonna lie. A lot of them were more or less drug dealers and stick up kids. We was hustling hard back then ! I loved to dance 'cause I always danced since I was little." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of spot was the Casita Maria?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Everybody used to come to the Casita Maria where we had a lot of pretty girls there from Simpson Street and my area. Hoe Avenue and all that. They used to come to the Casita Maria. It was a night center. I mean not night center, you had to be 14 years or older to go there. You would go to the day center until you turned 14. Then you were allowed to go to the night center. They had CYO basketball tournaments there, juniors and seniors. We were like the most notorious center for basketball. We always came in first place. We used to go to the circuit and win. Grandmaster Flash used to come down there and give a party. That's when I really started battling against Mr. Ness and them in the basement of Casita Maria. We used to battle! That's where he used to do that snake move. He used to go down on the floor and wiggle around like a serpent!  Everybody used to go, "Wow!!!" Everybody used to get crazy when he did that. That's how I knew Mr. Ness was a real good B-Boy and he was a wild dude back then. He used to win a lot of battles. So I used to be careful Breaking with him 'cause I didn't want him to embarass me sometimes. B-Boying was totally different back then. It wasn't a whole lot of gymnastics and stuff like that like they do now. Now they put a lot of aerodynamics to it, you know? People look they been in gymnasium to learn how to do that shit but back then it was like mostly floor moves and, you know, Breaking and stopping and freezing and pretending to be talking on the telephone and then giving it to somebody or you'd make a window and then you'd open the window and then you'd look through it and push the other guy in the face. You know, it was a lot of theatrical clown shit that had everybody laughing like, "Oh shit, look what he did!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many people would fit in the Casita Maria and how many B-Boys would be doing their thing there?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Well, this is what started happening, right? First you had the Barretto Street Crew. We used to call ourselves the Barretto Boys, right? The Barretto Boys lived right down there . Then you had the Simpson Street Crew. The Simpson Street Crew lived right up the block right on Simpson Street because the Casita Maria is on Simpson Street in a two blocks  radius and then you turn into Fox Street. They meet like in a little triangle right there. Those three blocks! Fox, Barretto and Simpson and then they expand and go into another direction, right? So you had the Fox Street Boys, Barretto Street Boys, Simpson Street Boys. Then Southern Boulevard Boys would come over from Southern Boulevard. They had the Southern Boulevard Crew. Then you had the Hunts Point Crew! Then you had the Hoe Avenue Crew and many other crews from around that area and they would come over there and all of them had B-Boys in their crews. Back then you was recognized from the neighbourhood you come from. If you was from Hoe Avenue, you was Hoe Avenue Crew. " 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the DJ of the Casita Maria?" 

T.T. LA ROCK:"The DJ of the Casita Maria was Grandmaster Flash. Casita Maria and the area around Casita Maria all we had was DJ Flash! I mean, we also had DJ Mean Gene and the L-Brothers sometimes. They would come through there and do their thing. See this is what happened. The first person I really met was Grandmaster Flash 'cause he lived right across the street from me. I lived on Barretto Street and Flash lived on Fox Street. That's when he lived on Fox Street before he moved to Prospect Avenue. At that time they didn't even have two turntables!!  All they had was one component set. He went to Samuel Gompers High School for electronics. Him and OG 2 (legendary Writer from The Fabulous Five Crew).  He used to write on the trains first. Before he was a DJ he was a graffiti artist (a Writer). We used to call him Banana Nose Joe 'cause he got a big nose. I watched Flash. I used to watch him. He used to be with my cousin OG 2. They used to drink together and go write on the train and everything. So I used to watch him. He used to come out on his stoop with a component set, with one album and one needle, right? He used to hook that thing up to the lamp post! Right in front of the building! He knew a lot about electricity because he went to Samuel Gompers High School. He learnt that in that school. So he would stand in front of his building and play the record and he would hold the needle in one hand and he would drop the needle back real quick every time he wanted it to repeat what it was saying on the record. He used to be in front of his building with little speakers and everything! And the block used to have a little party with him in front of his building! That's when he first started. Flash started DJing in the basement of Casita Maria. That's the first party that we had with Flash and Melle Mel, Kid Creole, Cowboy and them. That's in the basement. In the basement that's where we shot pool at. Flash used to always play this slow record "I Don't Want Go" by The Moments to end his parties. That's when they used to slow dance.  That's something they don't do no more but we used to slow dance before we left the party. Then from the basement they let him do parties upstairs in the gym. Then they started throwing parties on the roof and that's when Grandwizard Theodore and them started coming over there. That's when they started giving the roof parties on top of Casita Maria's roof!  They had a fence around it 'cause it was a night center. So they didn't want people to break in and steal their basketballs and all that stuff. So they had a big fence around the whole roof of the Casita Maria so nobody could fall off. You didn't have to worry about not being safe. It was fenced off.  Once they figured out how they could get the equipment up there and how they could get the electricity and all that stuff they let Flash do parties up there. They gave out flyers and the flyers said, "Casita Maria Rooftop Party!" Larry Savage was the one in control of the night center at Casita Maria. Jeffrey Bellows was another one. Mr. Jefferson ran the whole thing. I forgot his first name."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did Grandmaster Flash start playing at the Casita Maria?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I would say that they didn't get that spot going until about 1975. I had to be about 14 years old to get in there, right? So in 1975 I was fourteen. Later on I would see Mel and them in 18 Park. That's when they had started MCing. Flash would play "Super Sporm" by Captain Sky and "Trans Europe Express" by Kraftwerk. Melle Mel was saying that rhyme about,"I'm Melle Mel and I rock so well! From the T-O-P to the depths of hell!"We was Breaking to that, right?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you describe your style of Breaking?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I used to Break real hard and do like a lot of the foot movement on the ground! Real fast like my legs would look like they would move at lightning speed. I would add a little flip and everything. Then I used to spin real hard, like real fast  and then I would act like a little baby crying on the ground. I used to beat my head on the ground and make my leg move back and forth like a baby whining.  Then I used to come back up real quick and start dancing again. That was my finishing move. I used to call that "The Baby Crying"! And it would always be to the beat of the music! Like especially on "Apache"!

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you would dress up back then!"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I used to always wear Pro-Keds 69ers. I used to wear Pumas. I used to wear British Walkers and Sharkskins. I used to wear a lot of A.J. Lester gear. I used to wear Alpaca V-Neck Sweaters...Remember that picture that I sent you? That was from 1978. I was 16 years old going on 17. I got green suede Converse joints on. I also got the green Globetrotters shorts on and the long tube socks with the lines around them and the t-shirt. You can see that I was going to be Breaking."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on the B-Boys and B-Girls that you used to run with back then! Like who was down with your crew?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"My little crew was me, Little G aka Georgie Brooks and then we had G-Man aka Gregory Martin. We also had Little Tim. He passed away.  God bless the dead! He got killed up in 22 Park. He got shot. Everybody called him Lil Lightning Legs. He was sweet with his! It was him and Lil Joe. We had Lil Joe with us. Then there was Rabbit from Simpson Street. He was also a 5 Percenter. He was down with the Nation of Gods & Earths. Thus his righteous name was Prince. He used to do back flips as part of his routines. We used to dance together at the Casita Maria. Nobody could do back flips better than him. I already told you about Beedie B. We also had Maurice aka Moe Gator. He was from Hunts Point off Manida Avenue. We all started in Hunts Point on Garrison Avenue & Irvine Street in the 1970ies."

Original South BX B-Boy G-Man

SIR NORIN RAD:"I spoke to a B-Boy from Monroe Houses called Worm who mentioned your name to me. Please describe how you met him!"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah!!! Ricky Worm!!! That's my partner! He called me Timmy Tim! Me and Worm used to party hard. That was my partner when I came over there! He used to work in a grocery store in Stevenson Commons. He got a brother named Scottie. So when I went to the store I asked him to make me a Hero sandwich and then we just started talking a lot. He came outside and we started talking. I started hanging out with him, going to his store a lot.  Then we started getting high together, smoking weed, walking around the whole projects. He knew my first baby mother Frajon Drayton out of 870 Rosedale. She was my 9th grade sweetheart. Then I found out that he could Breakdance because we went to a lot of parties together. We went everywhere where music was playing. We started to show off our moves!  That ni**er could dance! Man, listen! We used to be Breaking in JHS 123 and the parties DJ Mario used to give. We used to breakdance in Sack Wern, Noble Park and Monroe Projects. Everywhere we went we used to Breakdance together.  His move was the Worm because he used to slide around the ground like a worm which mad him a great B-Boy. Everybody knew Worm from Monroe Projects. He was real popular. He had curly black hair. I had one baby mother over there, he had like about five baby mothers. He had a lot of kids over there! Ricky was a wild dude!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told that he used to dance with a drink in his hand."

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah, all the time!! Yeah! Old English! That ni**er would drink Old English all the time! "

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you would go mainly to DJ Afrika Bambaataa's and DJ Mario's parties?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah, 'cause Worm loved Mario and Bambaataa. Much respect to the Zulu Nation but their music was different from everybody else's music."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What makes you say that?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"They was all hypnotized by his music. He played some really crazy breakbeats and that shit went on for a long time without stopping! He had the strobe lights and all the fast bulbs going. He had them really going! You'd go to a Zulu Nation Afrika Bambaataa party in JHS 123 with nobody else being there but him and his crew......man, the whole gym would be lit. The strobe lights would you make look white ashy and shit and everybody looked like they was moving in slow motion. Like on some bizarre shit! You would be like, "What the hell is going on?" All of them would be dancing and all of them would be happy. It was crazy. The Zulu Kings would be doing their thing there. Cholly Rock and them. Craig Butler! Did you interview Craig Butler? Craig was a bad dude with it!!!! His younger brother Mike introduced me to him as we were close friends when I first came over to that area of the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What had caused you initially to go to the Southeast Bronx? Why did you go to places such as Bronxdale, Bronx River and Monroe?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I went to where DJ Mario was at and DJ Afrika Bambaataa and all of them because I went to Adlai E. Stevenson High School which was in the Soundview section of the Bronx. I used my aunt's address 955 Evergreen Avenue since I lived outside the district in 934 Barretto Street. I graduated from I. S. 116 which was intermediate 7th to 8th grade in 1977. So I entered Adlai E. Stevenson High School as a 9th grade freshman. That's when I met all of them. That's when I started going to JHS 123 parties.  Me and Crazy Eddie from the Casanova Crew used to go over to JHS 123. It was like a brand new Hiphop and Breaking experience for me under different DJs and B-Boys. In Adlai E. Stevenson I met Charlie Chew who would later MC for the Jazzy Four / Five. Charlie Chew was a B-Boy, too. He used to breakdance with me at Stevenson High School. We used to be in the gym working out together and stuff like that because we were both part of Stevenson's  football team. They played music for the workout so I started Breaking and then he said, "Yo, you can breakdance?" I said,"Yeah, I know how to breakdance." Then he said, "I know how to breakdance, too!" So then he started Breaking and then we both started going off while we were supposed to be working out in the weight room. He was DJing and giving parties in Soundview and he would dance at his parties. He knew how to breakdance real good. We used to call him Charlie Choo Choo 'cause he was like a choo choo train." 

B-Boy Craig Butler

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were some of the other spots that you used to go to back then in order to dance?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I used to be over there with DJ Smokey and them on Grant Avenue, too. I had a girlfriend that lived on Clay Avenue & 168th Street named Denise Samuels. She had a cousin named Gladys who lived on Sheridan Avenue. We used to hang out in her apartment. I used to be up there with my cousin named Trigger. Trigger lived on Findlay Avenue. Grant Avenue is right in between Morris Avenue and Sheridan Avenue. One day I was walking past there with Trigger. I remember they had a little supermarket that I went to. Then I heard the music out there! They was out there...DJ Smokey with the music and everything and I saw the Smoke-A-Trons Breaking in the street.  So I asked my cousin Trigger, "Who that over there?" So he's like,"Oh that's  DJ Smoke, they call him Smokey and he got the Smoke-A-Trons." Then he told me that they used to be in the Burger King where we would be at on Prospect Avenue and everything and I didn't know that. So I said, "Oh, they be up there?" He said, "Yeah, that's where Meth be at all the time." Meth was a hustler. So then I started Breaking against the Smoke-A-Trons. Matter of fact I danced against them multiple times and then I started liking their crew and we started talking and chilling some time together and then one time I went to Burger King with them and we was up in the Burger King doing our thing in the Burger King on Prospect. That was the night I think Hootenanny from the Casanovas got hit. There was some ruckus outside of the Burger King and the cab driver took off 'cause he got scared and he hit Hootenanny when he took off and hurt his legs. All this happened around 1975 or 1976." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"It seems to me that oftentimes fights broke out at those jams. Why was this the case?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"You had so many different crews there with so many different reputations. So you had to be aware of so many different cats. The beefs would mostly start because there was cats coming to the parties that had big reputations at least in their own areas. So if I had a big reputation in my area and I was known not to take no bullshit and I was known to take your shit if you started some shit you could be in trouble, you know what I'm saying?? It was like one of them things where you had to know somebody that would be really hanging out around there 'cause if you don't really know somebody and somebody finds out that you're a nobody trying to be somebody then they would start some shit! They would walk up to you, man, and push you or some shit or slap your hat off."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who came to the parties with that kind of energy? Was it the B-Boys or the cats that ran with them?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Well, this is what I can tell you. It was mostly like this: The DJs and the MCs they were basically good guys, right? The B-Boys?? They were kind of shady. (laughs) In other words they were good guys, too, but you know what I'm saying some of the B-Boys were really stick-up kids and shit like that, too. They had bad behaviours. Like I used to go to Flash's parties and I remember this girl got shot at the Mitchell Gym over there on Alexander Avenue. There was this guy called Red Jack he sold CP30 which was some sort of Angel Dust. If you knew the personality behind the name then you knew what the Angel Dust effect was. We had different names for different types of Angel Dust. Red Jack and them they were in the back of Mitchell Gym. See, they used to party in the front. Doing the Hustle, Breaking and shit and then in the back where the bathroom was at they was shooting dice. They had big dice games going. So that's where all the money was at and so that's also where the Angel Dust was sold at. So now you had the stick-up kids back there 'cause they knew that all that money was there because of the dice games and the guys that sold Angel Dust and the stick-up kids get the idea that they gonna rob the Angel Dust guys and the dice guys, all at the same time and then leave the party. So they do that. They rob' em. Willy Bang was involved in that robbery against Red Jack and them from Manhattan. So they got robbed and they went back to Manhattan to get their guns and then they came to the Bronx to the party. They stood across the street and they started shooting at people that came out the party that they thought was involved in the shit because of what they're wearing. Like black Leather Bombers or whatever. But the guys that had robbed them had already left. So this innocent girl got shot in the jaw with a 45. The police is right there, they're  coming out of the police station. I go over there to see what's happening and Flash and them come outside and for no reason whatsoever Flash looks at me right there with the police standing there and he says to me,"Why every time you come to my party all this shit happens?" So I'm like, "Why the hell are you saying this to me for? I ain't got nothing to do with this shit! I'm just coming to the party." So I just turned around with my girl and left. But that's the type of shit that was going on back then. They used to call me all the time to the front. They used to say,"Timmy Romance, would you please come to the front?" So then me and my crew we used to come to the front and they used to be like,"Yo, would you please tell the stick-up kids not to do no shit?" So I said,"Aight, let me go." So I used to confront them ni****s like, "Yo, wassup, man? Flash and them said y'all can't be robbing ni****s in the bathroom. Chill out with that shit! Take it outside, man! We wanna have a decent party. We don't wanna have to stop the party on behalf of what you guys are doing in the bathroom."  They used to love me for this shit but at the same time they also blamed me for shit that popped off at the parties. So I told them, "You can't have it both ways!" I mean sometimes I did start some shit (laughs)."

Melle Mel & T.T. La Rock

SIR NORIN RAD:"I heard about a spot where Flash used to throw parties at and it was a boxing ring or something like that. Could you please elaborate on that?"

T.T. LA ROCK:" Yeah, that's 1111 Fox!! They just tore that down. That was the P.A.L. for the police. The police that used to run that and used to give it to Flash was called Big George from the 41st precinct. He was a detective. He trained me to be a boxer 'cause he was a boxing trainer, too.That was a boxing gym. I used to box in there and train. Big George would get with Flash and Ray Chandler and he would let them party there. It was on 1111 Fox Street. We called it 1111 Fox. All of us was in there! The Barretto Crew, the Hoe Avenue Crew. All of us. They used to be in the ring with the DJ equipment and everything. We'd be on the side dancing and everything. We had a lot of room in there to dance and everything. And like I said Flash would always play "I Don't Wanna Go" by The Moments at the end of the party. But before that we used to be Breaking hard to joints like "That's The Joint" by Van McCoy. Me as a B-Boy I was really part of Grandmaster Flash's crew. Everywhere Flash went, I went. Savoy Manor, 1111 Fox, Mitchell Gym, Casita Maria, Rosevelt High School."

Van McCoy - That's The Joint 1976

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your top Breakbeats back then?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Well, my top breakbeat was "Apache". The break part of "Apache"!! I got my rhythm off of that. I knew when the break was coming in. When that beat came on it was electrifying for us!!!!  

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do these days mean to you in retrospect?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"It was a good time!! It was a time when we was coming up and we had something to do. It made us feel like we was free. Just doing what we wanted to do as kids growing up. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you like to give some shoutouts at the end of this interview?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah, I would like to shout out Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five! And I would like to give a shoutout to my personal crew! To Georgie Brooks, G-Man aka Greg Martin, Beedie B, Lil Tim (RIP), Rabbit. To my Simpson Street Crew: Righteous, Wisdom Born, Jimmy aka Slick. It's a whole lot of them out there, man! To the Casanova Crew! To Ricky Worm! I could go on forever...and shoutouts to you  Norin Rad!"

 SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you! I want to shout out my Intruders Crew as well as all the true pioneers of Hiphop! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! Ukubambisana!!!! To Mr. Wiggles, Troy L. Smith, Pete Nice and Pluto 7!"