Interview with the Original MC Kool Kyle The Starchild
                                              
                          conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders Crew / Germany)

                                                    on September 24th, 2017



                                                                    

Kool Kyle The Starchild

Norin Rad: "Where in the Bronx did you live at when you started getting involved in Hiphop?"

 Kool Kyle The Starchild: "I lived in the northeast section of the Bronx. They call it Uptown. That's in the section not too far from Mount Vernon. I lived close to White Plains Road which was where the number 2 train ran, which is not too far from Gun Hill Road and which as we'll find out later on was the location of the world famous T-Connection. Not too far from The Valley, not too far from Co-Op City..The Valley was a big park where a lot of parties went on. Not too far from from Olinville Junior High School where there was a big park right across the street where we do parties to this very day. Northeast section of the Bronx I was born and raised. East 221st street to be exact."   

Norin Rad: "Which spots did you rock on the regular as a MC and who was your DJ?"

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Well, my primary DJ was DJ Sinbad. Sinbad lived in Edenwald Projects which is again Uptown, the infamous Edenwald Projects!  I met him at T-Connection one night. He actually was DJing for MC Jimmy Dee. Jimmy Dee, myself and Sinbad were the first guys to actually play regularly in T-Connection. I had actually advocated myself to MC in T-Connection when it was just a regular adult club, prior to any Hiphop being in it. I saw the club, I lived around the corner..not around the corner but not too far from there and made it my bussiness to meet the owner. I met the owner.. his name was Richie T. I said, "Richie T you know what? We need to get like younger people and can we do this ?" He said, "Listen man, every night I do an adult thing.. Friday, Saturday and Sunday. I don't mess with this new beebop hippidy hop thing you guys are talking about." This is in 1977. I said, "Well, you know what? I'm a little bit older than those dudes by a couple of years. In fact I just got out of high school, I'm going to college. I really don't roll like that. I don't want to blow my own horn but I think you could make a lot of money."  He said, "I don't know man. I got 15.000 $ soundsystem in this club and I don't want you  guys tear my shit up." This went on for a good six to seven months. Finally one day..I don't know what happened he advised me to come upstairs and look at his system. He took me in the DJ booth. I saw the Crown amp... top quality state of the art shit for these days..I'm looking at his equipment.. I saw his mixer, his mics, his turntables..    What was unique about T-Connection is that his turntables were suspended from the ceiling by four tables. They weren't sitting on a standard plattform or table they were suspended from air! You had to be very adept at mixing on those tables 'cause the tables would swing back and forth. And he showed me his speakers, the way of the club...He showed me that he was interested in dealing with me. I finally convinced him to let me get on the mic one night, he let me get on the mic. Sinbad was a friend of mine but Sinbad was hanging out in the T-Connection. I convinced Richie T. to let Sinbad play one night..again these are adults. These aren't teens like myself  they are like in their mid-twenties going to their thirties, had shoes on..Sinbad had an extensive record collection. The deal was he could rock the turntables but I have to rock the mic. I was told, "I don't wanna hear any of that hippidyhop stuff!" and I should not talk to these people but when I got on I introduced them to what I have always been doing  for the last couple of years and me and Sinbad just clicked automatically. He became my regular DJ. We became the first DJ and MC on a regular basis in T-Connection. Now the  places I played at...aah, I try to remember man...Well, T-Connection is one..Celebrity Club in Harlem, Broadway International in Harlem, Disco Fever in the Bronx eventually, Webster Avenue P.A.L. on 183rd Street, the Black Door in the Bronx, Emma's Place which became my after hour place which is right around the corner from T-Connection, the Kip's Bay Boys Club in the Bronx, the Renaissance Ballroom in Harlem, the Audobon Ballroom another legendary place in Manhattan up in Harlem where Malcolm X lost his life,  the Stardust Ballroom in the Bronx..."







                                                   

Kool Kyle The Starchild rockin with Kool DJ Herc & The Herculords at the legendary T-Connection on December 21th, 1979

                                                    

                                                      


Norin Rad: "What about parks? Did you also do parks or were you more focused on clubs?"

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Well, in the very beginning it was about going to the parks and whoever had a soundsystem you would try to make up with them. This is  in the very beginning (of MCing) 1976 going on to 1977 but there was no real MCees yet. It was just music. DJs started popping up and they would have a mic but nobody was talking on...they would only say little things, little phrases but there was no organized thing, no practiced thing, there were  no rhyme schemes...They was just like you know, "Everybody get down!" and they all had this DJ voice which was an imitation of the black radio jocks on the radio at that time. Frankie Crocker.. all these black radio jocks used to play WWRL which was the last number on the AM dial which was very hard to get. These guys played funk music, they played the records that we bought at the record stores. Kool & The Gang, The Bar-Kays, Earth Wind & Fire.. all the funky stuff and the obscure records that became breakbeats like the Dynamic Corvettes "Funky Music Is The Thing". That was on the radio but on the AM dial! But these guys all had voices like this, "Right about now I want you to get down to the funky sound of  Kool & The Gang! Jungle Boogie!" Then they would lead into the record...That was the voice that you heard on the mic but they would never rhyme..they would just say certain things. This was around 75 going on 76. So the parks became the popular place to be on a Saturday and especially on a Sunday. So I used to go to the Valley Park where Kool DJ Rock...he had a crew called The Come Off Crew...with Timmy Hall, KBJ and the  Johnny G..they had their own crew..they used to set up in the Valley. Then you had Flash at 23 Park.. I used to go down there...Olinville Park...DJ Breakout, Kaos Crew, myself and my first crew which was called Creation Disco Fantasy...which was myself,  Nasty Neal, DJ GQ and DJ Ronnie Ron..we had our own system that we built from the ground up and we had help from Nasty Neal's brother.. older brother who was an original member of the Together Brothers..they were a disco unit..they had their own system...but Neal's brother Owen he helped us build our system. So with his help we decided to come out on our own..we are calling ourselves Creation Disco Fantasy...I was the one on the mic and Neal played the records..and I also could DJ too 'cause I'm originally DJ Kool Kyle...so I learnt how to DJ just watching..I had two of everything..everything any other DJ had..I had two of everything..so you could never pull out a record that I couldn't rock of ' cause I had it already and I used to practice..So Neal would play, I would play and rap like Hollywood did, like Lovebug Starski did 'cause I saw Starski early early on and I saw Hollywood early early on....Superstar Cafeteria, Superstar 33....these were clubs that were poppin'  in 74, 75, 76 in Manhattan. All of this was the formulation, the beginning of what would become MCing....Guys talking on the mic but they wasn't rhyming 
like, "Yes, Yes Y'all ah to the Beat Y'all!! You don't stop that Body Rock! We go on, on to the break of dawn!" They weren't rhyming like that yet but they were putting words together and they were kool words and you felt that, you were paying attention to them! I was 15 then, 16 then and I was feeling that and I knew I could do it. I started like with my man Neal and we would go to the parks!"

Norin Rad: "So Creation Disco Fantasy was a Hiphop Crew? How long did you last?"

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Yes. We played Disco AND Breakbeats, Funk and R'n B. We battled The Kaos Crew, DJ Doc La Rock..we also battled Steele Productions (DJ Chuck Chillout's first Crew) among others....We actually even played with Flash and Cowboy on Webster Projects in early 1977 but it wasn't a battle. Cowboy just started rocking the mic with Flash. We brought our little system down..two Cerwin Vegas, 18 inch speakers...we had a Crown amp..it took us an eternity to get the money to buy that Crown amp. We were so proud of it...it had the power  it was reliable..it would work anywhere,  it would run any kind of power through it, it wouldn't blowout.  We lasted two years...we went from 1976 to 1978. Me and Neal were a graffiti team as well. Yeah...23 Park..that was Flash's home base...I played there..Cedar Park..I rocked  the mic there and that was the deal: the park thing!! Olinville Park what I told you...Bronx Park which was down the block from me..216th street...with T-Ski that was his home..  he wasn't a MC yet  but he was just hanging around  I told you The Valley..yeah the park thing was very big 'cause that was your introduction as a DJ or MC. Co-Op City!!! I did Co-Op City a lot with the little guys who named themselves The Little Brothers.  Aaron and Leo.... It was about going to the parks 'cause people naturally were drawn to the parks 'cause the bands had stopped playing...'cause this DJ thing was coming up and it was pushing the bands away. People don't want to hear the bands anymore 'cause now you can hear the real records and you had guys mixing these records..bringing them back and forth..nothing extravagant yet..no Grandwizard Theodore stuff, no Grandmaster Flash stuff...but just the record seam and flow flawlessly...cause you had a mixer now..guys were mixing records and then some dude would get on the mic and just talk a little bit of shit but it was hot!  I picked up on that at the end of 1976 and I made it my bussiness to be a DJ / .... and it wasn't even called MC yet...Cowboy coined that phrase with Mel in 77. But I wanted to be a DJ who talked on the mic....   "

Norin Rad: "Before there were such things as promotion of records by big labels through music videos and adverts in rap magazines in order to build up a Rap Star what did it take back then during the park and community center jam era to become a well-respected and established MC in Hiphop? Like what were the criteria that had to be met in order to build up a reputation as a vicious MC in the Bronx?"


Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Well, in the very beginning...like you said there was no social media or radio knowing 'bout Hiphop....'cause Hiphop wasn't Hiphop yet..we didn't even call it Hiphop in 1978/79...What we used to do was, you know,  like try to go to these park jams and rock the mic!  People would talk about you...word of mouth basic...promoters started getting hip to what these kids were doing in the parks and they would start renting out clubs....Mike & Dave, Van Silk, Ray Chandler from Black Door Productions....and promoters would go to the parks and watch them (the DJs & MCs) and they would see how the kids reacted to whoever was on the mic and whoever was DJing.  And so your criteria, your promotion was gettin' on flyers. The more flyers you were on was your passport to notoriety, to professionalism, and to street cred and to respectability.... 'cause if you weren't on flyers nobody cared...like, "Yo, who you?" It was moving so fast that after a while you would see the same names...but these names you would see so often you had to know that they were the hottest dudes...You would see Grandmaster Flash, you'd see Grandwizard Theodore, you'd see The Cold Crush Brothers..then you'd see later on The Treacherous Three and you'd see certain names  and the way the flyers were drawn you knew that these were gonna be hot parties! Eventually you would see Kool Kyle with DJ Sinbad....and then throughout the boroughs!!! The Bronx and then Manhattan...  It was all about the flyers back then....the flyers and word of mouth..because cats would go back to school and on Monday cats would talk about what they did...again it was about the party  "Yo, I went to this hot party!"and "Ey yo, it was DJ so and so and MC so and so..." That was our promotion! The flyers, then the posters and the word of mouth...also Norin..eventually cats got hip to recording these parties which were the original cassette tapes...cats used to  record our parties on casette tapes and bring them to school and play 'em out school..."Yo, where you got that from?" "I went to this party at so and so and I recorded it.." And then we started hitting high schools and do parties at Theodore Roosevelt, you know Stevenson High School..these are all schools in the Bronx and Harlem...and they were making cassettes of these parties..that was promotion! It was all home grown for us.. it was no organized radio time to promote a party. It was flyers, eventually cassettes and word of mouth."

Norin Rad: "What were the challenges that came with rocking in the parks as a MC or DJ back then?" 

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Well number one most of the time at the early days of rocking in the parks...I'm talking about from '77/'78...we weren't allowed to play in these parks to start with.  Nobody went to the police and said, "I need a permit to play here on Sunday from 12 to 5! Can we do it?" No! What we would do is get into the parks cause the parks were always open and we needed a power source. So your first challenge was finding power...so you get these long ass orange power cords and you hook 'em onto a light pole and you drew power and your main concern was not losing power, your system blowing out... Once you had that under control now you are setting your equipment up and you had to block it off so that the people wouldn't mob rush you, wouldn't be bumping into the turntables, stealing records..just basically getting in the way. Crowd control was very important. You had a couple of dudes that would push people back. They would set that rope up and they'd watch.  You had to know somebody to get under the rope so most cats stayed in front of the ropes. Now because you're in the park anything go on. Cats had beef with people, fights would go on and you would worry about that because at any given time..this the Bronx!! This is mostly in the South Bronx in the late 1970ies...the gangs were still out, you had a lot of guys that were still rocking with gangs...they would meet other gangs and maybe they would fight or maybe this dude's girl was there doing the Freak dance with some other dude and now they wanna fight....and you know fights can turn into a riot..and I'm not saying riots were going on but there would be like issues. Like just young teenagers..dudes and girls doing their thing...trying to be fly..talking shit to each other and also having a good time. You put all that into one kettle man and you have a mix of fun, danger and the Bronx..all that was in one mix. Another challenge was the DJ you were playing with. You had to hope that as a MC... Let's say you are rocking with a strange DJ....you convince him, "Can I get on your mic?" And a lot of DJs in the beginning would give it to you but then as time went on and I remind you again Norin things were going very quickly. DJs started realizing everybody wants to touch the mic. So you couldn't just let anybody get on your mic. So if you could convince a DJ to let you play...from the MC aspect..I'm hoping that this guy  can play and mix and not fuck me up. A lot of guys claimed they could play..they would get on and maybe do a couple of records right so you would get into your flow and then they'd fuck the beat up!!!!  People would react to that! The whole crowd ,"OOOOOUUUU!" 'Cause you know Bronx crowds....young Black and Puerto Rican teenagers hip...  they dance and they move and they're feeling the beats and they knew when shit got fucked up  and they would look at you like you're crazy and like you had thrown them off.. So you don't wanna do that...you wanna keep the rhymes oin', flowin' without messing people up..make sure they're having a good time.. So as a MC the challenge was hopefully the DJ wouldn't mess up. And then the police...
At any given time the police might come and say , "Yo, shut this shit down!" and as the cops tell you to shut it down they let you stand there a while..now they're coming in two,three or four of them...they're looking at people.. People don't wanna deal with the police.Now they are asking you questions and naturally, as an urban youth you don't wanna answer questions from the police 'cause a lot of cats were doing  other things back in those days also. You don't wanna get frisked by the police, you don't wanna give them a hard way to go 'cause in New York City back then you say a wrong thing to a cop you're getting punched in the face, you're getting hit, you might get dragged off. So the police might come in and shut you down and now the crowd is mad 'cause the party is over and they are all amped up you had them going for a while, they were having a great time now they gotta go home..."   

                                            PART 2

Norin Rad: "How would MC battles go down back then? Which points had to be taken care of in order to win them? How were the winners of those battles determined? Were physical threats and verbal abuses of your opponent's mother or girlfriend part of these battles?"

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Well,  the thing with the battles in the early days in the parks.. see first of all you had to have a name and usually whoever had the equipment and who had a MC with him that would be the DJs main man that would be one because they came together they practised together and they set up together  in the park and you would hear about this event through the hiphop grapevine amongst urban teens in those days in the Bronx and Manhattan. Like I told you before EVERY neighbourhood had its own pocket of DJs and MCees and they all had their own little reps (reputation), their own street cred. So you know one crew would be known in their hood but another crew would be known in the next hood and like I told you before about branching out you would branch out. What would happen is word would get around that so and so was playing this weekend and what you would do as a crew or me also you would make it your bussiness to be there! Number these battles weren't organized, there was no flyers, it was no, "They gonna battle fo a hundred dollars!"There was none of that!  What it really was was meeting that other crew and let them be men enough to get on the mic. Having the macho that most young men do you would say, "Yeah, you come! In fact, let's go on with the battle!" One group would get on...at a certain point they would stop, the next group would get on. They would do this back and forth. Now at the end of the battle it was no getting on the mic and asking the crowd, "Who do you feel won this battle?" None of that went on until the clubs started having battles and the promoters started booking battles. When there was the Cold Crush vs. Fantastic battle, Busy Bee with AJ, playing at Harlem World, the T-Connection joints....This is when it became organized where the promoters would call them, "We gonna have a battle between you guys!" but in the park days it wasn't like that. So there was no final solution or definition of who actually was the winner. Because you can't go to somebody else's neighbourhood and claim you won. You might get your ass beat trying to get outta there like I toly you! So what you would do is just play, you go back and forth, you might shake hands at the end, "Yeah, I rocked you, son!" Now as far as the lyrical content...it was a given line.... You don't talk about somebody else's mother. You can talk about their girl but be careful depending on how fly the rhyme is. Cause if the rhyme is too fly and too dirty then other cats gonna get mad you will have too see. YOU TALK  ABOUT SOMEBODY'S MOTHER  IN A RHYME THAT'S A VIOLATION!!! THE PHYSICAL INTIMIDATION OF ONE GROUP VERSUS ANOTHER GROUP REALLY DIDN'T EXIST 'cause you knew where to go and not to go. Cats walked around with joints (guns). I know for a fact Waterbed Kevie Kev's and Master Rob's mother gave them a little 22 or 25 wherever they went. They were always strapped! But it wasn't about that part because you knew how far to go! Now the crowd and the supporters again played a very important in the beginning of hiphop. Early DJs  and MCs....the crowd was your backbone. They might get upset if they knew their men got rocked. They might start some shit in the crowd so had to watch out for that kind of but our main concern was getting in, do our little battle thing and at the end of the day people would go home happy having seen these two crews of different areas and they would talk about it at school. High school is very important in those days because high schools contain various neighbourhoods all in one building and they would talk, "What did you do this weekend? Yo..Grandmaster Flash and the 3 MCs... Notice I didn't say Furious 4 or 5 I said 3 cause then Flash only had Mel, Creole and Cowboy. They would talk about this party. They would be talking about Grandwizard Theodore  when he first started they were with Rob and Kevie Kev (The L-Brothers)" See people would talk about these parties and that was how you decided who won because there was no vote at the venue, at the park,there was no vote and it was all about having a good time, having fun and trying to walk out there with your chest stuck out and being the flyest dude. "Yo I hit you with that rhyme! You never heard it like that before!" because it was very creative in those days also! That's when the routines started developing, the singing routines with the MC routines and them going back and forth.  It was never violent and it wasn't about let's vote and the crowd saying , "Hoooo!" for who won or who did better.  It wasn't like that in the park jam battles!"

Norin Rad: "Thank you very much for clearing that up because nowadays out here in Germany you got a lot of cats who believe that a true MC battle is all about disrespecting your opponent's mother and exchanging physical threats."

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "Oh there is no limit now! Yeah, there is no limit now! Battle Rap is based on that because BATTLE RAP IS A WHOLE DIFFERENT THING! IT'S A DERIVATIVE OF THE ORIGINAL BATTLES! It's one Rapper against another but if you notice very rarely is there music in the background...that's number one. So these guys are basically saying poetry with no rhythm. There is no limit nowadays back then there was limits. So on a TV venue or a film venue, a DVD or youtube  you wanna stand out.. and the lines have gotten erased anything is possible and everything is acceptable. BACK IN OUR DAYS IT WASN'T LIKE THAT YOU JUST DIDN'T SAY CERTAIN THINGS. So these kids don't understand where it came from. The flyers will tell you... Everybody knows about Cold Crush battling Fantastic Five..If you're a real Hiphop head, you know about these things! But let's transfer to 2017 these kids were born 20 years ago they don't know nothing about that. They never witnessed a real battle. They never went to a club where the crowd had to vote when you turned of the music and you stood shoulder to shoulder to another crew. "How do you feel about Fantastic? Say Hoo!" They don't know about that! All they know about is the dissing part and the rhyme display." 

Norin Rad: "How important was it as a MC to look fly and which efforts did you undertake to stay fly?" 

Kool Kyle The Starchild: "That's a great question! The reason why is being a MC we rolled like ghetto stars....I use that word ghetto kind of  liberally...I didn't come from the ghetto I do come from the Bronx. I lived in the Northeast Bronx, middle-class families...father properly in the  home..mother at home but both had jobs. You know all my friends and myself we were all very smart. We were all A and B+ students. I took a test for Bronx High School of Science which is a very special school in New York City. I passed that! I took a test for Stuyvesant..I passed that..I took a test for Art & Design...an art school..I passed that!  I took a test for Music & Art and I went to Music & Art...So all of us were smart. We didn't come from the ghetto.. So therefore we had a family background and basis. Our mom and dad buying us clothes every fall for school year. I been fly! Always dressed fly! MCing had nothing to do with it.. it's just the way I carried myself. My afro was always tight. Anything that was popular in those days clothewise...My dad had his own store so I used to work at my dad's store to make money. I had a paper route.. I was a messenger. I was always getting money somehow to make sure I looked god. Fast forward to the MC days..Now us being who we were we wanted to impress the girls at the party...that's number one