Interview with T-Kid 170 (The Nasty Boys)

                                              Interview with T-Kid 170 (The Nasty Boys)

                                                            

T-Kid 170 (The Nasty Boys)

                                            conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

T-KID 170:"I was born in Newark, New Jersey. I can't tell you what year I was born. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you move to the Bronx?"

T-KID 170:"Right after I was born. I was born in Newark, New Jersey. My mother was in an emergency. In other words they were on their way to the Bronx and she decided to give birth."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You grew up in the Bronx. Is that accurate to say?"

T-KID 170:"That is correct."

SIR NORIN RAD:"And you are of Peruvian and Puerto Rican descent, right?"

T-KID 170:"That is also correct. My father was from Peru and my mother was Puerto Rican."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I read that you were a member of a gang called the Bronx Enchanters when you were young. Please elaborate on that!"

T-KID 170:"Yeah, that was the neighbourhood gang when I lived in Boynton Avenue with my father."

SIR NORIN RAD:"That's the Southeast Bronx, right?"

T-KID 170:"Yes, basically that's the South Bronx. It's on the East Side but it's the Southeast Bronx. It's really the South Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What prompted you to join the Bronx Enchanters?"

T-KID 170:"So I didn't wanna join a gang. I didn't do that on purpose. You know, I used to do tricks on the swings. Like I was very acrobatic and we had swings that would swing back and forth. We used to jump over fences and flip and do all kind of crazy things. We had had a battle with this other block from Noble Park. We beat them and I was like real excited about it and when we left the park...you know, I had a little El Marko Marker and at the time my name was King 13 because I was the king of the swings..I went to make a tag on an ice box which was outside of a grocery store. And then all of a sudden these guys with cut off sleeves from that gang Bronx Enchanters came up to me and they were like,"Oh shit! Yo, you're tagging on our hood! You're not supposed to tag here!" And I never heard that word before. You know, "hood"....And I was like, "What do you mean?" They'd go,"Yeah, this is our hood, man! This our area!" And then they looked and they pointed to the light poles. Actually, it was like phone wires and stuff and it was sneakers hanging there. It was a bunch of white and red sneakers all over the place. And I never...I mean I saw the sneakers hanging but I never noticed anything about them. Those were white and red. So they said to me,"Yo, we should fuck you up!" In other words they should beat me up for doing that. They said I violated and I was just a little kid. I was like twelve years old going on thirteen years old. They grabbed me and stuff and then one of them saw me and he went,"I know you! You're from the park, man! You do those tricks on the swings! This shit is kool, man! We like what you do!" And I was like,"Yeah, okay! That's what I was doing. I just won a battle and shit and I was just writing my name and shit and I didn't know! I didn't mean to write on your hood, man." So the guy basically made me an offer I couldn't refuse. He was like, "Alright, yo! You know what? Because I like you and I like what you do, bro, you could join the gang! You're gonna join our gang and you could write your name but when you write your name you gotta put up BRONX ENCHANTERS!" And I was like,"Okay and if I don't?" He said, "Then we gonna beat you up!" So I was like, "Okay, I'll join the gang!" And the first thing they made me do was go inside that bodega...that grocery store and they said, "Aight, for your initiation you gotta go in there and you gotta go steal a bottle of beer!" In other words a Colt 45 which is a brand of beer, cheap beer. I pulled that and I came out and that's how I got into the gang."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Since you wrote King 13 you must have already been familiar with that concept of tagging up your name. So were you doing that before Writers started pulling out pieces on the trains?"

T-KID 170:"In 1973 it wasn't many masterpieces. That's when Super Kool 223 starting coming out with pieces which were just big fat tags with an outline on it. So you did what you saw. But then shortly thereafter you started seeing more and more pieces. Like Super Kool 223 he did that. You know, it was a time when they were inventing styles. Like Bubble Letters...Phase 2 was doing the Bubble Letters. Riff 170 would do more straight letters. You know, shit like that. Lee 163rd! was doing regular pieces. You also had Tracy 168. By 1974 it started getting more complicated. You would see more End-To-End Cars. More cars that were being put together using color techniques and stuff like that. But at first when I was writing King 13 the pieces I saw were mainly just tags. FDT 56, Barbara 62 and Eva 62, Charmin 65...you saw a lot of tags, man."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So seeing those tags prompted you to starting tagging yourself?"

T-KID 170:"Yeah, so I was doing my tag which was King 13. The reason I changed my name later on is because I found ot that there was a King 2. He was down with Wanted. That was really like Chi Chi 133's crew. Wild Style (Tracy 168's crew) didn't happen until 1976. The main crew back then was really The IND'S (The Independents-Phase 2's crew). That was like the crew to get in. That was like the best crew."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Later you changed your name from King 13 to Sen 102. Why did you change your name?"

T-KID 170:"Yeah, Sen 102. I wanna say that's when I left the Bronx Enchanters. To get out of the Bronx Enchanters I had to get lashes. In other words they took my shirt off and they hit me in the back with a belt to get out of that gang. And then I joined the Renegades Of Harlem. That I was writing with Danco, Green Eyed Mike, Smokey and Sly 108. And Sly 108 was in the Savage Samurais. He was a cool guy."        

SIR NORIN RAD:"What caused you to leave the Bronx Enchanters in order to join another group from another borough?"

T-KID 170:"You gotta understand, when I left the Bronx Enchanters it wasn't because I was gonna join another gang. I had no plan on joining another gang. I had to get out of the gang because I had a strict father who found out that I was sneaking out of the house in the middle of the night and he would beat me up. So I got out of the Bronx Enchanters. In 1976 I went down to Manhattan to the Puerto Rican Day Parade with my boy. So it was the Puerto Rican Day Parade and that's when I met Danco and Smokey and they were tagging up and I was like,"Okay!" So I changed my name from King 13 to Sen 102 and I started Writing with them and that's how I joined that gang but that was because of Writing. I met them at the Puerto Rican Day Parade and they were real kool. So I hung out with them and they told me what the Renegades Of Harlem were doing: renovating buildings, you know, doing community work. I was very impressed by that and that's why I joined that gang but then I ended up getting shot, getting into some gang bullshit and all that other bullshit and it was like telling me, "Yo, you gotta get away from the gangs! Get away from that shit."" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"1976/77 that was the time when The Death Squad from Harlem had already begun to pull out Burners on the regular, right?"

T-KID 170:"That is correct. I got to meet Padre who was down with The Death Squad but his crew was really TBA-The Bad Artists. He used to write Boc 1. He was from the Bronx and he was another one that influenced me. He changed his name to Padre Dos. Around 1976 he changed his name to Padre Dos. He was Writing with Noc 167, Chain 3, Part One and all those guys. He was the one who told me about The Death Squad and the nasty work that they were doing and then I came to find out that my cousin Junior was best friends with Kool 131. He lived in the same building on 137th Street. Here is the funny thing: When I was writing Sen 102 I was going to John F. Kennedy High School and so was Kool 131. And me and him would be battling on a desk! We never met each other but I would do a piece on the desk and then he would do a piece. But he was good! He was real good!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on that! JFK High School that's in Marble Hill, right?"

T-KID 170:"That's in Marble Hill. Marble Hill Projects. The area there is called Marble Hill which is like the beginning of Riverdale. John F. Kennedy High School was a good school. Norin, you went to high school in NYC so you know that when you're in high school you got different classes. It was a math class. That room was a math class. Mr. Leon was the teacher. He was a real kool guy. He was a good teacher. He was interested in helping kids. I was always in trouble. I was in gangs. I was doing stupid shit. I went to a special class 'cause I was failing math. So they put me into that class. And you know when you're in class you're bored. And I remember I started doing a piece. I think it was a King 13 piece. So Mr. Leon asked me, "What are you doing?" I said, "What do you mean?" He goes,"Why are you drawing on the desk?" I said, "Because it's more interesting than the class." And he goes,"You know, instead of focussing your attention everywhere else instead of being in the moment  and being right here so you can go to the regular classes you should pay more attention."So that shit really pissed me off 'cause I was a kid and I was hard-headed. I started doing that piece and I put, "THE KING WAS HERE NOW HE'S GONE. HE LEFT HIS NAME TO CARRY ON." And then Maurice (Kool 131) came and did a fucking Maurice piece right next to that shit. And I was like,"Damn!!" So then we started battling. I tried to outdo him but he was just too good at that time. He was hard to catch. You know, I was still learning. I was hanging out with Tracy 168. I was hanging out with Padre Dos. You know, they was starting to teach me and I was starting to learn. I think that's why I became so good at that shit because I learnt from these guys."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe what kind of person Padre Dos was!"

T-KID 170:"He was that kid that got all the girls. He was that kid that you wanted to be like. He was the first one to get into DJing that I knew. This is the Disco era and he was heavy into music. Like I said he would get all the good girls from the neighbourhood. By the time I was coming into my own and I became T-Kid 170 he had already decided to stop bombing trains. I tried to get him to come with me many times and he wouldn't. He was like, "Nah, I'm done." But he sat down with me....like I lived in the building on the corner of 192nd Street. So he was from my neighbourhood. Like after I got shot and I ran away from my father and I went to live with my mother. My mother lived on the corner and he lived in the building on the other corner. But before that I knew him already 'cause you know my mother lived there and when I was living with my father....on the weekends or sometimes during the summers I would go stay with my mother and you know I would hang out and that's how I met Padre Dos, Rep 2 and Hip One who was Padre's partner. I met Bluebeard and Nic 707. They was coming into their own and I was just like really beginning.  I was like, "Wow!" Once I became T-Kid Padre Dos sat down with me after school. Me and his sister went to school together to JFK High School. We used to walk home together and we would take the bus home together. So that's how me and Padre became good friends. He was very kool. He was very reserved. He was quiet. He wasn't a troublemaker.  He was just maaad kool! But his style of Writing was unique because he learnt from Trac 168.  He also admired Lee who was doing Whole Cars. He was the one who planted the seed in me to really do pieces... not just letters but also compositions. Then Tracy 168 was the one who showed me how to compose everything but Padre Dos planted the bug.  

Padre Dos (TBA/TDS)

  

Padre Dos (TBA/TDS)

After school we would go to my kitchen and we would draw on paper bags 'cause you could take them and fold 'em and they wouldn't break. And we used to get what they call Buffalo Markers and Buffalo Markers were just different color felt markers. He just showed me how to make my letters flow.  He was like,"Yo, your letters gotta be like music, man." Like I would draw a letter. He goes, "Yeah, you see this little part here? You should make that part go skinny!" Like he literally sat there and showed me how to make a letter look better. And then when I started hanging out with Tracy 168 I already had what Padre Dos was teaching me and when I showed Tracy 168 my first piece he was like,"Yo, you're gonna be good! You're gonna be fucking dope! You got style!" And I was like, "Oh, shit!" But Tracy 168 was doing amazing shit already." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where was Tracy 168 from? Was he from the Kingsbridge section?"

T-KID 170:"Well, that's where I was at....Kingsbridge....that's 192nd Street & Aqueduct Avenue. Me, Padre Dos, Tracy 168. That's where his mother lived, too. But he was originally from 166th Street & Woodycrest Avenue. And he went to P.S. 168. That's where he got the number from.  That's where Lava and all those other guys were from. Lionel 168, Bear 167....all those guys. They were from that area which was the Highbridge Section of the Bronx. That's the West Bronx. He was from there. By the time I met him he was up in the Kingsbridge area."

  

Tracy 168 (WANTED/WS)

                                              

Tracy 168 (WANTED/WS)

                                          

Style Master Tracy 168 (WANTED/WS) 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you see all those painted trains? Would you go to certain subway stations in order to watch them?"

T-KID 170:"So going back to Kool 131....I told you my uncle and my aunt and my cousin they lived in the same building that Kool 131 lived. My cousin was friends with Kool 131. They were like the patriarchs of the family on my mother's side. So everytime there was a party we went there or every weekend my grandmother would go over there and we would go with her on the train. Since I was a little kid my mother would take me down there and that's how I would see the trains. We would get on the 4 line on let's say Burnside Avenue and we would take it down to 149th Street and then we would take the downtown 2 train. We would switch from the 4 to the 2 and the 2 would take us to 96th Street on the West Side and then we would take the 1 train going up. We would get off at 145th Street and then walk a little bit up to the projects where my uncle and Kool 131 lived."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you'd see all these different train pieces while you were on the train?"

T-KID 170:"Yeah."     

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so what prompted you to start piecing?"

T-KID 170:"After I got shot, man, you know I was like, "Okay, I'm done with this gang shit." For me, I never really liked tagging because it was so many tags by that time. Like 1977...trains were bombed! There was no space! But there was plenty of space outside to make things work and I had a bigger aspiration. What I really wanted to do is do pieces. Window down End-2-End cars, man. And if you really look at my style that's what it's for. It's for window down Burners.  I have done Top-To-Bottoms, I have done Whole Cars and stuff but if you look at my style, my style is really window down Burners. They have that flow and it has a lot to do with what Padre Dos taught me, you know?"   

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where does your name T-Kid come from?"

T-KID 170:"So that's a funny story, you know,  'cause it's a combination of Big T and Kid. So when I was in the Bronx Enchanters I was tall and skinny, right? And, you know, they would call me Kid 'cause I was the youngest. I was always the youngest guy. Then in the neighbourhood 'cause I was tall and skinny they called me Big T 'cause I looked like the letter "T". So when I was in the hospital recovering my brother brought me some markers and it's funny because whenever my family would come I was handcuffed. I was arrested because of that gang bullshit. They would handcuff me when they was there but then when they would leave I would draw. My brother brought me some Buffalo Markers and a sketch pad. And I would just doodle and do Bubble Letters and stuff like that and I did a big "T" and I did a "KID" and then I did a "T-KID". And then I said,"Yo, this looks cool! T-Kid!" And that's how I came up with T-Kid. 1977. And I was like, "Yo, I'mma dedicate myself just to doing pieces, man! Fuck that!! I wanna do Burners!"

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please break down your specific approach to composing Burners!"

T-KID 170:"I would work more on my drawing than my letters. I wasn't as good with drawing as I was with letters. Letters was just natural to me. Listen, I painted trains, stuff that rolls and I just made it off the top of my head, you know? Because it's in me. Sometimes my pieces came out real good, sometimes they came out not so good but you know what? It still is what it is. I got a certain technique and what I learnt was geometric shapes to get that mechanical straight letter shit that I was really known for. I learnt that in that math class that I took. I remember Mr. Leon was on the blackboard while I was doing a King 13 piece battling with Kool 131. And he did some shapes 'cause we was learning geometry and then I started taking those shapes and I started putting letters in them. And then  I started to figure out how to manipulate just rectangles, triangles and circles and to put them together in pieces, you know? And that's what I learnt from that class and from battling Maurice (Kool 131). Padre Dos taught me how to flow and Tracy 168 taught me how to compose a piece with characters 'cause see it was a combination of many different people showing me things. It wasn't just one guy. It wasn't just Padre Dos, it wasn't just Tracy 168. I was looking at the trains. I was looking at what Kool 131 was doing. I was looking at what Part One was doing. And then I would hang out with Tracy 168 and look at his pictures and he had all the old pictures of Cliff 159, Lionel 168 and all these crazy motherfuckers, man! King 2, Chi-Chi 133, you know? And I'm looking at all these Cars, man! Tracy 168 had all this shit from the early 1970ies to like 1975 and 1976! He had all the pictures and he kept them in cigar boxes. He had cigar boxes full of pictures, man!!"

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe your relationship with the letters of the alphabet!"

T-KID 170:"It was always about communication. See, growing like I grew up...you gotta understand something..I grew up in a broken family. My parents divorced when I was three years old. I suffered a lot of mental and physical abuse by both of them. So I developed my own world where I would escape. There is a style of writing called script which they don't teach in school anymore and when I went to live with my father he put me in Catholic school. Holy Family. And one of the classes was on writing which was script. I remember the teacher. He was showing us how to write script and whatnot and he was like,"This is communication." And he said, "With letters you can say what you want to say." And I said,"But what if they don't let you say anything?" He says,"You still write it. They'll see it but you have to write it." I started looking at letters as a form of communication. And of course already having Style Writing in my head and experiencing everything that I experienced I started to learn how to get lost in letters and how to see letters as a form of communication. That's why when I do my pieces I'm communicating. You know, I'm telling you how I feel by the colors that I'm using, by the way the letters are. My father was very militaristic. He was very hardcore. I had to do 100 push-ups, I had to do 1000 sit-ups. I had to do pull ups. I had to do all this shit. That's the way I grew up, man. When I would get in
trouble my father would hit me. My mother on the other hand she would always say, "You're no good!" You know, verbally abusing me like that. And it was like I was in a fucked up world, man. So I escaped and I used the letters and that's why those letters became a part of who I am."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to go bombing in the train yards and lay-ups back in the 1970ies and early 1980ies?"

T-KID 170:"Are you familiar with the movie "The Wizard Of Oz"?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, I am."

T-KID 170:"Okay, you go from a black and white world to this fantasy world where you can be whatever you want to be. That's what it was like. Going to a lay-up, going into a yard, going into a tunnel there was always that adrenaline and excitement. You didn't know if you was gonna get arrested, if you was gonna get caught, if you was gonna hit by a train, you know? And you would smell the rocks, you know, the gravel that they used for the tracks. The electricity from the metal, you could smell all that. You could feel the trains coming, you could feel the wind. You knew....like after going so many times you started to understand the atmosphere and how it would change so quick. Like you could sense the danger. It was danger coming....you could sense it! It was like going to this world. You know, at first I was nervous, I was scared. Then it became second nature. Like, "Let's go! Let's get in there!" And it was fucking amazing!"

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

                                              

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"And what was it like to see your freshly painted piece rolling?"

T-KID 170:"It was like...to see your piece rolling, man? You know, in the beginning I didn't take pictures. I just did it to paint but then later on when you heard about Henry Chalfant I started taking pictures. But, you know, to see your piece rolling, man, was like,"I did that!!!" It's on steel, it's rolling by and people are looking at it. It was kool, man! It was soooo fucking kool!! It was like an addiction. You had to fucking go and do more!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Your crew is TNB. What does TNB stand for?"

T-KID 170:"The Notorious Bunch. The Neck Breakers. The Nation's Best. Yeah, man! It was originally Two Nasty Boys. It was me and Pesser in 1977. You know, after I got out of the hospital I hooked up with Pesser. We were tagging at first. He had a crew called MGA- Magnificent Graffiti Artists. It was just me and him. He took me to the 1 tunnel. I started piecing with him. The first car I did was a T-KID - PESSER. I was like, "Yo, I'mma make a crew! We're nasty! We're Two Nasty Boys!" And he was like,"Yeah, yeah!!!" And that's how we came up. But then later on, you know, you start putting more people down. Now it's not just Two Nasty Boys, now it's The Nasty Boys. And "Nasty" was because we were doing something illegal. That was the reference for "Nasty". And you know, we were the boys. We were getting down. We were doing our thing, man!"  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name all the members of TNB! Who did actually do pieces?"

T-KID 170:"I did all the pieces for the original TNB crew. It was me, Pesser, Rase, this other guy Anthony....La Rock. He was like a bomber. Like he had the letter styles. Joker One...he had handstyles, too. So those were my handstyle guys. They were tagging the insides. Then later on we hooked up with Take One from Rock Steady Crew and Vista. They were just hardcore throw-up guys. Later on it just got bigger and better I could say. "

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"You are known for having been the king of the 1 line back then. What made you target this specific line?"

T-KID 170:"That was the line you could walk down from Kingsbridge. Marble Hill was one of the train stations. So we would come down from where I lived up by the 4 line 'cause I was closer to the 4 line. The 4 line was two blocks away. So the 1 line was there and that was THE line, man!! That was the line where The Go Club....you know Team, Piggy and all these old school motherfuckers were doing pieces and that was the line TDS was burning. So we had to go there and we had to burn. We had to represent. And also my father he had moved to Yonkers. That's    why I met Pesser. Pesser was from Yonkers. You took the bus from Yonkers to Van Cortlandt Park which was the 1 line. So that was like the most convenient line and we killed that line. Then I found the Ghost Yard and the Ghost Yard was like wheeeeeew....all the trains went there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was Pesser Puerto Rican, too?"

T-KID 170:"No, he was a Black brother."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you would do the outlines for him and then he would do the fill-ins or would he also do his own pieces?"

T-KID 170:"Oh no, he would tag. But I would do the outlines and he would fill in. You gotta understand, it was the orchestra and I was the maestro. You know, I would tell them what to do when it came to the pieces and the background of the pieces. I told them, "Use this color! Use that color! Do these kind of blends!" 'Cause I knew what I was doing and they were learning. Then after a while they figured it out and they would just do it automatically. They would be like, "Yo, T! What if you use this color?" And I'd be like,"Let me see. Oh, that shit looks dope!" They was like an orchestra playing a fucking song. Once again going back to what Padre Dos told me,"Your pieces gotta flow!" And how do they flow when you're working with a lot of people? You teach them. You teach them and they learn and then you guys work together and you get shit done, man. That's why we did so many cars 'cause it was a group of us doing shit. And it all started with me doing the outlines and I got better real quick. I was one of the Writers that...I mean the first T-Kid - Pesser piece was busted but yo by the fourth piece I was already a master."

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you have a little wall in your neighbourhood on which you would  practice your pieces?"

T-KID 170:"There was a wall in the benches that we used to just paint. Like I used to do little pieces there and I used to try different letters. But yeah, it was a little spot, man....the benches. Me and my boy Mack Gerrard...not Mack from TAT...but this other kid...Mackenannny..we used to call him Mack. He was a Puerto Rican Irish guy. He was fun. He was like, "Yeah, man! Check out this piece!" 'Cause he was Padre's best best friend. It was amazing, man. Growing up and hanging out with these guys it was just like...you know, we all loved different things but we all had that one common thrill: We all loved Writing, man!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long did take the TNB Crew to take over the 1 line?"

T-KID 170:"I wanna say like about six months 'cause it was a lot of trains, it was a lot of people painting. After a while you had to find space and you had to go over people and that's when the whole End-To-End, Top-To-Bottom Cars started coming in. We were like,"Yo, let's do the whole car 'cause this guy did a piece here and it's busted. We got no space. We gotta do this shit!" So we  painted the whole fucking train to make pieces disappear and that would happen on a regular basis. It took about six months betweeen me, Rase...you know, I was doing Dr. Bad pieces, too. That was my other name. You know, I was doing Dr. Bad, I was doing Kid Rock. Rase was doing Rase or Coop. I was also doing Pearl pieces 'cause Pesser was doing Pearl. So I would do Pearl pieces for Pesser. Wake 5 that was another name that I used do to for Joker One. I told him,"You need to wake up! Wake up at 5 AM! Wake 5! That's you, bro! Let's do Wake 5! Let's do a "W"! Let's see how it comes out!""

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where would you and the rest of TNB meet in order to hang out, do pieces in blackbooks and plan your bombing missions?"

T-KID 170:"So with Pesser we would get together in Yonkers. We would get together in Rase's house, in his apartment. We would get together there 'cause his parents were never around. They were always working so he was always available to take us in. So we would sit there and we would come up with the ideas. Then later on we started doing it in the Bronx in my grandmother's apartment and at the benches across the street. You know, we would sit there in the summertime 'cause they had a table to play chess. So we would sit there and we would draw and we would plan, "Yo, we gotta do this! We gotta do that!" So it was several places. Then we would meet at Van Cortlandt Park. That's where we always met. Van Cortlandt Park at the last stop of the 1 train. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the atmosphere at those TNB meetings! What would you do besides Writing? What would you drink and smoke? Were there any girls with you?"

T-KID 170:"By that time it would be 40s and it would be weed. The girls? It's not that we weren't interested in girls but there wasn't that many girls that was interested in what we were doing. We were really underground. Not a lot of people knew what we were doing, you know? But we was always joking. There was always happiness. It was always a good atmosphere. It was a very creative atmosphere. Later on Trip 7, Rac 7's brother, he became my best friend and we would go to his apartment. This guy, man, that's a whole different story. He went from riches to rags 'cause of crack. He lost everything. But he had a nice apartment. He had a great job. He had a nice apartment by St. James Park. Rac 7 was my protege. Him and Jon started the 156 Crew. Trip wasn't a Writer but he was an excellent artist. We would go to his house and we would smoke weed and he would DJ and we would beat on the wall inside of the apartment. Now I'm hanging out with Boozer from Staten Island. We was just having a good time and that became like the TNB headquarters for about two, three years. And then later on when I hooked up with my first wife..there was an abandoned building next to her and we would use it as a club house. And it's funny because I found a canvas....I didn't even know I had it...that we had painted there for the club house. By that time we were into girls and girls were hanging out with us. So that was like the Romeo's spot."     

Rac 7 (TNB / 156 Crew)

                                            

Rac 7 (TNB / 156 Crew)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did Rac 7 become your protege?"

T-KID 170:"I wanna say he was the littlest one out of all of us so I wanna say around like 1978 he started hanging around. He used to chase me. He would follow us to the yard. That was 1978. By 1982 I hooked up with the TAT Crew if I remember correctly. It was Brim, Nicer and Bio and BG 183 came later."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"They're from Bronx River, right?"

T-KID 170:"That's correct."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let us talk about the Ghost Yard please. Where did it get its name from? Is it true that it was built on an old graveyard?"

T-KID 170:"There's many stories. In the Bronx there are graveyards all over. That's a little....I don't know about that. But the reason it was called the Ghost Yard....and the one who told me this was Mike 171..he lived right by it. The Ghost Yard is right next to a river. In the summertime at night you get the fog coming from the river. In those times they used to use handheld torches and when the workers would walk through the yard these torches would glow like a ghost in the fog and that's why they called it the Ghost Yard."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What is your definition of a Burner piece?"

T-KID 170:"A good style of letters, good use of colors, nice composition with the background and a character."

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were the top three Style Writers of the 1970ies to you?"

T-KID 170:"I wanna say when it came to the style of letters Kool 131 (TDS) was one of the best. Noc 167 (OTB) I would say was next. And then third place I would have to say Chain 3 (TMT)."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did battles between Writers start back then? And who determined who won those batttles?"

T-KID 170:"The winner was always determined by other Writers. They would come to you and be like, "Yo, you fucking burnt that shit, man!" And the way battles would come about was most of the times you saw a piece from somebody and you would say, "Yeah, I wanna outdo this guy!" Whenever you painted, you painted to burn! That's how these battles came about. It was never planned. It was always impromptu. It would just happen. Nobody ever came up to me and said, "Let's battle!" It was mostly what you saw and once again let's take it to that words are communication. You would put certain shit like, "Yeah, I'm burning this shit."or, "Who's Gonna Top This?"  But that's how it worked, man." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were you ever involved in long lasting battles? Like battles that went on for multiple rounds?" 

T-KID 170:"Well, with me that wasn't necessary 'cause the first round was enough for me to take somebody out." Chain 3 (TMT) and Case 2 (TFP) went through a couple of battles like that. And Chain 3 (TMT) and Noc 167 (OTB). But for me I didn't have that experience. The kind of cars that I was doing were just fucking amazing and they were just winning it hands down. Nobody wanted to battle me."

T-Kid 170 (TNB)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe what went on in the Writing community when giants like Chain 3 (TMT) and Case 2 (TFP) battled! Were those battles inspiring?"

T-KID 170:"Oh, absolutely, man! When you saw Writers trying to outdo each other it was always inspiring. It was like,"Yo!" You know it's funny, I know that you have spoken to a bunch of Writers but they never really mentioned Dondi. But yet many consider Dondi the King of Writing. Why do think that is?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Well, I know that Dondi was from Brooklyn. He wrote Naco before he changed his name to Dondi. I think he isn't referred to as King of Writing by many of the best Style Writers of Manhattan and the Bronx because it is obvious that his later style was largely influenced by what The Death Squad and Writers such as Noc 167 and Chain 3 had been doing long before him."    

T-KID 170:"Yeah, he developed that but the one who really mastered that was Duro. Duro was the one that was coming over to the 1 line more than Dondi. And Dondi that was his partner. Duro was Dondi's partner and he took the style actually from Duro and Duro got it from Manhattan, from the 1 line and from the Bronx guys, you know?"  

SIR NORIN RAD:"You were not only a Style Writer but also a B-Boy. Since you have mentioned that you grew up on Boynton Avenue I guess that you must be familiar with Kool DJ Dee who lived on Elder Avenue and of course with DJ Afrika Bambaataa from Bronx River."

T-KID 170:"Listen, it was Boynton Avenue and then Elder Avenue as you went down. That's where I came from. And then Kingsbridge is right next to where Kool DJ Herc lived on. So you gotta understand I grew up with this as it was developing. Like when Breaking started I was part of the first generation of breakdancers." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"I see. And what prompted you to pick up B-Boying?"

T-KID 170:"They didn't call it B-Boying. They called it Breaking. They didn't call it B-Boying. That came later on. 1981 or 1982. My friend Sach he was like into this, man. When I went down to the Puerto Rican Day Parade in 1976 and I met Danco and them I was with Sach. He got into it and I got into it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Are you talking about the Writer Sach from TMB?"

T-KID 170:"No, not that Sach. This is another Sach. This is a Puerto Rican kid from the Bronx. from Boynton Avenue. His name was Alexander Rivera. He had already started Breaking and he was like,"Yo, check this out!" He started doing some moves and I said, "I could do that!" He had just started and he knew Cholly Rock and all these guys. You had the Zulu Kings and the Shaka Zulus. He introduced me to the Shaka Zulus and they put me down 'cause I was Breaking. I wasn't that good but they put me down and I was down with the Shaka Zulus for a moment. I never really did anything with them because I was too busy bombing the trains."

T-Kid 170 breaking with the Rock Steady Crew.

SIR NORIN RAD:"But you still felt confident enough to go off in a circle when the muisc was right I guess."

T-KID 170:"Hell yeah!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So where did you dance at?"

T-KID 170:"Bronx River. But back then it was everywhere, man. It was in the streets! Like any park you went to where somebody would hook up two turntables to the light poles they would be partying and they would Breaking. Right there JHS 123 that was the spot! That's when I lived on Boynton. It's a couple of blocks up on Morrison Avenue. The community center in Bronx River was another spot. The music was inspiring. It would suck you in, man. It would draw you. You wanted to go over there and listen to the music."

T-Kid 170 (TNB)  & DJ Afrika Bambaataa

SIR NORIN RAD:"Could you pinpoint the year when you started Breaking?"

T-KID 170:"1976. The end of 1976, the winter of 1976 if I remember correctly. By the spring of 1977 I had already developed some moves."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To what kind of music did you listen to when you were at home drawing in your blackbook?"

T-KID 170:"At that time I was listening more to the R&B stuff. You know, James Brown, the J.B.'s and those guys. and that's where all the breakbeats came from. The Blackbyrds...listening to all them motherfuckers. It was kool, man! I was drawn to that shit and I could relate to it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please shed some light on your relationship with the Ballbusters!"

T-KID 170:"Let me educate you on the Ballbusters. They were my biggest enemies. The Writing part of them..we were rivals, we were fighting all the time and that was because of Shock 123. But you gotta understand the real Ballbusters were Dominican drug dealers from Broadway between 137th & 139th Street. Those were the real hardcore guys. Then you had the Writers.....Tack, Airborn, Baby Rock 137......the FBA Crew. We were at this train station in the Bronx....Dyckman Avenue.....the 1 train before it goes in the tunnel...you know, we're chilling, we're benching..we were watching trains go by and shit and all of a sudden this guy from the Ballbusters comes up and shakes my hand and goes, "Yo, T-Kid!! I like what you do!" I was like, "Yeah, kool!" His name was Cid 137 and all of a sudden out of nowhere fucking Shock 123 comes and punches him in the face for no reason at all. That is something that really shouldn't have happened. It was fucked up 'cause Cid 137 was a cool guy. And that's how the war started between us and the Ballbusters. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do those days of Writing and Breaking during the 1970ies and 1980ies mean to you?"

T-KID 170:"They made me who I am today. I'm glad for everything I experienced, man. It was amazing to see a culture develop. I never knew how impactfully it would touch the world. I'm so proud that I grew up in that culture!"

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

T-KID 170:"Listen man, shoutouts to all the real motherfuckers out there doing their thing, that are surviving day by day and that are keeping it real. God bless y'all! Be the best person you can be!"  

SIR NORIN RAD: "Thank you! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew! To DJ Scarce One the best Hiphop DJ in Germany! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! UKUMBAMBISANA!! Shout outs to Pete Nice! Shout outs to my mentors Trixie, Dancin' Doug, Cholly Rock, Sondance, Puppetmaster, Wayne Will (RIP) and of course Mr. Wiggles!! Shout outs to Troy L. Smith! Shout outs to my brother T.T. La Rock!" 

                        

Interview with B-Boy Craig Butler (The Soundview Crew / The Shaka Zulus)

                            Interview with B-Boy Craig Butler (The Soundview Crew / The Shaka Zulus)

                                               

B-Boy Craig Butler (Soundview Crew / Shaka Zulus)

                                            conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

CRAIG BUTLER:"I was born in 1962 in the Bronx. Actually, I was born around University Avenue in the Bronx and then we moved to Soundview."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you moved to Soundview?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I moved to Soundview Projects when I was like 4 or 5 years old."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly did you live in Soundview?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"551 Rosedale Avenue."

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

CRAIG BUTLER:"Okay, so I started dancing  when I was around 4, 5. Maybe a little earlier but I don't remember  that. My mom used to listen to Rock 'n' Roll and my brothers they used to listen to The Beatles and stuff like The Beach Boys. You know, the Monkees...you know, stuff like that, man! My moms she also used to listen to that Motown music. She really was into that Motown music. She listened to James Brown, Michael Jackson even though that was a little too early. It was like that, man. It was Rock 'n' Roll first because Motown didn't come into the set until some years after that. Even Michael Jackson was little. He was a kid, you know? But he was singing. So I was brought up on stuff like that. Like on Rock 'n' Roll, you know? Like I said...The Beatles and stuff like that. And we used to dance and my brother used to wear wigs and all that (laughs).So that's how it all started in the house."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall the occasions on which you used to dance as kid?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, we used to dance at family get-togethers 'cause I had three other siblings. Me, Abdul, Ty and Michael. That was the immediate family in the house. So the house was kinda crowded, you know? My moms had a 3 bedroom apartment and so my two older brothers would sleep together. They had their own room. And me and my little brother we had our own room. And my moms had her own room, you know?" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you watch Soul Train with your siblings?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Righ, right! Yes, Soul Train and Dick Clark ...American Bandstand. That's how we got together and started dancing. My moms would put on these shows and we'd be just dancing away."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was dancing at that point already competitive or did you just enjoy the music together?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"We would enjoy the music together but at the same we was also competing with each other 'cause we was always in competition with each other, you know? Yeah, always, man!! Then we would imitate the Soul Train stuff. We would always imitate the dance moves and stuff like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you think of James Brown back then?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, he was like my hero, man! We copied his moves and made some of our own moves. Michael Jackson and James Brown were like our favourites. When the TV shows were over my moms would put on her little stereo and my oldest brother Michael would play the music. Albums and 45s. Actually, I would follow behind Michael and Ty because they were my B-Boy heroes, you know? When I was eleven years old they used to take me to the parties. Well, my mother had them taking me with them. That's  how I started B-Boying through my brother Ty. He was also a Writer. He wrote Pase 161. He died. I wish he was here to see Marky Mark The Puppetmaster (legendary Shaka Zulu B-Boy from Harlem; check out the interview I did with him) again. Ty and Puppetmaster went to Samuel Gompers High School together and they would also dance together. Puppetmaster, his brother Mike  and 3D they had a B-Boy Crew and I used to follow behind them. Puppetmaster's sister was fine!!! She was like a beauty queen! Oh, my God!! But yeah, Puppetmaster was the baddest! 3D was a lightskin dude. He was nice with his, too. I remember when they battled Amad (Zulu Kings) and them in Bronx River and burnt them!! And I'm not talking about a regular burn! Those are the guys I used to follow! I used to follow my brothers and them. I was like 11 years old, man. They was soo good, they used to get in the parties free. Back then it was more a block party thing than parties though. You know, that's how it started out. It started with the block parties. B-Boying outside!! We used to dance on concrete. No cardboards, none of that stuff!" 

B-Boy Puppetmaster (The Shaka Zulus) 1976

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did B-Boying look like when you saw it for the first time in 1974? Was it already focussed on doing moves on the floor?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"It wasn't. It started out like Uprock. Like doing moves on top, like doing Uprock.  See, they would go down on the floor from time to time but it was more like a kneel move or something like that. Then some of them would go into a puppet style of stance or they would do the Robot. We....like my generation..we brought in that floor stuff, you know? "

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were the places that your brothers would take you to where you would see them dance?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Bronx River, Soundview Projects, Monroe Projects.....those were the main projects. And Bronxdale....Mario was in Bronxdale. That's where we would have these big B-Boy get-togethers. Like the projects would battle each other. We were all Black Spades first. My brothers was in the Young Spades. But later all that fighting really turned into dancing, you know? "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the describe the scenery at these parties!"

CRAIG BUTLER:"The music was just incredible, man! Nothing like the block parties today 'cause back then everybody was just so much together, man. One project....we all stuck together. Once you got to the block party everybody was so friendly. I mean, things happened but it was just amazing, man. We didn't have all these crazy rules that they have now. So it was just awesome, like a spectacle, you know? People would start to dance and they would have the crowd gathering around them and everybody was in a crew. I was in the Soundview Crew. Bronxdale and Bronx River they had their crews but then we all knew each other 'cause we was all in the Black Spades, you know what I'm saying? But each project had their own style of B-Boying. So we would battle each other but now if somebody else was to come within the projects we would stick together and battle them."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How much older than you are your brothers Ty and Michael?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, Ty is two or three years older than me and Michael is even more older than me. Maybe four or five years. They used to take me everywhere. I was brought up as a Muslim so my mother was very strictly up until a certain time until The Honourable Elijah Muhammad died in 1975. You know, actually my mother never used to let us go outside after a certain time when we was younger.  By 6 o'clock we had to be in the house."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you know where your brothers picked up B-Boying?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"They were in the Black Spades and like I said all the projects used to dance in the block parties. It would be big giant gatherings. Picture a big park jam that people heard about. DJ Mario had these huuuuuuge speakers!! I mean bass ass kicking speakers. You could hear the music from miles and miles away!!! So once somebody started kicking it in the park, like they set up....everybody can hear the music and word spreads like a wildfire. And before you  know it, man....like one hour...it's like 100 people.....another two hours....350, 400 people. I mean, we 're talking about total excitement and joy because everybody knew each other. That's how they started 'cause everybody was dancing, man. You know, if they wasn't doing the Hustle , they was doing some type of Freestyle Uprock Hiphop thing. See, my brothers came out before me. I was one of those B-Boys that came up with that floor stuff.  You know, like the helicopter? You know, I invented the helicopter stuff. It's like throwing one leg over one leg. I started that in the 1970ies, man!!! And it took flight because a lot of people started doing it. So I was like, "Man, these people try to take credit for my move!" But I ain't never worried 'cause I knew what the real deal was."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So did you ask your brothers how to do B-Boying?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"No!!! I was with my brothers. We would just dance, man. Like we had a saying in dancing back then, right? When you feel it, go for it! It's in your soul. It's in your spirit, you understand? So you hearing these big giant speakers and that bass is thumping and you out there....it's your spirit, man!!! You go with the flow, man!!! (excited) So that's the motto: When you feel it, go for it!! No holding back!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"You really loved it when DJs like Kool DJ Dee were playing B-Beat music in the park."

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yeah...Kool DJ Dee, his brother DJ Tyrone The Mixologist....I know all those guys personally 'cause I knew them from dancing. I would make the parties happen. Me, my brothers and the other B-Boys...You know, the Ni***er Twins...I knew them also 'cause I used to dance against them. You see, the Zulus would be Breaking against the Herculoids. I was all a part of that because I was good at dancing. After a while I didn't need my brothers no more and you know I got to know Afrika Bambaataa so good that I spent a night in his house. If you know him, you could ask him. All you gotta do is say, "Craig Butler.". Or my fathers name, "Muhammad Abdul Aziz." and he'll know exactly who you are talking about. I know him personally. So I became a Zulu."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please expound on that!"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Okay, I became a Zulu because like I said when my brothers used to take me to all the block parties and I would dance I got popularity from dancing. I knew everybody and everybody wanted to know me 'cause I was burning people, you know what I mean??!!! (laughs) But it was all about the fun and the spirit, man. And that's how I met Bam. Actually, Bam came to me 'cause he knew my father, too. It's a lot of history behind my name. All about the Malcolm X thing and my father got exonerated. He got falsely accused and went to prison for 20 years for a crime he didn't commit but they exonerated him two years ago and he got millions. Actually, my father just moved to Africa last year. So that's how I got to know Bam even that much more. It's like they used to guard me, man. You know, they ain't let nothing happen to me. So I knew Crazy Mike, Crazy Phil, DJ Afrika Bambaataa's bodyguards. It was like I was introduced to a whole new different world once I got down with the Zulus. I knew everybody....Pow Wow, Cholly Rock....So I got inducted into the Zulu Nation and Wade's Shaka Zulus because I knew everybody very well and also through my dancing 'cause I was really good. I came out with moves that none of them had. It was that next generation thing, you know?"

Official B-Boy membership list of the Shaka Zulu Crew compiled by its founder and president Wade. Craig Butler and his brother Tyrone aka Pase 161 are both on it.

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you would come up with these new spectacular moves!"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, I would practice in my house or in a park outside. You know, I would practice my moves. I would also try to do other peoples' moves and then once I figured their moves out I would introduce my own brand into it and make something new of it. I would try their stuff out but I wanted to be original and through practice I started coming up with ideas or by accidents, too. You'd be saying, "Oh, wow!! Let me do this shit!!" And you'd practice it and it became something of yours. I would practice anywhere I felt I needed to practice. Mainly like after coming home from school. I would do homework and then I'd go outside. After a while my mother wasn't so strict anymore and I was the first one to move out of my house. I moved out of my house when I was 16 years old. I had my own place. I bought my first motorcycle when I was 17. I mean that big motorcycle,  not that little mini bike. I bought a Honda CB 360. Then after that I bought a bigger one. I bought a Yamaha XS 500....140 mph on the speedometer. So I was the dude. I used to hustle in the supermarkets to make money. Like when I was 16 I had about 10000$ in my shoebox from making money. Everytime I got money I would save it. Everytime I would want something I would put away money and I would get the biggest boom boxes. See, that's another reason why I attracted a lot of attention because I always had a gigantic boom box. I'm not talking about nothing little, I'm talking about a gigantic boom box. We're talking about maybe 2 feet in length and five inches wide. You know, JVCs....I had the biggest one they made. That shit cost me 400$, 500$ back then. I was really making money 'cause I used to sell weed, too. I mean everybody sold something in Soundview back then.  Everybody knew I was that guy with money." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"It seems that by 1975 B-Boying had shifted its focus to moves down on the floor. That means that you probably witnessed that change..."

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yes, because my brothers were older than me. So I was younger. So I was that next generation, you understand? So yeah, I was part of that movement. Actually, I was one of the B-Boys who really started that floor stuff. I ain't gonna lie though the Ni**er Twins and Clark Kent.....Kool DJ Herc's B-Boys....they did that also. I know what I'm talking 'cause I was there, man!! And I remember when I used to breakdance against Clark Kent....oh my God!!!! Yo, them dudes were bad, man!!!!! But I had my own moves and I was killing it. And then I had the power of the Zulu Nation. Pow Wow, Marcus Rockwell, Cholly Rock, Shaka. Soundview was with Bronx River.....and Bronxdale with Black Jack...he was a B-Boy, too.... we was all together. The Herculoids was like from over there...The Nine Projects and you know, University Avenue. It was a spectacle and we was like famous in our own right. That's how I got popular, man!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did these B-Boy battles take place when Kool DJ Herc played with DJ Afrika Bambaataa?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yes, yes...actually it would be a battle between the B-Boys AND the DJs 'cause Bambaataa would be battling Kool Herc. Herc's B-Boys would be battling against us. That's how it was and there would be times where they would be side by side battling! Oh God, I wish you was there! They don't even do stuff like that anymore. They don't know how to have fun like we had growing up. It was amazing, man!!! Amazing!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Well, I guess a big part of it was the music because back then you had really great musicians who put out incredible music. Unlike today where it's just pieced together stuff without any soul."

CRAIG BUTLER:"Exactly!! Vibration was totally different."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So who were the B-Boys of the Soundview Crew?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"The main crew was my brothers, me, Buppy and his little brother Sharky. You know, they used to dance, too. Some other people, man, but it's so hard to remember. Damn, man! We was like really the main B-Boys out of Soundview. Everybody used to call us The Butler Brothers." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"You said that you and your brothers battled the B-Boys from Bronx River and those from Bronxdale like Lil Black Jack and them. How often did you battle against each other? Once or numerous times?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Numerous times. That's how we got to know each other. I mean we know each other from the Black Spades but not as personal. I was a Baby Spade. I had my colors and everything. When you start dancing and all of that it get's a little more personal. You begin to respect one another in certain ways and that's how we became even closer."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did these battles take place at? Bronx River Center? JHS 123?"

CRAIG BUTLER:" Yes, but Soundview Center, too, and Soundview Park. That's where everything used to happen. But there were also DJs playing music in the middle of the projects." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly is Soundview Center located at?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Oh, it's like across the street from Sack Wern Houses and it's like maybe 200 yards away from the main park where they used to do the block parties, too. In the beginning the block parties would happen in the middle of the projects, man. Soundview Center was a rec room. It was small. I would say maybe 300 people fit in there. Maybe a little more but there would always be a lot of people outside in front of it. They didn't give parties there until after  because the block parties were so hot, man! It would last all night. They would start like maybe 8 o'clock and they would last until 2 or 3 o'clock in the morning. It wasn't like now where you need a permission to to do it. Back then you didn't need a permit and all that crazy stuff. But when fights would break out and stuff like that's when they introduced permits in New York." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who was the main DJ in Soundview who DJed for the B-Boys?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Okay, so on my side the main DJs were Kool DJ Dee and DJ Tyrone The Mixologist. They were the main DJs back then in Soundview. Bambaattaa was in Bronx River. Mario was in Bronxdale. His partner was Tex DJ Hollywood."

SIR NORIN RAD:"From where do you know T.T. La Rock?"

CRAIG BUTLER:" I met T.T. La Rock in a block party in either Soundview or Bronxdale. We used to get down in the circles. He was nice. I used to call him Big T back then." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also tag up your name?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I would tag up my name with a Magic Marker but not like my brother. He wrote Pase 161. He was awesome, man. He used to bomb the trains back in the days."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did also encounter the Little Zulu Kings?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Yes, we never battled against each other though. Beaver took my helicopter move and he made it his own. He could do it both ways. I couldn't do that. I could only do that with one leg."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are your favourite breakbeats from back then?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"It's Just Begun"! That was my favourite, man!!! Well, actually "Apache" was my favourite! That and "It's Just Begun". Then after that it was "Bongo Rock". Once one of those records came on back then it was mayhem!!!!! But I mean like a dance mayhem! It was just amazing! Everybody's soul and spirit was just on the dance floor! I get teary-eyed when I think back to those days. "Listen To Me" by Baby Huey, too.  That record was an absolute mindblower, man! Everybody used to get nuts on the dancefloor, man!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did B-Boys dress back in your era?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"B-Boys would dress like fly. They wore Pro-Keds with some fly jeans...you know, Lee Jeans. To make 'em look fly we would take the strings out and they would have strings coming out of them. You know, we would take the stitching out....like around the circles and the stitching would come down. So it was like the pants had a certain hair style. Your pants would look like a little mini mock. We would do it like for maybe half an inch. Some people would do it an inch long. You know, we would dress like that. We would put two different pairs of shoe laces in our Pro-Keds. I would have red on one side and black on the other side or intertwine them, you know? Back then the Pro-Keds was the flyest shoes out. We would also wear mocknecks, suede fronts and plaids if we wanted to get real fly. See, I was one of the fly B-Boys I would outdress everybody. I would buy my gear at Jew Man's and A.J. Lester. That's where everybody went. Jew Man had everything A.J. Lester had but for cheaper (laughs). Stick-up kids were always around but nobody would ever mess with me 'cause everybody knew the Butler Brothers." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your most memorable battle?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"Battling the Ni**er Twins and Clark Kent in Bronx River and battling Lil Black Jack in Bronxdale and Soundview. That battle against the Ni**er Twins and Clark Kent kinda ended in a draw 'cause I was still learning but I had those moves that they had never seen before."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take to stand out as a B-Boy during the 1970ies?"

CRAIG BUTLER:"I would say your dance moves and the way you would dress but then again that didn't really matter that much. I would say your dance moves and how strong you would be because it takes a lot of endurance, you know? And conviction, too, I would say. You also had to know people because you couldn't just go and dance somewhere if you didn't know somebody, you know what I mean? Sometimes people would come up from nowhere and do some moves and somebody would get mad because they would be like, "Who is this dude???!!" And he would get punched in the face. That's what I mean by that. Having style and finesse was mandatory. You had to have that!!"

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

CRAIG BUTLER:"Well, I'd like to give shoutouts to my man Marky Mark The Puppetmaster, my man Big T otherwise known as T.T. La Rock, The Ni**er Twins, Clark Kent, DJ Afrika Bambaataa, Kool DJ Herc, Kool DJ Dee, DJ Tyrone The Mixologist, DJ Mario, Tex DJ Hollywood, Wade....and everybody else in the community that was there with us Breaking. My shoutouts go out to all of you!! I love you all!! AND I thank my man Sir Norin Rad for doing this interview with me! God bless you! Thank you because you had made my day! All those memories...you took me back! It was overwhelming, man! Love is Love!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you and thanks to T. T. La Rock for making this interview possible! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! UKUMBAMBISANA!! Shout outs to Pete Nice! Shout outs to my mentors Trixie, Dancin' Doug, Cholly Rock, Sondance, Puppetmaster, Wayne Will (RIP) and of course Mr. Wiggles!! Shout outs to Troy L. Smith!" 

   

Interview with Kool DJ Dee (The KD Crew)

                                                           Interview with Kool DJ Dee 

                                                 

Kool DJ Dee (The KD Crew)

                                          

                                        conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

KOOL DJ DEE:"I was born on October 20th, 1956 in Wilson, North Carolina."

SIR NORIN RAD:"At which age did you move to New York City?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"My mother got me in New York City when I was around seven years old."

SIR NORIN RAD:"To which part of New York City did you move?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, at seven we moved to Harlem. I think it was 127th Street & Morningside Avenue. From there we moved to Brooklyn. Then we moved to the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you moved to the Bronx?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" Well, I was in junior high school so I'm thinking I was about 16 or 17."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did living in Brooklyn differ from living in the Bronx?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, in Brooklyn it was a completely different thing. I was running around riding bicycles, learning how to talk to girls and shit. I got suspended from school for fighting. In Brooklyn I was introduced to the world or whatever. I was just learning things in Brooklyn.  I wasn't interested in music right there and then. I didn't do that until I got to the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"After you had moved to the Bronx you became a member of the Black Spades, right?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yes, when I got to junior high school I was from Brooklyn so I was dressing different than the other kids. So I had this one kid who picked on me and who wanted to fight me. I think he was in a different gang. I think he was in  the Ghetto Brothers. He said to me,"See you at 3 o'clock!" I was like, "Okay." And then a Black guy came to me and said,"Yo, man! This guy is in a gang. You need to join the Spades then we can make sure that you have a fair fight." I was like, "I don't know. I know nothing about gangs." He said, "Okay, we gonna stand there with you anyway." So then 3 o'clock came and I had to fight and then David saw me fight he was the head of the Black Spades. He said, "Oh man, you're good. You're big for your age. We'll put you in the Young Spades." I said, "Okay! Alright." So that's how that started. And then from there I moved up to the president of the first chapter of the first division of the Black Spades. David wanted me to be the president of the first chapter of the first division to recruit more people into the Spades....younger guys like myself. And so that's more or less what I did. You know, Bambaataa and them and their projects and other projects in Soundview. We went around beating up people. You know, it was a whole different thing then. I was wild."

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

KOOL DJ DEE:"James Brown, Otis Redding, Joe Tex  and Motown...the Supremes, Sam Cooke. You know, it was your urban music that they was playing. Every now and then my mother would play some Rock music. Like Mandrill. My mother was young. She was a young mother. She had at me at 16." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What caused you to become a DJ?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I used to go this club in the Village on West 3rd Street when I was 16. I was already living in the Bronx by that time. It was a club called "The Duke. It was a small club, you know? And we used to go there and the DJ there had big speakers. I looked and I was amazed how he kept the music going. He was mixing well. I wanted to know how he did it so I looked inside the DJ booth. He didn't really have a mixer. He had levels on the turntables where he would tap one up and at the same time he would tap the other level down. I started talking to him, "How are you doing this? What's all this about?" So he started explaining to me about the volume and the mixing. It was crazy! At the time they didn't call it BPM. They called it strobe light. You had to watch the strobe on the bottom of the turntables where these little squares turn into one line  and then when both squares is in one line on both turntables it's in the same beat. So yeah, I had to learn. I saw that and I got interested in that. So I started going to other clubs where I saw Pete DJ Jones and Grandmaster Flowers. Like Flowers...oh man, when you talk about blending a record that man could blend a record like you would never believe and I was in awe. I was dancing and listening to him. And Pete DJ Jones..the same thing. Pete DJ Jones had a different style though. I noticed that there was a different style between the two. So I incorporated some of Pete DJ Jones' style and some of Grandmaster Flowers' style into me. And also DJ Plummer! Ron Plummer. So that's what got me interested in it. My mother always used to give parties. So the music was already there. When she didn't have money for rent and she had to pay the rent she would give rent parties where people would come and pay and she would sell drinks and fried chicken sandwiches. " 

SIR NORIN RAD:"You have said that Grandmaster Flowers and Pete DJ Jones had different styles of DJing. What do you mean by that?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Alright! Grandmaster Flowers..he's a blender. He blends most of his records, right? And sometimes he blends music that people don't know just to have it blend well before he puts in another record that people do know. So to me he loses the interest of the crowd in one way or another some time. Pete DJ Jones only played the contemporary music. He only played what was in style and he didn't mix at all. He wouldn't blend no record at all. He would extend the front part of the record or whatever part he wanted. Grandmaster Flowers didn't do that. He didn't extend nothing. So there was a difference in their style. So you could say that Grandmaster Flowers mixed and Pete DJ Jones mostly cut."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe what you did in order to get your own DJ equipment together!"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I was a messenger at the time in Midtown Manhattan. I worked down there and so I delivered letters and packages to people. So I walked past these electronic stores and I would look in the window. So I walked into one electronic store  and I met this salesman and we was talking. He would show me the equipment. He would show me the GLI speakers, he would show me the GLI mixer. He showed me amps. He would explain everything to me. That's when I started learning about distortion rates. He was good though. We would put a package together. He said, "This is gonna cost you so much. You can pay on it each week." So I put my first 50 $ down. I think it cost 4000 $ in the beginning. It was a lot of money and my mother came in and put the rest and then that's how I got started-"

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did your brother DJ Tyrone The Mixologist join you?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"He joined me later on. My brother was slick. He waited till everything got off the ground  then he wanted in. He saw that the girls liked the DJ and so he told me, "Hey, I want in!" I had to teach him how to mix and he took it from there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your very first party as a DJ?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" My first party when I didn't have no equipment I gave myself a party in Monroe projects where I had little speakers. I took my mother's set apart and I used to use a component ampifier where I turned from phono to auxiliary and stuff like that. That's my first party. It sounded terrible. That was in the center in Monroe projects. Then after I got my equipment my first professional party where I got paid was at a place called Spaghetti Works. At that time they used to take restaurants and turn them into clubs at night time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you get to play there?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I was playing in the park and these promoters walked up to me. They said, "We like how you sound. We're giving this party and we need you to play down there."  Spaghetti Works was on 86th Street & Lexington Avenue. I'll never forget that. I only had limited records. You understand? You know, I had the hits but it was limited. Like what? Maybe 20 albums and a couple of 45s, right? I had to make it last so I took the music but I had to mix it in different ways so that they didn't realize that I'm playing the same music over and over again.  That was my first professional party and it was very successful. Those guys hired me again to do a pool party. Before I had my own equipment I was in a DJ crew called Fantasia which was from Brooklyn. It was DJ Chips, DJ Larry B and me. We played against DJ Plummer."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever go to the Tunnel where DJ John Brown was DJing at?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yeah, I have been  to the Tunnel with Mario. We had fights in there and stuff like that. I was in the Spades and I was young so we was having fights in there.We went in there one time. I wasn't really listening to the music though. I heard about this guy DJ John Brown but I wasn't really listening to the music 'cause I was drunk as hell. I was in a different frame of mind then but I been there, yeah."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What exactly is the difference between Disco DJing and Hiphop DJing from your point of view ? I noticed quite early that DJs such as DJ Hollywood, Grandmaster Flowers etc. are not being recognized as Hiphop DJs by the original Bronx and Harlem B-Boys but are considered to be Disco DJs. You obviously DJed in both realms so please highlight the distinction!"

KOOL DJ DEE:" The discotheques I played for in Manhattan would have people who dressed well.  You know, they was older people maybe in their 20s. The music that I played is the same music that they played in Hiphop.  That urban disco sound is different from that Saturday Night Fever type disco sound. That Studio 54 disco is different disco music. We didn't play that. We only played so much if the record was funky enough. We might play KC & The Sunshine Band or maybe the Bee Gees. The Bee Gees had one record that we might play. I forgot the name of it. We played the records straight through, you know? We might extend one part of the record one or two times then we would let the record go on. It wasn't like in the Bronx. They didn't wanna hear the beginning of the record or whatever. They wanted you to get right to the breakpart. You come down on the breakpart and you keep the breakbeat going. When I first came outside in the park in the Bronx I didn't realize that so I was playing the records the wrong way, like I was playing them down in Manhattan, right? I saw that they stood around until that breakpart came on and then they started jumping all over the place!! I was like,"Okay! So this is what y'all like!"So then I started just extending the beat parts and I was doing this so well because I was already familiar with extending certain parts of the record. So it was nothing for me. That's the difference! The breakbeat part! Playing it non-stop."

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which parks of the Bronx did you play that Breakbeat music for the B-Boys?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I played in Bronxdale Projects. I played in  Rosedale Park that's outside the Bronxdale Projects. I played in Bronx River. I played in Monroe Projects. I played in 100 Park. I played in Seward Avenue Park in Soundview and I played in Hunts Point. Oh, and I played in the Valley Park Uptown, too."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly did you live when you started playing in the parks for the B-Boys?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" 1121 Elder Avenue. Apartment C4 between Westchester and Watson Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about the indoor spots?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I did Bronx River Center with Pete DJ Jones and JHS 123 with DJ Mario. And I played in many different other indoor spots."

                                                            

                                            

DJ Afrika Bambaataa & DJ Mario

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, so when Pete DJ Jones played  with you in Bronx River Center what kind of DJ style did he use? Disco or Hiphop?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Pete was playing club style. I was cutting up the breaks."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it true that DJ Afrika Bambaataa did his first parties on your soundsystem?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, he saw my system. DJ Mario was the one who lend Bambaataa equipment to do his first parties. It was Mario."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So is it accurate to say that you were DJing for B-Boys before DJ Afrika Bambaataa?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yes, I was playing before Bambaataa."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain the importance of records for Hiphop back then."

KOOL DJ DEE:"Records at that time...you had to be able to have your records lined up in the order you was going to play them other than the computer today where you just put them in a file. You wanted to get albums that had three or four good songs on it 'cause that's what you gonna need. You would match and mix your music and you tried to do it gently because you don't wanna scratch up your records. You gotta get your 45s and play them also. Now I have been playing the computer lately and I got all my music that I had in the 1970ies on my computer now.  So I basically like the computer because you don't have to carry a lot of records.With the records...I used to take like 12 crates of records with me in every gig. So that's hard. Those things are heavy when you have to go upstairs and stuff like that. Oh man! So that's the difference. Records are good and the clarity of the record is better than that of the files. They say the computer is supposed to be better than the vinyl but it's not. Original vinyl is much better because you hear all the instruments and you DON'T HEAR all the instruments in digital. That's why the vinyl is better. I like records. Back then records were held in such high regard by us because it's like having a gun with bullets. If you ain't got no bullets you can't hurt nobody in warfare, right? So with your records you gotta have records that sound good and that make people dance or that the other DJs don't have. That makes you a better DJ now, you understand? That's what was going on with DJ Afrika Bambaataa. Bambaataa had records nobody else had. That's what makes the people want to come to your party because they be like, "Oh he's playing records that Kool DJ Herc don't have! Or Dee don't have!" You know? Your records are your ammunition. You need that!! Especially in a battle! Like you're playing against another DJ? When you come on you gotta play your secret weapons!!! Records that he ain't got!!! The B-Boys are gonna be like, "Oh!!! We never heard that beat before!" And they are Breaking on the floor to it. So yeah, records are your ammunition. You definetely need that!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What went through your head when you were playing with DJ Afrika Bambaataa in Bronx River and you noticed that he had this incredibly huge arsenal of breakbeats?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, Bambaataa was the extension of me. That's the way I felt. And I was proud of him with all the records he accumulated. At that point I knew he was gonna be impactful as a DJ. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever ask him for titles of  specific records?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I never asked him for titles of the records but I do believe that if I would have asked him he would have told me the names."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who helped you to move your records and your DJ equipment to the parks, rec rooms and clubs?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, I had a crew called the KD Crew. You know, it was my MC and some other guys. They would help me.  I had a lot of people that helped me. Once people knew they could get to a party for a free you had guys volunteering to carry equipment to get in the party for free. You don't have to do nothing. They wanna carry your stuff so they can get in free. That was a whole clique.  We didn't pay them, you know? They would do it every week. Everytime I did a party they wanted to go. So all of a sudden they became a part of my crew. Matter of fact, I had about nine guys with me. Let me see...it was Fever Dee, Willy, Lee, Stanley, Timmy, Omar, Norman, Norman's brother and CV."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did anybody ever try to step to you in order to take your records or your equipment from you?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, that wouldn't happen."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you usually start your parties? Like what kind of records would you play? How would you proceed from there and how would you end your parties?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, to start out...I would set up and stuff like that. And you know, at the beginning I wouldn't play the hot stuff yet. I'd play what you call meantime music.  You know, a lot of people are walking in and everybody is talking. So they come in. So then when I saw I had enough crowd then I started hitting them with the good stuff. I may throw in some Cheryl Lyn or James Brown. Stuff that's gonna make them move. Boz Scaggs "Dirty Lowdown". Stuff like that. Then once I got them moving I start hitting them with the hot stuff. But it was a difference. See, in the Bronx I would play the good stuff and fast music all through the party. In Manhattan there's a difference. At 12 o'clock  I would hit them with slow jams. So the guys and girls could get together and talk, hold on to each other or whatever. I'd play about three of those and then I got back  into the fast music again. We used to play from 9 o'clock till 4 o'clock in the morning.  So at 2 o'clock I'd play more slow records and I then I'd get back to fast music till the end of the night."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So in the Bronx you did not play any slow jams at all?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, they didn't wanna hear slow joints. I mean in the begining I tried but you know, they would go outside and then later on they'd come back. It was like they was waiting for you to get back into the fast music, the beats. So I said to myself, "I'm not gonna play slow music anymore." So I focussed on the breaks all the time."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever go to a DJ Smoke party?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"No, that's the part...people say he was out at the same time that Herc and I was out but I didn't hear of him. I only went to the West BX to play music once and that was at the Executive Playhouse and that's when I saw Kool DJ Herc on a Friday and I was supposed to play there Saturday. So I just went there to check out the club. Then I did my thing there on Saturday but I never heard of DJ Smoke at all. I met him at this anniversary thing. He told me they was out but I never met him back then."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, let us talk about DJ Mario. When you met him was he already playing breakbeats for the B-Boys?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Okay, when I met Mario he was basically with me as my manager. There's a picture I took...I don't know if you have seen that...it's a picture I took with J.J. The Disco King and we're in a bar and it says 2$  for the drinks or whatever...the sign behind us. Mario got me that gig.  So he was more acting like my manager and while he was going with me to different places he had liked the way J.J. The Disco King was talking on the microphone. So every now and then he would pick up the microphone and start saying things. He gradually got into it. Gradually!! So I would think that he saw how I hooked up the equipment and what records was going on and stuff like that. Then when he got his equipment he took it from there. He already knew how to do things.  I more or less tutored him into what I did. Each one teach one. It's sort of like me watching DJ Plummer where I saw what he had when we played against him with Fantasia. That's what happened, you know what I mean?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were DJ Mario's DJ partners?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Tex DJ Hollywood....he was a Puerto Rican DJ. Tex was hanging out with us every now and then, you know? He would carry our equipment to the outside jams. Then he started getting his own equipment. I think he started with DJ Sinbad. Tex DJ Hollywood started playing outside, too. You could say he was the first Puerto Rican DJ to play Hiphop or Breakbeat music. Then there was DJ Nicky Dee. He was just living in the projects or around the projects. He used to always laugh. He was playing music for Mario when Mario got his system. You also had DJ Ronnie Ron who was DJ Mario's cousin."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you think when you became aware of Grandmaster Flash's invention the backspin which revolutionized Hiphop?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"I have seen the backspin in the NBC radio station as a little kid. They would take us down to the radio station down in Rockefeller Center. There was a big glass so you could see the DJ on his large turntables and he would spin the record backwards and then forward to just stop the record before he put it on. So I have seen that before but I have never seen it done by a DJ in Hiphop until Grandmaster Flash did it and perfected it. When I heard him first he wasn't always on beat when he did it. I was playing with Flash before he got together with Melle Mel and them.  So there was no MCees at that time and he would do it. People would stand and watch him and I was like,"Okay!" This seemed nice and shit. I liked it. It did change Hiphop. It was like an exhibition for me. It's like a show. He did that. I give him that much."

July 1st, 1978: Kool DJ Dee & DJ Tyrone are rocking at the Audubon Ballroom in Harlem along with Grandmaster Flash & The 3 Mcees and Kool DJ AJ 

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you describe your late brother's style of DJing?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Well, he complemented me. See, he had certain records that he would play and I had certain records that I would play. Sometimes he would take records from my crate. He was more innovative than I was 'cause he came up with this scratch thing. Everybody says Grandwizard Theodore came up with the scratching but Tyrone was doing something like that before Theodore. You know, he did it by accident in a club. He caught the record but he did it differently. He was playing "Apache", he caught it and brought it back while the crossfader was still in the middle so he had to do something. So he rubbed it and then let the record go on beat and everybody went crazy 'cause they ain't never heard anything like that before. And then he started doing it outside. But I think he did it a little bit differently than Theodore. He called it The Rub."

DJ Tyrone The Mixologist (RIP) / The KD Crew - Kool DJ Dee's brother

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you buy your gear at? You look fly on all your pictures."

KOOL DJ DEE:"I used to get Blyes and Slacks from A.J. Lester's in Harlem. You know, when I wasn't being in the gang I was dressing like a kool guy. They called it, "Dress like a kool guy." when you wasn't wearing your gang colors. I also loved Playboys."

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

KOOL DJ DEE:""Scorpio", "Catch The Beat" and "Blow Your Head". Most of the original Hiphop records...and I'm not talking about Rap records...had movement. You know, different ups and downs. Those records gave the B-Boys the opportunity to show their creativity and it gave them time to think about what they would do when the break part would come in. It was the same thing with "The Mexican". It has movement in the music. THE RECORDS NOW THESE DAYS DON'T HAVE MOVEMENT (excited). It's all one strict thing. They don't have movement no more. Like James Brown's music had movement. It had horns and drums and stuff like that..real instruments. It had different sections of different movement.  THAT'S HIPHOP!! You understand? It got to have different movements to be original Hiphop music. You have to understand that Hiphop music is a mixture of different music. It's not one genre. Jazz, Funk, Rock...it's all mixed together there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So as long as a record has a funky beat it is HipHop and you can rock it? Is this accurate to say?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"That's accurate. You're right on the money. The music has to be funky, it has to be good in order for you to do that!! Certain records you would play straight through like Jimmy Castor "It's Just Begun".  You don't just play the breakpart you play it straight through. James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose" You don't play that in parts. You let that go straight through because of the movement in the music. Thats real Hiphop."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you also play some Kool Out Joints?"

KOOL DJ DEE:" Yeah, yeah, yeah...you know, Deniece Williams "Silly". That shit that girls like. Earth, Wind & Fire "Brazilian Rhymes".

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and what about your favourite slow joints?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Oh man (laughs) I do The Moments and The Delfonics "For The Love I -Gave To You". And Black Ivory "You And I" and "Don't Turn Around"."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you ever carry a Pilot marker with you and tag up your name?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Yes, and I did use a Pilot marker. We used to steal them from the art store in Manhattan along with spray paint."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you write?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Kool Dee. I wasn't a major Writer like Super Kool 223  though. I just hit the insides of the 6, the 2 and the 5 whenever I was on the train. I would also hit the busses. I got turned on to Writing when I lived in the Bronx, not in Brooklyn. The guys in the Bronx was doing it, so I was doing it with them."

Hit (Tag) of Kool DJ Dee on of his record sleeves from the 1970ies).

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you write?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Around 1971."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do these days of rocking jams in the parks in the 1970ies mean to you?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"When I think about those days it makes me so happy because I was young and everything was moving so fast. You know, like when you're young and you're moving around and you're playing music. I was doing something that I loved  doing. You understand? I love it. It's no other feeling. And when you're rocking the park outside and you're connecting with the people. It is NOTHING like it, man!! It is nothing like that feeling!! It was like you can do nothing wrong. It's a spiritual thing when you got everybody in the same mindset at the same time. It's just fucking great, man! And I wish I could have that feeling all the time."

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

KOOL DJ DEE:"I would like to give a shout out to my brother. He is not alive. I wish he was here. My mother, Mario...God bless them! I'd like to shout out my KD Crew! That's about it!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much for this interview! ! Shout outs to my Intruders Crew! Shout outs to Sureshot La Rock, Kenny IB, Input MZK, Leon Skee NHS! UKUMBAMBISANA!! Shout outs to Pete Nice! Shout outs to my mentors Trixie, Dancin' Doug, Cholly Rock, Sondance, Puppetmaster, Wayne Will (RIP) and of course Mr. Wiggles!! Shout outs to Troy L. Smith and T.T. La Rock!"