Interview with B-Boy TT La Rock

                                                        Interview with B-Boy TT  La Rock

                                                

                                           

B-Boy T.T. La Rock

                                    conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

T.T. LA ROCK:"I was born in the Bronx in Jacobi Hospital in 1961."

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

T.T. LA ROCK:"It was music that my mother liked, old time music from my mother's and my father's era and then when I turned 13 I started buying 45s and LPs.....you know, albums. We saved our money and got a component set to play our records on. Me and my brother...'cause I had a older brother that I grew up with and I had two more brothers but they lived in Ohio. So me and my older brother we used to buy posters and records and we would go to the movies and stuff like that. We would combine our money so we could get what we wanted. My parents listened to James Brown and Little Richard and all those guys from back then. My mother was in love with Little Richard. So we had a lot of Little Richard albums around the house. Gladys Knight & The Pips, The Whispers, Earth, Wind & Fire...yeah you know, it was mostly groups back then. R&B groups."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you got into B-Boying!"

T.T. LA ROCK:"As I grew up I started liking music and I started dancing. I started dancing to like Hiphop music (the breakbeats). I was born in 1961 so by 1971 I was ten years old and I was probably in the 3th grade. I had asthma when I was young so I used to be sick a lot. I used to stay out of school and then I used to be home a lot. So sometimes I used to run around and leave the house and go outside. I wasn't supposed to do that. I was supposed to be sick but I started feeling better while I was at home and I would sneak outside to go run around and then I found myself being around other people. You know, that was outside, that didn't go to school and stuff like that. And one of my partners became Georgie Brooks. A little guy. He was a Muslim. His whole family was Muslim. That's how I became introduced to the teachings of the Nation Of Islam. Me and him we were in the same grade in P.S. 39 on Longwood Avenue in the South Bronx. So when I started hanging out with him he took me to this basement area one day in Hunts Point on Garrison Avenue. It was on Garrison & Irvine and it was in the basement and they was playing music down there. I had never been to a basement party before. I had been to house parties before that. This guy Ray was down there DJing. I think his name was Ray or something like that. That was the first time I saw somebody DJing. They was like moving the speakers around and trying to do a sound check and all that. Then they started playing the music. Then people started dancing and then I started seeing people Breaking on the floor. There was a group of B-Boys who all wore black velours hats. I was like,"What are they doing?" 'cause I didn't know what they was doing so I asked Georgie, "What are they doing?"It was me, him. Then he went and got his cousin Gregory Martin who went by the name of G-Man and he also went and got Lil' Tim. I was Big Tim and he was Lil' Tim. He was G-Man's little brother. They was from Bruckner Boulevard and their older brother was DJ Dice. Then they went and got this big guy.... he was about my size or a little bigger... named Terry.  He was all over the place 'cause he was big. He used to do spins and jumping around and floating all over the place. So I was really like, "What is he doing? He is going wild!!" So they was telling me that they was Breaking but I liked the way that they was doing it 'cause they was doing with the style!!!!  They had a little style with the kicking their feet and spinning around! They was doing all the moves and stuff! So I was like,"Wow, man!! You gotta show me how to do that!" So the next day when we met up we was in the hallway 'cause we used to meet up in the hallway and we used to buy liquor  and cigarettes. We was young. So we couldn't let people know that we was drinking and smoking cigarettes. We were little bad boys. I ain't gonna lie. So they started showing me how to go down. They called it "Going down". The first move was how to go down. You know, where you kick your feet and then you put them together and you spin down and you go down and you touch the floor and then you start kicking your feet forward and all that. Then they showed me how to do some spins and turns and freezes. You know, how to freeze and stop with the beat. They would teach me like a little bit at the time. Step by step. Different little moves and everything. Moves that they liked to do. Each of them had like different moves that they liked to do, that they considered their best moves. Moves that they did when they wanted to impress people around them. So I started gathering up all the moves, learning all the steps from everybody that was there in the hallway. So then I started to go to parties with them more and then in the party I started dancing myself. I started B-Boying in the party with all of us in the group. I became like a part of their group. They had a girl in their group named Beedie B. She was a female and she used to Break with us, too. We were around for quite some time. I got introduced to DJ Mean Gene (from the L-Brothers) one time. I was going up on Boston Road but we lived on 163rd & Simpson Street. So we used to call that 163rd. 163rd Street ran from Southern Boulevard all the way over to Webster Avenue or whatever, right? We travelled a lot but this time I just went up on Boston Road for the first time and they had a little minischool up there on 169th Street or 168th Street and DJ Mean Gene was playing in the minischool. That's first I seen Mean Gene DJing and playing music and he used to B-Boy, too!!! He had big feet so we used to call him Big Feet Gene. A lot of people don't know that about him. He was from the L-Brothers. He used to be with Cordie-O and Theodore and all them. So I met him up there and so I knew him as a street DJ. He was a guy that was DJing in the street. That was the first time I saw a DJ in the street. I was used to be in a club and then I saw him and he was in the street. We used to go all around our borough. It was like a big adventure. I didn't start going out my borough until later. When I first was in the public school P.S. 39 on Longwood Avenue...that was my area, you know? Union Avenue, Intervale Avenue all those areas in the South Bronx where they have the police station Fort Apache. That was my police station, the 41st precinct. We came up in a rough gang area. When I graduated from P.S. 39 I went to I.S. 116 when they first opened up. Everybody else used to go to JHS 133 but I didn't go to JHS 133 'cause they opened up a new school called I.S. 116. So I went to that school 'cause it was right up the street from where I was living. I lived on Barretto Street and the school was on Fox Street. But we used to play basketball against JHS 133. I used to go over there and I used to see Melle Mel and them B-Boying in JHS 133 'cause they was B-Boys, too!! It was Mellle Mel and Mr. Ness. They was B-Boying in JHS 133, in the gym, in the yard. " 

 

Original South BX B-Girl Beedie B

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever run into a B-Boy by the name of Bruce Lee who was down with the Casanovas?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Oh yeah, yeah!! I was a Casanova! I was in the Casanova Crew with Tiny and them. Bruce Lee, Papa Smurf, Nunu, Cletus, Little Peanut that died. It wasn't a lot of them though that were B-Boys.  Most of the ones that was B-Boying from the Casanovas  was me and Bruce Lee. A lot of them did security. I ain't gonna lie. A lot of them were more or less drug dealers and stick up kids. We was hustling hard back then ! I loved to dance 'cause I always danced since I was little." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of spot was the Casita Maria?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Everybody used to come to the Casita Maria where we had a lot of pretty girls there from Simpson Street and my area. Hoe Avenue and all that. They used to come to the Casita Maria. It was a night center. I mean not night center, you had to be 14 years or older to go there. You would go to the day center until you turned 14. Then you were allowed to go to the night center. They had CYO basketball tournaments there, juniors and seniors. We were like the most notorious center for basketball. We always came in first place. We used to go to the circuit and win. Grandmaster Flash used to come down there and give a party. That's when I really started battling against Mr. Ness and them in the basement of Casita Maria. We used to battle! That's where he used to do that snake move. He used to go down on the floor and wiggle around like a serpent!  Everybody used to go, "Wow!!!" Everybody used to get crazy when he did that. That's how I knew Mr. Ness was a real good B-Boy and he was a wild dude back then. He used to win a lot of battles. So I used to be careful Breaking with him 'cause I didn't want him to embarass me sometimes. B-Boying was totally different back then. It wasn't a whole lot of gymnastics and stuff like that like they do now. Now they put a lot of aerodynamics to it, you know? People look they been in gymnasium to learn how to do that shit but back then it was like mostly floor moves and, you know, Breaking and stopping and freezing and pretending to be talking on the telephone and then giving it to somebody or you'd make a window and then you'd open the window and then you'd look through it and push the other guy in the face. You know, it was a lot of theatrical clown shit that had everybody laughing like, "Oh shit, look what he did!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many people would fit in the Casita Maria and how many B-Boys would be doing their thing there?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Well, this is what started happening, right? First you had the Barretto Street Crew. We used to call ourselves the Barretto Boys, right? The Barretto Boys lived right down there . Then you had the Simpson Street Crew. The Simpson Street Crew lived right up the block right on Simpson Street because the Casita Maria is on Simpson Street in a two blocks  radius and then you turn into Fox Street. They meet like in a little triangle right there. Those three blocks! Fox, Barretto and Simpson and then they expand and go into another direction, right? So you had the Fox Street Boys, Barretto Street Boys, Simpson Street Boys. Then Southern Boulevard Boys would come over from Southern Boulevard. They had the Southern Boulevard Crew. Then you had the Hunts Point Crew! Then you had the Hoe Avenue Crew and many other crews from around that area and they would come over there and all of them had B-Boys in their crews. Back then you was recognized from the neighbourhood you come from. If you was from Hoe Avenue, you was Hoe Avenue Crew. " 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the DJ of the Casita Maria?" 

T.T. LA ROCK:"The DJ of the Casita Maria was Grandmaster Flash. Casita Maria and the area around Casita Maria all we had was DJ Flash! I mean, we also had DJ Mean Gene and the L-Brothers sometimes. They would come through there and do their thing. See this is what happened. The first person I really met was Grandmaster Flash 'cause he lived right across the street from me. I lived on Barretto Street and Flash lived on Fox Street. That's when he lived on Fox Street before he moved to Prospect Avenue. At that time they didn't even have two turntables!!  All they had was one component set. He went to Samuel Gompers High School for electronics. Him and OG 2 (legendary Writer from The Fabulous Five Crew).  He used to write on the trains first. Before he was a DJ he was a graffiti artist (a Writer). We used to call him Banana Nose Joe 'cause he got a big nose. I watched Flash. I used to watch him. He used to be with my cousin OG 2. They used to drink together and go write on the train and everything. So I used to watch him. He used to come out on his stoop with a component set, with one album and one needle, right? He used to hook that thing up to the lamp post! Right in front of the building! He knew a lot about electricity because he went to Samuel Gompers High School. He learnt that in that school. So he would stand in front of his building and play the record and he would hold the needle in one hand and he would drop the needle back real quick every time he wanted it to repeat what it was saying on the record. He used to be in front of his building with little speakers and everything! And the block used to have a little party with him in front of his building! That's when he first started. Flash started DJing in the basement of Casita Maria. That's the first party that we had with Flash and Melle Mel, Kid Creole, Cowboy and them. That's in the basement. In the basement that's where we shot pool at. Flash used to always play this slow record "I Don't Want Go" by The Moments to end his parties. That's when they used to slow dance.  That's something they don't do no more but we used to slow dance before we left the party. Then from the basement they let him do parties upstairs in the gym. Then they started throwing parties on the roof and that's when Grandwizard Theodore and them started coming over there. That's when they started giving the roof parties on top of Casita Maria's roof!  They had a fence around it 'cause it was a night center. So they didn't want people to break in and steal their basketballs and all that stuff. So they had a big fence around the whole roof of the Casita Maria so nobody could fall off. You didn't have to worry about not being safe. It was fenced off.  Once they figured out how they could get the equipment up there and how they could get the electricity and all that stuff they let Flash do parties up there. They gave out flyers and the flyers said, "Casita Maria Rooftop Party!" Larry Savage was the one in control of the night center at Casita Maria. Jeffrey Bellows was another one. Mr. Jefferson ran the whole thing. I forgot his first name."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did Grandmaster Flash start playing at the Casita Maria?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I would say that they didn't get that spot going until about 1975. I had to be about 14 years old to get in there, right? So in 1975 I was fourteen. Later on I would see Mel and them in 18 Park. That's when they had started MCing. Flash would play "Super Sporm" by Captain Sky and "Trans Europe Express" by Kraftwerk. Melle Mel was saying that rhyme about,"I'm Melle Mel and I rock so well! From the T-O-P to the depths of hell!"We was Breaking to that, right?"

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

T.T. LA ROCK:"I used to Break real hard and do like a lot of the foot movement on the ground! Real fast like my legs would look like they would move at lightning speed. I would add a little flip and everything. Then I used to spin real hard, like real fast  and then I would act like a little baby crying on the ground. I used to beat my head on the ground and make my leg move back and forth like a baby whining.  Then I used to come back up real quick and start dancing again. That was my finishing move. I used to call that "The Baby Crying"! And it would always be to the beat of the music! Like especially on "Apache"!

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you would dress up back then!"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I used to always wear Pro-Keds 69ers. I used to wear Pumas. I used to wear British Walkers and Sharkskins. I used to wear a lot of A.J. Lester gear. I used to wear Alpaca V-Neck Sweaters...Remember that picture that I sent you? That was from 1978. I was 16 years old going on 17. I got green suede Converse joints on. I also got the green Globetrotters shorts on and the long tube socks with the lines around them and the t-shirt. You can see that I was going to be Breaking."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on the B-Boys and B-Girls that you used to run with back then! Like who was down with your crew?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"My little crew was me, Little G aka Georgie Brooks and then we had G-Man aka Gregory Martin. We also had Little Tim. He passed away.  God bless the dead! He got killed up in 22 Park. He got shot. Everybody called him Lil Lightning Legs. He was sweet with his! It was him and Lil Joe. We had Lil Joe with us. Then there was Rabbit from Simpson Street. He was also a 5 Percenter. He was down with the Nation of Gods & Earths. Thus his righteous name was Prince. He used to do back flips as part of his routines. We used to dance together at the Casita Maria. Nobody could do back flips better than him. I already told you about Beedie B. We also had Maurice aka Moe Gator. He was from Hunts Point off Manida Avenue. We all started in Hunts Point on Garrison Avenue & Irvine Street in the 1970ies."

Original South BX B-Boy G-Man

SIR NORIN RAD:"I spoke to a B-Boy from Monroe Houses called Worm who mentioned your name to me. Please describe how you met him!"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah!!! Ricky Worm!!! That's my partner! He called me Timmy Tim! Me and Worm used to party hard. That was my partner when I came over there! He used to work in a grocery store in Stevenson Commons. He got a brother named Scottie. So when I went to the store I asked him to make me a Hero sandwich and then we just started talking a lot. He came outside and we started talking. I started hanging out with him, going to his store a lot.  Then we started getting high together, smoking weed, walking around the whole projects. He knew my first baby mother Frajon Drayton out of 870 Rosedale. She was my 9th grade sweetheart. Then I found out that he could Breakdance because we went to a lot of parties together. We went everywhere where music was playing. We started to show off our moves!  That ni**er could dance! Man, listen! We used to be Breaking in JHS 123 and the parties DJ Mario used to give. We used to breakdance in Sack Wern, Noble Park and Monroe Projects. Everywhere we went we used to Breakdance together.  His move was the Worm because he used to slide around the ground like a worm which mad him a great B-Boy. Everybody knew Worm from Monroe Projects. He was real popular. He had curly black hair. I had one baby mother over there, he had like about five baby mothers. He had a lot of kids over there! Ricky was a wild dude!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told that he used to dance with a drink in his hand."

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah, all the time!! Yeah! Old English! That ni**er would drink Old English all the time! "

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you would go mainly to DJ Afrika Bambaataa's and DJ Mario's parties?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah, 'cause Worm loved Mario and Bambaataa. Much respect to the Zulu Nation but their music was different from everybody else's music."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What makes you say that?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"They was all hypnotized by his music. He played some really crazy breakbeats and that shit went on for a long time without stopping! He had the strobe lights and all the fast bulbs going. He had them really going! You'd go to a Zulu Nation Afrika Bambaataa party in JHS 123 with nobody else being there but him and his crew......man, the whole gym would be lit. The strobe lights would you make look white ashy and shit and everybody looked like they was moving in slow motion. Like on some bizarre shit! You would be like, "What the hell is going on?" All of them would be dancing and all of them would be happy. It was crazy. The Zulu Kings would be doing their thing there. Cholly Rock and them. Craig Butler! Did you interview Craig Butler? Craig was a bad dude with it!!!! His younger brother Mike introduced me to him as we were close friends when I first came over to that area of the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What had caused you initially to go to the Southeast Bronx? Why did you go to places such as Bronxdale, Bronx River and Monroe?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I went to where DJ Mario was at and DJ Afrika Bambaataa and all of them because I went to Adlai E. Stevenson High School which was in the Soundview section of the Bronx. I used my aunt's address 955 Evergreen Avenue since I lived outside the district in 934 Barretto Street. I graduated from I. S. 116 which was intermediate 7th to 8th grade in 1977. So I entered Adlai E. Stevenson High School as a 9th grade freshman. That's when I met all of them. That's when I started going to JHS 123 parties.  Me and Crazy Eddie from the Casanova Crew used to go over to JHS 123. It was like a brand new Hiphop and Breaking experience for me under different DJs and B-Boys. In Adlai E. Stevenson I met Charlie Chew who would later MC for the Jazzy Four / Five. Charlie Chew was a B-Boy, too. He used to breakdance with me at Stevenson High School. We used to be in the gym working out together and stuff like that because we were both part of Stevenson's  football team. They played music for the workout so I started Breaking and then he said, "Yo, you can breakdance?" I said,"Yeah, I know how to breakdance." Then he said, "I know how to breakdance, too!" So then he started Breaking and then we both started going off while we were supposed to be working out in the weight room. He was DJing and giving parties in Soundview and he would dance at his parties. He knew how to breakdance real good. We used to call him Charlie Choo Choo 'cause he was like a choo choo train." 

B-Boy Craig Butler

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were some of the other spots that you used to go to back then in order to dance?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"I used to be over there with DJ Smokey and them on Grant Avenue, too. I had a girlfriend that lived on Clay Avenue & 168th Street named Denise Samuels. She had a cousin named Gladys who lived on Sheridan Avenue. We used to hang out in her apartment. I used to be up there with my cousin named Trigger. Trigger lived on Findlay Avenue. Grant Avenue is right in between Morris Avenue and Sheridan Avenue. One day I was walking past there with Trigger. I remember they had a little supermarket that I went to. Then I heard the music out there! They was out there...DJ Smokey with the music and everything and I saw the Smoke-A-Trons Breaking in the street.  So I asked my cousin Trigger, "Who that over there?" So he's like,"Oh that's  DJ Smoke, they call him Smokey and he got the Smoke-A-Trons." Then he told me that they used to be in the Burger King where we would be at on Prospect Avenue and everything and I didn't know that. So I said, "Oh, they be up there?" He said, "Yeah, that's where Meth be at all the time." Meth was a hustler. So then I started Breaking against the Smoke-A-Trons. Matter of fact I danced against them multiple times and then I started liking their crew and we started talking and chilling some time together and then one time I went to Burger King with them and we was up in the Burger King doing our thing in the Burger King on Prospect. That was the night I think Hootenanny from the Casanovas got hit. There was some ruckus outside of the Burger King and the cab driver took off 'cause he got scared and he hit Hootenanny when he took off and hurt his legs. All this happened around 1975 or 1976." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"It seems to me that oftentimes fights broke out at those jams. Why was this the case?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"You had so many different crews there with so many different reputations. So you had to be aware of so many different cats. The beefs would mostly start because there was cats coming to the parties that had big reputations at least in their own areas. So if I had a big reputation in my area and I was known not to take no bullshit and I was known to take your shit if you started some shit you could be in trouble, you know what I'm saying?? It was like one of them things where you had to know somebody that would be really hanging out around there 'cause if you don't really know somebody and somebody finds out that you're a nobody trying to be somebody then they would start some shit! They would walk up to you, man, and push you or some shit or slap your hat off."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who came to the parties with that kind of energy? Was it the B-Boys or the cats that ran with them?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"Well, this is what I can tell you. It was mostly like this: The DJs and the MCs they were basically good guys, right? The B-Boys?? They were kind of shady. (laughs) In other words they were good guys, too, but you know what I'm saying some of the B-Boys were really stick-up kids and shit like that, too. They had bad behaviours. Like I used to go to Flash's parties and I remember this girl got shot at the Mitchell Gym over there on Alexander Avenue. There was this guy called Red Jack he sold CP30 which was some sort of Angel Dust. If you knew the personality behind the name then you knew what the Angel Dust effect was. We had different names for different types of Angel Dust. Red Jack and them they were in the back of Mitchell Gym. See, they used to party in the front. Doing the Hustle, Breaking and shit and then in the back where the bathroom was at they was shooting dice. They had big dice games going. So that's where all the money was at and so that's also where the Angel Dust was sold at. So now you had the stick-up kids back there 'cause they knew that all that money was there because of the dice games and the guys that sold Angel Dust and the stick-up kids get the idea that they gonna rob the Angel Dust guys and the dice guys, all at the same time and then leave the party. So they do that. They rob' em. Willy Bang was involved in that robbery against Red Jack and them from Manhattan. So they got robbed and they went back to Manhattan to get their guns and then they came to the Bronx to the party. They stood across the street and they started shooting at people that came out the party that they thought was involved in the shit because of what they're wearing. Like black Leather Bombers or whatever. But the guys that had robbed them had already left. So this innocent girl got shot in the jaw with a 45. The police is right there, they're  coming out of the police station. I go over there to see what's happening and Flash and them come outside and for no reason whatsoever Flash looks at me right there with the police standing there and he says to me,"Why every time you come to my party all this shit happens?" So I'm like, "Why the hell are you saying this to me for? I ain't got nothing to do with this shit! I'm just coming to the party." So I just turned around with my girl and left. But that's the type of shit that was going on back then. They used to call me all the time to the front. They used to say,"Timmy Romance, would you please come to the front?" So then me and my crew we used to come to the front and they used to be like,"Yo, would you please tell the stick-up kids not to do no shit?" So I said,"Aight, let me go." So I used to confront them ni****s like, "Yo, wassup, man? Flash and them said y'all can't be robbing ni****s in the bathroom. Chill out with that shit! Take it outside, man! We wanna have a decent party. We don't wanna have to stop the party on behalf of what you guys are doing in the bathroom."  They used to love me for this shit but at the same time they also blamed me for shit that popped off at the parties. So I told them, "You can't have it both ways!" I mean sometimes I did start some shit (laughs)."

Melle Mel & T.T. La Rock

SIR NORIN RAD:"I heard about a spot where Flash used to throw parties at and it was a boxing ring or something like that. Could you please elaborate on that?"

T.T. LA ROCK:" Yeah, that's 1111 Fox!! They just tore that down. That was the P.A.L. for the police. The police that used to run that and used to give it to Flash was called Big George from the 41st precinct. He was a detective. He trained me to be a boxer 'cause he was a boxing trainer, too.That was a boxing gym. I used to box in there and train. Big George would get with Flash and Ray Chandler and he would let them party there. It was on 1111 Fox Street. We called it 1111 Fox. All of us was in there! The Barretto Crew, the Hoe Avenue Crew. All of us. They used to be in the ring with the DJ equipment and everything. We'd be on the side dancing and everything. We had a lot of room in there to dance and everything. And like I said Flash would always play "I Don't Wanna Go" by The Moments at the end of the party. But before that we used to be Breaking hard to joints like "That's The Joint" by Van McCoy. Me as a B-Boy I was really part of Grandmaster Flash's crew. Everywhere Flash went, I went. Savoy Manor, 1111 Fox, Mitchell Gym, Casita Maria, Rosevelt High School."

Van McCoy - That's The Joint 1976

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

T.T. LA ROCK:"Well, my top breakbeat was "Apache". The break part of "Apache"!! I got my rhythm off of that. I knew when the break was coming in. When that beat came on it was electrifying for us!!!!  

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do these days mean to you in retrospect?"

T.T. LA ROCK:"It was a good time!! It was a time when we was coming up and we had something to do. It made us feel like we was free. Just doing what we wanted to do as kids growing up. "

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

T.T. LA ROCK:"Yeah, I would like to shout out Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five! And I would like to give a shoutout to my personal crew! To Georgie Brooks, G-Man aka Greg Martin, Beedie B, Lil Tim (RIP), Rabbit. To my Simpson Street Crew: Righteous, Wisdom Born, Jimmy aka Slick. It's a whole lot of them out there, man! To the Casanova Crew! To Ricky Worm! I could go on forever...and shoutouts to you  Norin Rad!"

 SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you! I want to shout out my Intruders Crew as well as all the true pioneers of Hiphop! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! Ukubambisana!!!! To Mr. Wiggles, Troy L. Smith, Pete Nice and Pluto 7!"