Interview with B-Boy / DJ Ice

                                                              Interview with DJ Ice

B-Boy / DJ Ice

                                     conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where were you born?" 

DJ ICE:"I was born in New York, Manhattan in 1959 on November 2nd."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you grow up at?"

DJ ICE:"Until I was about three or four I actually lived in Chinatown. I lived on Chrystie Street in Chinatown. The building is still there, believe it or not. And from there we moved to Brooklyn. Howard Projects...I lived there. Then we moved to the Bronx in 1968/1969.  So I was nine or ten years old. I lived in the South Bronx on Longfellow Avenue. 172nd Street & Longfellow Avenue. I lived there for a couple of years. Elementary school was right on the corner. There was this big schoolyard. I remember playing baseball there when I was a kid. I used to love to play baseball but the neighbourhood was gang infected. I mean we had gangs everywhere. I lived in a neighbourhood with the Javelins. The Black Spades were a couple of blocks down. The Savage Nomads were up the hill by Hoe Avenue.  Yeah, I remember that! Matter of fact, I was in the Baby Javelins. Then we moved to Davidson Avenue.....176th Street & Davidson Avenue. From Davidson Avenue then I moved to River Park Towers. The year was....I wanna say it was 1974. 1974 we moved there. 1974/1975."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to move from the South Bronx to the West Bronx back then?"

DJ ICE:"It was different. The neighbourhood was different. It was clean. River Park Towers was brand new.  The attitudes was different. It was nice. It was very nice to tell the truth. We needed that. My family needed that, needed some fresh air. We needed a new beginning. The struggle wasn't like it was anywhere else. It was a different struggle."

                               

River Park Towers, BX 

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

DJ ICE:"Back then...Saturday morning it was always.. everywhere....every household that I knew of anyway including mine..you would wake up, your parents would put the R&B on and you would clean the house.  So the music is going, we're cleaning up the house. That was cleaning day. Everything is smelling fresh. Mom is in the kitchen and she's throwing together breakfast. So that's what Saturday was about and it was R&B music mainly. A lot of R&B: Gladys Knight, James Brown, Al Green, Isley Brothers, Ray Charles. That's what it was like. R&B in the morning. It was nice."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did James Brown's music affect you back then?"

DJ ICE:"Man, I remember back in the sixties James Brown was the man!!! So I don't care what was the song it was in the house. As soon as it came out your parents would get the 45 if they couldn't afford the album and we would be in the house jamming!!! And we would play that song until we got tired of it. He was the man back then."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Now you told me that you started out as a B-Boy and that your B-Boy partner was a guy called Motorcycle Man. Please elaborate on that!"

DJ ICE:"B-Boying was so fresh. It was new.  It was a way to express yourself and the funny thing about it was if there was a beat on the song they would just keep the beat going. So it gave everybody the opportunity to get their shit off, to dance. One day I'm dancing in this crowd and afterwards this guy comes up to me, this young guy. He was about my height. He asked me,"Yo, man! What's your name?" I told him my name. He said, "Man, they call me Motorcycle Man. I'm looking for a partner." I said,"What you mean?" He said, "Well, we're going around and challenge people and take 'em out breakdancing." I said, "That sounds kool, man!" He said,"So would you like to be my partner?" And I said,"Yeah!" Back then I had this one move that I would move like the Bionic Man 'cause it seemed to me that everybody had their own move and their name matched their move. I would start running real slow, then I would run faster and faster. Back then people were still watching "Get Smart" and "Superman".  "James Bond-007". Stuff like that. A lot of the people in the streets that were B-Boying had these names! There was a guy named Clark Kent. He was a B-Boy. There was a guy called James Bond. And they had the moves to match. So that's what was going on back then. There were two brothers..The Ni**er Twins. They would walk around with trenchcoats and they would be like Groucho Marx and his brothers. So it was kool!! It was a special time. It was a time of expression."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What made your partner pick that name Motorcycle Man?"

DJ ICE:"He would do his footwork and then go into a spin, drop down on the ground, back up  and then go into this motorcycle thing. He would be sitting there, squatted down, he would act like he was holding the handle bars, he would kick like he was starting the bike and then he would be going off with the bike real slow and come at you. It was kool! It was a kool move!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did he live at? Was he also from River Park Towers?"

DJ ICE:"Yeah, yeah he lived in building 10. He lived on the 32nd floor, building 10. We hung out together everyday. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you meet him for the first time?"

DJ ICE:"It was a block party at River Park Towers on the top level. The DJ at the time was DJ Prince. It was DJ Prince and DJ Kojak throwing that party."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were DJ Prince and DJ Kojak also from River Park Towers?"

DJ ICE:"Yeah, DJ Prince was also from building 10. I believe he lived on the 31st floor. I spent a lot of days in that building with them guys. At that point Motorcycle Man would carry their albums..like crates of records...when they would go to have a party. He would carry the equipment, you know? And when they practiced he was allowed to practice and build his DJ skill. DJ Prince and DJ Kojak had become friends because their fathers worked together at Chrysler. They were part of a group....a bunch of guys like four or five guys....they got together from Chrysler and bought this club and they called it the Executive Playhouse. " 

October 6th, 1978: DJ Ice & DJ Kojak are rocking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem along with the L-Brothers, the Brothers Disco and The Herculords.

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let's go back to your B-Boy days for a second. Where would you and Motorcycle Man B-Boy at? Did you stay at River Park Towers or were you also aware of Kool DJ Herc and DJ Smokey?"

DJ ICE:"Yeah! Now listen, back in the early days when we first met we were young. We didn't go too far away from River Park Towers. It was clean and safe. We knew what to expect there so we didn't go too far but Kool DJ Herc was right down the street. He was right across the bridge. You make a right, you go down a quarter mile and there go his building.So whenever he gave a block party at 1600 Park 'cause that's where he would play outside you could hear the music. The only thing that divided us was really a highway and once you crossed that bridge which went over the highway you were right at Kool Herc's party. It was a bridge big enough for traffic and it was a school on that bridge 229. School busses and city busses used to come on that bridge, go into River Park Towers, go around and come back out. So we would hop down to Herc's parties. Now DJ Smokey was from Grant Avenue. He had the equipment in his house, he would open the windows and put the speakers outside. We would go to his parties, too! Motorcycle Man was good friends with DJ Smokey. I even was at the party where Smokey battled Herc. We was there for that. Smokey was good people! Oh, man!! Between listening to Kool DJ Herc,  listening to DJ Smokey and listening to DJ Prince...it was a change in the air!!! You could feel a change!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you felt at these parties! Lovebug Starski once stated in an interview that he loved to attend those jams back then because the breakbeat music there made him feel like the Holy Spirit would take control over him. Did you experience something similar?"

DJ ICE:"Yeah! You gotta remember you're dealing with a lot of young people. Most of the people who went to these parties were anywhere from twelve to seventeen years old. That was the majority of the crowd. They had a different mindset. They wanted to hear the beats!! So when the breakbeat came on and they kept that beat going...oh my God!!! You would start moving your feet, you would start feeling the vibe. You would just feel it and go with it!!! You would lose your mind!! And then the thing about it...we was so young at the time it was right before summer youth corps jobs. So a lot of us... if you wasn't hustling and you didn't know the streets like that a lot of us was broke! But we still was at the parties!!! We would put on whatever we could put on to make us look good and we would be at them parties, man!!! And sometimes the parties would be 50 cent back then in the early days and you might have 3$ in your pocket but you didn't care, you paid the 50 cent. I know guys back then that went to parties that didn't have no money at all and they would be standing outside to see who's in there, just to be part of the scene and to listen to the music on the sidewalk when the door opened and closed."

August 26th 1978: DJ Ice & DJ Kojak are rocking at the Sparkle in the Bronx along with the L-Brothers and DJ Tibbs.

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did B-Boying look like when you were doing it?"

DJ ICE:"It was a lot of footwork (on top). You started out with your footwork. Then you would go into spinning and you could spin high and work your way low and if you worked your way low normally you would do some move on the ground Then it would be footwork on the ground. You wouldn't roll around and get your clothes dirty. You did not spin on your head. We didn't do that. Then you would pop up and you would do a stylish move that you developed. It could be swaying back and forth with your foot moving in a certain way. Sometimes there was B-Boys that you could watch just do footwork and you would be amazed  because it looked like their feet never touched the floor. They was so nice! Sasa was one of those!!!! There was a B-Boy from River Park Towers named Carl. He was like that! Another B-Boy Mike..he was like that, too! They would do the Robot but not like what you would see on Soul Train. It was different. It wasn't no Popping and Locking. It was routines, it was coordinated. It was something to watch. But believe me they wasn't tearing up their clothes. They wasn't on their knees and they wasn't on their backs. It was different.  You gotta remember we still were in the era of James Brown! He was still the man! Watching him dance inspired us.  Then later on we started dancing with the girls. We were doing the Hustle. That was the thing."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told by numerous B-Boys from the West Bronx that there was another outstanding B-Boy from River Park Towers who went by the name of Sunny. Do you remember him as well?"

DJ ICE:" Yeah, yeah!! Now Sunny he was the original DJ Kojak. DJ Prince and DJ Kojak... that lasted maybe a year and then my partner Motorcycle Man became the new DJ Kojak. Now Sunny at that point just bounced back to being Sunny and he would just hang out at the parties.  He didn't DJ no more. Nothing, That' s when Carl started  dancing and he got real got at it! I mean real good. This kid was nasty!! He hooked up with Mike and they was partners. They was nice and they also lived in River Park Towers. Mike lived in building 20 on the 6th floor."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you say that Carl and Mike were the best B-Boys out of River Park Towers?"

DJ ICE:"Oh yeah, the Westside. Period. It wasn't just River Park Towers, it was the Westside. You gotta understand Kool DJ Herc got a lot of his crowd from the Eastside. From The Nine. From Webster Avenue & 169th Street and from Washington  Avenue & 169th Street. Of course he also had people coming from the Westside but River Park Towers being new we started to make a name for ourselves. It was a lot of talent in River Park Towers. A lot of talent!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What caused you to pick up DJing?"

DJ ICE:"Like I said me and Motorcycle Man were best friends. Hanging out with him he said, "Kojak left the group. I'm going to become the new Kojak." And he said, "There is room for you to take my old spot." I said,"Are you sure?" He said, "Yeah! Let's go meet Prince!" So he took me up to DJ Prince's house. I met DJ Prince. I got introduced to him and before you know slowly but surely I started hanging out with them everyday. I became the guy to help  move their equipment and then eventually I started practicing with DJ Princce and the new DJ Kojak. So it was Motorcycle Man aka. DJ Kojak who actually brought me in. By DJ Prince's father being one of the owners  of  the Executive Playhouse we would soon become the house DJs.We played there almost every weekend if not by ourselves we played against Kool DJ Herc. We would be set up on one side of the stage and Herc would be set up on the other. It wasn't a battle. I wouldn't call it that. But we played and there I learnt a lot. My eyes opened up. I got to experience a lot. I got to experience a whole different atmosphere. Not of the block parties but the club atmosphere. I tell you my mind was blown away because I was a teenager and I saw kids my age go up to the bar. Walking away with Champale, Grenadine and a cherry. Back then it was different in New York. Young kids was doing their thing, man! Forget about it, the year we all experienced Summer Youth Corps jobs????Oh my God! Everybody was getting fresh. everybody went to Delancey Street and to 125th Street in Harlem. The Playboy shoes!! Yeah, man!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Back then we did what we had to do. People learnt how to hustle at young ages. You lived for the weekends!!!! (excited) We got fresh and we went to the parties.. Yeeeeah, man! This is way before they had leather sneakers. We wore Pro-Keds and Pumas. You'd get splivey like we used to say back in the 1970ies. There was also a word back then that you used for your best friend. You didn't call him "My best friend!" you'd call him "My mellow!" That means somebody is really kool with you. That was a different time. It was a time of expression. It really was."

                                                       

April 9th, 1977: DJ Ice & DJ Kojak are rocking at the Sparkle in the Bronx along Kool DJ Herc and Coke La Rock.

April 29th, 1978: DJ Ice and DJ Kojak battle Kool DJ Troy and DJ Dizzy Diz at the legendary Webster P.A.L. in the Bronx.   

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you would get ready for going to a party in the 1970ies!"

DJ ICE:"When I got that Summer Youth Corps job, man, I would get new clothes, bring them home and then Friday or Saturday night you would be in the house. At about 7 pm you would shower. You would also make sure that you got a fresh haircut. You got to have a fresh haircut!! And then you would have your clothes laid out on the bed. After the shower you would put your cologne on. The cologne back then was Champagne by Caron. You would get dressed and then you would go outside and get in a cab or an O'Jay. O'Jay was like the luxury cab company. You had to call early to reserve a car 'cause if you waited too long.....forget about it..you would get nothing. And an  O'Jay was either a Cadillac or an Oldsmobile 98. You would go over to the party and take your girl with you or meet her there...whatever the case might be.You might also just ride with your friends or the girls might be riding with their girls. Everybody was doing their thing, man!!  We was doing adult things at a young age. We didn't do stupid things. We lived to party."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were some of the other spots that you DJed at with DJ Kojak?"

DJ ICE:"We had a park, me and DJ Kojak. We found this park in the neighbourhood. Nobody was ever down there and the park was full of glass. I told Kojak, "Man, we need to find a place that we can call our home as far as block parties." He said, "We got River Park Towers." I said, "Nah, we can't just set up here and just throw a party. We need to be somewhere on the Westside that we can call home." Me and Kojak went down, I showed him the park. We cleaned it up and it was on Sedgwick Avenue & Cedar Avenue and it was Cedar Park."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you were actually the first DJs to play in Cedar Park?"

DJ ICE:"That's right. That was our park. We were the first to throw a jam in there. At this point in the game I was like 16 years old. I told my younger brother Spice Nice who was like 12, 13 years old at this point,"I found this park but I don't know how I'mma get electricity down there." He said,"Where is it at?" And I told him I said, "Cedar Park." He didn't say nothing. About four hours later he came and found me. He said, "You can give your block party now if you want." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "I hooked it up." I said, "What do you mean?" He said, "Well, you know the light pole?" I said, "Yeah." He said, "I went in there and put an adapter in there so you could hook up to it and give a block party." I said, "No, you didn't." He said, "Yes, I did." I said, "Man, momma would have killed me if something happened to you down there!" You see, Spice Nice always was a kid growing up that would always tinker around with stuff. Like he made his own doorbell and he also made his first mixer by hand! He made a mixer!! So anyway because of him we was able to throw a party. So we went out and set up the equipment. At his time we had left DJ Prince and we had hooked up with Mr. Magic and we did the first jam in Cedar Park. And Cedar Park was packed!!!!! It was a huge park. It has a big fence around it on the back side and on the street side. If it wasn't 1500 to 2000 people in there it wasn't nobody there. It might have been more because people was standing on the sidewalks. Vendors showed up, you know they was selling hot dogs and sodas on the sidewalk. We had a good time. No incidents! We partied until we didn't want to party no more. I think we stopped at around 1:30 in the morning."

November 3rd, 1978: DJ Ice & DJ Kojak are playing at the Sparkle (Harlem).

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you built up your record collection? How did you finance all that?"

DJ ICE:"Well, you had a little job and you made a little money from your parties and you hustled on the side. You know, whatever it was. Some people was good at shooting pool. You know, you could make your 40$ shooting pool. Maybe 100$ shooting pool. And back then 100$ went a long way. Even 40$ went a long way. Money had a value to it back then. You did what you had to do to hustle up some cash to build a record collection. Sometimes you had friends that had albums in their house and they would give 'em to you or let you use them. There was record stores. You didn't download beats online. It wasn't no internet. It wasn't no cellphones. Communication was on the street then and it was face to face. You made flyers if you was throwing a party. That's how the word got out. The streets talked back then. So if you was throwing a party the streets would talk about it. You would go to Manhattan to Downstairs Records and you would spend hours in there searching for music. Searching for albums and 45s. And a lot of successful DJs they wouldn't let you see what they was playing. The labels of the records were either covered or erased. You didn't just grab the name. You had to put in work to find out who made that song! You had to go hunting for it. A lot of songs...you would just go down to record stores and hunt for hours. Sometimes you would spend five hours down there and find nothing!!! Sometimes you would only find like a very short beat and you would turn into something nice by extending it or mixing it with something else. The crowd they just loved new beats! Some of the beats we knew from our childhood 'cause our parents played them. So we went to their album collection. Music was a big industry back then. You had your Mom & Pop record stores. Then you had your big corporation record stores. Then you had your underground record stores." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and how did built up your soundsystem? How strong was it?"

DJ ICE:"To tell you the truth back then I wasn't into wattage. But I could tell you this. Mr. Magic had one of the best soundsystems you would ever hear in your life!!! Number one is he had two speakers that came...you know, how you have warning speakers in your neighbourhod? They have them on the telephone poles."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, for public announcements..."

DJ ICE:"Yeah, public announcements. Well, back then they used to have big horns and Mr. Magic had two of those and he used those for mids and then he had like six base speakers and then he had Bose speakers that he used for tweeters. You can't beat Bose!!!  He had like four amps that were just pushing! They wasn't even turned up past 3 and he could smoke a park. Easily smoke a park! We battled Kool DJ Herc one time at the Sparkle which used to be the Executive Playhouse and my God you couldn't even hear Kool DJ Herc!!! You couldn't hear him and so his guys got upset and they went around pulling our speaker wires. So we packed up and left. That's what they planned to do to get rid of us because he was gonna get smoked that night! At that point he was already past his prime. I mean he was still a big name! Don't get me wrong. Kool DJ Herc is always gonna be a big name but he was already passed that.

SIR NORIN RAD:"That Mr. Magic that you're talking about isn't the famous radio host from the 1980ies though, right?"

DJ ICE:"It was a different guy. His name was Rob Summers. He was a big guy about 6'1. He was also a good guy. He lived in 1600 Sedgwick Avenue right next door to Kool DJ Herc. So did DJ Black Jack. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were DJ Kryptonite and DJ Fudge?"

DJ ICE:"They were all from Sedgwick Avenue. It was a group: DJ Black Jack, Doc La Rock, DJ Fudge and Dj Kryptonite. Yeah, that was a group mainly out of 1600 Sedgwick Avenue. They was from the Westside of the Bronx. And Black Jack wind up DJing with Kool Herc. for a while. That was before Imperial J.C. was down with Kool DJ Herc."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and who was DJ Pee Wee?"

DJ ICE:"Yeah, DJ Pee Wee! He DJed out of River Park Towers.  There was also another DJ that DJed with DJ Prince after me and DJ Kojak had left named DJ Pop. River Park Towers was huge for talent!!!"

November 24th, 1978: DJ Ice & DJ Kojak are playing at I.S. 131 in the Bronx along with the Brothers Disco, DJ Mario & The Chuck Chuck City Crew and DJ Afrika Bambaataa & The Zulu Nation.

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the role of each individual within your crew!"

DJ ICE:"Well, Mr. Magic..his main thing was setting up the equipment. He was older than us. He would play a little bit. His crowd was an older crowd. More like a college crowd, they wasn't into breakbeats and B-Boying like we were. DJ Kojak might start off  or we would start off together. If Kojak would play I would hand him records or I would play and he would hand me records. We would also be on the mic, hyping up the crowd. We played together a lot of times, a lot of times we played on our own. We kept the party moving and grooving and we had a strong following crowd. Very strong. Guys like Lovebug Starski, Kool DJ AJ and Grandmaster Flash would come to our parties and we would go to their parties."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name your top 3 breakbeats of all time!"   

DJ ICE:"James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose". I heard this song about 3 million times and still can't get enough of it. "Apache" That was it when that came out, man!! it was over with that! Also for me "Get Into Something" by The Isley Brothers and "It's Just Begun" by The Jimmy Castor Bunch. That was the anthem! "Scorpio" by Dennis Coffey. "Baby Huey "Listen To Me". That was THE song!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please talk about the Hustle records that you would play at your jams!"

DJ ICE:"We would play a session with just breakbeats and then we would break it down. Slow the beats down. We would play stuff like "Down On The Avenue" by The Fat Larry's Band or "Dominos" by Donald Byrd or "T Plays It Cool" by Marvin Gaye" and then we would break it into the Hustle session. Man, the party wouldn't stop. It's like a whole new energy that you pump into the crowd. You got 100 people on the floor doing the Hustle!! It was insane! I'm telling you.They had some fantastic Hustle dancers back then. Like Eldorado Mike and there were some sisters out of the Westside that was really good dancers. Hustlers! It was Sondra and she had two other sisters. There was four of them, one of them didn't dance. Then there was Janice aka Janet Rock. She was huge!!!!Oh my God, she could Hustle, man! Hiphop wouldn't be where it is today if it wasn't for the females! They played a huge part."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you also play slow joints?"

DJ ICE:"Oh, yeah! You would start off with a bounce groove and then you would build it up to a party groove. Then you would go into B-Boying. Theeeen you would go into a more mellow Hustling groove and then you would slow it down. You would slow it down to get the bar going. You would slow it down with slow songs. "I Found Love On A Two Way Street", "For The Love I Gave To You"....the list goes on and on. We would break it down. We would always play slow songs! That was a part of it back then. Every DJ did that."

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

DJ ICE:"Oh yeah, yeah!! I would like to thank my Father in heaven for the opportunity to experience all that I have with Hiphop and in life with kids and grandkids 'cause without Him we are all lost. That's the first shoutout! The second will be to my man DJ Kojak! May he rest in peace! To my boy DJ Black Jack and to all the brothers and sisters that I have met and partied with at such a young age. Hiphop is something I will always have in my heart and I will always have with me. To DJ Clutch, DJ Pee Wee and DJ Whitehead!