Interview with DJ Mr. Lee (The Mission Impossible Crew)

                                   Interview with DJ Mr. Lee (The Mission Impossible Crew)

DJ Mr. Lee (The Mission Impossible Crew)

                             

                               conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/ Germany) 

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

DJ MR. LEE:"I was born in 1961 in Harlem Hospital..... Harlem, USA! I grew up in Harlem till the age of 12. Then I moved to the Bronx....Undercliff Avenue, then down to Sedgwick Avenue. I moved to Undercliff Avenue I think in 1974 and then I moved into 1520 Sedgwick Avenue with my cousin in 1976."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Both places are in the West Bronx, right?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yeah!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How far is Undercliff Avenue from Sedgwick Avenue?"

DJ MR. LEE:"It was really just steps. You had to walk down the steps to get to Sedgwick Avenue from Undercliff Avenue, you know what I mean?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the very first record that you ever bought?"

DJ MR. LEE:"It was Eddie Kendricks "Boogie Down.""

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall where you bought that record?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I bought that at a record shop on 176th Street & Audubon Avenue. It's not there no more though."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where did your very first encounter with Hiphop take place?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Okay, okay.....now that story there goes like this: Terrence Dean used to live on top of Kool DJ Herc. When I first moved to the Bronx  I went down to Sedgwick Avenue....my cousin lived down there in 1520....and I was hanging out there and so one day I heard music there and I was like, "What's that?" So I went back there and Kool DJ Herc was playing music out of his window. And so I met Terrence Dean there and I heard this music coming out of Herc's window and I said to myself, "Oh, oh!! This is me right there! This is what I wanna do."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So do you recall which song it was that you heard in that particular moment?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yeah, it was Baby Huey "Listen To Me."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what went on in your head when you heard that classic B-Boy anthem?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I heard the break part. That song has a break part towards the end. It was incredible!  I'm just soaking all of this in, you know what I mean? That one beat in that song "Listen To Me". I put it together for me. I'm like, "Okay, this is something new they're doing now!"'Cause I had never seen nobody else doing this but Herc. He was right there where I was hanging out at. "Listen To Me" was the first song that put my mind into turntables."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So that moment made you pick up DJing?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yes! Matter of fact after that day of standing there, listening to this music coming out Herc's window, talking to Terrence Dean...I went home. Now mind you, man, when I lived on Undercliff Avenue I had my little speakers that were made. You know, we used to make speakers! You know, put a thousand old speakers into one speaker, trying to make it as loud as possible. I had a turntable, an amp and I was up in my room, just starting getting really into beats. 'Cause after that I started going to record shops, going to my parents' family, getting 45s and albums from everybody...bringing them to my room. You know, I'm listening to beats on a system that I made. I made those speakers myself!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who had taught you this craft?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I pretty much taught myself that because at the time I couldn't afford to buy outdoor equipment and speakers. I was about 14 years old."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the equipment that you started with!"

DJ MR. LEE:"Believe it or not I started with some Kenwood turntables. They had a weight on the end of the needle arm. There was a weight that used to hang there to set how light or heavy the needle would be on the record. I bought two Kenwoods. I had a Pioneer amp and I had a Clubman Mixer. I wind up buying all that stuff and my very first speakers were called Magnum Opus Electronic. I wanna talk about those speakers. They're very important for my history! Now I bought these speakers from a place called Fordham Road. I think it was called Sound Room. There was this guy inside of this store playing music and the music was so loud. I couldn't believe how crisp and loud it sounded! I was like, "Where is these speakers coming from? What's that set of speakers?" And he sold me the smallest speakers he got in the place! They had a meter on them, on the side of 'em. A meter that would tell you how high the pitch of your speakers would go before they would blow. They had three sides to it. Three sides woofers and in the front they had a horn and a tweeter on the top left corner. I was like, "I can't believe these small speakers are this loud!" I was amazed and I wanted them so I bought them! And I went down Sedgwick Avenue with them..first time I had them. People from Manhattan...from the Bridge Apartments (Washington Heights) all the way down to Cedar Park and Roberto Clemente State Park....they would hear the music and they was like, "Where is this music coming from??" So they all started coming over to Sedgwick Avenue Park, to 1520 Park and they would see these little speakers.  Nobody could believe it, man!!! They were incredible, incredible small speakers and I took out a lot of DJs with those speakers!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many watts did they pack?" 

DJ MR. LEE:"800 to a 1000."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And what you have just described was your very first outdoor jam, right?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yes."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How far is Sedgwick Park from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Oh man, that's about 100 feet. Yeah, it's right there next to the building."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were you on your own that day or did you have a partner with you?"

DJ MR. LEE:" I had Terrence Dean with me. That's Kool Tee. He is Swizz Beats' father."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who helped you to move your equipment down to Sedgwick Park?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Everybody from Undercliff Avenue and everybody from Sedgwick Avenue. They used to come and get me like,"Yo, come on play in the park!" I'd be like,"Aight, come on!" And then they would have a crowd of people taking the elevator up to my apartment. Everybody grabbing crates of records, speakers, turntables, amps, mics, mixers, everything. There would be a line of 20 people going from Undercliff Avenue down to Sedgwick Park.....down the steps."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what was it like to play music in Sedgwick Park for the very first time? Were you nervous?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Hell no!!! I got into it, you hear me man! I'm a music nut. I was just like, "Yeah, I like this!" And I got good at it. I got really good that's why I'm undefeated in the battles"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many people came to that very first party of yours?"

DJ MR. LEE:"The first time I would say it was a good hundred people. You had people coming from Undercliff Avenue, Sedgwick Avenue, River Park Towers and University Projects."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I guess you gradually built up your following from there, right?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yeah."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you go to many Kool DJ Herc jams back then?"

DJ MR. LEE:"That's a very good question! Yeah, I've been to a lot of his parties. From  the  Webster P.A.L. to the Executive Playhouse. He used to play all over. Everywhere he played I went." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was Hiphop like during those early years?"

DJ MR. LEE:"MCing was rare at that time, you know? It was about the Beats and the B-Boys."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you must have witnessed Kool Herc's B-Boys going off as well..."

DJ MR. LEE:"Yes, sir! I have seen them all. The Twins, Clark Kent... all of 'em. I used to go to Herc's......Herc had these speakers, man, that were bass bottoms. They were probably like seventy-five inches diameter, you know what I'm saying?  They were kind of shaped where you could like sit inside of them. I used to sit inside of them. He never said nothing to me 'cause he knew who I was but I was sitting inside his bass bottom speakers. Yeah! With 2000 watts of bass coming out of them and I would just sit inside of them!! That's how it was!! Then he used to give me some props like, "Mr. Lee is in the house!!" or they used to call me "Son of Kool Herc".

Kool DJ Herc & DJ Mr. Lee

SIR NORIN RAD:"What's the story behind that title "Son Of Herc"?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I got that title because I used to play in his neighbourhood. I used to play for his sister Cindy at her parties. One day I bought some Altec speakers, man. Those were 1204Bs. They were big, man! They were on wheels. I had just bought them and I had them in 1520 recreation room for a party. But before the party started I was wheeling them into the lobby. Kool DJ Herc comes out of the elevator and he sees me wheeling those speakers in. He goes back up to his apartment, comes back down and smacks some "Asskickers" stickers on the side of my speakers, man! That kinda like annointed me, man! That was it!!  I took a lot of people out with these speakers! Yeah, they was badass! And you know, Herc would be at the parties when I DJed 'cause he lived right there! He'd be there, you know, watching me all the time. And then people started calling me "Baby Herc", "Son Of Kool Herc"."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did the recreation room of 1520 Sedgwick Avenue look like?"

DJ MR. LEE:"It was a small rec room, like maybe fifty people fit in there but if you opened the door right there it would take you outside and you would be on the basketball court of 1520. We would put speakers outside and have speakers inside. So we would be jamming inside and we was also jamming outside. It was connected to the basketball court, this wide open space where everybody would dance. Where we DJed at was really like a closet, man. It wasn't no space or nothing. It was like a closet. It looks like any other building you walk in, you know what I'm saying? You had two elevators in front of you when you walked in, right-hand side was a laundromat. On the left-hand side was stairs if you had to walk and there was also the door to the rec room."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You have mentioned your partner Kool T. Did you have a crew name?"

DJ MR. LEE:"It was called The Mission Impossible Crew. It started in the beginning of 1976. We both started at the same time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What made you pick that name Mr. Lee? What's the story behind that name?"

DJ MR. LEE:"That's a good question. It's funny....if you ever noticed back in the days it was some jeans that were called Lee Jeans. If you look at the patch it has "Lee" and it also has "Mister" on it. Mr. Lee. And that's how I got the name. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Nice! So there's a connection to that original Hiphop fashion..."

DJ MR. LEE:"Right, you had to have the Lee Jeans with the Pumas, you know what I mean? You also had the Cortefiels, the Sheepskin Coats, the Overlaps, the Teardrops, the mocknecks....all of that! That's how we was rocking back then." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please shed some light on the members of the Mission Impossible Crew and their respective roles!"

DJ MR. LEE:"That's like our lieutenants. The people that was always there with us. Helping with the equipment or standing around and making sure we're alright..kinda like security type and was also our B-Boys. We were all Mission Impossible Crew. Even the B-Boys that you asked me about when we spoke for the first time..... Spiderman (Jojo-founder of the Rock Steady Crew), Spider Web (Jojo's B-Boy partner), Baretta (Easy Mike-Jojo's brother), Lil Eldorado Mike....they were all Mission Impossible Crew....."

SIR NORIN RAD:"That's what I was about to ask you......Who were the B-Boys of your crew?"

DJ MR. LEE:"In the beginning we had Ak La Rock. Then...believe it or not....we also had Poe Dean. He is Kool T's brother. Who else? Cadillac Mel, Lil Eldorado Mike....and a couple of other guys. Wherever I played these B-Boys would show up and go off. "

B-Boy Ak La Rock and B-Boy Poe Dean (The Mission Impossible Crew)

  

                                                        

B-Boy Cadillac Mel (The Mission Impossible Crew)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you would DJ for the B-Boys!"

DJ MR. LEE:"The way I would get into it? Okay, I had a certain way of DJing.  I would do the Disco thing for a while 'cause you know Disco was out. Then I'd mellow out with some mellow music. Then when it is time to get funky, you know what I'm saying, that's when the breakbeats start coming out. So I'd slide into some beats. I would stay with the beats for a while and then I'd go back to Disco. I'd mix it up, you know what I'm saying? The B-Boys knew when the breakbeats was coming. Usually I started that off with "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose" by James Brown. You could do the Hustle and all of that to that song. Then at the end of the song that's when all the B-Boys came out and then that's when I stayed with the beats."   

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told that Kool DJ Herc and DJ Coke La Rock did also play specific songs which had the people do a specific version of the Hustle at their parties...."

DJ MR. LEE:"Aaaah (laughs)!!!! Right! I know what you're talking about. "Do What You Gotta Do" by Eddie Drennon is one of them. You had Kool & The Gang "Open Sesame".  That was another one. And also "Galaxy" by War. That was a big one!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about "Pursuit Of The Pimpmobile" by Isaac Hayes?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yo, you know your music, man! But check it...this song, yo! For some reason I wound up downtown at some of the discos down there. I would just go there sometimes. And that song came on. I was like, "Wow!!! I used to listen to that in my house. My mother used to play that!" I couldn't believe that they was playing it. So I brought it to the Bronx and I played that. That was a huge Hustle song! Everybody loved it! That's a classic right there! That was an awesome song! The whole orchestra was excellent!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did the people react to that song when you played it in the Bronx for the first time?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yo, that's when we had those girls from 1571 Undercliff Avenue in the house. They had a brother named Lester that was down with us, too. His DJ name was Les Les and he had some sisters and they were like the best dancers around when it came to the Hustle. When that song came on, they were like professionals the way they would do the Hustle! Everybody that would see them dancing would be like,"Yo, we gotta do this, too!" They would get up and start dancing, too! Everybody loved it, man! How can you not love that song?""

Isaac Hayes - Pursuit Of The Pimpmoblie 1974 (from Norin Rad's crates)

SIR NORIN RAD:"How important were the breakbeats to the DJs back then?"

DJ MR. LEE:"They was so important that we would take shoe polish and cover the record cover or the record label.  That's how important these beats were!  You had to find beats nobody else had! If you had that beat somebody else would be like,"Yo, man!! You should have heard that joint that he was playing!!" Those beats were our weapons, you know what I mean? You're battling somebody and you put on a breakbeat that nobody heard and it was dope....you won."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So obviously there was a very high level of competition in DJing back then."

DJ MR. LEE:"That's right! And the thing was that you had to have the loudest system 'cause if you got beat by your competition overpowering your music you lost. You lost! So it was all about  your amps and all about your speakers!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Coke La Rock told me that he would tell people who were not down with Kool DJ Herc's crew and who wanted to go through their crates or take their equipment, "If you cross the ropes, you might get death!" 

DJ MR. LEE:"You want me to elaborate on that?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, please!"

DJ MR. LEE:"That's a no no!! You don't ever go through somebody's crates!!! That's like breaking into somebody's house, you know what I mean!? You don't do that, man! Nobody!!! That's like letting somebody come to the bank with you and let him take your money out the bank. There was a lot of DJs back in the days who used to come around when I was DJing in the park....even KRS-One was one of 'em....and tried to get as close as you possibly can to the turntables so they could see that record that I was playing so they could go get it. They even had spies trying to infiltrate your crew so they could tell them the name of that song! It was like that!!! That's why that rope was there, man!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which other spots besides 1520 Sedgwick Avenue did you play at?"

DJ MR. LEE:"1600 Sedgwick Avenue....that's where KRS-One was living at. Cedar Park. Those were the main places I would play. Then I would also do house parties in Undercliff Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are the main differences between throwing a jam in the park and doing a house party?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Well, the house parties used to be mostly at somebody's house, you know what I'm saying? Either their birthday or sometimes we would do them without an occasion. Somebody would be like, "Yo, my moms is gone, yo! Bring your equipment to my house so we can have a house party!" Back in those days the apartments were pretty huge. So the living rooms was huge and all of that! We would go in there and it would be like 15 people in one apartment... partying. We was just like our own neighbourhood of friends and people that came all the time. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let us talk about the DJ battles now that you used to have back then! I was told that you're a battle-tested DJ. Whom did you battle on the west side of the Bronx?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Alright, there was one guy from Roberto Clemente State Park, River Park Towers. His name was DJ Black Jack! He had his people down there. He was doing his thing down there. It's right by Cedar Park. Well, he would come up and brought Kool DJ Herc's  column speakers 'cause he didn't have the speakers to mess with mine. We was in Sedgwick Avenue Park one day, man....GOING AT IT!!!!  We went so hard at it, man, I blew one of the horns in my speakers.  It was fierce that night!!! They had the lights on out there, the whole park was completely packed!!! And we was battling like crazy. Then the girls from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue got up on the car garage between the building and the park  and they hung up a banner saying, "BLACK JACK IS THE WHACK!!!"And they put a spotlight on it.  Everybody in the park saw it. They were like,"Oh wow!!" And that's what helped me win that battle because of that. 'Cause he brought Kool DJ Herc's speakers, man! I don't mean to sound like this but DJ Black Jack came for me a couple of times and he could never defeat me because I was a better DJ. I knew how to cut those beats! I had nice equipment and most of all I had more beats that he didn't know of. He had a few beats that I didn't know. Those were real DJ battles!! You had to prepare yourself. You would leave on a Wednesday and go to a record store to go on a spree, trying to find beats. And the way you find beats, man, is you pick up the album or the 45 and if you look closely there is a dark spot in the grooves. And if you see a dark spot in the grooves... that's a beat! And I would go to these stores to find songs like that, that had that mark on 'em and I would play them. If they was whack that was a waste of money. Okay! You would be like,"This one? Whack!!! Waste of money! Oh, this one is nice! I'll play it. " You gotta keep doing that! You gotta build up your arsenal of beats 'cause eventually people will find out your beats."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you had to prepare yourself for combat."

DJ MR. LEE:"Exactly! You gotta be ready! You never know what's gonna happen. You could blow a speaker.  Man, I blew a speaker a couple of times battling people, you know what I mean? And I had to go get these speakers fixed!  

DJ Black Jack (The Herculords)

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did the people in the neighbourhood know about these DJ battles?"

DJ MR. LEE:"There wasn't no cell phones, no internet, nothing like that!  So most of the time it would be word of mouth. Like a week before cats would be like, "Yo, I heard he gon' play in the park!" That's how it got around. Word of mouth, man! And then once you're playing and if your shit is good enough they gonna hear it from blocks and blocks away. They're gonna be like,"Somebody's playing. Let's go!" 'Cause we was right down there by the Harlem River. It was a wide open space. That's how the music travelled all the way to Manhattan to the Bridge Apartments because there it's just the water that separates Manhattan from the Bronx. The park is right next to the water, man! And if you're music was loud enough like mines was they would hear your shit all the way in Manhattan. Next thing you know you would see people walking across the bridge to Sedgwick Avenue! That's how it got around. I also used to make cassette tapes for my man to bring them to high school and play them in the lunchroom all the time. People would be like,"Oh, who's that? Yo, I gotta go check him out! I'm coming down there! Who's that?" You know, they heard you DJing on a cassette tape in DeWitt Clinton High School and other high schools. All over." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"So how did these battles start?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Some of them battles would be on flyers. When it came to me and Black Jack..he would hear my music coming from Sedgwick Park and they would be like, "Yo!" 'Cause they kinda like had their own clique down there and 1520 Sedgwick Avenue we had our own clique. So it was kinda like a battle between 1520 Sedgwick Avenue and River Park Towers. So you know, Black Jack and his boys would come up to the park. Standing around and shit. We'd be giving each other the eye and all that. Then he would tell me,"Yo, I'll be back! We'll be here!!" Next thing you know here they come! Walking down the street with speakers and all of this shit. I let them set up next to us. I let him go, let him do his thing and then when I felt like it I just bumrush with some louder shit and overpower his.  And if you can't get louder than me then you gotta stop 'cause can't nobody hear you. That's how those battles went down. Some of them were on flyers and some of them was just like,"Yo, I'm coming back with my shit!"  

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about all these other legendary DJs from the West BX like DJ Ice, DJ Kojak and them? Did you ever go against them?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I battled them all down there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on that."

DJ MR. LEE:"Undefeated. I never lost. It came close a couple of times. Remember I told you DJ Black Jack borrowed Kool Dj Herc's speakers. He came very close once or twice but most of the times, man......like I said, I'm undefeated. I was never beaten."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you feel after these battles were over?"

DJ MR. LEE: "You know what I'd do? Like I told you there was steps leading from Sedgwick Avenue to Undercliff Avenue. I'd go to the top of the steps and I would tell Terrence (Kool T),"Ey yo, Terrence take over! I'm done now!" I'd go to the top of the steps and I would just watch everybody. I would hear my shit so loud. It sounded good. I just stayed up there, drinking a 40 or something and just watching the crowd. I'd say, "Yeah, this is me right here! This is my spot!" We had our shit down pat! We was doing our thing, you know what I'm saying? We had so many records, man. Unbelievable. We had about ten to fifteen crates of records. We had a lot of beats and we always left some at home. We didn't even bring 'em all. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"What I do consider absolutely amazing regarding the Hiphop element of DJing is the fact that you did all these things like cutting, scratching etc. with equipment that wasn't really designed to be used in these aforementioned ways. Nowadays you got special needles, mixers and all that...."

DJ MR. LEE:"I'm glad you brought that up.  Most of the DJs had Technics, I didn't have Technics. I had Kenwoods. And the thing with the Technics is that you was able to stop the record, to stop the turntable. I couldn't do that with mine. Mines were belt driven and they had the weight on the arm of the needle. So it was very delicate. The wind blew too hard , the needle would slide across the record. So let me tell you what I did....I'm not saying I started it but I bought felt and I put the felt on the turntable and then I put the record on top of the felt. If you held the felt the turntable would still spin and when you let the felt go that's when you cut. That's how I use to DJ. And for the wind I would take some album covers and stack 'em around the turntable so the wind wouldn't blow the needle across the record because you would get booed if that happened. You'd get laughed at!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which measures would you take in order to prevent your sound system from heating up to such an extent that it would be damaged?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Fans! Fans! Fans pointing down to the amplifiers! And you better have a back-up amp with you, too. Or some fuses! Sometimes the fuses wouldn't even work, blow your whole shit up!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Hiphop was raw back then. It seems as if there was nothing easy about it"

DJ MR. LEE:"Nah, man. Everything was real. It wasn't no remix this or dub that. No sync buttons. You know, all the shit was real!"

SIR NORIN RAD:" Please talk about the status of 45s when it comes to Hiphop DJing!"

DJ MR. LEE:"They're different from the albums 'cause an album takes up the whole plate. 45s don't take up the whole plate. Like "Funky Music Is The Thing" by the Dynamic Corvettes that came on a 45. "Let's Dance" by Pleasure came on a 45. "Shack Up" by Banbarra came on a 45. All these breakbeats came on 45s. And you had to be very skilled to cut them up correctly. Now let me elaborate on something. I gotta give props! I heard of this guy that had a way of DJing nobody had ever heard before. So I said, "Yo, let me check this shit out!" So I went to the Disco Fever....I think it was the Disco Fever but it could also have been the Sparkle." And this guy was cuttin so fast!!!!!! I said to myself, "Is this real?" Nobody had heard nobody cut like this in their life!!!  You know who it was?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Grandmaster Flash?"

DJ MR. LEE:"No, it was Theodore. Grandwizard Theodore. Gotta give the props, man. When I saw Theodore doing that shit I was like, "Oh oh!! We're in trouble!" And I had I to start learning that shit but I didn't do it because I went to the military. I stopped DJing in 1979. You know what happened was....how my career ended really wasn't my fault. We got evicted from our house and they kept everything. So they kept all my equipment and all my records. And my mom was like, "That's it!" She had enough. So she sent me into the army."

SIR NORIN RAD:"There is this famous flyer of you and your crew. You were playing at the Mount Vernon Boys Club. What's the story behind that event?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Matter of fact Heavy D. (RIP) was there when I played there. We was playing there at the Boys Club and it was huge.  I brought these asskickers speakers with me, man, and we didn't think that we had enough power because this place was so big but we did. Those speakers were loud enough for the whole place. People came from left and right,"Yo, where are you from?" "From Sedgwick Avenue!" "Yo, you gotta come back!" Yo, everywhere we went, we killed them, man!"

March 11th, 1978: Kool T and DJ Mr. Lee are rocking at the Mount Vernon Boys Club

SIR NORIN RAD:"So who was the main DJ of your crew?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I was. I was in charge. Kool T was more like an MC. You know how MCing was back then. We had to say stuff like,"So get down everybody! To the beat y'all! Rock the house!!!" We would use the echo chamber and all that, "It's a sure shot shot shot shot!!!!" That was mostly Kool T. I was mostly the DJ. But I would need a break, then I would turn the turntables over to  him or to DJ Les Les."

                                                                 

DJ Les Les (The Mission Impossible Crew)

SIR NORIN RAD:" You mentioned playing in 1600 Sedgwick Avenue. What kind of location was that?"

DJ MR. LEE:"They had a rec room. (laughs) And it was a big building like a project building. It's the building that's next to 1520 Park. 1600 that's where KRS lived at and some other cats. Like I said they had a rec room there and they had a DJ in there and his name was DJ Ray. Now check it out! One night he was in there DJing. He had about 40 speakers. That's how it was back then. You had to use a lot of speakers to get loud. That's if you could afford loud speakers. If you could afford none you had to use a bunch of little ones and connect them up. Well, this is what he had! He had a bunch of speakers and I walked in there. He would say, "Mr. Lee is in the house!" on the mic. So he comes up to me and he is talking shit. Like,"See how loud my shit is?" I was like, "Yeah, yeah, whatever!" Now remember those little speakers I told you about? I just got them. I said,"Alright, you're talking all this shit man." So I got my crew, they helped me to get all my equipment down into 1600. I set these two little speakers up. That's all I had...set them up. He was laughing is ass off. I'm hooking up my shit. And there was a song called "Discomania" by The Lovers. After I set it up I said to Poe Dean,"Go back there and put on Discomania!"And I just stood there in front of my speakers. DJ Ray said, "You ready, Lee? You could go." I said, "I don't need you to tell me!" And I was pointing to Poe Dean and he put on "Discomania". You couldn't hear DJ Ray's speakers no more!! The bass was bouncing off the walls. It was mad loud!! DJ Ray turned around and looked at me in my face. He was shocked!! He was like, "What the fuck are those???" I embarrassed him so bad in front of his crowd he wanted to shoot me. Those speakers were monsters, man!! And I took his ass out! Took him out of his own rec room! Farther down from 1600, if you just keep walking down on the left are the River Park Towers. If you keep walking down more then you got Cedar Park. I played there, too." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who else played in Cedar Park?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Like DJ Black Jack. You had Herc. I think Grandmaster Flash, too. The L-Brothers, RC La Rock."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Since you mention RC La Rock....would you also go to his crew's jams in JFK High School?"

DJ MR. LEE:"I went to JFK High School. That's my high school. That's right next to the 1 train. You walk up the hill..Marble Hill.  Then you got the Promenade next door. RC La Rock was from the Bridge Apartments in Manhattan right across the river from Sedgwick Avenue. He looked out his window, he could see Sedgwick Park. I used to go to his jams, too.  He was a nasty MC, man!!" He came to watch me DJ. My cousin and him were good friends. My cousin's name was Jake La Rock. He lived in 1520 Sedgwick Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you have a record boy?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Yes, his name was Jerry D. Spice Nice was also a record boy of mine. Jerry D was from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, too. You know something, man? When you're in the heat of a battle you don't have  time to take that record, turn around and put it back in the sleeve and put it back where it goes.  Mostly you have your shit in order. In the heat of the battle you're stressing, man! You're thinking of which beat to play next. You gotta find it, grab it,  put it on real quick before this one ends. So you need somebody there to hand you the records. It's gotta be somebody you trust in 'cause he might give up the name of your beats. And he kept them records clean, he wiped them down and all that. 'Cause in the heat of the battle you're throwing records on the side of the turntables or on the top of the crates. You're trying to get this shit right! He is like your man that is holding the belt for your machine gun. That's what the record boy was. You gotta have him."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Why was it important to keep the women entertained at your parties?"

DJ MR. LEE:"You know why? Because females attract men. That brings you a bigger crowd. You go to a party that got no women, you ain't got no party! And then if you got a crew of sisters like we had that followed us everywhere we went, then you got a back up. They would be always dancing and then when the competition would get on, nobody would dance to their shit.  That's how it was, man."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Name some of the ladies that would follow you around!"

DJ MR. LEE:"Okay, I can tell you that. Denise, Jodie, Lanette, Tracy. That's just a few right there. They all lived in 1520 Sedgwick Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did the first Puerto Rican B-Boys show up at your jams?"

DJ MR. LEE:"Around 1977. I loved them. Jojo (founder of the Rock Steady Crew) and them. I love these cats to this day! Lil Eldorado Mike..there was nobody better than him!!! Now Trixie, Sasa..much respect to them....that's a different category. That's the older ones. They had a different style, too. But the new kids, man....nobody was doing what they was doing. And they was very important for me as a DJ, you know what I mean? 'Cause yo, if your B-Boys was whack you was whack!!! If your B-Boys got taken out you might as well pack your shit and go."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So they helped you to uphold your name."

DJ MR. LEE:"They held me down!!! The funny shit is that I grew up with Puerto Ricans. I didn't even grow up with Black people. I grew up with Puerto Ricans. When I was in elementary school and all that I lived in Washington Heights. I lived by George Washington Bridge by the Bridge Apartments. I went to school right there..P.S. 115. And that was all Puerto Rican and a little farther up Jews and Irish. So grew up with Puerto Ricans. So later on when I was DJing and Spiderman (Jojo) and all these little Puerto Rican B-Boys came along that was like family. I was like,"Come on, man! Y'all ain't new to me! Come on!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your top five breakbeats back then?"

DJ MR. LEE:"My number one has got to be "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose". That was my favourite song back then to play. Number two is "Funky Music Is The Thing" by the Dynamic Corvettes. Number three is "Let's Dance" by Pleasure. On the album that the Incredible Bongo Band came out with there is a song called "Last Bongo In Belgium". That beat is so funky. And you know what else was a beat that I loved? "Ego Tripping" by Please." 

Please - Ego Tripping 1976 (from Norin Rad's crates)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you for  this interview! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew, Sureshot La Rock, Pluto Seven, Troy L. Smith and the whole Hiphop Nation."