Interview with MC Terry Tee (Touch Of Class / The Nice & Nasty MCees )

                         Interview with MC Terry Tee (Touch Of Class Disco / The Nice & Nasty MCees )

MC Terry Tee (Touch Of Class Disco / The Nice & Nasty MCees)

                                                conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

TERRY TEE:"I was born in the Bronx. Originally down...near Arthur Avenue in the Little Italy section of the Bronx. As strange as it may seem I was born on Washington Avenue in the Bronx. I then at a early age....ten years old...moved up to the Northeast Bronx...the Baychester section of the Bronx where I  spent most of my adult life. That's where I was educated and that's where I would say I really found myself....up in the Northeast Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and may I ask when you were born?"

TERRY TEE:"I was born in the lovely year of 1963." 

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

TERRY TEE:"My parents both are from the Caribean island of St. Martin where I reside right now. My father is from French St. Martin and my mother is from Dutch St. Martin. St. Martin is a unique island in the Caribean. It is a welcoming island to a diaspora of cultures and inividuals from all over the world. So my parents also were exposed to a lot of different music. St. Martin wasn't the booming tourist destination it is now, so my parents migrated to the US...to the Bronx where they met, married and where I was born.  My father would listen to Country,James Brown, Roberta Flack. He was also a lover of his Caribean music...Reggae, Skat, Calypso....The Mighty Sparrow. So my parents listened to a lot of Caribean music and me growing up in the Bronx I was exposed to the American side. So I was growing up in a Caribean household but I was influenced by the American scene as well....by what was happening in the 1970ies I would say. I was exposed to a lot of different types of music....to what was going on at the time...you know, the Jackson Five and even the Osmond Brothers (laughs). Music has always been a part of my life."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So when you were in your teens you were exposed to a lot of classic Soul and Funk music?"

TERRY TEE:"Yes, I was."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where and when did your first encounter with Hiphop take place?"

TERRY TEE:"Okay, I was exposed to Hiphop from its foundation. It was all about the DJs and their different beats and breaks. It was the DJ that was the superstar. The MC played a minor role because the MC...that's where MC comes from...Master Of Ceremonies.....he kinda guided and narrated what was going on and tried to tell the crowd when to clap.....he would say things like, "Let me hear you say Hooo!!!" That was the MC. That's all they did. The star of the show was the DJ and then second to that was the B-Boys, not the MCees. The B-Boys...they would battle on the floor dancing. I became exposed to Hiphop from going to some of these events down in the South Bronx. DJ Breakout started his crew The Brothers Disco before Touch Of Class was formed. Breakout is also from our neighbourhood. We were all neighbours, we lived a block away from each other. Kool DJ Herc eventually migrated up to the Northeast Bronx as well. Herc lived a block away from me on Seymour Avenue. As Breakout emerged Kool Herc came into the neighbourhood. Touch Of Class ....we were friends, we played basketball together.....we started to harness our raps as MCees started to do more than just saying, "Throw Your Hands In The Air!" or, "Everybody Say Hooo!"  .....that's when our group started to form. The DJs were still paramount. The MCees were starting to emerge."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So where did you witness breakbeats being cut up by a DJ for the first time? Was it at a Brothers Disco party?"

TERRY TEE:"No, it was actually....the very first time was in 123 Park.....which is a school....JHS 123...in the Soundview area of the Bronx. I went with my cousin. We listened to Afrika Bambaataa and somebody else and I was just totally taken in. Like the B-Boys, the breakbeats!!! (excited) The mixing of music, you know breakbeat after breakbeat......it was just totally amazing! From there I was just mesmerized by the potential of what all this is about!  I got caught up in this movement from that first party in 123 Park in the Southeast Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You were really captivated by what you saw and heard there....."

TERRY TEE:"Oh yeah!!! Like I told you my household was always full of music. My parents were admirers of all genres of music.  So me and my brothers and sisters we grew up in a household of a lot of music. As a Caribean parents on a Saturday...you're out of school...it was cleaning day in the house. The music was jamming, my mother was cleaning. I was always a admirer of music but when I went to JHS 123 I saw this movement emerging and that thing just grasped my soul and it's never left!!! It has never left!!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"It's interesting that you should say that because after having talked to many of the original B-Boys I have noticed that they all described these Hiphop parties as life changing events.  

TERRY TEE:"I'm not a very religious man but I'm a very spiritual man and I do believe that those of us who were instrumental in the foundation of this movemnt called Hiphop...I believe it was a divine calling. When you heard those beats it touched you not in your ears, not just in your brain it touched you in your soul, okay? And when you heard that calling you had to answer, you had to be a part of it, you had to make your contribution to this movement."

SIR NORIN RAD:"As you said the DJs dominated Hiphop in the beginning but after Grandmaster Flash had invented the backspinning technique which enabled the DJ to cut up the breaks seamlessly and thus to provide the MCees with Beats they could rhyme over without being interrupted by a singer the dynamics of HIpHop changed. What made you pick up MCing? Were you inspired by the Funky Four?"

TERRY TEE:"You are correct. The second stage of the early foundation of Hiphop is when....you're right......Grandmaster Flash evolved into not just dropping beats but also mixing it. He took two copies of the same record and elongated the beat, he made the break longer to go on forever as long as he was mixing it. That gave the MCees a foundation to do something. Now MCing evolved to where MCees started telling stories. They started really rapping. That's where rhymes came about and that's where the Nice & Nasty MCees of Touch Of Class started to do their thing. We were inspired by the Brothers Disco when Rahiem was in The Funky Four. Rahiem, Sha Rock and them I'd say they were like two or three years ahead of us. Rahiem was just a master of rhymes! He's not getting enough credit. I know Melle Mel is a genius and he deserves all the accolades but my hero, my inspiration from rhyming came from Rahiem. Rahiem to me was a lyrical genius and he inspired myself and the other Nice & Nasty MCees. I would say I can speak for my colleagues. We had to up our game! Now Brothers Disco....that's when groups started to become corporations because Brothers Disco was the umbrella group, The Funky Four was the MCees and Breakout and Baron were the DJs. Touch Of Class was the umbrella group, The Nice & Nasty MCees were the MCees. We even had a B-Boy, we called him Psycho because we were part of that early element of Hiphop. What carried us and gave us a bit of notoriety was the Nice & Nasty MCees but our group Touch Of Class had every element of the early days of Hiphop. We had our DJs, we had our B-Boy and we had our MCees. The MCees took center stage when rapping now became the group's forte. The DJs now were supportive of the MCees so the MCees could kick some wicked rhymes."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what was it like to witness The Funky Four live on stage when Rahiem was still with them?"

TERRY TEE:"The Funky Four gave us motivation because we were all from the same neighbourhood.....Breakout was from the same neighbourhood. We performed in the same venues...Edenwald, Valley Park, 78 Park. We looked at them as inspirations because they were older than and they were there before us but they also were our competition. So they were our motivation in the sense that we admired them and we were neighbours but  they also were our competition for notoriety and predominance in the Northeast Bronx. So their routines inspired us to create and develop even better routines....in my opinion!!! (laughs)! I think that our rhymes and routines were just as deep or even deeper than theirs because we evolved and we started to build our own reputation in the Northeast Bronx. But they were still our brothers. When the day is done and the sun sets we all were from the same neighbourhood but the word "inspiration" wouldn't probably fit. I'd say they were more of a motivating factor."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did Touch Of Class form? 1978?"

TERRY TEE:"1977. We formed in 1977. We really started to make inroads in 1978/1979 but we were together from 1977."

November 9th, 1979: Touch Of Class performs at the Edenwald Center in the Bronx along with The Mercedes Ladies

 

 

 

November 23th, 1979: Touch Of Class performs at the NAACP along with the Cheeba Crew

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so that means that you as Nice & Nasty MCees must have also undergone that change from being MCees that were basically just aiding their DJ to keep the party rocking to that kind of MCees that did routines and had intricate rhymes."  

TERRY TEE:"That is correct. As MCing was evolving we evolved as well. We started out as just Masters Of The Ceremonies helping our DJs. We had three DJs: Mellow Beat, Willie Wil and Disco Gee. We would just narrate what they were doing and try to hype up the crowd, try to motivate crowd but then when MCing started to dominate and when DJing evolved to carrying a beat then we started working on routines and how to pass the mic. We'd sit down and write rhymes...things of that nature. We went along with the trend that was going on in Hiphop at the time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which DJ would cut up the beats for the Nice & Nasty MCees?"

TERRY TEE:"All three of them they had their different genres. DJ Mellow Beat was more into .....he was like the party starter. He would start with..you know, the warm up. But when the MCees had to do rhymes ...Willie Wil and Disco Gee they were the ones who carried the weight for the Nice & Nasty MCees during the routines and  the hype session of the party."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Didn't you also have a Puerto Rican DJ by the name of Grandmaster Ike among your ranks?"

TERRY TEE:"Yes, Norin! You really know your Hiphop History! Grandmaster Ike was with us for a year or so before he left us. He was a good DJ."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who came up with that name Nice & Nasty MCees?"

TERRY TEE:"Ah, that I have to give credit to Mexi Ray. Him and Apollo One are brothers."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the captain of the Nice & Nasty MCees?"

TERRY TEE:"Okay, in our group we had...Apollo One was with us but he left the group as were really making our name known because he went into the service. So then it was Mexi Ray, Charlie Dee and me. There was a girl that we had at the time..for a short period..her name was Hi-C. But during the heyday of Touch Of Class it was the Nice & Nasty 3 MCees. From the three of us I have to give props to Mexi Ray. He came up with the most routines. We would practice. We would practice just like any athletic team. We would practice about two times a week in the basement of DJ Mellow Beat's house. Mexi Ray would come up with the foundation of the routines and me and Charlie Dee would then say, "Okay! See at this bridge here we could do this or we could do that!" It is a collaborative effort that puts it all together and that's what we would go on stage with. Mexi Ray had a very imaginative mind. I would give him that rating. He came up with the creation of many of the routines and me and Charlie Dee would then probably say, "Yeah Curtis (Mexi Ray's government name) that's a good concept but we gotta make it nasty!!! You know, me and Charlie now we would throw in this and we would throw in that and change this more into a slang. So all our routines were all collaborative efforts. The creator of the foundation? Yes, that was Mexi Raybut the final product everybody had their hands on the steering wheel."

SIR NORIN RAD:" Who was the best lyricist out of the Nice & Nasty MCees and who was your hype man?"

TERRY TEE:"That one? Okay, I'm gonna be biased...that was me. Who had the more intricate rhymes and the more far out there lyrics?  That was Mexi Ray but when it came to getting the crowd hyped and....you know, the DJ throws on a heavy beat and the crowd goes wild and you just wanna match that heavy beat with some really devastating rhymes and people are saying, "Wow!!" That was I!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the flyest MC among you? The one that had the girls go crazy like Easy AD of the Cold Crush Four or Mr. Ness of The Furious Five?"

TERRY TEE:"The pretty boy of the crew and the more stylist of the crew that's Mexi Ray!! Me I concentrated on getting the crowd hyped and I would be like, "We're taking this to the next level!" Mexi Ray was more about getting those ladies all wet and wild. That was Mexi Ray's job. And Charlie Dee? He was in between. He could get the crowd hyped with me. We were a good duo when it was to time to get the crowd animated and he could also fall back into the role of the ladies' man."

The Nice & Nasty MCees

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you describe Apollo One's role?"

TERRY TEE:"Apollo One was unique! He was a little older than all of us. He maybe got us by two years and he came up with more mature rhymes and with a more mature style. And his style was just very different. Because he was a little older than us he kind of was the bridge between Disco and Hiphop. He still had some Disco roots in him but he managed to do a version of both Hiphop and Disco. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Like Lovebug Starski?"

TERRY TEE:"Exactly! Lovebug Starski...right! I would not say that Busy Bee Starski was a hybrid, I would say Lovebug Starski was a hybrid.  That was Apollo One. He was like a hybrid. He came from the Disco scene but he realized the importance, the relevance of the Hiphop scene and he was the embodiment of that in the Touch Of Class Crew."

DJ Mellow Beat and Apollo One (Touch Of Class) in 1979

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told by other people from the Northeast Bronx that the Touch Of Class crew really distinguished itself from other crews through its approach to writing rhymes and through the way you used to dress up. Would you say that that's an accurate statement?"

TERRY TEE:"Yes, it is. Hiphop came from a really raggamuffin kind of place but then people saw,"We could take it to another level! We got our own little thing going on here." Touch Of Class...we wanted to move not in a raggamuffin way. We wanted to compete with the most raggamuffin crews out there but we also wanted to be like that bridge 'cause you gotta understand we were just coming out of the Disco era. People were coming in with that fresh new sound called Hiphop. Touch Of Class kinda wanted to be like that bridge in the middle.  Now we could rock with the best of them! We could play with the L-Brothers, we could play with Grandmaster Caz and all of them but we also were able to do functions in Mount Vernon Park. We were able to do functions in New Rochelle Park. We wanted to take it to a more upscale era because Hiphop had a little dark side to it. Now it's mostly positive but it also had a little dark side to it because of where it came from. It came from gangs  wanting to make peace. It came from B-Boys battling each other on the dance floor. Not every B-Boy session ended peacefully!  Most of them did, some of them didn't.  You know, there were shots fired. There was this and there was that. We wanted to make sure that we were on the cutting edge of taking Hiphop into a direction that would be embraced by more people because there was some people out there that would say, "This Hiphop thing will never make it anywhere. All y'all are doing is listen to beats! How can you take a beautiful tune from James Brown and just play the beat? Those were the old schoolers at the time. Those were the forty and fifty year olds in the 1970ies. Those old schoolers would say that we were destroying R&B and that movement from the 1960ies. They would say that we were destroying that artform that they had. But thank goodness for Flash, thank goodness for Theodore who took the criticism and turned it into an artform. Thank goodness for the MCees that took the artform and turned it into routines and rhymes. We got into storytelling and things of that nature. It's not Rap, it's Hiphop. Hiphop has music, Hiphop has clothes, Hiphop has art......Hiphop has a swag, dances.....all of that is Hiphop. Hiphop is a lifestyle. That's what it is. I'm right now 60 years old and I could tell you..I'm a facility manager of a major establishment here in St. Martin and I still have my Hiphop swag, okay? Why? Because I was part of that movement. "

October 24th, 1980: Touch Of Class performs at the Ecstasy Garage in the Bronx along with DJ Afrika Islam & The Funk Machine

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it mean to dress fly back in the 1970ies and early 1980ies?"

TERRY TEE:"Oh well, unlike the movement that they're trying to do now today, making it a gender neutral society...back then the men were men and women were women and women were attracted to men. The better you dressed, the more girls you had. Okay, that's the way it went. A man dressing in an Alpaca V-Neck Sweater was saying something!! A man in the freshest British Walkers was saying something!! Before Run-D.M.C. took it to Adidas, it was Puma that was dominating. When you came out with some Pumas, some Lee Jeans and Alpaca, a Cortefiel coat you were saying something!!! Throw a Kangol on with that? You were the freshest cat in the jam, okay? You turned heads, you were a traffic stopper, okay? That's the way it went and when I saw your gear, Norin...... I was like, "Man, Norin Rad would have killed them out there!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also wear sweaters that had your crew's name in old english letters?"

TERRY TEE:"Yeah, that became a trend for a little while. I wouldn't say that we started it but we did emulate it and wore it to most of our jams. You'd get a Graffiti Writer.....I forgot about Graffiti...I said B-Boys but forgot about Graffiti..our whole crew had their name written in Graffiti on their Lee Jeans. And then we also had t-shirts and sweatshirts with our name Touch Of Class in the front and our MC names on the back. When we went to perform we were in uniform and we believed in putting on a show. That's where MCing really evolved to. It was all about entertainment and I might say we were only 17, 18 years old at the time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your main stomping grounds as far as indoor and outdoor jams are concerned before you started to perform in places like the T-Connection or the Ecstasy Garage?"

TERRY TEE:"Okay, in the early days of Hiphop it was out in the park. Everything was free. They took power from the light post to perform in the parks. As it started to evolve into, "Hey, we can make a few dollars of it." Then they started to go to certain venues. The T-Connection..that was a club. It was a Disco club. You know, disco was starting to fade out. Richie T the owner of the place decided, "Well, this Hiphop movement is going on now. Bring it to my club!" That's the ground zero for one of the most iconic indoor venues of Hiphop. The Ecstasy Garage was just that. It was a garage! At night the owner would allow crews to rent it out and do parties there. It was a garage. Literally a garage on Jerome Avenue. You also had those skating places...They wanted to bring in more money that's why they invited Hiphop groups to perform there. The outdoor never lost its appeal. It was a way to get back to your community, your base. So we  would do something in 78 Park, we would do something in Edenwald Park, we would do something in the Valley. That was your base, you gave them a little free something on a Saturday or a Sunday night if you weren't booked somewhere but you excited your base, performed for free. But now when you're at the Stardust Ballroom or the T-Connection you billed together like two or three groups from different areas of the Bronx or Manhattan. Now people would come to support their group. If Touch Of Class played with let's say The L-Brothers at the T-Connection all the L-Brothers supporters would come uptown to the T-Connection and all of Baychester, White Plains Road, Gun Hill Road are coming to the T-Connection to support Touch Of Class. So it wasn't one way or the other. The outdoor venues were still there for you to keep your name and your rep up and to keep your base motivated. The indoor venues became a place were you could go up against other crews and that's where the enterpreneurial money making aspect came about because now we could do jams, we could charge two or three dollars and make a little something. And trust me it was a little something. People did this for the love, not really for the money. Richie T from the T-Connection...yeah, he at the end of the night could say, "I did pretty good." Because he got his bar, he got his door. The groups...the money you made... it was enough to take a OJ and go home. That's about it. Then you pulled your money together to buy new Sure mics. You needed new speakers.  So the leader of our group which was DJ Mellow Beat he would say,"Guys, today we got paid 300 $ but I gotta split up 150 $ because the other 150 $ we need for new bass bottoms." So it is what it is."

June 28th, 1980: Touch Of Class performs at the Ecstasy Garage along with Grandwizard Theodore & The Fantastic Five, The Cold Crush Brothers and Afrika Bambaataa & The Soul Sonic Force

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"I see but I guess it felt good to enjoy the admiration of the people in your neighbourhood and in your school."

TERRY TEE:"That is true. I mean like I said we were teenagers and it was flattering. I went to Aviation High School and that's all the way up in Long Island City. I had to take the 7 train to Grand Central and the 5 train to Gun Hill Road. For the 5 train to Gun Hill Road......during the late 1970ies and early 1980ies all the cool people, all the fly girls were in the back of the train. So everybody would be in the last two cars. Everybody mixing and mingling. You know, checking out girls...this and that. Now when the 5 train is reaching up now to Gun Hill Road everybody is getting off at Gun Hill. Your moving from the back to the front of the train and it felt good when you heard people playing your music from the jam last week as you were walking through the train. You heard yourself rapping on a tape as you were walking through the train....I ain't gonna lie it did feel good." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"My man Sureshot La Rock provided me with a flyer from August 1979 which advertises a DJ & MC Convention at the legendary Webster P.A.L. in the BX. Your crew Touch Of Class did participate in that event....."

TERRY TEE:"Yeah, we won that."

August 24th, 1979: Touch Of Class Disco participates in a DJ / MC Convention at the legendary Webster P.A.L. in the Bronx.

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did these competitions go down back then and did your prepare yourself for these kind of events as a crew?"

TERRY TEE:"Well, for these events..you're talking about the P.A.L. on Webster Avenue...we had to practice. Just like I told you we would practice several times a week. Your passing of the mic had to be flawless. Like the Furious Five would say, "Make five MCees sound like one!" The DJs....as an MC you had to be able to ride the beat....that's why the DJ would practice with the MCees. So the DJs had to be flawless in what they did. All of that took a lot of practice. Those who put the work in rose to the top. Ourselves and a few other crews put in the work and it paid off when we went to these conventions. That's where the uniforms came in. We were all in our uniforms...we had mic stands....Sure mics...our DJ was on point. You know, our DJ would walk in with his own needles. You wouldn't take a chance somebody sabotaging you. You'd walk in with a little cheering section, too. Every crew came with their own cheering section but the goal was to get everybody else on board to cheer for you. Yeah, we won two of these events at the P.A.L."

SIR NORIN RAD:"By whom was the winner of such a convention determined?"

TERRY TEE:"Okay, at this time now you had godfathers like Kool DJ Herc. He had started in the early 1970ies and by the late 1970ies he was now Hiphop royalty. So people like Herc they were given the status of judges. As a crew participating in these conventions you had one shot. You'd go up there and you'd have maybe 15 minutes. Now if you wanna do two tunes, you do two tunes, two routines. You wanna do three tunes....It's up to you but you got 15 minutes. You got 15 minutes to move that crowd and make them fans of yours. After 15 minutes is up the next crew comes on stage. At the end of the night the judges determined the winner. They'd take the crowd  participation also, "Who thinks T.N.T. Disco won?" or, "Who thinks Grandmaster Productions won?" They would listen to the crowd but the judges' scoring was the ultimate deciding factor.  Most of the times the judges and the crowd they matched."

February 9th, 1980: Touch Of Class performs at the legendary T-Connection in the Bronx

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did take back then to be considered as an outstanding MC?"

TERRY TEE:"You had to have the x-factor. There were a lot of people that tried to be MCees but they didn't make it. Those that made it, they had that x-factor. Number one you had to have an aura about you so that the crowd would gravitate towards you. You had to be an entertainer, okay? Then also your rhymes had to be captivating. It couldn't be boring and mundane. It had to be about something. You had to have something that would make the crowd say,"Wow, let me listen to this!!" I'm not bragging and I don't want to hurt nobody's feelings but not everybody could be an MC. You gotta be born with it just like a dancer. You could go to the best dance school but if you don't have that x-factor as far as having that rhythm in you will not become a dancer. MCing is the same way. You gotta be able to feel your lyrics, it's the best if you live your lyrics 'cause that makes you say them with passion. You have to have good rhymes, you have to have a stage presence and you have to have that aura about you that makes people gravitate towards you. You gotta be born with it. It's not something you could learn. Like I told you I loved Rahiem but my style and his style were different. He's a smooth operator.  I like the nature of his rhymes but he's a smooth operator. My style was little bit more rough but I was motivated by him and I looked up to Rahiem. Melle Mel...he was just naturally gifted. Keith Cowboy...naturally gifted. Keith Keith from the Funky Four....naturally gifted. Sha Rock!!!!! It just flowed from Sha Rock!!!! Sha Rock didn't go to an MC school and she was ground breaking!!! She is the first female MC! It just flowed out of her. She didn't learn that from nobody!!!! She didn't emulate nobody. It just flowed and when she added the echo chamber to it.....(laughs)..she took it to a whole 'nother level!!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I would like you to describe what it was like to perform in the Valley back then. Talking to DJ Breakout I was told that it was a special kind of location because you had to be built a certain way in order to survive out there. Before he DJed there he had been Breaking in the Valley with his friend Doc La Rock."

TERRY TEE:"Okay, you know of the Rucker Park in Harlem....for basketball. The Valley was to the Northeast Bronx......I'd say that was our Rucker Park. When you played in the Valley park you had to come with your A game...no B game!!! Like I told you the outdoor venues were give backs to the community. They were free jams. But when you played in the Valley park you had to come with your A game. I'm glad you're mentioning Doc La Rock.  He and DJ One Time....these were old DJs from our community where me and DJ Breakout are from. They are no longer with us but big ups to them. Those were the DJs that we looked up to. But the Valley was our Mecca!! Only royalty touched those stages. If you didn't have it...... it could get rough! The Valley park was a rough place. If you came with anything less than your A game people would throw bottles at you. You had to come good in the Valley."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you have a people behind you that carried and protected your equipment and had your back when things got out of hand on a foreign turf?"

TERRY TEE:"When you went to those other people's territories you had to be prepared for anything. Now we came with a different element and we weren't about that gangsterism and all that but you had to come prepared. Yes, we had some brethren that were with us who would watch our back at the door, who would watch our back on stage. Some of the people that DJ Breakout used did security for us as well. We had our security crew. You had to move crates of records back in the days so you had to have people help you move things in and out. If you came with your sound sytem moving those bass bottoms was no joke. So like I told you Touch Of Class wasn't just a crew of DJs and MCees, it was an organization."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are your recollections of Edenwald Center?"

TERRY TEE:"Okay, Edenwald Center was not on the level of the Valley but Edenwald Center had a lot of budding crews like T.N.T. Disco and others. When Touch Of Class played in Edenwald...you know, people liked to challenge us because they felt like, "Ok, these guys got the reputation but we're better than them!!" So we got challenged a lot in Edenwald. But you had to go in there and dominate them. That's what they expected. They felt if Brothers Disco played in there, they should dominate all the small crews. Whenever Touch Of Class played in there we had to dominate. We couldn't go in there and play nice with these groups. When I say "nice" I'm talking on a musical level. You had to go in there and spank them and spank them good. And we did that. Edenwald is rough!! If you go in there it could lead to physical confrontation, it could lead to a lot of things 'cause now you're on the home court of these smaller crews. So if you agreed to perform in Edenwald there again you had to come good! For you to keep your rep you couldn't avoid these places. Places like Edenwald Center, Boston Secor Center.. you had to go. When they called you and said,"Touch Of Class we want you to come down here and we want you to  play with Grandmasters Productions or T.N.T. Disco in Edenwald." We could not say, "No!" because you had to show them why you're dominant. That's how DJing and MCing was back in those days. If you were one of the leading groups there were people gunning for your spot but you could not walk away from a gunfight.....I don't mean literally a gunfight..... but you couldn't walk away from a challenge. You had to go and show your dominance. You had to show them why you deserved the top honours that you got. And we did that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So it was like the young wolves were coming for the leader of the pack to get his position and he had to fight them off?"

TERRY TEE:"At all times, yes! That was the competitive, sometimes ugly side of Hiphop back then because there were always young wolves...you put it right....trying to take you down and you couldn't let that simmer. You had to take that challenge! They would challenge you and you had to take them on and show them why you're number one. Show them why you dominate this area. You had to do it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do you remember about jamming at Boston Secor?"

TERRY TEE:"Boston Secor was small. It was a more upscale community. They weren't really too favourable for the Hiphop movement but they had a lot of people who loved Hiphop in their area and they would rent out the spot. DJ Pete La Rock from P.T. Disco he would call us down to there to play and we would go. It was a good spot. It wasn't on a level with Edenwald and definitely not on a level with the Valley but it does get his reputation. It was one of the big Hiphop spots in the Northeast Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please highlight the importance of the breakbeats for Hiphop! You got a lot of people nowadays who don't appreciate the breakbeats."

TERRY TEE:"Well, if you don't understand the foundation of anything it will be very hard to build on it. The BREAKBEATS are the FOUNDATION OF THIS WHOLE HIPHOP MUSIC!! Breakbeats...that's where it started, that's where it came from. It was all about the beats!!! People would go through their parents' archives of records looking for breakbeats and the breakbeats were the hits. Who could outdo who? Who did more research on beats and who found something out of all the Jackie Wilson records etc. It was all about finding something that another DJ didn't find. It was all about the beats!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"And that's why people who weren't down with the DJ and his crew were not allowed to go near the beat crates."

TERRY TEE:"Now listen....to protect beats....let's say DJ Breakout found a beat or one of our DJs found a beat.....like DJ Mellow Beat found a beat on an old tune or maybe even from a different country..they scrape off or black out the label so no one would know and then when you rocked it at a party people were trying to look over the ropes. They would ask themselves, "Yo, what record is that???" By you blacking it out you're keeping it secret until someone eventually a month or two months in would figure it out and they would have it, too. But while you had it exclusively, you had to protect it. That's why DJs were very particular who could come behind the ropes because other crews would try to spy on you. It was all about beats!!!! I remember when DJs would cut up that beat by Barry Manilow....Copacabana.....I think it was Grandwizard Theodore who dropped it first. He drove the whole Hiphop scene insane 'cause nobody knew where it came from. He would just start it at the break and then mix it, mix it, mix it! And it was such a dope beat and he had that exclusively for about let's say a month or two until somebody figured it out and other DJs started playing it. But that was a competition..beats."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what were your favourite breakbeats to rhyme over back then?"

TERRY TEE:"For me personally one of my favourites was "Take Me To The Mardi Gras" by Bob James. That was my favourite 'cause it was heavy, you could rhyme on it, you could dance to it you could go fast or you could go slow. I just loved it! And then it also had a nice intro. The our DJ used to cut that up!! Oh man, I loved it. I also loved "Seven Minutes OF Funk" by the Whole Darn Family when that came out I used to love that and surprisingly "To Be Real" by Cherryl Lynn. I loved the break on Cherryl Lynn!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you rate the sound system of the Touch Of Class Disco Crew? If I'm not mistaken the Northeast Bronx had a couple of crews that came through with heavyweight sound systems such as the Kaos Crew and of course The Brothers Disco."

TERRY TEE:"We had a good sound system. We brought it out to 78 Park and we brought it to The Valley but these crews you mentioned they had devastating sound systems!!! So we never got into sound system battles because we were not on that level. DJ Breakout was in our neighbourhood and he had the Mighty Sasquatch. And the Sasquatch...we couldn't compete with the Sasquatch, nor did we try because the Sasquatch when that rolled out....I mean, DJ Breakout could be playing in The Valley and you would hear him in Edenwald!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly is 78 Park located?"

TERRY TEE:"On Needham Avenue in the Northeast Bronx."

78 Park

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your relationship with the Grandmaster Productions Crew? There are a couple of flyers from 1979 that have both your crews names on them."

TERRY TEE:"They were good friends of mine and neighbours as well. We all lived in the same neighbourhood. DJ Scorpio...he lived around the block from me. We called his van the Big Green Machine. He had a Chevy G20 van. His van was what carried our soundsystem and our equipment. I know Grandmasters Productions very well. They made some noise in the neighbourhood as well.  They did not get the same recognition as Touch Of Class but in the neighbourhood, yeah......they were pretty much known. They played a lot of times in Edenwald."

April 18th, 1980: Touch Of Class performs at Edenwald Center in the Bronx along with Grandmasters Productions

 

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

TERRY TEE:"Ah yes....to all my colleagues in Touch Of Class...DJ Disco Gee, DJ Mellow Beat, DJ Willie Will, Charlie Dee, Apollo One and of course Mexi Ray!!! To the Brothers Disco! To Grandmasters Productions and to the Bronx as a whole!"

SIR NORIN RAD:" Thank you!! I wanna shout out my crew The Intruders and my mellow Sureshot La Rock! Princess Teela (RIP)!"