Interview with B-Boy / DJ Mean Gene (The L-Brothers)

                                          Interview with B-Boy / DJ Mean Gene (The L-Brothers)

                                                   

B-Boy /DJ Mean Gene (The L-Brothers)

                               conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly in the Boogie Down Bronx are you from?"

MEAN GENE:"I grew up in Manhattan a little bit and then I came to the Bronx and I was on Tiffany Street. As I was on Tiffany Street & 167th my building number was 1047. I went to PS 150 which was right across the street from me." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Tiffany Street is located in the South Bronx, right?"

MEAN GENE:"South Bronx!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who is the oldest brother in the L-Brothers?"

MEAN GENE:"It's me, Cordie-O then Grandwizard Theodore."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When were you born?"

MEAN GENE:"January 11th, 1956."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, let's talk about Hiphop. Is it accurate to say that you started out as a B-Boy?"

MEAN GENE:"Okay, me, Grandmaster Flash, EZ Mike.......there's another brother named Dwayne.... we started off going around to parties....like Kool Herc parties and all that......breakdancing, you know? 'Cause we wanted some type of clientele as we call it out here.  Getting clientele gets you a lot of things, so that's what we did at first."    

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you and Flash meet each other for the first time?"

MEAN GENE:"Good question....good question. Now me, Grandmaster Flash, EZ Mike and Dwayne we met on Aldus Street which is by Southern Boulevard in the Bronx. Like I said we was all there, breakdancing, going to the parties, having a good time..... checkin' out the girls and all that, you know? So after a while EZ Mike had left the crew, Dwayne had left crew. So it was me and Flash. As me and Flash stayed together I moved from Tiffany Street to Boston Road. Once I got to Boston Road that's when me and Flash started the DJing and everything."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I saw an interview with the Furious Five conducted by Jay Quan in which Mr. Ness states that him and Mele Mel battled you and Flash at their school and took you out. That B-Boy battle took place long before they started MCing and actually was their very first encounter with Flash. What do you remember about that battle?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, I mean we were all having fun at the time. We was breakdancing against each other, you know? See who can burn who 'cause that's what we called it back then....Burning. We all got together like that." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"I have been told that in the early 1970ies the dance that later became known as Breaking was done mainly on top and involved a lot of hand gestures and exquisite footwork. There was no spinning on the floor....."

MEAN GENE:"Exactly!!!! (excited) That was our way of breakdancing! We would use our hands to breakdance (hand gestures), do footwork and then drop on the floor. Flash had a unique way of breakdancing. He would always drop to his knees. I don't know if he had sore knees later on but that was his thing. Everybody had the drop..... falling to the ground. I had the fast movement. In our crew it was mostly me and Flash that did the dancing 'cause we was into this heavy!"  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so at which venues would you dance when you were still a B-Boy?"

MEAN GENE:"Soundview, Bronx River.....The Hevalo with Kool Herc. We mostly went to Kool Herc parties in the Hevalo on Jerome Avenue. The Sparkle....these were the breakdance places...The Sparkle......We were also dancing at the school jams. Then there was little clubs. Before I met Flash I used to breakdance in a place called The Psychedelic Shack which was located right up on Prospect Avenue & 167th Street. I also danced at The Tunnel which was located on Westchester Avenue by Interval. These were the main places that we went to because we wasn't allowed to go too far because we was too young." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so during which years were you active as a B-Boy? I guess this must have been in the early 1970s?"

MEAN GENE:"Well, with the breakdancing...we started in 1970, 1971. Then me and Flash got into DJing in 1972 going into 1973. Me and Flash now, I didn't say the L-Brothers. I just said me and Flash."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I think you also told me that you would go off at house parties during those years. Please describe how these kind of parties went down back then! Were there any DJs involved at that point or would you just play music from an 8-track-player?"

MEAN GENE:"Well, we went to good house parties. They would play records sometimes or they would play 8-track or they would put a cassette on. You know, the record that was always playing was James Brown "Sex Machine" ("Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose"). That's what made us get up there and B-Boy and all that against each other.  As I said we didn't call it B-Boying back then we called it Burning. It was about dissing each other. It wasn't Burning like they do it now. We were mostly using our hands. We had a guy there that used to hang out with us...we called him Profile. Profile was a guy that knew how to move his hands around you....to diss you with your body without even touching you."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Like he would do certain gestures to embarass and intimidate you while staying on beat?"

MEAN GENE:"Exactly!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so people would gather at a house party and someone would put a James Brown record on a record player and you would get busy?"

MEAN GENE:"Garrard record player!!! Remember the old Garrard record players from back in the days? That's what they was playing on! One record at a time! All James Brown records was being played for us to be Burning and then when the slow records came on we would all grab a girl and we danced to slow records."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you call that slow dancing back then?"

MEAN GENE:"Grinding."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I see. Please name some of those slow jams that were played at these house parties back then in the early to mid 1970ies?" 

MEAN GENE:"Stay In My Corner (by The Dells), "I Found Love On A Two Way Street" (by The Moments)....and The Delfonics..."For The Love I Gave You"......Stylistics. Those kind of records."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Speaking to the legendary B-Boys from Kool Herc's parties I found out that in the early days of the dance B-Boy battles would go down in a completely different way from how they are being done today. I was told that the competing B-Boys were facing each other and dancing at the same time, trying to burn each other......"

MEAN  GENE:"That's exactly right! We was dancing together! It wasn't one person dancing and then the other person dancing. No!! We was dancing together!!! He would dance on his side and I would dance on my side and the person with the better moves would win. The crowd would tell us like,"Oh yeaaah! Look what he did!" Things like that! That's how we did it!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"And at time (the early 1970ies) you would dance to the whole record and then showcase your best moves during the break part, correct?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, that's right. We played the whole record, we didn't play parts and parts. Me and Flash started playing parts and parts. Well, Herc and Smokey was playing it but they wasn't keeping it on beat. Me and Flash discovered playing two records ( of the same kind to extend the break part) and keeping it on beat."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You mentioned that all B-Boys would drop to the floor in one way or another. What did B-Boys do after they had dropped to the floor?"

MEAN GENE:"We would drop and we would probably do Rowing-The-Boat. You know what Rowing The Boat is? Your legs straightened out and you're moving your arms to move back and forth. That's Rowing The Boat. I was mostly doing The Shiver. That was my thing.....the Shivering!! (excited) And I would do it with Profile. Then we would do dances together. We always had a group and we were doing dances together.  We would do the same moves at the same time, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you would do routines together?"

MEAN GENE:"Routines. exactly!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"When I spoke to Lucky and Smokey..."

MEAN GENE:"You spoke to Lucky and Smokey?!?!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, I did....."

MEAN GENE:"I forgot all about Lucky's spot!! Lucky's true spot was in a basement on Garrison Avenue over here in Hunts Point where I live now. I forgot all about Lucky's spot!! Well, that's where we really mainly started breakdancing at. You are correct!"

SIR NORIN RAD:" Smokey told me that you and Flash also used to come to his house on Grant Avenue regularly where he would be playing music. What do you recall about that?"

MEAN GENE:" Smokey's house......we went there to hang out and listen to him playing music. Smokey was a brother that played music EVERY SINGLE DAY outside in front of his building. We always went over there for the block parties. We were breakdancing over there, had a good time, did our thing and we left. Smokey's spot and also Lucky's spot were our main stomping grounds for doing our dancing. You are correct about that!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about DJ Mario's parties? Did you also go there in order to burn other B-Boys?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, see somebody is good over there in Soundview, so we're going over there to check him out, to see what he's working with. So we would go over there and battle him. Me, Flash, Dwayne we would go over there as a group and the first person that got on the floor that we were supposed to battle, we battled him! We would see who would win...... I'm sorry to say this but Flash always won 'cause he used that Drop-To-The-Knees thing. His knees would go, "CLONK!!!!" and everybody would go, "Oh!!!! Oh!!!!!" Hollering and screaming! That's how he made his clientele! From battling......He had...what you call it.......the Rubberband Dance!! (excited) It was really good! We did our thing! Everywhere was B-Boys. B-Boys and Hustling."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did that Rubberband dancing style look like?"

MEAN GENE:"I mean his legs was all bent up and he would do it like he was retarded, you know what I'm saying???? It was crazy!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"By which name did you and Flash go when you were still B-Boys?"

MEAN GENE:"Mean Gene and Flash! I was just Mean Gene. That's all. It wasn't Grandmaster Flash until later when he started DJing. Then I changed my name when I started The L-Brothers. I became the Amazing Mean Gene. Theodore was the Grandwizard. Cordie-O was the Incredible DJ Cordie-O."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do you remember about DJ Mario?"

MEAN GENE:"Mario got famous because he had those Eliminators!  That's what he got. He used to stack his equipment up. He would stack them up almost to the second floor sometimes. He had four sets on each side. That's why Mario got famous."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did attending Kool Herc's parties affect you?"

MEAN GENE:"(laughs) Okay, we weren't too impressed 'cause when me and Flash went to Kool Herc's parties.... after we did our studies in my house or his house.... with his baby mother.....Herc didn't keep the music in rhythm. Herc just put the records on. Me and Flash....I'm not gonna say it wasn't him.....we would buy two records and we made sure the beats would go in good. But at the time I was trying to get bookings for me and Flash so I really didn't get the pinpoint of doing the backspin, the scratching and all that. Once I saw my brother (Grandwizard Theodore) doing it I left it all up to him."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So is it accurate to say that you were intrigued by the music that Herc played but you didn't like the way he played it because he didn't cut the beats seamlessly?"

MEAN GENE:"Exactly! Yeah, he didn't keep the beat going properly. He didn't listen to us, we told him to get two alike turntables but Herc didn't have two alike turntables. He had one turntable that was big and another one that was little. So sometimes the beat would be high and sometimes the beat would be low. We actually told him what to do but he ignored us because to him we were just two guys from the crowd. But later after he had seen what was going on.. after he had seen what Flash and us was doing...he decided to pick it up."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did DJ Smokey have an influence on your approach to DJing?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, Flash was over there at his house, he was learning. He was learning what was going on with Smokey so we could copy some of his joints. Smokey was doing the same thing of not putting in the beat correctly  but Flash used his wisdom and understanding and everything and he came back and he did it a little better than what Smokey and everybody was doing. My brother (Grandwizard Theodore) caught on...Flash never taught my brother.. he caught on because when we used to go out of my room or go somewhere my equipment was there and my brother was practicing and that's how he became the Grandwizard. Smokey was a good influence because as I said he brought music out every single day, you understand? When you bring out music every single day everybody gonna catch what's going on. We liked him for that!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were you already living on Boston Road when you attended DJ Smokey's parties?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, Boston Road...Flash was living with me 'cause his mother had a problem with him and everything. We lived together. We slept here and there in my house. We stayed together and that's how we learnt. The equipment stayed in my house and we practiced and practiced until we got knowledge (of DJing)."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you get to Smokey's house from Boston Road back then? Would  you walk there or would you take a cab or a bus?"

MEAN GENE:"We walked down the hill! We would walk right down the hill to Smokey's house. It's within walking distance. We got there, got some beers or whatever and listened to the music that Smokey was playing so we could broaden our repertoire. At that time everybody was trying to get better music than the next person but me and Flash were also concentrating on keeping the music going while the people were dancing."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what exactly caused the split between you and Flash?"

MEAN GENE:"Me and Flash went everywhere together. Everywhere! But he did something to me on Mount Eden...there was a club called Parkside Plaza... it was on Mount Eden & Jerome Avenue around the corner from The Sparkle and The Hevalo. There's a big dance hall that you can rent. We played there, we brought our speakers and everything.....and we were supposed to get....I think it was a 500$ deal....Flash gave me 50$!!  I said, "Yo!!" I went back inside and I asked the guy, "Yo,  my man! You didn't give Flash the money???" He said, "Yeah, I gave Flash his money." Flash would not give me my money so I broke up with him. I took my records, the ones that I bought. It was in the rain...we was in the rain arguing and fussing and fighting. If me and Flash had stayed together and had kept our promises with each other we would have been the baddest crew out there!! Nobody would have been able to touch us!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your relationship with the Casanovas back then?"

MEAN GENE:"Flash had moved over here to Alexander Avenue which we had a little spot in his house...in the basement. We would go down in the basement where we kept the equipment. We would practice a little bit and then I would leave because I had to go to work. I still lived on Boston Road and Flash had moved in there with his girlfriend. We used to do parties down there....but when I wasn't there he was doing parties and the Casanovas was like security at first. But then I seen something that I didn't like.....that's before me and Flash broke up.....and I left.  I went to become a (Black) Spade but I have always been a (Black) Spade."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What made you quit B-Boying and pick up DJing instead?"

MEAN GENE:"Ok, dancing was part of getting into the DJing, you understand? That's what you do first. If you wanna draw a good crowd, you gotta get known and getting known is by dancing against others. People would say,"Hey, that's Mean Gene and Flash!! Look at them doing these moves!!!" After that we were getting a little older so we wanted to DJ. You had to get clientele before you could get into DJing. You must dance or do something to draw a crowd. After that you bring turntables out and the whole nine yards.....in those days....nowadays you don't have to do that. "  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was your main audience when you were still DJing together?"

MEAN GENE:"We was really playing music for the B-Boys, you understand!? So they can breakdance......like "Yellow Sunshine", "Get Into Something", "Listen To Me"..........all these records, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do you remember about Bumpy Face Melvin and Black Avery? From what I have heard so far they must have been two very skilled B-Boys back then."

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, Bumpy Face Melvin and Black Avery. We were all friends. They was with me after I had left Flash. They would come to the L-Brothers parties and also to Flash's parties. Nobody liked it that we broke up. They would step to us talking about, "Yo Gene, you need to go back to Flash." Bumpy Face Melvin was from Forest Playground.  Avery wasn't down with my crew or nothing like that. He came around. Sometimes he would carry a crate or two.  He was a very good B-Boy. He did a couple of moves that we liked and so he would get in the party for free because we needed him to excite the  place, to get the party rocking. At our parties he was one of the party rockers!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So on your side of the Bronx the B-Boys also played a very important role as far as drawing a crowd was concerned because the people wanted to see them go off in the circle?"

MEAN GENE:"Exactly! B-Boys was the main object to the thing and the Hustlers!!! Those that did that Hustle dance with the girls. That was part of it, too!!!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"When I spoke to Coke La Rock and to those legendary B-Boys from Kool DJ Herc's parties like Trixie, Wallace Dee, Dancing Doug, Sasa, Clark Kent, The Twins, James Bond etc. they all told me that Hustle songs such as "Body Talk" by Eddie Kendricks or "Do What You Gotta Do!" by Eddie Drennon were being played at Herc's jams on the regular. Can the same thing be said about your jams?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, that's the Cool Out! All those records was being played so you can go over there....maybe they was smoking a joint or drink some liquor to get clubbed up,to start doing something."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what kind of Hustle songs would you play at your parties?"

MEAN GENE:"You're talking about Hustle records..... "Put The Music Where Your Mouth Is" (by The Olympic Runners), "Jungle Boogie", "Hollywood Swinging", "Open Sesame" (all by Kool & The Gang).  Those records was like Hustle records. That means once they heard those records we're getting ready to put the Rock on, you know what I mean? That would be "Bongo Rock", "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose", "Yellow Sunshine". Things like that!"

August 10th & 11th 1978: The L-Brothers perform at The Sparkle in the Bronx

                                                              

September 3rd, 1978: The L-Brothers battle DJ Afrika Islam and DJ Afrika Zambu at The Sparkle

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you and Flash ever consider to end your beef and to work together again?"

MEAN GENE:"Mele Mel tried to bring us back together but I wasn't trying to hear it. I was done with Flash. And once he got the Casanovas then I wasn't trying to have nobody telling me what to do. That was just security. They overtook Flash and they told him if he didn't do what he's supposed to do things would happen. I wasn't scared or  a punk I just didn't wanna do that.  I wanted to have my own crew and let him do what he had to do."

SIR NORIN RAD:"At which parks would you and Flash play those beats for the B-Boys?"

MEAN GENE:"Oh, okay. That's a very, very good question. Now we was not at parks when we first got down. We played on Prospect Avenue & 167th Street. We played there all the time! That's when we did block parties. Block parties is a place where you take your music and they close the street up and we play music. Then we said, "Nah, this is not getting us anywhere!" So we started going to parks. Me and Flash played in 23 Park. That's when me and Flash first started without the L-Brothers. Our headquarters was 23 Park. Forest Playground.....those were some of our main parks. Forest Playground that's the Blue Courts. We tried to play together at 63 Park but we had already broken up. That's when I left Flash and got the L-Brothers. He tried to come there...I think he did it once or twice there. After that he mostly stayed downtown by Mitchell Gym. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"I see. So when were the The L-Brothers established? 1975?"

MEAN GENE:"No. 1974. See, I left Flash in 1973. Then I decided to get the L-Brothers. Me and my brother we had a big meeting. So then it was me and my brother.  Theodore was always practicing on my equipment when I wasn't there and I didn't know so when I did find out we just all got together. Later on Theodore went and got some MCs which was Kevin (Kevie Keve) and Rob (Master Rob)."

DJ Grandwizard Theodore, DJ Cordie-O and DJ Mean Gene (The L-Brothers)

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many people would attend your parties in 23 Park and then later on in  63 Park back in the 1970ies?"

MEAN GENE:"Oh, boy....23 Park.... it's always been crowded. 63 Park we packed that on the regular as well 'cause that was our main headquarters for The L-Brothers.We kept rocking that, kept rocking that!! I played in there exactly twenty to twenty-two times....in the park. I had fights in there. I fought people but all I really wanted to do was play music." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did the L-Brothers play at during winter? Did you rock at a specific club or a community center?"

MEAN GENE:"Well, one club was The Sparkle. Before the Sparkle we had Davidson Center. That's over there on Prospect Avenue & Home Street where Busy Bee lived at. That was our main spot, that's where we always played at. It was a community center but after that we played at the Sparkle. First it was The Executive Playhouse but then it became The Sparkle. Rock City was another one of our main clubs. Those were the three main ones that we mostly used."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you please describe the way that a L-Brothers party would go down back then? I guess there must have been a lot of fly girls as well as stick-up kids...."

MEAN GENE:"Stick-up Kids was in the back. They knew not to mess with me 'cause I'm not trying to take no shorts. I had a gun, everybody had a gun. The girls were in the front watching us....especially my brother Grandwizard Theodore...... it was L-Brothers time!! The MCs would get on there when Theodore played 'cause Theodore was the best cutter. My brother Cordie-O started it off, he was also always on the records....picking the records out,  passing us the records correctly when we played outside and as we practiced in my house. Then after Cordie-O I played a few jams 'cause you know I was the hook-up man. I had to make sure the equipment was shining like something. That's how that went down."

SIR NORIN RAD:"From where did you know Master Rob and Kevie Kev?"

MEAN GENE:"Theodore brought them to me. At first I didn't want no MCees 'cause I wanted to keep my group together, my brothers and all that but then once I heard them rocking I said, "Yo Theodore, let's put them down!" Master Rob....he 's the one that had all the poetry.....his brother Kev he was the one that made sure things went right. Then after a while I felt Master Rob and Kevie Keve wasn't enough that's when I went and got Busy Bee Starski."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I read that Kevie Kev felt a certain type of way about Busy Bee also rocking for other DJs while he was still with you. What do you remember about that situation?"

MEAN GENE:"Yeah, he was doing too much floating so everybody was saying, "Oh, he's rocking over there!" But Busy is gonna be Busy Bee. I let him do as he wants 'cause Busy Bee is gonna be Busy Bee, you know. I didn't feel we was gonna stay together 'cause the way everybody was acting. I knew..unfortunately...sooner or later we gonna break up. They didn't like Busy Bee but I needed Chief Rocker (title of Busy Bee) to have the crowd  go crazy. I had my plans and everything together but it seemed like Kev wouldn't let me do what I had to do."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you can attest to the fact that Busy Bee Starski was in fact a master at rocking the crowd?"

MEAN GENE:"That's the man! That's the man! He's the Chief Rocker. He would get up there and everybody went, "Aaaah!!" Hollering, screaming...so once I heard him for the first time I said, "Oh, he gotta be with my crew!" He was with Mario and a few others but he would always show me love and come rock with me and I loved that! That's why I love this boy to this day!"

                                                  

October 6th, 1978: The L-Brothers perform at The Audubon Ballroom in Harlem

                                                       

November 4th, 1978: The L-Brothers perform at The YMCA Crotona

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"I have seen a couple of pictures from the 1970s showing girls that wore "L-Sisters"shirts. What was that about?"

MEAN GENE:"The L-Sisters started when I had a meeting with all of us. There was a lot of girls around us at the time... so this idea popped in my head," I have seen it in basketball. If they can have cheerleaders, why we can't have cheerleaders?" So I got seven or eight girls. Every time we were DJing they would chant, "L-Brothers is number one!" They're hollering and screaming in the front, boosting up the crowd.  So I said, "Yeah!" I'm not gonna lie I paid them a little bit to cheer for us and it worked for a little while until things started getting bad. We wasn't making a whole lot of money but everybody wanted something. It was too many pockets and we wasn't making enough money. So the L-Sisters continued to do what they did which I love them for it. That's how became The L-Brothers with the L-Sisters."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you name each member of The L-Sister please?"

MEAN GENE:"Yvette and Joyce and there were a few that I can't remember right now. Maybe Theodore can remember their names. Yvette and Joyce were our two main girls and a girl named Deborah. Those were our main three because we only wanted five but then it picked up, they brought in other girls. "I wanna be a L-Sister!" Girls wanted to become L-Sisters because they wanted to get in free. Then I also had a group that would carry our crates of records. They get in free. They was from Busy Bee projects....Davidson Projects. I mean I had it lined up but I couldn't watch them and hook up the equipment so I eventually I didn't DJ anymore. I let Theodore do the DJing and let Cordie-O do what he had to do. I would make sure.....me and this brother called Trevor...we would hook up the equipment."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who came up with the name "The L-Brothers" and what did it stand for initially?"

MEAN GENE:"Well, I came up with everything. At first we was The L-Brothers...The Livingston Brothers because it was three brothers until we got Kevie Kev and Master Rob. When we got Kev and Rob we said, "Wait a minute. Let's make this the Love Brothers!" Because we were all brothers...Kev and Rob was brothers and me, Cordie-O and Theodore were brothers. I named them The Love Brothers so nobody would get hysterical or mad." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the process through which you got your soundsystem together when you first started. From what I have gathered so far it really seems that it was absolutely mandatory for a DJ to have a soundsystem back then....."

MEAN GENE:"You gotta have that soundsystem!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what was your very step when you had to start from nothing?"

MEAN GENE:"You know that's a good question. I like that question! You ain't gonna believe what I'mma tell you. Now the object of me...because of my knowledge of electricity...I used to go around to the garbage to find an amp here, an amp there.  I rebuilt those amps, put them together and made them working. Find a speaker...make sure that speaker works or get some columns or borrow some columns and then after I had borrowed the columns I would buy them as we started to play and made some money. That's how I build my soundsystem 'cause my family was real poor. We had no money to buy things like that. I found this equipment and built it on my own. But then one day it got stolen from me 'cause I left it at the 3rd Avenue Ballroom. Somebody broke in there and took my equipment which I cried like a baby but I don't know why I'm crying over something I didn't pay for. I was worried more about my  records more than anything. They took a little bit of my records. So then I built my soundsystem again and started again. The principle is.....don't stop! Keep going! That's the main thing! If you stop you gonna lose everything."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So your records were like your weapons I guess?"

MEAN GENE:"That's our goldmine!!! Without our records.......if you ain't got no records what is your soundsystem for? The records were our most prized possession!!  We used to carry our records around! Carry our records and if anybody would be like,"Yo, let me see! What's that?!" (We'd tell them),"Noooooo!" I used to get mine from Downstairs Records and from Jersey and from 169th Street & Boston Road. We would get the records and run upstairs, erase the labels off them and start rocking!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many doubles fit in one crate? 50, 60?"

MEAN GENE:"The doubles? I'd say about 30 to 40 doubles would fit in a crate. Then we got a suitcase and we would put all the breakbeats in there. So we used the crates mainly for Disco and all the slow records. That main big suitcase is what we used for The Rock.  That went everywhere with us."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How much of the money that you made through throwing parties would you reinvest into building up your soundsystem and buying beats?" 

MEAN GENE:"I had a job. That's what you bought your equipment with......your job money. The money that we made in the parties was our spending money to spend on the girls, you understand? This is the way we did it, so we would always have  a few dollars in our pocket. You always gotta keep a job! I always kept a job. The money that we worked for was to pay our rent and to buy records and parts of the equipment but as I said I used to find equipment and build it up myself. That's what me and Flash did. We would find equipment 'cause that's how good we was in building our equipment up."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I read that a party which took place at the Galaxy 2000 in late 1978 early / 1979 and which got stuck up was  a huge blow to the The L-Brothers Crew and stopped you for a while. What do you remember about that incident?"

MEAN GENE:"Okay, that was the end of the L-Brothers at the time because everybody was frightened.....because at the party they came for my little brother (Grandwizard Theodore). I had got my brother outta there by him jumping out the window. That's what they came for. Who (those people were) or why I don't know. We was moving up. That's when we was battling Kool Herc at the time. They took a few sheepskins, gold. Two people got hurt, one got killed. I mean that was crazy. Everybody had got scared 'cause we was still young. After that we wasn't really together like before anymore. I got a club and they later on became the Fantastic Five. You know, things like that.."

 

December 29th, 1978: The L-Brothers battle The Herculords at The Galaxy 2000

SIR NORIN RAD:"If I'm not mistaken you would later on get together with a MC crew called The Tantalizing Three with Lovebee Tipski, Tricky Vick and them..."

MEAN GENE:"The Tantalizing Three was considered as Tipski, Tricky Vick, Tony Rome and two more brothers which I can't remember their names.  They was from Moore Houses. We would practice in my house......I got married and at that time I used to live on Davdison Avenue  We were getting that group together but kids gonna be kids. They got in trouble, so after a while they couldn't come around for the practice. I bought new equipment at that time but they couldn't come around for practice and so they fell off. The Tantalizing Three... they would change into The Tantalizing Five. That was my last group, then now I'm back with my L-Brothers."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are your all time favourite breakbeats?"

MEAN GENE:"Okay, my favourite breakbeats are "Yellow Sunshine", "Get Into Something"....James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose", "The Mexican"......

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

MEAN GENE:"I wanna give a shoutout to my mother, Grandwizard Theodore, Cordie-O, DJ Quick, DJ Smokey, Tiny and Big Man from The Casanovas, Pumpkin. Now I wanna sing my L-Brothers anthem, "DJ Cordie is incredible, Mean Gene is on the scene  and Theodore cuts twice as nice that's why this boy's so mean! Kevie Kev has all the women and I'm sure that you'll agree he has the golden voice of the people's choice and so does Busy Bee. Robbie Rob is slick and bad and kool and you gotta notice, too, that Trevor was our manager and we're down with the L-Brothers Crew!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I wanna give a shoutout to Nicolas Big Man Fernandez for making this interview possible and to my man  Sureshot La Rock for the incredible L-Brothers flyers that he allowed  me to use."