Interview with DJ Smokey (The Master Plan Bunch) 


                     conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders Crew / Germany)

                                                     

                                                                

DJ Smokey (The Master Plan Bunch)

NORIN RAD:"What made you pick up that name Smokey?"

DJ SMOKEY:"I was running track in Taft High School and I could run really fast. When I ran the dust would be kicking up from my sneakers. They would say, "What do we got here? You're smoking!" "Hey, Smokey!" See! So the name kept sticking. I kept the nickname when I was DJing..it said DJ Smokey! That's how the name came about..DJ Smokey! As time went on I dropped the Y and it was DJ Smoke. People just kept calling me DJ Smokey. Flash and them would call me DJ Smokey. Kool Herc called me DJ Smokey."

NORIN RAD: "When did you form your dance crew? The Smoke-A-Trons? Was that around 1974/75?"

DJ SMOKEY: "No. That was around 1972."

NORIN RAD: "From your recollection how did Breaking as a dance come about? What are its roots?"

DJ SMOKEY: " Okay, in 1969 the dance at these 25 Cent parties in the basements and in the clubs started to change, it was more of a expression vibe. Like this song that came out in 1970 "Express Yourself!" You see it was more of a rush dance, a anger dance. "Say It Loud I'm Black And I'm Proud" ..they were like "Ahhhh, I'm angry!" A anger dance!! Like "I'm tired of all this shit....who you're calling nigger?" and it was also like "I'm from this block you're from that block!" You know what I'm saying? Two guys would go at each other....

NORIN RAD " Would they go down to the floor?"

DJ SMOKEY "No, they wouldn't go down on the floor. Absolutely not. They would express themselves with each other. One would stand in front of another and they would go like "BAMM!"" I mean they would do moves with their arms, like hitting each other and kicking at the same time...all to the music. But no touching!! Guys were like showing what they were gonna do to each other...That's where this breaking dance really came from.. and remember this was before there were two turntables involved.

NORIN RAD: "Now as for that name Smoke-A-Trons how did that come about?

DJ SMOKEY: "The Smoke-A-Trons were my dancers, the ones that I picked.Sister Boo, Johnny Kool, James Bond, Crazy Eddie, the Yellow Banana....all my dancers...when people would come to our block and think that they could dance my dancers would smoke the hell out of them. That's why I called them The Smoke-A-Trons."

NORIN RAD:"Where was Sister Boo from? The 9?"

DJ SMOKEY: " No, she wasn't from the 9. I think she was from Jerome Avenue. She was real good and beautiful. I'll send you some pictures of her. She is dead now, she died from AIDS. The Yellow Banana is still around. Her real name is Vivien. She used to go to Kool Hercs parties, too."

NORIN RAD: "So the Smoke-A-Tron B-Boys and B-Girls were Sista Boo, Johnny Kool, James Bond, Crazy Eddie.."

DJ SMOKEY:"Yes, but I had more. there were bout 20 of them."

NORIN RAD: "Could you name them please?"

DJ SMOKEY: "El Dorado Mike."

NORIN RAD: "El Dorado Mike was down with you, too? I have heard a lot about him...."

DJ SMOKEY: "Yeah, he was one my B-Boys. The Nigger Twins would come to my parties, too. You can ask them about me, you can ask them about DJ Smokey...Then I had Bo Bo, he was from the 9. Here's another one: The Calgonite Kid. He was so dirty that they called him the Calgonite Kid. Then there was Barbara, Beavey, Born, Knowledge...They are in heaven now."

NORIN RAD: "What about Ron, Sleepy and  Kaseem? I heard Pow Wow from the Zulu Kings mention them as great B-Boys."'

DJ SMOKEY: "Yes, yes they were all Smoke-A-Trons. Sleepy was very good."

NORIN RAD:"What were your stomping grounds in terms of indoor as well as outdoor party spots around the early to mid 1970 when The Smoke-A-Trons were with you?" 

DJ SMOKEY:"The Cave! '74! It was on Webster Avenue....in the Webster Avenue Projects. It was on Webster Avenue & 167th street. We called it The Cave."

NORIN RAD:"Damn! Melle Mel mentioned that the first B-Boy party he ever witnessed took place at The Cave with you playing the music....Was that a club?" 

DJ SMOKEY:"It was a community center. One of the buildings had a big community center and it was in that center!"

NORIN RAD:"I heard  that you were also giving parties at a spot called Over The Dover (I read that in an interview with Pow Wow from the Zulu Kings / Soul Sonic Force)....What kind of spot was that?"

DJ SMOKEY: "Okay, The Dover was a movie theatre that was closed. On the top of The Dover was a club that Lucky got for us. We called it Over The Dover.....it was kinda raggedy so we started working on it.....we had to build it up and clean it.  The more we built it up the more people came and before we got the amps stolen from us we had it packed on the regular. At first it was 100 people, then it was 200 people.....then 1000.....we started to make so much money out of it. The Smoke-A-Trons and Luke- A-Trons were there....but then unfortunately we got robbed....."

NORIN RAD:" From what I've heard you also used to do parties at your apartment on Grant Avenue where B-Boys got down at heavily..."

DJ SMOKEY:" Yes!! All day long!!!  All day long!!! My apartment was on 169th street & Grant Avenue...5D!!! On the fifth floor....We played music 24/7 !! That's where my Smoke-A-Trons..they would come in there daily, hang out and dance. We would also do block parties on Grant Avenue in the summer time."

NORIN RAD: "But how would all the these B-Boys and B-Girls that later ran with the Smoke-A-Trons and the Luke -A-Trons as well as those who challenged them know about your parties i on Grant Avenue?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Because of the cards! You know what an index card is, right? Before flyers we passed out little index cards. We would give'em to people to take them to school. Pass them out! You know on the DL, on the down low. Like you had a cheerleader or a football player in school....."Here's a card. This is where the party is going to be at!" "Smokey is giving a party!" Once it started spreading around it got big! That's when Flash started coming around my house. They ain't telling. That's why Lucky and them are being mad."

NORIN RAD: "What was Lucky's function within the Master Plan Bunch?"

DJ SMOKEY: "He was like the Godfather! You know he was a gangster. He was at the door. He takes care of the food! He takes care of the product, you know what I'm talking about? He took care of the bills. He was like the overseer, he is older than us. He took care of the muscle. Whenever we needed it, he had the muscle. He kept the money going. And also he is a gambler...he is a dice man. He took care of the house we played the dice. He was like Bumpy Johnson."  

NORIN RAD:"Where did you meet Lucky for the first time?"

DJ SMOKEY:"I met him at the Factory West in Harlem."


                                                  

Lucky (The Master Plan Bunch)

NORIN RAD:"So you served food and drinks at your parties on Grant Avenue?"

DJ SMOKEY: "Yes, hot dogs, hamburgers, sodas, beer, Old English 800...things like that. Anything you needed..loose joints. I don't really wanna talk about that on the phone though (laughs)!" 

NORIN RAD:"Now who exactly were the Luke-A-Trons?"

DJ SMOKEY:"The Luke-A-Trons were basically Lucky's dancers, they were mostly girls."

NORIN RAD:"Could you name some of the B-Girls that ran with the Luke-A-Trons?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Sister Boo! She was the number one! (Sister Boo shared membership of both the Smoke-A-Trons and the Luke-A-Trons) Angie Du Bose was a Luke-A-Tron...Barbara was a Luke-A-Tron....Yellow Banana was a Luke-A-Tron....Beverly Burton was a Luke-A-Tron....Sheila was a Luke-A-Tron...It was about 30 of them. It was a whole team of them. Females! Webster Avenue Crew was Luke-A-Trons and some of them were Spanish and they were Luke-A-Trons!"

NORIN RAD:"Oh so there were Puerto Rican B-Girls among the Luke-A-Trons?"

DJ SMOKEY:" Yes, we called them Maniquas. They was Luke-A-Trons, yes! They used to Hustle and Breakdance! I'm serious! Then we had Savage Nomads (notorious street gang from the Bronx)...girls....they were bad. They'd do the Hustle...all of them. When they came to the party... Oh my God! They were beautiful girls!"

NORIN RAD:"Oh, so I guess the Luke-A-Trons would attract a lot of people to come to your parties, right?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Thank you! That's what started it off.  Over The Dover....I got pictures of this stuff I wanna show you.  Beautiful girls!! Let me tell you something.... I was mad because the Yellow Banana didn't like me and I wanted to rap to her but she would say, "You got too many girlfriends you better get out of my face! (laughs) I'm serious! Sister Boo, too! She never rapped to me. "

NORIN RAD:"And all the Smoke-A-Trons and Luke-A-Trons would hang out at your house and also practise there during daytime, right?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Night time, too. Some of them they would not leave..they would stay for two or three days! They would sleep on the floor  and then just get up.. get something to eat..take a shower...change up.... and enjoy themselves. There was no raping nothing like that because guys knew we would beat the shit out of them.."

NORIN RAD:"So it was like a family thing?"

DJ SMOKEY:"It was a family, yes! We took care of them. They knew nobody would hurt them. They felt comfortable. Lucky would let nobody hurt them anyway."

NORIN RAD:"What about their opponents? Would they challenge the Smoke-A-Trons and Luke-A-Trons at your apartment?"

DJ SMOKEY: "Yeah..when other people came from different neighbourhoods they had to come through them....dancing. They (the other B-Boys & B-Girls)  would lose a lot of times! Sometimes they would win...but most of the times they lost. 155th Street Crew...they lost. The Polo Grounds Crew lost....University Avenue Crew they lost. They would get their ass handed to them because the Smoke-A-Trons was bad!! James Bond, Bobo and them was bad. They knew their style! Eldorado Mike? Come on...But there were a lot of good dancers back then... Ni**er Twins! They were bad!  Kool Herc's  team was bad, too! Clark Kent!!! They were good, I'm not lying. Flash's dance team was bad..Melle Mel and them could dance....they would all dance before they got into their shit (starting with MCing)." 

NORIN RAD:"From what I've heard so far talking to greats such as Trixie, Sasa and Clark Kent the early Breaking (1972-1974) was characterized by a lot of routines that the dancers would do while they were rocking on top. Would the Smoke-A-Trons also have these kind of routines and if so could you describe some them?"

Babe Ruth

DJ SMOKEY:"It was different back then...first of all they were dancing on real concrete! It wasn't no goddamn mats or cardboard on the ground...they were dancing on real concrete! They wasn't having that...no! As far as the routines... they were performers! You had to do something like a show. You had to do skits..they were doing skits before..It wasn't all that throwing yourself on the floor at once.....They (the Smoke-A-Trons) would do something like Charlie Chaplin...they would do Babe Ruth....the Frankenstein....the Spinning Top......there were so many different styles that they would do dancing. I still know these skits! You would do the Robot! I would tell them what styles they should do.... I mean I wasn't a good dancer myself but I would give them advice and tell 'em, "Do it this way!  Do the Spider or do The Drunken Monkey! Like in those Kung-Fu movies that we used to watch..."Do the Crane!" It was different skits that you would do breakdancing.....going crazy! I would break my Smoke-A-Trons down! "Do the Fallen Angel! " I had mirrors in my apartment and so they would practise all day. I would watch them and tell them, "Don't do it like him or her....do it your way!" I would let them know.....I got codes of what I wanted them to do like a coach!"  

NORIN RAD:"Alright! And so the name of your whole crew (DJs, dancers, promoters) was TMB.....The Masterplan Bunch, right?"
 

DJ SMOKEY:"Yes! We are Masters at what we do.......we Plan what we do and we travel as a bunch. TMB!"  
 
NORIN RAD:"What did your equipment consist of back then? Like which amps, speakers and turntables did you have ? Kids nowadays have no idea of what it took back in your era to do parties as a DJ."  

DJ SMOKEY:"Okay, I'mma say it this way. It was Peavey's. Peavey columns... Everything was mostly Peaveys. I started out with different kind of stuff. In the beginning it was Kenwoods then it branched out to Peaveys. Some Jamaicans they were giving us other stuff and we started building speakers. That's where Ahmad Shabazz came in and then other people started coming in, you know what I'm saying? We built the woofers..we built the sub range, the mid range..we built some of the tweeters, the horns...I got carpetenters who built those cabinets. At the peak of it...I'd say around '76....aaah, 76' we was really at our peak then. In '77 somebody robbed us and took the Peavey amps and that kinda like threw me off. "

NORIN RAD:"Oh shit!!! Where did that happen?"

DJ SMOKEY:"It was on 169th street & Grant Avenue (Smokey's apartment)......somebody had left the door open and the stick up kids came up and took the amps...That kinda hurt me!  They took the amps..they couldn't carry the speakers because they were so big....they just took the amps. (gets excited)  It was a set up!!! At gunpoint!!!"

NORIN RAD: "So it was a rather serious thing back then to be a DJ 'cause cats would try to get at you and snatch your equipment away?"

DJ SMOKEY: "Yeah! They could never rob our parties because we had too much security. We would never have a fight at our block parties because we had too much security. They tried to rob us at parties but the security was so tight before they could get next to us the security already bagged them. One party at Burger King's...my mother was taking money at the door..this guy walks in with a shotgun pointing it at my mother...seconds...seconds..we snatched the shotgun..beat him up and took him around the block. His boy..he had a gun..he ran off cause our security was soo tight.
That's how we trained our security.....inside the party and outside the party."

NORIN RAD:"How deep was your breakbeat arsenal at your peak in '76 and '77? Were you known for having rare beats?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Yes, I had some very rare beats. I had four crates..beats, just beats in it....two crates with other music. So I had like six crates...."

NORIN RAD:"Nowadays the younger DJs are not really familiar with what it took back then to become a DJ....Like building up a Soundsystem, buying two copies of the same record to extend the break..."

DJ SMOKEY:"I had six copies! Sometimes when we played outside...the records...the sun would warp them or they would get scratched up by the way that we was playing them and I used to have pennies and dimes on my needles and so sometimes the needle would break......we would cut the records so much that the grooves would get messed up....sometimes even the headphones would get messed up...So I had multiple copies of each record. "

NORIN RAD:"Where would you buy your records at?"

DJ SMOKEY:"There was a spot called Downstairs Music, Crazy Eddie....I would go as far as Brooklyn to get the records I needed....."

NORIN RAD:"What were your five favourite breakbeats?"

DJ SMOKEY:""It's Just Begun", "Apache", "Bongo Rock", "Open Sesame" by Kool & The Gang...there was version that had a nice beat on it.....sings, "Groove With The Jeannie"

NORIN RAD:"Who were your DJ partners back then? That ran with your crew?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Jerry D! Rob The Gold! There were also a lot of other DJs that played with me like Flash, Lovebug Starski and Mean Gene (from the legendary L-Brothers)."

DJ Rob The Gold (The Master Plan Bunch)

DJ Jerry Dee (The Master Plan Bunch)

NORIN RAD: "I don't mean to upset you but what was your relationship with Kool DJ Herc back then in the early to  mid 1970ies?"

DJ SMOKEY: "I was his nemesis!"

NORIN RAD: "Ok, so you were rivals! Did you ever go  against each other in a battle with your soundsystems?"

DJ SMOKEY: "Yes, we did . He definetely had the equipment but skillwise I was much better than him and I'm still better today. He did something very slick to me at the PAL back then. He had invited me there to do a battle of the DJs and he had all his equipment there, massive equipment, you know what I'm saying? Half an hour before the PAL closed I finally got on using some of my equipment but I only had two speakers with me, two Peavey columns. So I tried to tear his ass up with what I had. I was waiting for Grandmaster Flash to bring the rest of my equipment but by the time he got there the PAL already closed. So Herc basically drowned me out because he had all his speakers there. Everybody said he won, he did not win..."

NORIN RAD: "Where was that PAL located at?"

DJ SMOKEY:" On Webster Avenue in the Bronx."

NORIN RAD: "Do you recall in which year that battle took place?"

DJ SMOKEY:"Oh, I'm not sure that was such a long time ago....but I think it was in 1976. Definetely before I joined the military in 1978."