Interview with B-Boy/DJ/MC Les Love (Solo Sounds)

                                          Interview with B-Boy/DJ/MC Les Love (Solo Sounds)

                                                           

                                               conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

LES LOVE:"Yeah well I was born on October 30th, 1956 in Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx but I lived in Manhattan...in Sugar Hill until I was five years old. Then I moved down to the Colonial Projects. It was right next to the Polo Grounds baseball stadium. At that time the stadium was there for a while but then they tore it down and built the Polo Grounds Projects. Now I know you're familiar with Dancin' Doug and all of them. They lived in building 1. Him and his brother Bobby who was my best friend at that time. So even though I lived in the Colonial Projects I used to be with them a lot. We had a little band for a while but then we got into breakdancing. All of us was doing our thing. Now Dancing Doug and Teenie Rock they took  it to a whole 'nother level. They was just incredible with it but we was right underneath them and we used to go to all the parties there." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you remember where and when you saw Breaking for the very first time?"

LES LOVE:"Oh okay, that went back to like maybe 1971/1972......back then  I was around 14 or 15 years old and that's you know when we would be going to the parties. There was this one dude dancing and then all of a sudden somebody else jumped in the circle.  Everybody would be watching and they would go in. They would dance against each other."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did the dance look like back then?"

LES LOVE:"A lot of footwork and a lot of hand motion. You know, every now and then you'd hit the floor but it wasn't basically the floor thing. It was more footwork and hand movement. Getting into a guy's face...Things like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of parties were those? Are you talking about house parties?"

LES LOVE:"You know, house parties were popular in the early days but then you also had Kool DJ Herc. He used to be outside in Cedar Park and while he was in Cedar Park everybody would be out there. Later on he would get different clubs and he would play there. Like The Hevelow, The Executive Playhouse, The Minisink  and all that....and that's where it  really got intense because number one it was packed and then number two people started to go off. You had mainly people  from the Bronx and Harlem coming there, that was really into it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you find out about Kool DJ Herc's parties?"

LES LOVE:"Yeah, you know what the funny thing is? You know that record "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"? That's what it was. It would be like one person tells the next person and then that person tells the next person and before you know it everybody knows about it. It was just word of mouth, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the attitude of an original B-Boy?"

LES LOVE:"Well, what it was....see in Harlem and the Bronx you had to have a reason for the girls to like you. Most of the cats that was breakdancing did it because they loved dancing but it also attracted a lot of women. So the harder you danced, the more you danced  you wanted to build up a reputation so when you walked in the party people would go,"Oh, look!! He's there! He's there!" And that built that attraction up and that popularity. So you would practice, you'd be at home... in the mirror..whatever way you had to look at yourself....to see how you was doing it. You know, it was just the drive to be successful and to be the best at it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and who inspired you to pick up Breaking?"

LES LOVE:"Well, dancing...I used to go to all the clubs downtown. So the dancing thing was kind of natural to me but then when I came back uptown Dancin' Doug's older brother Bobby, Terry and them.....you know, it was a whole crew of us... we just started doing it (Breaking). Like I said my inspiration really came from Dancin' Doug and Teenie Rock. They were just incredible! Oh and Teenie Rock's brother Carl Wright he was incredible, too! It came from us all being around each other trying to get better and better  That's basically how it worked. 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the original Harlem B-Boy style of dressing to me!"

LES LOVE:"Let me put it to you like this... Harlem had its own style.  Harlem set everything off! I put it to you like this..in Harlem you had to be fly! You had to dress! I see you lay out some of the fly stuff from back then, Norin. The gear....I see it and I be like, "Norin, knows!!!!" The thing is there was mad drug dealers in Harlem. They were like the people's heroes. The way they dressed, that's the way we tried to dress. Where they shopped, that's where we shopped. You know, you had A.J. Lester's and that was one of the top stores, man. A.J. Lester's had all of the flyest gear. You know, then you branched out and went down to Newman Brothers for the Cortefiel suedes and leathers.  You'd go to Leighton's for the shoes. And then they also had a store in Delancey Street called The Joint Store that had a lot of A.J. Lester's stuff. You had to be fly! It wasn't like we was coming there with jeans...nah, nah, nah!!! You had to be fly! The Playboys, the British Walkers........That's how we got it in!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So did you have a crew that accompanied you to those parties back then?"

LES LOVE:"A whole crew! A whole crew! You'd never go to a party by yourself. You'd go with like ten or fifteen dudes. You know you had my people from Colonial Projects and from Building One. We all got together. There was another spot called The Promenade by John F. Kennedy High School........"

SIR NORIN RAD:"That's in Marble Hill, right?"

LES LOVE:"Yeah, Marble Hill. How you know about that?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Dancing Doug, DJ B-Ward and RC La Rock told me about the Promenade. People were breakdancing there, too....."

LES LOVE:"Absolutely! It was like everywhere really. Harlem and The Bronx were considered Uptown. That's where we went, to all the uptown functions." 

Rangel Houses, Harlem ( formerly known as Colonial Houses)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name those B-Boys from your neighbourhood that were really nice!"

LES LOVE:"Dancin' Doug, Ma Teenie (Teenie Rock), Carl......like you know them already. Bobby Colon, Terry....Terry was nice! My man Pete from Colonial Houses. He just passed away. God bless him! Oh my man Royal Hall....that's Biz Markie's brother. Royal was nice! Pete lived in my building. Kool DJ Red Alert lived right next to us, too, because my building and his building was connected. We called him Red Fred back then. Biz Markie and Royal  Hill lived in building 48."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your favourite B-Boy joints back then?"

LES LOVE:"My favourite joint was James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose". I also loved "Melting Pot" by Booker T. & The M.G.s., "The Mexican" by Babe Ruth, "Yellow Sunshine" by the Yellow Sunshine, "Listen To Me" by Baby Huey, "Get Into Something" by The Isley Brothers......those are a couple of joints that I used to love."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did these joints affect you when you heard them being played at the parties?"

LES LOVE:"Them joints get your feet moving automatically! You'd be like,"Yo, that's my joint!!!!! So it was so much joy when you'd hear that! It's not a regular song that you'd hear on the radio. It's not something that you'd hear everyday. You had to get out there and do what you do! It just releases all this energy out of you.  All of a sudden there would be this energy. It would just let you go to a whole 'nother dimension, another mindstate."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you describe your style of Breaking back then?"

LES LOVE:"I tried to be fly, like a real kool guy when I danced, you know what I'm saying?  I had no shakes like Trixie. None of that. I had this joint... I'd drop on the floor and come back up. I remember that penguin walk Doug used to do. It was hilarious!! And the other joint he used to do...he used to get on top of Teenie Rock's shoulders. They used to get it in! I mean everybody had their own little thing. It was just an incredible time back then. That's when life was good, man. We was having fun and that's what it was all about."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You have mentioned the Minisink as one of the Kool DJ Herc party spots that you went to back then. Where exactly in the Bronx was it located?"

LES LOVE:"170th Street & Jerome Avenue in the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of place was it?"

LES LOVE:"It was a cadet corps where they had like a big space where they would let them do the parties at."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take back then to become an outstanding B-Boy?"

LES LOVE:"You had to have skills but it was also very important to be fly and charismatic because you wanted the attention. In order to get the attention you had to have something about you that made everybody wanna watch, you know? And then when you get the attention you get the girls."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told by all the original B-Boys as well as by Coke La Rock that slow joints were an integral part of the early Kool DJ Herc parties. What do you remember about that?"

LES LOVE:"We couldn't wait for them to come on, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause we used to bump and grind with them slow joints. Those were the days! They don't even do that no more. You'd watch, you'd look around and see the one that you want. You'd be like,"Yeah, I want her!! " So you would be like,"Yo come here, Boo Boo!! You belong right here!" We'd also do the Hustle Dance. It wasn't like The Hustle that you see on TV with that Disco Fever crap! Nah!!! That's what made life beautiful. That's why it's different now. Like you go to a Hiphop party now, man, it's just not the same. The art of really having a good time ain't the same, man! The cell phone and the social media killed a lot of things." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let's go back to A.J. Lester's for a moment, please. How did you find out about that iconic store and what do you remember about it?"

LES LOVE:"I was born into that, man! My family kept me sharp from when I was a kid! You just had to have money, man. It was a money thing, you know what I'm saying? However you got your money was on you. But believe you me I loved them Damon knits, the Italian knits...It was just like.....I  had this rhyme back then: Bootcut British (Walkers), Champaign Cologne the high-powered knits imported from Rome, the Flechet hat to warm my brain, leather and suede hand-crafted in Spain. That was all based upon the way we dressed in Harlem at that time. The Flechet hat was used to transport dope. The Flechet hats are from France, right? And they would use them to transfer dope in them to America and so once they got busted you couldn’t even get no more Flechet hats. They were like the Kangol cap but they were suede… kind of suedeish. I don’t know…the material was different. It was like a suedeish thing. But yo them joints was hard!!! The Flechet brims, the Flechet caps. Oh my God!!! And then you had the velours joints! You had to be with all  of that or else you was a lonely dude! I tell you that! Word!“

SIR NORIN RAD:“I heard that you also used to wear a certain type of underwear.“

LES LOVE:“Yeah, yeah, yeah…the boxers and the t-shirts. Right, you had to have that. When you pulled your clothes off you’d better have like the wife-beaters. You either had the wife-beater shirt or the regular t-shirt but it had to be nylon. It was nylon underwear. And then the boxers to match, you know what I'm saying? When I said you had to be fly.....everything about you had to be fly. From the drawls, the socks, the shoes.....you know, we didn't even wear sneakers like that. We always wore shoes. The only time we wore sneakers is when we played ball (basketball). Yeah man, we always wore shoes with the silk and mohair pants, the sharkskin pants and all of that. It was crazy...."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about the Pro-Keds though? Many of the original Bronx B-Boys told me that they would go off wearing Pro-Keds."

LES LOVE:"Yeah, some people did that. You see, Harlem was a little different."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you get into DJing and MCing?"

LES LOVE:"Aight, let me tell you! See, I went to high school. Me and my man Earl we used to go to all the clubs Downtown. Like I said we were fly ni***rs. So this dude Milton Lugo said, "I used to see you two guys always coming to the Superstar and all the other clubs." He said,"Yo man, you want a job? You'll never have to wait again to get into a club." And he gave us this address 1650 Broadway, right? It was in Morton Hall's office. God bless the dead, man! Another great man! He was like the world's best concert promoter. So what they wanted us to do is give out flyers to the parties. But that allowed us to get into all the concerts and all the parties and all of that.  What happened was I became mad cool with him. He had all of these clubs. He asked me to get on the mic because I was already spittin' rhymes. I came up with Lovebug Starski, DJ Hollywood, DJ Eddie Cheeba and them. I was living Uptown and Hiphop was going on Uptown. Nowhere else in New York City were they really doing that. Like you had the Renny (The Renaissance Ballroom) in Harlem with Lovebug Starski, DJ Bill Blast and The Sapphire Crew. In the Renny they had a party everyday and it cost a dollar to get in!  It would be like a thousand kids in there, man! Everyday!!! Like after school it was the Renny parties, man! DJ B-Fats, DJ Donald D...I was cool with all of them. And then you also had DJ Hollywood. Him and June Bug used to turn up in 371. And then I started to play there on Wednesdays. It was two different styles of DJing and MCing. Lovebug Starski was more Hiphop but truthfully I give DJ Hollywood the credit for being the first one to ever start rapping. So when I saw and heard Lovebug Starski and DJ Hollywood I was like,"Okay, okay!!" But when I started rhyming my style was different. I didn't rhyme like DJ Hollywood. I just had my own style, you know?  I was more of a crowd motivator. Those were the good old days. It will never be like that again. I tell you that. I also already had turntables at my crib. From me dancing I knew all the records like Kool Herc and Bambaataa and all of them had 'cause I had a friend of mine named El-Roy that worked in Downstairs Records. He was cool, he was like,"Yo, I see you and your man coming here fly all the time!!!  What y'all do? Yo, you MC?? Let me hear something!" So I spit some shit real quick for him. He said, "If you write for me, I'll give you all these records every time you come down here. All the joints that all these dudes ask for that nobody knows the name to." So I used to come down every week with the envelope full of rhymes and he would hit me with all kinds of joints!!!! Like Chicken Little.....Free!! Free! I had all the records but I was really an MC. So what happened was they had me making announcements during the parties. So everybody that DJed in their clubs like DJ Music Man Bruce, DJ Flowers, DJ Maboya, DJ Plummer. I used to be the one who got on their mic all the time. So when I was on the mic I started killing it. You know, I changed the nature of the game. Now I started really rocking the party. I would say rhymes like,"To all the young ladies pay strict attention! Something to y'all I would like to mention. I have a reputation for being fly. I pull the young ladies with the wink of an eye! So don't be bashful, don't be ashamed!  All the ladies in the house please tell me your name! Now what's your name??" And I had the whole crowd going crazy! So next thing you know they had me doing it everywhere.  They became my managers. Him and Winston. They had me playing in Madison Square Garden, Nassau Coliseum. Everywhere. They had me in all the clubs.  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you got down with Solo Sounds from Yonkers!"

LES LOVE:“Around 1979 I moved to Yonkers with my grandparents. My father already lived there and he got them to move up there. So I'm like, "Yonkers????? What the hell is Yonkers?" I had to find where they lived at. They took down all my flyers. I had a whole wall full of flyers. I mean mad flyers with me on it 'cause I was popping downtown. They tore it down, all of that! I ain't got my flyers no more. So I met these girls there. Me and my brother and them was together....going out there. They showed us where we lived at.  There was a dude... his name was Lil Tommy, he originally was from Edenwald Projects in the Bronx. Him and his family lived in Yonkers in my building that I had just moved into. He said,"Solo Sounds is having a party up in Leake and Watts! Man, come up there!" Leake and Watts is a group home in Yonkers. He had seen me rocking on the turntables in my house so he already knew I was nice.  He was like a little bully dude. He kept telling them (Solo Sounds),"Yo, he's nice! Let him get on!!! Let him cut!!" So they would let me get on their turntables. They didn't know nothing about how I was cutting.  They was like, "Yo!!! What???" Then when I got on the mic they went crazy!! They wasn't up to date with what I was doing  'cause I was right there in it with all the top ni****rs that did it. So they said, "Yo man, you wanna rock some parties with us?" I said, "Yeah, I'm with you!" And then we built a real strong relationship. You know, we became good friends and I introduced them to a lot. I was like the plug. I put them on to a lot of people downtown. You know, I connected the dots. We started doing real big things. But at the same time I was still my own entity. I was still doing parties on my own. People asked me to do shows. Les Love was Les Love but I also was down with Solo Sounds. When I was on my own I did parties for like the older people, but with Solo Sounds I did the younger joints, you know, the Hiphop crowd. So I did the club crowd and the Hiphop crowd. I had two different styles. I could switch it up. I could go either way but truthfully I started out Hiphop, you understand? Most of the time when I did shows I didn't DJ. I needed a DJ so we could format the program, you know, the show....and he would cut up the beats. So whenever I was rhyming I needed a DJ. Solo Sounds had a DJ, his name was DJ Big Al, he was a Jamaican kid. He would be my DJ when I was doing shows. DJ Big Al WAS his DJ name but we changed all that. Later on I named him DJ Easy E. After that I took him down to A.J. Lester's and ever since then he was hooked. He was an A.J. Lester's addict. Every Friday and Saturday he would be buying gear....and the rest is history, man. After a while Solo Sounds became like two entities... the Yonkers Solo Sounds and the Queens Solo Sounds 'cause DJ Easy E would never let DJ Davy D (Davy DMX) cut! DJ Easy E loved to DJ. He didn't want to get off the set. He wanted to DJ all night. Davy D! Imagine that!!! Davy D did that song "One For The Treble". He did a lot of joints. That's why DJ Davy D got mad at DJ Easy E and left. He was like,"I'mma start Solo Sounds out in Queens." That's where he had DJ Hurricane and all of them. He wanted me to come with him to Queens to battle Kurtis Blow and all of them because by that time I was battling everybody."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where was DJ Davy D from?"

LES LOVE:"He was from Queens. The manager from Solo Sounds was his uncle."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did he leave to form his own Solo Sounds crew?"

LES LOVE:"I think it was in 1979."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were the original members of the Solo Sounds crew?"

LES LOVE:"See this is what it was. The original Solo Sounds was my man Roger Hambrick. He's a famous reverend now. His name was DJ Gard. DJ Davy D was in it. DJ Gard and DJ Davy D were cousins. And then we had DJ Easy E. The Vicious Five MCees were younger than us. They came in a little later. The Vicious Five were Kool T, Shaun Ski, Sweet Me Me, Shorty Rock and Lorie Lor. I would do routines with them from time to time when we did shows together. We would practice maybe two or three times per week. DJ Easy E would cut up the beats for us. In 1981 we did that record  "Get The Party Jumping."" 

                                             

DJ Gard (Solo Sounds)

July 6th, 1979: DJ Les Love is rocking at the Polish Community Center in Yonkers along with DJ Easy E, DJ Gard and the Solo Sounds Crew.

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the stomping ground of the Solo Sounds crew?"

LES LOVE:"There was this place called Dock Street.... the Knights Of The Columbus. They used to get that. They would get different little sections and sometimes bars. We did shows in School Street with Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. We did the Stardust Ballroom with the Cold Crush Brothers for Christmas. We also did shows in the Polish Community Center with them. We did shows in Jackson Street. I mean we did a lot, man!" 

July 3rd, 1980: Solo Sounds are rocking at School Street, Yonkers along with Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take back then to become an excellent MC?"

LES LOVE:"You had to have lyrics! You had to say things that made sense. Back then it was all about the party. So you had to get them into that party mode, you know what I'm saying?  You ain't talking about murdering and killing. And then it's personal...You gotta talk to them like personal..You had to have showmanship! That's the main thing! You had to give them something to look at! You couldn't just stand there and that's what messes Rakim up. You got to have that energy! If you don't got that energy they won't have it either. Just what you are giving them, they gonna  give it back to you.  So you gotta be willing to go out there and do everything it takes to give them a good time. That's all what it is about."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was it okay for MCees to rhyme off beat?"

LES LOVE:"Nah, never! Imagine that! I couldn't even imagine rhyming off beat. I couldn't do it 'cause you're feeling the music. The music is what makes you do it. Music is also a feeling. It's not just what you hear but also what you feel."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are your top five breakbeats to rhyme over?"

LES LOVE:"Wow! That's a good one....You know "Good Times" by Chic was the favourite joint back then. "Seven Minutes Of Funk" by The Whole Darn Family. That one. Bob James...."Take Me To The Mardi Gras".  King Erisson..."Well, Have A Nice Day" and "Scratching" by The Magic Disco Machine." 

December 27th, 1981: Solo Sounds are rocking at the Webster P.A.L. in the Bronx along with DJ Afrika Bambaataa & The Jazzy Five

SIR NORIN RAD:"My man Sureshot La Rock showed me a Zulu Nation flyer from 1977 which advertised a party that was about to take place in Yonkers. So it seems that Yonkers must have caught the Hiphop bug quite early. What is your take on that?"

LES LOVE:"No, the only ones that caught the Hiphop bug was Solo Sounds. It was no other group like that up there. And then Just The Four came with Imperial J.C. and his brother C.C who had moved to Yonkers. I was down with them for a minute, too."

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

LES LOVE:"Oh yeah, yeah!! Big shoutouts to my man Dancing Doug, to Ma Teenie (Teenie Rock). Big shout outs to the Rangel Houses which is Colonial Projects and to the Polo Grounds Houses. To my man Kool DJ Red Alert and everybody in there, we grew up together. Big shout to Y.O. (Yonkers), you know what I'm saying? Everybody in Y.O. Nothing but love, man! And also a big shoutout to Westchester County! All love and I salute you, Norin!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much! I want to give a shoutout to my Intruders Crew, to Sureshot La Rock and to the whole Hiphop Nation worldwide. Peace!"