Interview with Keith & Kevin (The Legendary Twins, formerly known as The Ni**er Twins)

The Legendary Twins

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where were you born and raised at?"

KEITH:"In the Bronx, New York."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, where exactly in the Bronx were you born and raised?"

KEITH:"Well, my brother and I we were born in Bronx Lebanon Hospital. They have like two different locations. My brother and I we were born in the very first location which was on Fulton Avenue between 169th & 168th Street. The year....we were born in 1960, so that means we will be 60 years old this year."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When you started dancing you were living in an area which is called The Nine, right?"

KEITH:"Exactly, that's where we lived at! We started dancing publicly when we was in junior high school, right?"

KEVIN:"Yeah."

KEITH:"7th grade......"

KEVIN:"At the talent shows...."

KEITH:"It was at the school's talent shows where we started really dancing. I mean we danced at home with our family but our first public performance was at our junior high school.  They had like a concert that they do every year."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What's the name of the junior high school that you attended?"

KEITH:"Arturo Toscanini..he was a musician. Arturo Toscanini Junior High School on 165th Street & Teller Avenue in the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"169th Street & Washington Avenue is that The Nine?" 

KEVIN:"Yes!"

KEITH:"Yes! The building that we lived in was right there on that corner between 168th and 169th but really closer to 169th. The building number was 1285 on Washington Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I have noticed that when people from other parts of the Bronx talk about The Nine they often also include Webster Avenue in their definition of that area. That is not correct though, is it?"

KEITH:"Webster Avenue is a couple of blocks away from Washington. It's like two blocks over, you know what I mean? So you can say it's part of the area but the exact location of The Nine was 169th Street & Washington Avenue. That was it! That particular corner where the center was at, the community center for the projects. It was right there on The 9. Our building was diagonally from that building. That was Claremont Center."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is that community center also the place where you and your brother went against other dancers for the first time?"

KEITH:"I don't know if you wanna say that. Kevin, was that the first place we danced against other people? 

KEVIN:"I mean we danced pretty much everywhere."

KEITH:"On The 9 that was one of the places where.. like during the summer months... if Kool DJ Herc didn't come out it was several different DJs that would bring their equipment out and we would dance outside.....in the back of our building and in the park. We danced there."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also go to other areas in order to check out the DJs that were playing there?"

KEVIN:"We used to go downtown and see......what's the kid's name?"

KEITH:"Plummer!  Yeah, but those were Disco DJs, it wasn't like the Hiphop thing. There was a time when we went to parties to check out the other scene, just to see what it's like and they had like DJs that weren't playing the type of music that Herc would play, you know what I'm saying?!? Flowers, Plummer, Pete DJ Jones and all of these guys. It wasn't no breaking at those type of parties."

KEVIN:"No!"

KEITH:"It was just straight dancing and people doing The Hustle and what have you."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about DJ Smokey's parties?"

KEITH:"Yeah, we been over there before. That was on The G-Nine. Grant Avenue...... 169th Street & Grant Avenue.........that's what they called The G-Nine because it was on 169th Street. Smokey and Rob The Gold and they had Lucky there. Those guys."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What made you go to Kool DJ Herc's parties?"

KEITH:"My brother and I we were in junior high school, Arturo Tosacanini. I had a classmate... one of my better friends named Daryll Green. We would go visit him at his house, he would come visit us at our house. So they had a community center over in his area where he lived at. So we would go over there when we visited him. We would go to the community center and play basketball,  play ping-pong or what have you. The school was over there near University Housing Projects, the Highbridge Houses over there on 165th Street & University Avenue and Ogden Avenue...that's where the school was at. We would go to that school just to have fun....to that community center. So when we would go over there we would meet other young girls that would be there as well and they would ask us "Are y'all going to Herc's?" We had no clue what Herc's was and so we asked them"What is Herc's?" and they explained to us that it was a party. Now mind you we were 12 years old at the time....like 1973. They were telling us that Herc was having parties like every weekend and they would tell us where the party was at. So we wanted to go there and check it out. That's pretty much how it started. Our first Herc party.... Cindy (Kool Herc's sister) was at the door collecting the money. She was collecting like 50 cent or something like that. My brother and I we were like the smallest guys going to that party and originally they didn't want to let us in 'cause they thought we was too young basically. All of the kids that were going to Kool Herc's parties were in high school, we were in junior high school. So we would wait, wait, wait and we would finally get in." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the atmosphere like at these early Kool Herc parties in that rec room on 1520 Sedgwick Avenue?"

KEITH:"Ah man, it was amazing!!! First of all, it was exciting just to get in. Then the music and all the people that were there doing their thing.....Trixie, Wallace Dee, Chubby....People don't talk about Chubby anymore, he was a bad boy, too!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I have been told that you and your brother would do intricate routines like the Groucho Marx routine back then. Where did you draw your inspiration from to do this kind of routines?"

KEITH:"Well, I mean of course you would see a lot of that stuff on TV. We would practice at home, in my mom's living room. We would move the table out of the way, out of the living room. Then again, we lived in the projects so the space we had was our apartment and normally the living room is the biggest room in the house. So we would move the table out the way and we would practice. You would practice your moves, everything that you gonna do. You would play the same records over and over again and you would practice your moves to certain parts of the records. You gotta remember we were 12 years old when we were practicing our routines."

SIR NORIN RAD:"There are certain people who claim that you and your brother were not exactly a crew.  What is your take on that?"

KEITH:"Well, there was two of us, right? So we were a two-man crew! We were a two-man crew of a whole crew. Let's keep it a hundred...part of our crew was B-Boy/DJ Clark Kent, Chip.....we were all from The Nine. We had our own crew from The Nine but what separated my brother and I was just us two because we had our own routines! That's what separated us from everybody else. Now there were times when Clark Kent used to come to our house every day and practice in my mother's living room with us! There were many years that Clark Kent, my brother and myself were inseparable. We were together every single day for years straight! People may not know that, if you lived on The Nine you knew that. You didn't see one without seeing three of us. We grew up together and spend a awful lot of time together! Just to let you know we brought Clark Kent to Herc."

KEVIN:"Yeah, he came with us to Herc."

KEITH:"Clark Kent started as a dancer, then he turned into a DJ. He started DJing with Herc. So it was Clark Kent, Kool Herc, Coke La Rock and DJ Timmy Tim. It was those four. Then Imperial JC came on years later."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you describe some of the routines that you and your brother were doing at Herc's parties?"

KEITH:"Well, I mean just basically things that we practiced during the week. We didn't just do the Groucho Marx or the Charlie Chaplin routine at the Herc parties. Every week we practiced a routine and then when we went to the party we would do the routine. Then the next week we practiced other routines. Something else. So we always did different things, you know what I'm saying? That's how it was with us we always practiced so many different things. It wasn't like we would go in there and do the same thing all the time. It was never like that. We practiced, that was our way of not getting involved with a lot of the stuff that was going on outside during our teenage years. There were gangs but it was different back then with the gangs. Totally different, you know what I'm saying? It were no Bloods and Crips. It was a whole bunch of different names. Black Spades, Savage Skulls, Savage Nomads...just so many different names. We stayed away from the gangs, that wasn't our thing, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did the Groucho Marx routine entail?"

KEITH:"We dressed up in trenchcoats, we had canes, cigars and all that stuff. Our signature move though was probably just dropping, going down to the floor. That was probably our signature move 'cause not many people were doing that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, I have been told that you and your brother (as well as Clark Kent) were responsible for the transformation of the dance since you were the first to actually take it down to the floor."

KEITH:"That's what you heard and that's what it is!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did that take place? I guess it must have been after the battle between Trixie and Sasa that took place at the Twilight Zone in late 1974, is that correct?"

KEITH:"Okay, let's understand this. 1973 and 1974 is a year apart. We started going to the Herc parties in 1973."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Ok, I see."

KEITH:"So I mean how much further would you say? Like a year? That still would not make much of a difference.....so be it. We had our inspiration and our inspiration was James Brown. He always went down to the floor because he did the split. That's actually going down to the floor! And then the footwork and what have you that came from no other than the Nicholas Brothers. They were brothers. Those two (James Brown and the Nicholas Brothers) were our main inspirations. So we kinda did a combination of what they did."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did your drop look like?"

KEITH:"Backdrops, you know? And then when we did backdrops we would get into spinning. It wasn't a powermove. Our heads weren't hitting the floor, maybe our hands did but just to support to us when we were doing the dropping, the spinning and the turning."

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"When you talk about footwork you are referring to what you would do with your feet while you were dancing on top, right?"

KEITH:"Yeah, pretty much. More like the way that the Nicholas Brothers danced. That requires tremendous, tremendous ability, you know what I'm saying? And the thing about them...they were in sync with the music! The most important thing....being on beat. Now you have people that dance and they are not even on beat with the music."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So in your era it was important to match the music with your moves?"

KEITH:"Absolutely!!! Absolutely!!!! That's what we would do when we were at home practicing. We knew that what we was going to do had to be a part of the music. Just like somebody doing a Broadway show. They know every move they gonna make of every sound that comes off the instruments. They know what they gonna be doing at that point. We practiced! That's what we did! We practiced! We knew that for every B-Boy record there was a break part that came because they didn't play just the break, they would play the whole record. If you play James Brown's "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose" you had to wait for the "Clap your hands, stomp your feet.....Clyde!"- part. That's when the break came in. Herc wasn't mixing up those parts back and forth like that at that time (at his early parties). He would put one record on and then it would play all the way through. It was the same with "It's Just Begun", you know what I'm saying? After that saxophone part that's when the break came in and that's when you did whatever you had for that particular section. It was also the same with "Get Into Something" which was a very beautiful song to dance off of because it was so uptempo and then it had that break which was in the middle part of that song! Same thing with Baby Huey's "Listen To Me"...you know, you would be dancing that whole song and then that break part would come very late in that song. You had to have a lot of stuff going on to get to that break part and then when that break came in that's when you really had to go in....do some of your fiercest moves at that point. It was a lot different than it is today...the B-Boy thing, you know what I'm saying?"  

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would the people at Herc's parties react to you and your brother dancing there as 13-year-old boys?"

KEITH:"They would be like,"Look at these little guys! Oh, wow! And they can dance, too!" So it wasn't like, "Get these little guys out!"or, "What are they're doing here?" I'm telling you it was crazy 'cause we were 12, 13 years old and we was out there damn near all night when we was going to the parties. And we lived on the other side of town. Herc was on the Westside (of the BX), we lived like on the Eastside. When we went to those parties there were guys that were older than us. Like Chip (legendary Hiphop Hustle dancer) was there.....Chip is a few years older than Kev and myself. There were other guys from our neighbourhood that went there, too. So we were never by ourselves when we first started. As I said we would go there because we wanted to see what it's like. When we went there we started turning other people on that we knew. They wanted to go to Herc's parties. Everybody knew about Herc back then! That was the thing! There wasn't no parties for teenagers to go to. If you say a club or a party that was like basically for the grown folks. Herc was an outlet for everybody to come and have fun. Then of course you had Afrika Bambaataa, Flash and Smokey and all of them. They started, you know, doing their parties regularly just like Herc. So at times we would go over to their parties just to see what their parties was like but it wasn't really really like Breaking going on over there unless we started it. Just like Melle Mel and Mr. Ness  (of the Furious Five)......they were breaking before they became MCs. Did you know that?" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, I knew that but I wasn't aware of the fact that you ran into them when they were B-Boys."

KEITH:"Oh, yes!! We all lived in the Bronx. We knew all of them. We were all going to the same parties. They used to dance at the Flash parties but it wasn't like we never came to a Flash party. First time I heard....what was it...."Rice Crispies" wasn't it at a Flash party?"

KEVIN:"Yeah!"

KEITH:"Flash, yeah! The way that he mixed... his music was like totally different...he kinda jumpstarted a mixer or something where he would hit a button and everything was like perfect. Flash was the one that extended a record like for a very long period of time. He would cut up a beat for like 5, 10 ten minutes straight, you hear me? He would play "Rice Crispies" which is by Ralph MacDonald...you know that song....."Jam On The Groove". That was his  joint, he played that. The first time I ever heard somebody play that song was at a Flash party. He played that! That was Ralph MacDonald "Jam On The Groove"...that was the name of the song but he gave it a nickname called "Rice Crispies". He just extended the break, the whole break, he just played the whole break and if you wanted to dance it made you wanna dance...just hearing that break part!! Amazing stuff, man! We also used to go Bam's parties as well in Bronx River....You know, we went to those parties, too. But the Herc parties was our home, that was our home base. Even though we lived on The 9 and I would say that Flash was probably closer to where we lived our home was Herc because those were the first parties we started going to."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What made Kool Herc and Coke La Rock become aware of you and your brother?"

KEITH:"Well, you gotta remember in 1973 at 1520 Sedgwick Avenue that room wasn't that big. It wasn't a huge room, everybody in there you knew.  And again you have to remember my brother and I we were the youngest and smallest people in the place. (People were like,)"Who are these little guys? And like I said we used to beg Cindy (Herc's sister), man! We wanted to get in the party so bad but the first thing was,"Nah, you're too young! You can't come in!" So we would wait and beg Cindy until she finally let us in. We would get in, you know, but later on. W would be out there for quite a while. Herc really didn't have much to do with it because he was inside playing the music. So I thank Cindy for that, you know what I'm saying?"

Kool Herc's sister Cindy

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did that name "The Ni**er Twins" come from? Did you choose that name or was it given to you?"

KEITH:"Okay, this is what hapenned. That name was given to us by none other than Coke La Rock. He gave us that name. Now prior to Coke La Rock even having that name Coke La Rock he had a different name. Did you know that?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"No, what was it?"

KEITH:"Nasty Coke! His name was Nasty Coke and then it got changed to Coke La Rock. You ask anybody that! Again we was there!! His name was Nasty Coke!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I have spoken to Coke La Rock already and he told me that every B-Boy whom he gave a name to like Trixie, Wallace Dee, Dancin' Doug etc. became a celebrity instantly because if you got your name from Coke La Rock that meant you were really making noise. So obviously you receiving your crew name from him meant that you were acknowledged as the elite dancers."

KEITH:"Well, yeah. I mean Coke had his reasons why he gave us that name and that's something you have to have a conversation with him about. We had a conversation with him. We asked him, "Yo Coke, why did you call us The Ni**er Twins?" and he explained everything to us, so we understood that. Back then when we were young we didn't know what that was about but when we got older there was no way we could walk around with people addressing us by that name. It couldn't happen! It had to stop! But at the time when Coke La Rock would shout us out at the mic,"The Ni**er Twins is in the building!!!!!", we felt really good about hearing our name on the mic. That happened as we were getting older.....in 1974, 75."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you please name your Top 5 B-Boy Songs that really made you go off when you heard them back then?"

KEITH:"My top five?? It was many of 'em. I mean bar none the greatest of them all was James Brown....from the "Sex Machine" album....."Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose". That was the number one of all time. You had Baby Huey "Listen To Me", you had "The Mexican"...Babe Ruth....from "The First Base" album. "It's Just Begun" by The Jimmy Castor Bunch....The Isley Brothers "Get Into Something!" Those were some of the main ones, you know? You know it's like asking me about basketball, "Who are your five greatest players?" I mean there is no comparison....James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose" that's the number one B-Boy anthem of all songs. No ifs, ands or buts!  I don't care who you are, no one will ever top that song, you know what I'm saying? None! You can play that song five times! That's enough for me! I'm good!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did that term "B-Boy" come from? Coke La Rock told me that it started to be used by Herc later on by the time they had begun to play at the Hevalo and the Executive Playhouse. Trixie and Sasa also stated that they didn't refer to themselves as B-Boys and that this term started with you. What do you recall about that?"  

KEITH:"That came from Herc. We didn't go around calling ourselves "The B-Boys" just like we didn't call ourselves "The Ni**er Twins".  As I said Coke La Rock gave us that name. Herc gave the crew of his dancers the title of "The B-Boys". It was like the crew of the guys that danced. They were the B-Boys! That's how that came about!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So not everybody that danced in the circles at Kool Herc's parties was a B-Boy? Only those that were close to Herc?"

KEITH:"No, I can't consider everybody a B-Boy back then. It was a group of us. Herc gave us that term "The B-Boys". It was us....The Twins, Clark Kent, James Bond, Bobo, Eldorado Mike and also Trixie, Wallace Dee........"

KEVIN:"Sasa! All of them!"

KEITH:"WE WERE THE B-BOYS!!! If anybody that we ain't never seen before came in to the party to battle or whatever....wherever they came from.....THEY WASN'T CONSIDERED B-BOYS, YOU KNOW WHAT I'M SAYING? Not to us. It was a certain group of guys that was called The B-Boys. It was created at the Herc parties. So you wanna call yourself a B-Boy and say that you was dancing at Bam's or Flash's parties? Be my guest! Call yourself that! But in the circle of the Herc parties that was the Original B-Boys! That's why you always hear the term "The Original B-Boys". 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and where does the title A1 come from?"

KEITH:"There was only one person that had that title "A1 B-Boy" and that was Sasa!!!! It was given to Sasa by Coke La Rock. Coke La Rock gave out all the nicknames, you understand?! Herc would be at the mic sometimes but for the most part Coke would be at the mic. Coke had that distinct voice. He came up with many names! The reason why Sasa got that title was because he was considered the best and Clark Kent was right there beside him! It's like so many people that was out there back in the days but again everybody wasn't part of that B-Boy Crew."

A1 B-Boy Sasa and Coke La Rock

 SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you shed some light on two dancers, please? I'm talking about Johnny Kool and Chubby. Who were they?"

KEITH:"Johnny Kool! Wow!!! I remember Johnny Kool! (Kevin laughs in the background). He was something else! He was a piece of work! He had skills, he was pretty good! What was the other name?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Chubby."

KEITH:"Chubby!! Yeah, Chubby!! God bless Chubby, man. He died very young. Chubby was nice, he was exciting to see, you hear me? Johnny Kool and Chubby they were all known for going to the Herc parties."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So were they part of The B-Boys?"

KEITH:"Oh yeah, absolutely!! They need to be recognized!"

KEVIN:"Rossy was a B-Boy, too! Trixie's brother."

KEITH:"There were girls that danced, too. But they weren't B-Boys, they were B-Girls. Sister Boo, Duesy, you know what I'm saying?"

KEVIN:"Yeah!"

KEITH:"Janice danced her ass off. Nobody really talks about Janice. Janice was nasty but she came up dancing with Chip and they became like Hustle Kings. But she was nasty! Ain't no bullshit."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do remember about Sister Boo?"

KEITH:"She was a very good dancer! People didn't want to dance against her, you know I'm saying?!"

KEVIN:"She would put some guys to shame!" (both start laughing)

KEITH:"Yeah, but we would have no encounters or nothing like that with her. Nah, she was good. She was a real good dancer."

B-Girl Sister Boo (RIP)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let's go back to the routines that you did for a minute. What did your Charlie Chaplin Routine look like?"
 
KEITH:"Let's say this....we would emulate what he did on television. We had our canes, we had cigars, too. That was also part of the Groucho Marx Routine. We had top hats, we had trenchcoats and we would twirl our canes and move around the way he moved. We just emulated what we saw on TV. We practiced, man! We put the work in because we knew that going in to the weekend when we went to that party and we would enter the circle we wanted to do things that were special. Things that we knew that nobody else was doing. We put our heads together. Not only did we want to go out there and dance but we wanted to bring something different that nobody else was bringing, right? Let's bring an attire! Let's bring an outfit! 'Cause for us when we went to the party and we dressed and stuff like that , it was a performance for us. That was our approach. We're going to perform."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you get to these parties? Did you take a car service or would you ride the train?"

KEITH:"Nah, we always had car ride when we went to these events. We didn't take the train or stuff like that. We took the train to one place that we would go to and that was Chuck Center. We took the train downtown to Chuck Center in Harlem."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Oh, so you also danced at Chuck Center?"

KEITH:"Yeah, we danced at Chuck Center. They used to have dance contests. Me and my brother used to go down there and win. We would win the contest, take the money and then leave the party after we had won the money. So once they had a shootout down there we decided we would never go back again. There were also times when they had shootouts at The Hevalo and The Executive Playhouse. We were in there and somebody pulled out a gun and started shooting. Everybody had to duck and run for cover. We had to run behind a table and put the table on the floor and duck down on the floor. I'm telling you, it was crazy! Makes you thank God that you survived those times."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did any dancer ever try to fight you after you had burnt him on the floor?"

KEITH:"Nah, I wouldn't say that. It was more of an embarassment. They just wanted to leave the party I would say. But our thing was this, right? We didn't go to the parties looking to battle. We went to the parties looking to perform, to put on a show. We weren't looking for battles but if it happened then yeah! We're not gonna back down."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you were about that showmanship I guess?"

KEITH:"Exactly! That's exactly what it was! We were going to entertain. But if you got into our circle you better knew what you were doing or you got booed out!" (both start laughing heavily)

SIR NORIN RAD:"And your routines were designed as team routines, right?"

KEITH:"Exactly! We practiced certain things at home together. We knew what the other one was gonna do."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I have also been told that you had different ways to start your performances. Like entering the circle from two different directions, meeting up in the middle and then getting busy. Is that correct?"

KEITH:"Yeah, that would happen, too. We had a hypemaster...Chip was our hypemaster. "Oh, here they go!!! They're ready! Here they go!" Everybody all of a sudden formed a big circle and one came in one side,  one came in the other side,you know? We would meet up and we had certain handshakes. So we would slap hands, grab each other, drop down together, jump across each other...all sorts of things we had. We practiced these things!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Kool Herc once said in an article that he wanted the people to show up at his parties real splivvy. So how would you dress up when you went there?"

KEITH:"Splivvy meaning I guess you wanna say fly. I mean back then when we was growing up, the popular sneakers were the Pro-Keds.  The 69 Joint Pro-Keds. Puma! Puma became very popular.  You had the Chuck Taylor Converse and then you had the Suede Pro-Keds. We were sneaker guys because we were dancing. We wasn't doing the shoe thing but the shoes way back then were the Playboys. We were sneaker guys, we were about the Pumas. Adidas was just coming out. The 69 Joints. The jeans that was one the number one jeans during our era at that time was the Lees.  You had the Lee Jeans Suit. It was the dark colored jeans. Mocknecks were popular then, they were popular. Alpacas was out there back then.....We wore different things."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do you have to say to those people that claim that there were no B-Boys at Kool Herc's parties and what was going on there as far as dancing is concerned had nothing to do with B-Boying because you guys didn't do floor-based footwork like the Six Step, Four Step etc.?"

KEITH:"First of all they wasn't there and where did the term come from???  Who made the name up? Who made up the name???? Can you tell me, Norin Rad?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"It came from Herc."

KEITH:"And that's a fact!"