Interview with B-Boy Willie Wil (Rockwell Association)



                                                                 

Willie Wil (Rockwell Association)

                                                 conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)


SIR NORIN RAD:"Where in the Bronx did you live at when you got involved with B-Boying?"

WILLIE WILL:"182nd Street & Belmont Avenue...yeah, that's where I started. When I first picked it up I was hanging out with my boy Pops ( God bless his Soul). We had a friend named Rickie...he was a white boy actually..I think he was half-white and half-spanish.. and he had learnt it from a guy named Chopper from the Zulu Nation. He was teaching Rickie a move or two and then he showed us after we had bumped into him...so every time we ran into Chopper he would show us a couple of moves as he was walking by.  You know, he would stop and he would show us some basic footwork and then from there we just kept it going! From there we invented our own shit. Pops and me we were taught at the same time 'cause we were best friends. We used to hang out...before we went to school we would go to his house and clean our Super Pro-Keds, you know what I mean? With a toothbrush, make sure they're tight! And then we would go to school."  

 

Pops (Rockwell Association) - Willie Wil's first B-Boy partner

SIR NORIN RAD:"So how did you form your crew Rockwell Association after that?"

WILLIE WIL:"Me, Tito, Macho, the Rockwells...the ones that became Rockwell Association..we all met through flying pigeons and shit like that. So we used to hang out..then we showed them what we had learnt.....the moves that Chopper had taught us. There were others that already knew about it from somewhere else." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you say that you and Pops were the nucleus of Rockwell Association? The ones from which that whole crew originated?"

WILLIE WIL:"The nucleus of Rockwell Association was Macho and Tito. They're the ones who were the leaders with ideas of making our own B-Boy crew with our own DJs that would throw jams in the school yards of 129, 118, Belmont Playground St. Martin's, 57 school yard..also house party's... we followed their lead. 1976 that's when we first started after we had left the RCA Freak Masters. That's when we said that we would become Rockwell, not when we came out. We became Rockwell Association in the winter of 1976. We didn't come out with shirts and all that stuff till 1977 because not everybody had money to buy shirts at that time, not even me! We were still living with our moms. Imagine! In '77 when everybody had their shirts, you know saved up money, saved up money.....when the summer of 1977 came that's when we came out. Around 15, 20 of us...even the girls had shirts."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did these shirts come in a specific color combination?"

WILLIE WIL:"We started off with, I think it was navy blue and white...with white letters. The shirt was navy blue and the letters was white. Then one year we went to a different color...black..and after that it was every man for himself. Whoever wanted to buy a shirt with whatever color you want ...especially the main cats, you know what I mean? Ramon, Dee, myself, Tito, Hector...like that. Everybody was buying their own shit."

Rockwell Association Crew Colors

  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were the RCA Freak Masters a B-Boy crew?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yes, it started out like a B-Boy crew, as it grew things changed to more like a street gang that's when we decided to quit and make Rockwell."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So was Rickie also an original member of the Rockwell Association?"

WILLIE WIL:"No! Actually, he wasn't! He was just like one of our friends. Eventually he moved out and we just kept on. He moved away. Remember we were like 11, 12 years old when we started B-Boying."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Then who were the hardcore members of Rockwell Association?"

WILLIE WIL:"Me, Ramon, Hector, Dee, Carlos....those were the main cats...our best B-Boys....Macho, Tito...Pops....he was part of us and then he was like, "Yeah, Yeah!"  But he wasn't really too deep into that B-Boy stuff. He let us do it but we started it together. Later on we added Rubberband. We also had one B-Girl that wa in our crew for a little while, her name was Mama. She got down like us...she did all the footwork."

Ramon (Rockwell Association)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Macho started his own DJ Crew with Tito later on, right?"

WILLIE WIL:"The Rockwell Brothers! Yeah, him and Tito made the Rockwell Brothers after we had gotten out of Breaking. You know, after we got too old......to us it was already dead at a certain point. We stopped but Rock Steady kept going and took it to another level."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where would the Rockwell Brothers DJ at?"

WILLIE WIL:"Mostly at little jams and house parties. They DJed at 118 school yard and 129 park." 

Tito (DJ CKT) and Macho (DJ Macho Rock): The Rockwell Brothers

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were Macho and Tito also B-Boys?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, we used to send them out first to trick other crews into thinking that was the best we had! (laughs) They were the worst ones! They couldn't B-Boy for shit! (laughs heavily) They wanted to B-Boy so bad and they couldn't get it." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What lead to that legendary battle at St. Martin of Tours in 1979 in which you went against Spy and how did that battle go down?"

WILLIE WIL:" If there was a battle back then they would usually talk all that shit like, "We'll battle you! This and that!" You know what I mean?" Like we was gonna fight. Like we was gonna rumble. And we would say, "Alright! So we threw a jam and you come and battle us!" Cause we had the DJs and the equipment, too. That's what made us stick out 'cause we had DJ equipment, real DJ equipment. Not no little house speakers I'm talking about the big speakers and all that good stuff. So we had the place (St. Martin of Tours), we had the equipment and we had the B-Boys. So we told them to bring it. And that's how it started."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you had run into B-Boys of other crews and then all that trash talking started like, "We gonna serve you!"?

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, yeah it was like that! We used to go to anywhere where we knew that there were B-Boys, that there was a jam. Wherever there were people B-Boying we would be there, too."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were some the other spots besides Belmont Park where Rockwell Association would rock at?"

WILLIE WIL:"Moms & Pops!! If they don't go to the fucking Hiphop museum...you know what I mean? 'Cause these were people that used to throw real underground jams! That was a moving underground jam. One  minute it was in a burnt out building over here, the next minute it was in a basement, the next minute it was another abandoned building that ran electricity from the light pole to the equipment. Pay a dollar and go in! That's where we used to B-Boy, too. There were battles in there..the circles were so small cause everybody wanted to see what the hell we were doing....it was so close that if you made a sweep you would kick somebody! And we had to be like, "Yo, back up! Back up! Man, we can't move! How are we supposed to B-Boy if we can't move? "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Why was it called Moms & Pops?"

WILLIE WIL:"It was a husband and his wife and they had their kids who were of our age. They liked the music.....they used to run it like a club. That crew TDK..The Disco Kids.....they were part of Mom's & Pop's if I'm right."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where were their party spots located at?"

WILLIE WIL:"It was all over! Like a moving club! One month it was inside a basement....they would say,"Yo, Moms & Pops moved over there to the building across the street from Tremont Park!" It was moving. One winter it would be in a certain spot, the next winter it would be somewhere else. Never in the same place! Now we used to  do it, too!  Going to abandoned buildings or private houses and pull up the windows and run electricity from the street. Go to work. "Yo, we're throwing a jam! We're throwing a jam!" We used to come like that! People heard about these jams through word of mouth and if we were throwing a major jam they would know about the jams through flyers."  
                                   

Moms & Pops: legendary underground jam promoters

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the atmosphere like at these underground parties in the basements and apartments of these abandoned buildings?" 

WILLIE WIL:"Just imagine going into an apartment...it was an apartment basically.....twenty, thirty 30 people in there.....all just standing around at first, you know drinking, smoking, checking out the atmosphere. It was dark, you had your black lights on, you had your red lights.There was mad smoke in there. Underground, dude!! Underground!"   

SIR NORIN RAD:"And I guess people were strapped (carried guns), too?"

WILLIE WIL:"Hell yeah! At first we didn't start off like that but then after a while we started getting strapped. But mostly when we walked around strapped was Friday, Saturday when we were coming to hang out. Just us...in the park and we'd have our beers and smoke. If we wasn't battling or something like that....That was our hang out....Belmont Park. So we used to come at night time when everybody came out strapped." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"So would you consider that battle against Spy the highlight of your B-Boy career?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, I think so. Most of the battles that we had were in the streets away from our block. When we used to go to jams that's how they got to know us like, "Yo, these ni***s got a crew over here with B-Boys!" So but that one against Spy and them was on our home turf. That was in our place. We ran that shit. We ran Belmont Park, too at a time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"St. Martin of Tours was a catholic church though, right?"

WILLIE WIL:"That was the gymnasium of the church. Father Flynn, Father Ed..at that time it was Father Ed and Jacob."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So they were catholic priests?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, father Flynn and he was real famous. He used to walk around at 3 o'clock in the morning telling us, you know, "Be nice! Don't fight! Go to school! Stay away from drugs!" Fearless! He was real fearless. Nobody messed around with that man."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And they would allow you to throw jams in that church's gymnasium?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, you know why? Cause they used to have that gymnasium over there. So what they used to do was they would put ping-pong tables in there, throw out basketballs and people used to come and play in the gym. Instead of being in the street doing bad things we would be in the gym. Boxing, gymnastics.. I used to do a couple of gymnastics in there. We used to play ping pong, basketball. You know, stuff like that! It was like a community thing to keep us off the street and from there we got to the point where the fathers trusted us so much and the one who ran everything..Jacob....they used to give us the keys. We used to stay there over night and practice over there!"  

St. Martin of Tours

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, now which other crews were present at that legendary battle besides Rockwell Association?"

WILLIE WIL:"It was us. Spy and his crew (the Crazy Commanders)....but it wasn't really crews, it was just them guys representing. Cause it was more than just one crew on their side...Starchild La Rock was in there, The Disco Kids (TDK) were in there........they were battling against us, too. It's like they ganged up on us. They all wanted a piece of us, trying to shut us up. (laughs)"

SIR NORIN RAD:"But they weren't succesful..."

WILLIE WIL:"No, we won the battle right there. We took out all of them with that one battle. Nobody can say no different... that we'd bought the judges, that we knew them, that we gave them money...'cause that's what they gonna say. That the trophy already had our name on it..all that crap. It was a trophy that the fathers already had in the back from baseball or from football from old times. That's what they gave us."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did that duel between you and Spy wich took place during that battle come about?"

WILLIE WIL:" At first we threw Macho and Tito around. (laughs) We put them first, then we started going one on one like that until the end when they said, "Alright, now we gonna do the two best out of the two crews and that was me and Spy. See I don't know why they passed that honour to me because I thought Dee was better than me but they said,"Nah, you go, Wil! You're the man! And I was practicing that move that I finished him with for a minute, bro. I was practicing before we even got to that jam because I knew that the battle was coming up..we was getting ready for it..so I was practicing for new moves...some shit nobody saw before."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Before the Puerto Ricans got into Breaking they had that other style of dancing...."

WILLIE WIL:"The Uprocking! Yeah, it was Uprocking at that time! There was no Electric Boogie. Nobody was really doing the Electric Boogie at that time. It was Uprocking, that was some underground shit!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were you Uprocking as well before you picked up Breaking?"

WILLIE WILL:"Nah, I just couldn't do it. I couldn't get it. I couldn't do the Hustle neither! It wasn't in me. B-Boying stuck because I was athletic and I was doing gymnastics, everything so.."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you describe how a B-Boy of your era dressed?"

WILLIE WIL:"The B-Boy clothes for us was the sweatpants with the sweatshirts. I used to rock the suede Pumas.....the black ones with the white stripe or the white ones with the black stripe and used to match them with the black suit with the white "Rockwell Association" letters on the back or the opposite......all white suit with black letters. Adidas suits, Godfather hats...stuff like that. Run D.M.C. style long before there was Run D.M.C. I was a Kangol guy myself.Tito and Macho preferred the Godfather hats because they were the president and the vice-president. When I was getting jiggy to go out somewhere then I would rock a Godfather hat...put on the full leather trenchcoat."

Carlos (Rockwell Association) rocking a Godfather Hat

      

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your top 3 breakbeats to get down to?"

WILLIE WIL:"Oh, "Apache", "It's Just Begun" and "Bongo Rock". There's plenty more but these were my three top choices because with "Bongo Rock" you had to be fast and at that time I was fast....without EVER missing a beat. "It's Just Begun" that's the hype one."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Alright and what were some of your signature moves back then?"

WILLIE WIL:"I don't even know what the names of them were. I never named them....I just know I did them. I never named my moves! I don't know how that started (laughs). Footwork was the main thing. When we first started..me and Pops...it was all footwork. It was no freezes, no spinning, none of that. The freezes came after."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So what Chopper showed you and Pops was basically footwork shuffles?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, that's what he showed us! He showed us footwork! And from there we started doing our own moves. So that's why I tell you that I can't really name any move. I mean I had signature moves! They were dangerous even that if you didn't land right you would break your leg or your arm. I remember we had one that was called the Sweep. On the floor..you know how they do the Sweep now on the floor...well, I used to do that in the air! I'd run real fast and jump as high as I could and sweep in the air, then I would come down and do a backspin and then from there just keep going. And it had to be one fluid move if not you'd get hurt. I beat Spy with a Sweep into a Headspin. That's what I won with cause the Headspin wasn't really out at that time. I mean I had never seen nobody doing it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How often did you spin on your head?"

WILLIE WIL:"It was two spins, it was only two full spins and I didn't land on my stomach or anything like that. I landed on my back with my legs bent like that and with my hands holding my balls, you know what I mean? That was a burn back then! And everybody went wild, kid!! And when Spy tried to do something he...I don't know what the fuck happened...he tripped and shit and fucked up...and you know in those days it was smooth! If you fucked up, you know, it was like, "Oh, he fucked up!" Everybody saw that! So that's the way it went down! That's how I won!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"But everything you did matched the beat, right?"

WILLIE WIL:"Of course! It had to be on beat with the record when you B-Boyed, you know what I mean?! It wasn't just go off and B-Boy!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you and the rest of the Rockwell Association practice? Did you practice your moves on cardboard?"

WILLIE WIL:"No, we practiced on the concrete. That's why we moved into the hallways...like we had a big hallway in 735 right there on a 182nd. It was a big hallway, bro. We used to bring the box in there and we used to play music and B-Boy there, you know? It was less scratching than concrete because I did a headspin on the concrete, bro,  and believe me that was not funny! I think I'm still missing some hair from that part there when I did the headspin."

The hallway of 735: Pratice spot of the Rockwell Association

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you continue to dance after that famous battle against Spy at St. Martin's in 1978 or did you stop after that?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, we kept on for a little while but then we needed money 'cause we were getting older. So we stopped altogether. We were getting jobs and stuff like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also hang out with members of other B-Boy crews?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, we used to hang out with other crews like The Mexicans. A lot of people don't remember that crew. They were from University Ave or some shit like that. I didn't know them individually. I just knew them from going to one of their blocks and hanging out with them, drinking beer, talking shit, lighting up, doing a couple of moves..."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you would exchange concepts of  moves with other B-Boys?"

WILLIE WIL:"Yeah, we used to breakdance together, they would show us stuff and we would show them. You know at that time everybody was biting. Nobody can front!  Nobody can front.! It's not like I invented every move I ever did. If I saw a move that I liked.......like Crazy Legs said...if he saw a move that he liked he did that and flipped it his way....he put something into it  that made it look a little bit different. Now Rock Steady and them I used to hang out with a lot. They was a crew to be reckoned with! That's when we was already leaving the B-Boying and they was just starting. Those guys they were from 183rd and that's where I used to hang out. I used to hang out with Kuriaki and Flex and them.....and Buck 4...and Crazy Legs. Crazy Legs.. ..when he came to hang out with us when we was younger he tried to be in our crew but we looked at him..we were already older than him...we told him, "Nah man, you're too young you can't hang out with us!" We already had people that wanted to fight, looking for trouble. So we didn't want him to be involved in that stuff. You know, Puppy hung out with us. I call him Puppy. He was Crazy Leg's cousin."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Oh, you mean Lenny Len!"

WILLIE WIL:"Lenny Len. Yeah, he used to hang out with us all the time. That was my man and Mongo Rock was my man, too. TBB was cool with us, we never had no problems. They were from right there behind Southern Boulevard by Bronx Zoo. Or Trac 2 and them. Trac flew birds, too....besides the B-Boying that's how we got to know each other personally. Flying pigeons was a big thing back then."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What would you do with these pigeons? You kept them in coops on the roof of your building, right?"

WILLIE WIL:"Raise them, fly them, trade them, sell them. It was like a hobby."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you and the other members of Rockwell go to these other crews blocks back then? Would you take a cab or a bus?"

WILLIE WIL:"Mostly we would go by foot. When we used to go to other places it wasn't just three people....it was about twenty or thirty of us. A crew!"  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Like in that movie "The Warriors"?

WILLIE WIL:"(laughs) Something like that. The B-Boy crews were like that. Basically, everybody had their own block, like their own areas. But there was no rumbling like gangs over turf and shit. Let's say if I Willie Wil from Rockwell walked through where TBB was at with my crew shirt on they ain't gonna be like,"Yo, you can't be walking around here with your shit!" Like some outlaw gangs used to do back in the days or the Italians, bro! I couldn't even go through 187th without the Italians trying to kill me. I was right there on the edge. 182nd & Belmont is right before Little Italy. We had to stay clear off that. They were racists, they didn't want no Puerto Ricans or Blacks in that area. It was definetely rough times back then. Abandoned buildings everywhere. We used to play Manhunt in the abandoned buildings, not worrying about whether the floors would cave. Jumping from roof to roof like monkeys. If you fell it was all over. That actually helped in the B-Boy thing cause that's strengthened me up. That and gymnastics."

                                         Interview with B-Boy Aby (The Bronx Boys)




                                                                

Aby (The Bronx Boys)

                                      conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"From which part of the Boogie Down Bronx are you?" 

ABY:"We started from...actually...Freeman!  When we first moved from Puerto Rico to the Bronx...the first place that we moved to was Freeman. That's in the South Bronx. Then Bryant Avenue and then from Bryant we moved over to Mohegan Avenue. After Mohegan we moved up to Fordham Road and so on and so forth. I'm in Florida now."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And where did you live at when the TBB Crew started?"

ABY:"At that particular time we lived at 180th & Mohegan Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to grow up in the Boogie Down Bronx back then?"

ABY:"Okay, I was born in 1964. My mother was in church..so we would go to church and I was a church kid. So the only time I started hanging out was with Batch (Aby's older brother and legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy) and that was around maybe late 1974, early 1975 and at that time it didn't feel scary 'cause we were born into that. Now that I think of it, it feels quite a little bit more horrifying because everything wasn't...you know, at that time all these abandoned buildings were up there, the President (of the USA) called New York a national catastrophy and all that shit. Basically, we lived in places...in every other street there were abandoned buildings and then also gangs and our gangs were...it wasn't no Bloods and it wasn't no Crips...it was, you know, Savage Skulls, Black Spades, Ching-A-Lings, you know, Seven Immortals, you know, Javelins..that type, you know."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where and when did you witness Breaking for the first time?"

ABY:"It were two guys that taught me how to get down 'cause me back then I was the littlest kid. I had Bosco...rest in peace....and Karate Chino. Karate Chino was more like a outlaw. Boscoe was more like a stick up guy...even though he never stuck up anybody...but he was more the stick up kid type...you know, wearing the Playboys, the Kangols and all that....he dressed fresh. So they taught me..I learnt from to different guys the Top Rock. Remember, when we were dancing back then there were no headspins. Everything was just sporadic moves. So we would take inspiration from anything. Like I would be humping on somebody's leg. You know my Russian Step..I got that from watching Fonzie.....you know Happy Days (sitcom from the 1970s)??? I got that from there and I incorporated it into my dancing. I also did other stuff like Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde...I would mix a formula then drink the formula while I was toprocking and then jump up in the air and then "POW!!" I would land flat on my back and then humped on the floor and then turn around and jump on the floor. We called that stuff Burns. That's what we did...sporadic moves that came out of our heads."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who showed you the ropes in terms of floormoves? Was that also Karate Chino and Boscoe?"

ABY:"No, no. That came from me biting some other people. Floorrocking is different. Being that we did sporadic moves it was no three steps, six steps.....none of that. Batch actually witnessed one of the first cats that went down...I wasn't there unfortunately.....he witnessed that it was a black kid called TT...TT Rock. I adapted that later on and I went into cyphers and I learnt from people I can't even remember. Besides rocking I also got high......drinking  Wild Irish Rose or sniffing glue from a bag. But we was out there doing what we loved...we went to all these different jams at 118, 129....Crotona Park...or to the block parties. DJ Charlie Chase...before he got down with the Cold Crush Brothers... would put on the music. Batch and Bosco and Rubberband and Willie Will from Rockwell Association would help chase bring his system to the school yard and watch him set it up. They would be chilling, play hand ball, smoke cheeba and drink Schaefer beer... not me though, only Batch and them the guys... Batch would have kicked my butt (laughs). We would do the dancing but the funny thing is we used to dance with the girls before that.....when the beats came in like "It's Just Begun"...or anything like that...that's when we go down....but the girls were always there and we would dance with them." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which way did your brother Batch influence you?"

ABY:"My brother's influence on me was like a father's influence. I didn't learn much from my brother cause he was always protecting me from running around whenever the whole crew was there. So I would have to sneak behind the crew..like if they found out there was a jam at 129....I would wait for him and Joe and Spec and all them other cats to leave and then I would follow them. And I would go with Cuckoo and a couple other guys...we was small and we would follow my brother and the crew like, you know, a block away and once we got to the jam we would separate and go and mingle with the crowd and start dancing. But Batch's influence on me was like a father's influence."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did he react when he found out that you had picked up floor rocking as well?"

ABY:"Actually, when he saw that I got better and better that's when he started allowing me to come by and to hang out with the crew. That's how I got put down with the TBB Crew."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you describe how The Bronx Boys (TBB) Crew started and how it evolved over the years? From what I have heard it actually began as a Writing Crew with Batch, Cash and Shark and then later became a B-Boy Crew, right?"

ABY:"Yeah, exactly what you've just said right now.... We had moved to Mohegan Avenue and  Batch met Cash first I believe and then Shark they were already doing Graffiti (Writing). Batch was struggling with thinking of a name for himself as a Writer....actually, at first I think his name was Bat...his name was Bat or something like that then later on he changed it to Batch but you have to ask him....I'm just coming off the dome right now.  From there Batch changed TBB into a B-Boy Crew ......you know Shark and Cash really wasn't the dancing cats.......they were more into Graffiti and they were hitting the bus barns heavily like boom, boom, boom!! That was their shit!  The crew grew in numbers as time passed  and most of them were B-Boys / Rockers. So Batch ultimately started a dancing crew and Shark and Cash wasn't down with that. You know Shark just died a couple of years ago...we just found out about that. Yeah, so Batch got the concept and the blessings from Shark and Cash and he started TBB as a Rocking Crew in 1975 but it had already been out in 1974 as a Graffiti Crew. The cats from 1975...from the original TBB Rocking Crew were more like Bon 2, Bom 5, Spec.....let me see...L-Mack....at that time he called himself Weebles then in the late 1970ies he called himself L-Mack...that's when he started writing L-Mack. Once we started moving from Mohegan Avenue up to Fordham Road that's when we had....cause over there was the Tremont Chapter which was Bon 2. They were like the warlords...that crew was like our warlords, like the protectors of TBB, you know what I mean?!? They were like crazy but Batch he had the Mohegan Chapter which was right next to Bronx Park South which was close to the Zulu Nation and Afrika Bambaataa and all that.

Bon 2 (The Bronx Boys)

After that we grew up and we moved from Mohegan up to Fordham. That's where they had Godfather who had the Davidson Division of TBB and then there were Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee and they had the Burnside Division and Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee later on became founders of the Rock Steady Crew. That happened when Batch broke up TBB in 1979, that's when they became Rock Steady BUT Bon 2 and the Tremont Divison they didn't realize that Batch had broken up TBB but you have to talk to Bon about that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about your cousin Trace 2 (RIP) though? You haven't mentioned him yet."

ABY:"No, no, I didn't leave him out. Trace 2.....we got down with Trace 2. He used to live in this house...in his old man's house in the South Bronx. The old man lived in the basement ..we used to call him Pops. Trace wasn't dancing at that time though, he started dancing when he moved up to Lorin's (?)...that's more up by Burnside. Back then Batch would go to his house...we would go there...I mean we're cousins, right?  But we were more like brother cousins 'cause we spent so much time with each other. So you know, we would go to the house and Batch would say, "Yo, check this out!" and he would go into one of his floormoves....into one of his corckscrews or whatever. But Trace wasn't into it at that time being that he was fat when was younger and he would still go to church. He got into it when he moved to Lorin's place and got older. That's when we started hanging out with Spy and Mongo Rock and his brother. Then there also was The Mexican Crew..they were lead by a tough girl named Wanda and they had two kids that was nice. I forgot their names.. one of them was Puerto Rican the other one was Black.....they were like unstoppable.Of course you had Shorty Rock...Shorty Rock was nasty...it was Spy and Shorty Rock (The Crazy Commanders Crew).

                              

Mongo Rock & Spy (Legendary Puerto Rican B-Boys)

Back then you know we used to go into the buildings....inside the buildings and dance in the hallwaycause the floor of these hallways were made up of these hard tiles......like a portion tile type."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also write (do "GRAFFITI" as the media would call it)? I'm asking this because your deceased cousin Trace 2 told me that he used to go bombing with Spy who wrote Space back then....he said they were Space & Trace."

ABY:"Hahaha!! Yeah!!!! That's crazy that you mention that Space & Trace thing, bro!!  Yeah, we would always write. Trac 2 (another legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy from Starchild La Rock who is not to be confused with Trace 2 from The Bronx Boys ) his brother was Brat...he used to write Brat One. I looked up to Brat One like he was my uncle.  So he would take me to corners and teach me how to write. So he named me Little Brat and I would to write Little Brat. I loved the shit out him...I loved Danny (Starchild La Rock), Trac 2  (Starchild La Rock) I loved all them ni***s. Me and Trac ain't doing good right now but you know what, man? We got history! We grew up together....we didn't just hang out together we were family, bro! Like a real family! But yeah, Brat One taught me how to write and he took me to the trains and I would write Lil Brat.....Rest in peace, Brat One! Love you! "   

Tag by Trace 2 (TBB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were like hang out spots of The Bronx Boys Crew? In 2007 Rip 7 (TBB / RSC ) took me to Poe Park and St. James Park and described them to me as TBB hang out spots. Were there any other notable hang out spots?" 

ABY:"Back then when we lived up in the South Bronx we wasn't hanging out in Poe Park, we wasn't hanging out in St. James 'cause we wasn't up there at Fordham Road yet. That's part of Fordham Road. So we was hanging out in 118 in the school yard. We' hang out in the school yards or the pool. Mapes Pool...we would go to 129,118, Mapes Pool.....we would go to Bronx Park South. Right next to Bronx Park South they had the Bronx Zoo and we would go into Bronx Park South and cut class and we would go in there and that time they was building a rail...now it's a little train that goes around the park...at that time they was building that....Me, Trace 2, Spec, Batch, Bon 2, Trac 2 all these ni***s!! Weebles...all of us! We would go in there and we would cut class and would be just hanging out like young growing  kids did. Listening to music, getting high, drink and just do shit that we liked at that time. We would walk the tracks and that shit was like 20 feet high and being that it was a feeble track it would be waving back and forth. We did a lot of crazy shit back then. We used to ride on top of the busses...the regular busses..the 36...it used to go to Crotona...the 38...we used to go to the bus barns and used to bomb the busses!!!! We would take the Pilots (markers) and fill'em up. We used to take underarm deoderant and we used to take the bottle, right?  And we would go and take the blackboard erasers from school and then go to Modell's or any other store and steal the ink and then make up our own markers!!! (laughs) That was some bad ass shit!!!!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which role did TBB play in the process that lead to the creation of the Rock Steady Crew?"

ABY:"Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee..they were president and vice president of the TBB Burnside Division. It all went crazy with TBB, a lot of shit started happening . So Batch and the whole TBB Crew met at St. James Park and he decided to say, "Look, I'm going to break up TBB!" But Jimmy Lee already was thinking about doing another crew. So already by the time Batch was holding the meeting Jimmy Lee and Jimmy Dee came already  with the brown T-shirts with white letters that read, "Rock Steady Crew" and then at the bottom of the "Rock Steady Crew " in the back of the T-Shirt  it read "TBB". So what I have heard from my brother and from Jimmy Dee was that he said to Batch, "I don't wanna break up but I wanna do my own thing and I'mma still use the name TBB." Cause TBB was his crew, it was TBB for life no matter what! So when he came up with the brown T-Shirt and the white letters that read "Rock Steady Crew" Batch asked him, "Why Rock Steady?" and then Jimmy Dee said, "Because TBB was always steady rocking! So that's basically how Rock Steady was born."

                                   

                       Jimmy Lee & Jimmy Dee (original TBB members and founders of the Rock Steady Crew)

                      

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which year did that meeting at St. James Park take place?"

ABY:"1979. That's when Batch broke up TBB. I think it was in July 1979 when TBB broke up and you know it's funny that when TBB broke up Rock Steady was established. So this is why I don't know how these guys came up with the year 1977. That's why I came back out. Cause Trac 2 one day called me and said,"Yo, Aby! I hear these people talking about Rock Steady started in 1977!" Nah, that's crazy! It started in late 1979."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the role of ladies such as Ponytail Rosie with regards to TBB?"

ABY:"They was bad ass. So it was Rosie...that's Fordham Road...we had the 183rd Divison... Chikie, Sugar, Black Sugar...it was a lot of them. They was our girls..they had like their own clique but for me I was a shorty so they were like my big sisters. I used to be pissed off cause I had a crush on Rosie. She was fine, bro!!! She was fine! There were a couple of girls that were really fine. But I never could get no ass because I was too young. I would have to settle for a kiss in the cheek and a pad on the head. (laughs) But you know the girls played a big part back then by being our cheerleaders and they used to write, too!! And they used to help stick people up, too! We would go to the bars and hang out on the side and the girls would go to the bars and they would pick out a drunk guy and they would talk to him and offer him all type of shit and then they'd walk him out, take him to the park and once they got to the park we used to go up there and we used to stick him up (rob him)! That's what we did! We did a lot of crazy shit.  They was involved with a lot of dirt that we did. Going to the stores and stealing cheese and ham and we would go to the stores early in the morning and grab some bread because we were poor and hungry and we were hanging out in the street. You know the jams..the jams were the shit! I danced a lot with the girls. That's the only time I got as close to the girls. It was like, you know, family...."

from left to right: Batch (TBB founder), Pony Tail Rosie (TBG), Danny Dan (TBB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"So whenever there was a jam all these girls would show up and cheer for you?"

ABY:"Yeah, yeah!!! Look back in the days they didn't have no judges. WE HAD NO JUDGES!!! A cypher was a cypher and the judges was the people. I would go in there and start dancing and do some of my crazy moves and being that I was little everybody would go, "Whooa!!!" They was laughing. I would hump on somebody's leg...forget about it!! The crowd goes crazy...and that's how you burn somebody. So this dude could be a bad ass B-Boy and he could do a bad ass Floor Rock Session and I would come out of nowhere  and I would hit the floor, then hump on his leg and then turn around and act like I was shitting on his feet and walk away. Everybody would forget how nice this dude was and so I would burn him."

 SIR NORIN RAD:"So you had a style of clowning and humiliating your oponent at the same time?"

ABY:"Yeah, yeah, my stuff was crazy funny ass shit! And you know what? It was somewhat like...you know who reminds me of the way I used to dance as a kid? Frosty Freeze!  Rest In Peace! Cause Frosty Freeze was nice but he would do a lot more mimicking. Like humping on the floor...I would do that shit, too. I mean I had a lot of crazy moves back then. I had a move where I would stick my ear inside my ear and I would put my tongue in mouth and blow and then my ear would pop out. That was a burn right there! So you know you could do every move you want and I would come in with a stupid little move  and forget it! Every move that the dude did..the crowd would not care about that...they would just be screaming for me. It was bad ass! I miss them days, bro!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you get your name from that horror movie "Abby" back then?"

ABY:" No, no. I remember Abby. That was a black girl possessed by the devil. That movie was creepy!! I remember watching that with my brother. But my name I got from my grandmother. When I was born I was real fat and white! So she would call me White Beans..in Spanish it's Habichuela Blanca...so my name was Habichuela and then as I grew it got shorter and I got stuck with Aby."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did that type of Bronx Rock Dancing which cats like Enoch Torres used to do influence the Puerto Rican style of breaking?"

ABY:"Funny you mention that 'cause that style of dancing is called Rock and we are the seeds of that. They called it Rock, we called it Toprock. Their shit was a little earlier than ours. So when Frank and them used to do it their dancing influenced us...they lived a couple of blocks away from us. My mentor Karate Chino was already of that age so he would take from that type of dance and Bosco was dancing that type of Rock. The funny thing about Brooklyn Rock and our Bronx Style Rock is like...Bronx Style Rock evolved. Brooklyn Rock is still the same thing...the same dance, the same moves...nothing changed. So that's the difference! It doesn't take away nothing from Brooklyn Rock as a dance because this dance is a powerful reminder  of what we used to do when we was fighting in the streets...chopping up your head, kneeling down to take a gun from your ankle, hitting your head with a baseball bat.....that was style of dancing referrencing fighting or even killing somebody. It proves that we actually took dancing from fighting. That's a really important thing you have to understand about Rock Dance and remember Uprock is Brooklyn and Toprock is Bronx.My biggest respects to Papo Love Mighty Mike , Ringo and another brother King Uprock , my big bro Brooklyn Joe just to name a few"   

SIR NORIN RAD:"At what kind of parties would you be exposed to this Bronx Style Rock that the older Puerto Ricans would do?"

ABY:"Another great question! You would see that in the parties...you know the Christmas parties that we would have in our house or at birthday parties or we had these celebrations for the girls when they turned fifteen or sixteen....when they turned into a young woman. So you would see that....you would see pops dancing, you would see your uncle dancing...your uncle is twenty, twenty-something and you're over here 10 years old and you would get down with them. So that's where you would get exposed to it. As far as the Puerto Rican style of B-Boying is concerned...you know the Blacks had their own way of doing it...their own dance and from what I remember it was called The Go Off  and we took some of that Go Off and added some of our style to it. You know we are also part of  the African heritage...that's a part of our heritage, too. We come from the Spaniards, we also come from the African slaves that were brought to the Caribean Islands by the Spaniards and we come from the Tainos (the indigenous people of Puerto Rico)....so we got three different people in us.  That's why I got green eyes, my dad is a black latino...my sister Joanna you know is a light skin Afro Rican.  So we definetely got that influence."     

SIR NORIN RAD:"Willie Will (legendary Puerto Rican B-Boy from Rockwell Association) told me about how we was introduced to that original Black B-Boy Style of dancing which you referred to as The Go Off in 1976 by a B-Boy called Chopper that was down with the Zulu Nation. What was the relationship between TBB and the Zulu Nation? Was there any kind of contact at all?" 

ABY:"Again, I was younger. I was too young to even understand the difference between Black and Puerto Rican. But to my brothers...to the older guys there was a barrier....there was a line between Blacks and Latinos. I mean look at the gangs back then...the Black Spades were all black and then you had the Ghetto Brothers which were all Latinos....so there was a division at first. I remember the Zulu Kings only from late 1976/77 that's when we really got involved.  That's also when Batch had his meeting with the Zulu Nation..1977. TBB and members of the Zulu Nation they used to have rumbles.....they would fight against each other. Whatever jam they went to they would rumble. If there was a jam and TBB was chilling there and all of a sudden some one threw hands Batch would summon TBB Joe's division who was known as the warlord division meaning thay handled all the rumbles or one on one fight make sure no one jumped in !! .  One of the first black DJs that I ever met was Lay Lay. He was from Fun PM City Crew and they was all black but they was kool cause they were from the block.We never had problems in 129 Mapes Pool. Lay Lay would get cutting and we would start dancing !! Back then we danced more with the girls than against each other  .. But when we heard "It's Just Begun" or Babe Ruth "Mexican" or "Bongo Rock"... forget about it! Floor rockers hit the flooooorrrrrrr,!!! Cypher set and battles was for respect not money .. You had to be there to truly understand and smell the air and feel the excitement when the cat you was battling burned you the last time and you been practicing all week long for the moment you let it all out on the concrete ... Damn miss em days ." 

DJ Lay Lay & The Fun City Crew rocking with The L-Brothers and  The Mercedes Ladies in 1979  

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you're saying there was a lot of tension between TBB and members the Zulu Nation?"

ABY:"There was! There was a lot of tension out there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And all that beef was squashed at that meeting?"

ABY:"Batch had his meeting with Bam at the Webster projects on Zulu Nation turf in 1977. After that meeting they squashed it. I don't know how come Bam never spoke of this because it's such an important part of the history. It identifies with unity between Latinos and Blacks. So I don't know why he never acknowledged it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Nowadays TBB is a global family with members on literally every continent. What did it mean to you back then to be part of The Bronx Boys Rocking Crew?"

ABY:" A crew to me meant to have all these people around me and most of them were older than me. It was like having a bunch of big brothers and a bunch of big sisters. We would literally go to abandoned buildings and make clubs. And we would sleep in there...we would take care of each other. We would go to the roof and fly birds...we would get high...a lot shit!!! We witnessed murders  and we almost got killed...you know there was so much shit. But when I got home I was thinking that I would rather be with them than be in my house.  It doesn't take away how much love I got from my mother but my father was an alcoholic so I would prefer to be with my crew rather than be at home. A family to me is not only blood."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Any shoutouts that you wanna give at the end of this interview." 

ABY:"I wanna give a shout out to all the B-Boys who are keeping it real out there! Pluto!  I gotta give a shout out to Pluto I gotta give a shout out  to you...to my man Norin Rad, you're the man! Without you and people like Pluto the history of our Hiphop Culture and of our dance  would remain in the dark. I wanna shout out my brother Batch, shout out to all my chapters...TBB / TBG global !!  And to all the true Zulus out there that are still repping it beyond all the bullshit that is going on. Shout outs to my wife and my son. Peace!"

                                        Interview with DJ Squirl Dee (The Silver Nation)


                                                         

DJ Squirel Dee (The Silver Nation)

                               
                                       conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)


NORIN RAD:"Where in the Bronx did you live at when you first got in contact with Hiphop?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"I grew up on 176th & Montgomery...off of University Avenue on the west side of the Bronx."

NORIN RAD:"Okay and what was your first encounter with DJing?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"It started with me back in the 1970ies when I first came to the United States...I'm from England...and my uncle used to give his parties in his basement. So it all started in my uncle's basement."

NORIN RAD:"So your uncle was a DJ I guess?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yeah, my uncle was a DJ. Actually, he was a Jamaican DJ. That was the first time I saw two turntables and a mixer."  

NORIN RAD:"Alright, and who inspired you to pick up DJing?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Actually that was my uncle. For years in the 1970ies he was doing parties like the first Saturday every month and I used to watch him do everything and I tried to stay close to him until one particular party he allowed me to play and I got used to it then and I continued from there on."

NORIN RAD:"What kind of DJ was your uncle? Did he play reggae music?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yeah..he was a Jamaican DJ plus he played anything that was American also."

NORIN RAD:"I see. Now who was the first Hiphop DJ that you ever witnessed rocking beats in a park, gym or club?"


DJ SQUIREL DEE:"The first Hiphop DJ that I had the opportunity to witness was Grandmaster Flash in the 1970ies and he was doing a jam...if I remember correctly....at Walton High School in the Bronx."

NORIN RAD:"What kind of impression did that event leave on your soul?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Basically, I literally stood at the ropes and stared and watched everything that he was doing and I just basically said to myself," I could do that, too!"  

NORIN RAD:"So at that time you had already become aquainted with how to handle the wheels of steel?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yes, sir!"

NORIN RAD:" Was the Silver Nation your first crew?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE: "Actually yeah. That was basically my first crew. You know, because I used to DJ with other DJs in the neighbourhood and so on and so forth and I showed them what I was able to do without them and I started my own little crew and started to call it The Silver Nation and you know we had some issues with Zulu and a friend who was connected to Zulu Nation went to Afrika Bambaata and told him about us and they said the only way we could start Silver Nation was to become a chapter of the Zulu Nation. "

NORIN RAD:"What kind of issues did you have with the Zulu Nation?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Actually we didn't have no real issues. They just didn't want another nation to start."

NORIN RAD:"Who were the founding members of the Silver Nation?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Myself, my brother...his name was Danny D and my MC...his name was Kool D and then we connected down the road with the Triple A Crew."

NORIN RAD:"Later on you also added DJ Grandmaster T to your crew, right?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yeah, Grandmaster T came in down the road. We heard him one day and he became THE fastest DJ on two turntables back then. Larry D (MC of the Silver Nation) was a friend that we had known for a while and we actually heard him rapping and every time we did something we told him anytime he stopped through he could get down."

NORIN RAD:"You told me that you were also MCing for the Silver Nation.."

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yes, I was a MC also."

NORIN RAD:"Right, so how did you divide up the time for the DJs of your crew when you were rocking in the parks back then and who would DJ when your were MCing?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"It was myself, Danny D and when we got connected to the Triple A Crew..it was also DJ Dr. Pepper and DJ Whitehead...so everybody would have their little sets and so on and so forth.....The one DJ that myself and Kool D would always MC to was DJ Dr. Pepper. So basically when he got on the turntables that's when me and Kool D got on the mic and started MCing."

February 8th, 1980: The Silver Nation is rocking at the legendary T-Connection

NORIN RAD:"What did MCing mean back then? I mean obviously it wasn't about stepping into a recording studio in order to produce some rap tracks but instead focused around the party. Did you perform any routines like the Furious 5 or the Cold Crush Brothers did?" 

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yeah, we definetely did. We had routines where Kool D would start and then he would pass the mic to me and after I had finished saying my rhymes I would say something to pass the mic back to him...  or we would do the routine together and go back and forth and sometimes Kool D's rhymes, you know, when he was doing his rhymes I would just say little words of his rhymes just to back him up. Everything was basically geared towards rocking live crowds and everything we did came basically from two turntables!!!! You know, the DJ would cut the track for us live! We never went into a studio! EVERYTHING WAS DONE  FROM TWO TURNTABLES, RECORDS, A MIXER AND A MICROPHONE!!!! Today's rappers they can't do that."

NORIN RAD:"Nowadays cats are used to download their beats from the internet but what did take back then as a DJ then to acquire an arsenal of beats for the MCs to rock over?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Back in the day when we heard like a particular DJ with a certain beat that we liked we used to ask questions, "Yo, what beat is that?" Some DJs would tell us what it was and we would then try to find that beat and some DJs just wouldn't tell us so, you know, we just kept on asking questions until we got the information and once we got the information we went downtown....to Manhattan.....to Downstairs Records and they used to have all the beats down there." 

NORIN RAD:"Did you have your own sound system?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yes, we did."

NORIN RAD:"Could you describe the components of that soundsystem that you used back then?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Back then like Crown amplifiers and stuff like that we didn't know too much about it....so basically I was able to get my hands on a Kenwood amplifier and that Kenwood amplifier pushed a little over 1500 watts. We had some bass bottoms called Voice Of The Theaters....we had Technics SL-B1s for turntables and we had a Gemini mixer and we had some small tweeter boxes that we used to put on top of  the Voice Of The Theater speakers and we used to put the speakers up on tables so that basically everybody could hear." 

NORIN RAD:"I see. How did you finance that soundsystem of yours? Would you invest the door money into building up your soundsytem?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Well, as far as the fees collected at the door a lot of that actually went to the place where the function was at. As far as equipment that I had I purchased it myself  from my own pocket 'cause I worked. Back then they had this thing called layaway so every week after I worked I would go to the store I had layaway and just dropped some money on the equipment until it was completely paid for and brought it home. And then down the road I met some people that gave me stuff."

 
NORIN RAD:"What was like the stomping ground of the Silver Nation? I mean at which park or community center would you rock at regularly?"


DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Our home was called 82 school yard and that was on University Avenue between Tremont Avenue and 167th."

NORIN RAD:"I see...and how many people would come to these parties at 82 school yard back then?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"82 school yard could hold at least three to four hundred people and every time we played in that school yard it was jam packed!" 

82 School Yard

NORIN RAD:"How would you describe the particular strengths of each DJ of the Silver Nation back then?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"I would cut but I was also a blender....I was a master blender....I could blend any track. I was the kind of person...even back then....some of the things that they are doing today...I was doing them back then...like where you would take the acapella of a Phil Collins and blend it with a drum break. My brother Danny D he was just a regular DJ..he cut beats and so on and so forth. Grandmaster T... he was the speedster...he was very quick on two turntables!"     



NORIN RAD:"Could you please explain how you got so close to the Triple A Crew?"


DJ SQUIREL DEE:"DJ Dr. Pepper, believe it or not, was dating my sister and matter of fact where I was living...DJ Dr. Pepper and DJ Whitehead was five minutes away from where I lived. So basically besides me jamming in 82 School Yard....the Triple A Crew used to jam in 82 and every time they would go out, you know, we always showed up to support them and vice versa and so one day we said, "Let's come out together!"We came out together, the party was off the chain and we just stayed connected ever since."   

DJ Whitehead (The Triple A Crew)

NORIN RAD:"Did your crew ever battle any other crew?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yeah, we got blown out one time by Kool Herc....he blew us out of the park but we just enjoyed it and sometimes we would go to the park and some other DJs would be there and they would play for 20 to 25 minutes and turn off and then we would play for 25 minutes and turn off and the crowd would choose the crew they liked better."

NORIN RAD:"That's very interesting! What was your relationship with Kool Herc back then?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"I knew Kool Herc when he used to do jams in the schools.....Walton High School.....Where 82 school yard is about three maybe four minutes walk...he had a club there called The Stafford and we'd go there and hang out with him. Any time played in 82 school yard and he was doing a party he would ask us to stop playing so the crowd could come to his club and he would let us in for free." 


NORIN RAD:"Stafford's Place was on University Ave, right?"


DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yes it was on University Avenue between....just a little bit after 176th street."

Kool DJ Herc & The Herculords rocking at Stafford's Place....( note Triple A Crew is also listed on that flyer)

  
NORIN RAD:"What were some of the most important jamming spots on your side of the Bronx (the West BX)?"


DJ SQUIREL DEE:"One was 82 school yard, the second one was called Cedar Park, another was called Poe Park, another one was called Aqueduct and then there was a place called Roberto Clemente State Park...we used to do functions there every summer."


NORIN RAD:"I've heard about that park. They used to play basketball there, right?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Yeah, they played basketball, weight training...all that stuff! There was also a school yard called 104 school yard." 

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

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Apache....this one called "Walk Like Sex"("Lovomaniacs" by Boobie Knight & The Universal Lady), "Catch A Groove", "I Can't Stop" and "Frisco Disco" 

NORIN RAD: "Would you like to shout somebody out at the end of this interview?"

DJ SQUIREL DEE:"Just a shout out to all the crews from back in the days....DJ Spice Nice...DJ Dr. Pepper...DJ Whitehead....my brother Danny D.....Butch Kid...we had a MC called Butch Kid he passed away..he was the MC for the Triple A Crew....Shout outs to all the DJs from back then!"

                                        Interview with B-Boy Lil Boy Keith (The Little Zulu Kings)

Lil Boy Keith (The Little  Zulu Kings)

                             conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)


NORIN RAD:"Where did you live at when you got in contact with Breaking?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"I lived on 170th street in the Bronx...between Fulton and Franklin Avenue...right across the street from Crotona Park."

NORIN RAD:"Okay, and where did you witness Breaking for the first time?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"I saw it at a show in a school. There were these two guys named Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde...they were dancing.....it was a B-Boy Battle and they won that battle against some other crew."

NORIN RAD:"Do you recall at which particular school that battle took place?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"63 schoolyard."   

NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you started Breaking?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"I started Breaking at the age of nine."

NORIN RAD:"So you were intrigued by what you saw Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde doing at that battle and that's how you got involved in it?" 

LIL BOY KEITH:"Yeah, I saw what they did and I liked it so I got into it and I just kept on practicing and I started being good at it and then I just went out there one day when they were having a battle and I went out there and started breakdancing and next thing you know everybody liked the way I danced! You know I met Pow Wow and MC G.L.O.B.E. (both were first B-Boys and then became legendary MCees as part of the Soul Sonic Force) and Pow Wow was the number one B-Boy at that time and he used to show me some moves and me and him used to practice together. The Zulu Spin was the most important move that he taught me."
 

NORIN RAD:"Where would you and Pow Wow practice at?" 

LIL BOY KEITH:"We used to practice at his house and we also used to practice in a hallway.....in a big hallway around my block. It was a building called 595...that's where G.L.O.B.E. used to live at...we used to breakdance in his hallway."

NORIN RAD:"Around which year was that?"

B-Boy / MC G.L.O.B.E. ( The Soul Sonic Force / The Zulu Nation)

LIL BOY KEITH:"That was in the 70ies......around '78."

NORIN RAD:"How did you come up with that incredible spinning move of yours which can be seen in that Tools Of War Crotona Park Jam video on youtube?" 

LIL BOY KEITH:"That's something that I created! It's called "The Spinning Top". Nobody could do it the way that I do it. I do it faster than anybody. They couldn't even catch it on film!"

NORIN RAD:"I see and do you recall how you developed that move?"     

LIL BOY KEITH :"Well, I danced real fast, right? And......all of a sudden the spinning just came out of nowhere!!! So I liked what I was doing so I kept on doing it and as time went on I got real good at it. When I first started doing it I always started getting dizzy because I had no real control of it. So I used to practice breakdancing on small places...like on a desk or on a table....anything small that's the way I used to breakdance because I used to wanna dance where I can just move around because the crowd back then at the parties would smother you and you couldn't really dance the way you wanna....so I liked to know how to dance in small spots so if the crowd smothers me I still could do what I needed to do. So I also practised in small corners so I could breakdance and spin without hurting myself and all of that. I had to learn all of that! The first time I did the Spinning Top at a party everybody went crazy! Everybody went, "Yo, how did you that? How fast you be going!?!"

NORIN RAD:"How does the Zulu Spin differ from the Spinning Top?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"The Zulu Spin is a shuffle and a spin, the Spinning Top is just a spin. The way I do my Spinning Top is way different from the Zulu Spin! It lasts a long time! With the Zulu Spin...you gotta use your hands..you gotta move your knees one way and your legs the other way and then you gotta spin! And then you gotta move your knees another way and your legs another way and then you spin...so there's a difference."

NORIN RAD:"Alright, now what were some of the venues that you used to dance at back then? One of them I guess must have been Bronx River Center?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Yeah, well I went to Bronx River Center  and they had a B-Boy talent show and it was the two best B-Boys from over there named Beaver and Keith......and it was me and K.K. Rockwell ..Pow Wow had brought us there..that was the time that Pow Wow took us to Bronx River.... I think DJ Jazzy Jay was playing the beats ...so we battled Beaver and Keith and we took them out and so we became the number one Zulus! It took place in Bronx River Center on the stage......they had a stage up there....in the back of Bronx River Center. That was my toughest battle....that battle against Beaver... that was my toughest battle.... I mean everybody else I just took out like it was nothing."
 
NORIN RAD:"So you're saying you took out the legendary Beaver?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Yeah, I took out Beaver and K.K. took out Keith. That's how we became number one."
 
NORIN  RAD:"Was that K.K. Rockwell from the Funky Four MCees?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"  Yeah, it was me and K.K. Rockwell from the Funky Four..he was a B-Boy, too...I taught him how to breakdance as a matter of fact I taught all of them how to breakdance...the only one that didn't wanna breakdance was Sha Rock. And Breakout used to breakdance, too!!!! DJ Breakout....let me tell you he was nice!!!!!!" 

B-Boy / MC K.K. Rockwell

NORIN RAD:"Let's go back to that battle against Beaver and Keith for a minute....How did that go down? What kind of moves did you pull out against them? What did they use against you?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Well, I did....I had learnt the Zulu Spin from Pow Wow...Pow Wow had taught me how to do the Zulu Spin and so I did the Zulu Spin and then I went into the Spinning Top which was the move that I had made up. Then K. K. Rockwell started flipping all over the place and that's how we won.We wasn't focussed on what they was doing..we was focussed on what we was doing. There was a lot of weight on our shoulders. You know we was in their territory! We had to show them what we were made of. Everybody in Bronx River knew who they was but nobody knew who we was. We danced to "Apache" and also to "Let's Dance" (by Pleasure) which was my favourite beat back then!!! It was like a big surprise to everybody when we took them out. Everybody went crazy! Everybody started following us. Everybody started telling us, "Y'all number one! You took out Beaver! You took out Keith! You're the number one Zulus!" Everybody in Bronx River welcomed us and all of that.."

"Let's Dance" by Pleasure (Album "Accept No Substitutes"; Fantasy Records 1976)

NORIN RAD:"Were there any kind of hard feelings between you and Beaver after that battle?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Nah, nah, nah! No, there wasn't no fights or nothing like that! That's what battling was all about. Battling was...you take out the best one and so you're the winner. Maybe the next time that guy wanna battle you again to see if he can win or maybe he feels he just wants to leave it alone and that's what Beaver and Keith did...they just left it alone."    

NORIN RAD:"Did you become a part of the Little Zulu Kings (Beaver's crew) or did you instantly join the ranks of the Zulu Kings."

LIL BOY KEITH:"No, I was part of the Little Zulu Kings first and then I became a big Zulu King because you gotta start off somewhere to get somewhere."

NORIN RAD:"What were some of the other venues that you used to go in order to go against other B-Boys?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"I used to go to Grandmaster Flash parties, take other B-Boys out... the Black Door....I used to go to Grandwizard Theodore...the L-Brothers and them...taking people out....anyhwere there was a party I was there."   

NORIN RAD:"How important was it in your era to have the right kind of feeling for the beats and to match them with your moves while you were going off?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"See what we used to do back in the days......you had to learn how to dance off any beat!!! We ain't care if it was a slower record or whatever...we had to learn how to dance to any kind of rhythm and you had to be on beat all the time!"   


NORIN RAD:"Would you also do other type of dances at the parties back then?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Breakdancing was the main dance back then. Then they came on with The Hustle and The Freak and all that other stuff. See I also liked to dance the Freak because you can dance with a young girl....you can dance with her close......but breakdancing was the main thing. That's what everybody was focussing on."
    
NORIN RAD:"Did you teach any other people how to breakdance besides MC G.L.OB.E., KK Rockwell, Lil' Rodney Cee and them?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"I taught my own little crew that I had with me."

NORIN RAD:"Who were the members of that little crew of yours?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"It was Eddie, it was Champion...it was just a whole bunch of my little friends that grew up with me...we all lived on the same block and everything.. and I used to just take them to keep'em out of trouble like they're standing around...doing nothing...I used to tell them, "Come with me!" and then I would take them to the hallway and I would show them a couple of moves that I was doing and I'd get their opinion....like,"How did that look?" and they'd be like, "Yo, that's nice! Show me how to do that!" And so I showed them and so we practiced like that. It was about five or six of us."

NORIN RAD:"Did that crew also have its own name?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"No, it didn't have no name at the time or nothing. We just hung out together. They named me Lil Boy Keith 'cause I was the littlest guy out of the whole crew. So that's how I got my name."

NORIN RAD:"So who were the other members besides you, Eddie and Champion?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Royal Dee..we used to call him Royal Dee...and Ikey....Wherever I used to go I used to take them with me."

NORIN RAD:"How did you feel in the late 1970ies when all of a sudden Breaking started to fade out among many Black B-Boys and the MCees took over? Did you keep on breakdancing?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"I stayed breakdancing all my life cause that's where it was at! That's where the fun was at! That's what I knew....that's what I had learnt. So I always stuck with that. Other dances came out like The Freak...stuff like that but Breakdancing really never went nowhere. If you went to those places where they would start to do all these other dances you probably thought breakdancing had gone somewhere but I always went to places where people was breakdancing. I went to a lot of block parties, talent shows...stuff like that...there were still a lot of DJs that were DJing outside....like Theodore or Flash.. so we always had something to do and some place to go to....I mean we would also break at house parties. Dancing was always our thing, it kept us out of trouble."


NORIN RAD:"So you were like one of those die-hard B-Boys that said, "No, I'm not giving this up!" and whenever you had the chance to display your skills you would still go off at parties?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Yeah, that was the thing back then. You had to let people know who you were, what you're made of and, you know, you had a name, you had a rep..so you had to represent...back then we didn't have videos and all that other stuff so it was a word of mouth thing...like "Yo, this guy is nice!!! Lil Boy Keith took out so and so!" and if you weren't there you would hear about it from the other people at school or on your block.....your name would go far! And when the next party came up everybody that heard about you they're coming to that party and they're hoping that you'll be there so they can see you in action."

NORIN RAD:"Did it also happen that B-Boys from other parts of the BX who had heard about your reputation would travel to where you were at in order to test your skills?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Yeah, yeah!!!! (very excited) That's how it was!!! If they know that you're nice and they know that you're taking out everybody then they'd be saying, "Yo, I never heard of this guy!!!! I don't know who is this Lil Boy Keith and who is he to think that he is all that? Oh, we are the best on our block and we gonna travel and show him what we're made of! We gonna take him out!!!" Yeah, it was like that all the time and it lead to a lot of jealousy, too because if you would go to another block and you would take out all the B-Boys from over there, they wouldn't like that and they would wanna fight you! They would start trouble with you because they had been the number one on their block for a long time and now you come out of nowhere and take'em out....they don't like that!"

NORIN RAD:"They don't want to be embarassed in front of their people."

LIL BOY KEITH:"Right, 'cause usually they are also the ones that be talking a whole bunch  of junk. See I never was that kind of guy that talked junk about what I could do to somebody, I would just go over there and do it. It was fun!!! It was fun."

NORIN RAD:"Did you ever run into any of those many Puerto Rican B-Boy crews back then in the  late 70ies?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"The TDK Crew!!! It was a whole lot of Puerto Rican crews back then. The TDK Crew was from around our block and they had a mean, mean crew!!!"

NORIN RAD:"I think I heard that TDK stood for The Disco Kids."

LIL BOY KEITH:"Yeah, most of them were B-Boys, though!"

NORIN RAD:"I know, I was just referring to what TDK stands for."

LIL BOY KEITH:"Right."

NORIN RAD:"So did you ever battle any B-Boy from TDK?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"Of course! That's what it was all about.We all battled against each other. When I won against one of their crew or whatever.....we all bonded. We were bonding together, you know? It wasn't no hate....no, "I don't wanna talk to him!"....there was none of that. We all was like as one!! And sometimes they'd come to me and wanted to learn a move from me or I might see them do a move that I like and I would ask them, "How you do that move?" and so then I would take their move or they would take one of mine and they would it make into what they wanted it to be. Everybody used to swap moves, you know? But we wasn't doing the same moves that we learnt...we took those moves and switched them into something different."

NORIN RAD:"Because you wanted to have your own style..."

LIL BOY KEITH:"Own style, right!" 

NORIN RAD:"When did you notice the TDK crew for the first time?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"That was like the 70ies...the late 70ies going into the 80ies. We stayed in touch with each other all the time because the TDK crew always had parties......they always had parties and they always had those fly females...they always had things going on with them. They had a lot of parties on school days when we were supposed to be in school...they would tell us, "Yo, come over to our house we are throwing a party there!"....cause, see, back in the days we had a whole lot of abandoned buildings so everybody used to make an abandoned building their little party place. We used to take electricity from the street lights and stuff....plug it up..and we had DJs playing music. So we hung out in these abandoned apartments...dancing and having a good time. The TDK crew were the kings of partying and they were expanding like the Zulu Nation. They were expanding a lot!"    
 

NORIN RAD:"What was it like to come to a Bronx River Center party back then?"

LIL BOY KEITH:"It was like amazing to go over the bridge (East 174th street bridge) to Bronx River because Bronx River is a project. So everybody in the project knows Afrika Bambaataa and everybody in the project knows the Zulu Nation. So it was always a honour and a priviledge to go there and to see people uniting with each other. You had different B-Boys goin off over there....later you also had people doing the Electric Boogie. It was so amazing to hear the music three four blocks before you even got there....all this good music!!! (excited) To me it was like a dream come true just to go to Bronx River....just to be part of the Zulu Nation and what they stand for."