Interview with B-Boy / DJ Lightnin' Lance (The Shaka Zulus)

                                       Interview with B-Boy / DJ Lightnin' Lance (The Shaka Zulus)

                                           

B-Boy / DJ Lightnin' Lance 

              

                                    conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

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

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Okay, I was born in New York City, the Bronx borough...in 1962."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where exactly in the Bronx did you grow up at?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"When my moms had me she was living on Intervale Avenue. Intervale was considered like the South Bronx section of the city. I lived there for a short amount of time.  Then we moved to Prospect Avenue. I stayed with my grandmother. Prospect Avenue & 170th Street off Boston Road. That's still considered the South Bronx. Then around...I'd say...1966 maybe I moved to Vyse Avenue which is in the West Farms area of the Bronx. By 1969 I'm six years old going on seven I moved over to the east side of the Bronx, the Bruckner Boulevard side of the Bronx where it's real big on that side. The east side of the Bronx has a lot of projects running north of Hunts Point Avenue. To me that's the east side of the Bronx on that section, that Soundview section where you got a lot of projects. You got Soundview, you got Monroe, you got Bronxdale, you got Castle Hill, you got Lafayette...it's where I live. They call it L.I.P. That's not really a project. Now it's co-ops over there. I lived over there the majority of my life. I still live there in Lafayette. That's between Story Avenue, Lafayette Avenue, Boynton, Morrison, Colgate.....that's considered Lafayette, the east side of the Bronx." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of music were you exposed to as a child?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"As a child I listened to a lot of the music that my mom and dad played. We're talking about the Motown era. Remember I was born in the early 1960ies...1962..so my parents would listen to Sam & Dave, Aretha Franklin. My dad was very influential in music. He used to listen to a lot of Jazz music, he listened to Salsa which was called Latin music back then. So those are like my roots. My uncle got me more interested in Jazz. My grandfather was a drummer. He used to play in small bands. He did gigs on the weekend. And later on as a child every school I went to I was playing drum. I was the drummer. From early as grade school to junior high school through high school I was always in a band. So those are like my musical roots coming up."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you always had that love and that feeling for the rhythm?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, yes....even in the era before we was calling it Hiphop. We're talking like early 1970ies...'cause remember when Hiphop started it didn't have no name. There was no name for it. This is before junior high school..we're talking maybe 5th grade or 6th grade...we used to be in the lunch rooms and we used to be making beats on the tables with our hands. That's how it all started I guess for me getting into HipHop.  Like I said we're talking early 1970ies."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your first encounters with park jams? I know that you started out as a B-Boy."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, yes we gonn' talk about that!! I'mma say around 1975 I started going to the park jams. I might have been twelve years old going on thirteen. There is a park close to Bronxdale Projects called Rosedale Park.. It was a big park. My cousin Cool Clyde who is four years younger than me, his mother lived on that side of the Bruckner Boulevard in a building called Schuyler building which is down the block from Rosedale Park.... in this park there was four DJs that I'mma name that were considered Disco DJs. Now remember back then we was not calling it Hiphop. When we was referring to going to see music we was like,"Yo, this person is playing here! That person is playing there! They jamming over there!" We was not like," Yo, let's listen to some Hiphop music!" That was not even in existence yet. So the early DJs..I gotta do name Tex DJ Hollywood..he's from Bronxdale projects. We got two brothers that DJed together....Kool DJ Dee and DJ Tyrone The Mixologist (RIP). Tyrone is four years older than me. Kool DJ Dee is maybe six years older than me. So these dudes are older than me. And then there was a dude called Disco King Mario (RIP)! He's from Bronxdale Projects. These DJs were the first DJs I seen in the park and then shortly after that DJ Afrika Bambaataa."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was there already B-Boying going on in that park?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, there was B-Boying going on, yes it was! 'Cause I was a B-Boy!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What got you into Breaking?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Well, it was exciting!! It was a way of expressing yourself. I was shy when I was coming up. I was a shy kid. This is how you fit in. This is how you communicated. This is how you socialized with people. And the music was soooo strong back then, you know? Going to the park jams.....seeing those speakers.....hearing the music that they was playing..it just moved me at an early age. We're talking real early. This is the beginning.  I guess when guys who were a little older than me....a lot of them were from Bronxdale...when I saw them doing floormoves and stuff like that it really excited me. I wanted to get involved. And then I started going to more DJ Afrika Bambaataa parties which he started doing jams around I'd say 1976. And there was a school called 123 which is across the bridge from me. That was one of the first schools where they had jams on this side of the Bronx. We're talking as early as 1975, 1976. Mario used to play there, Bambaataa...matter of fact Bam's first parties was on Disco King Mario's soundsystem at 123 in 1976. And a lot of DJs used to play over there. They used to have DJ battles over there. The gym was so big, they used to divide the gym up. On one side of the gym there would be a DJ playing  and on the other side another DJ was playing and I used to go there and I used to breakdance. I used to hang out with a dude named Rodney B (RIP). He lived down the hall from where me and my mom lived on the11th floor. In 1976 and 1977 I used to go down there to his house after school or before I went to school or sometimes we used to cut school. And he used to play his 8-Track-Tape and we used to be breakdancing in the house off this tape that I think was made by Kool DJ Herc. He got this tape from his cousin Mark. He was a B-Boy, too."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You're talking about Mark who went by the B-Boy name of Puppetmaster, right?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Right! He also used to write graffiti. He wrote Bam 5! That was his tape. He gave it to his cousin Rodney B and, you know, we used to practice off this tape in the crib (laughs). I can remember that like it was yesterday!!

From left to right: B-Boy Puppetmaster and his cousin B-Boy Rodney B. aka Puppetmaster # 2 (both are part of The Shaka Zulus) 

SIR NORIN RAD:"From what I have learnt Afrika Bambaataa had like two major B-Boy crews namely The Zulu Kings and The Shaka Zulus. You joined the Shaka Zulus, right?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, I did. I went to Bronx River and auditioned and the leader of the Shaka Zulus was a guy named Wade Lewis. He put me down with them."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Green Eyed Wade!"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Green Eyed Wade. He's about my age and he started the Shaka Zulu chapter. B-Boying....like on this side it started in Bronx River and then they started recruiting other people that lived in other projects. Remember the east side of the Bronx is very, very big. It's a lot of projects over here! It's enormous!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did that audition go down? Did you have to battle another Shaka Zulu in order to join the crew?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"No, I just remember showcasing my moves right outside in the back of Bronx River Center. They had a boom box that day. This is when the boom boxes started to get popular. 1975,1976, 1977. So this was the summer time and my cousin Cool Clyde knew Wade! Remember Clyde is four years younger than me. If  you was four years younger than somebody  that's a lot younger back when you're coming up! He used to hang with Wade. He knew Wade before I did. And that's how that happened. That's how I got introduced to Wade."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of guy was Green Eyed Wade back then?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"He was cool. He was that type of guy that joked. He was tough, though. He was a fighter but he wasn't like a bully or nothing like that. That wasn't his energy. I guess what it was being that he started a new chapter being the Shaka Zulus instead of the Zulu Kings he started recruiting guys that didn't live in Bronx River. And like I said I met him through my cousin Cool Clyde. A lot of things me and Clyde did together. I mean we didn't start out DJing together. He had his own crew. When I started I was with a crew on my side. And later on around 1979 me and my cousin started putting everything together and we made it a family thing. But the Breakdancing thing I didn't do that long. I'd say I did it two years. Then I went from Breakdancing to Graffiti. I did that for a while, while I started DJing. When I was writing Graffiti I was writing CRIME...CRIME 2. I was doing all of that like stairsteps. Like I did one thing, then I did something else. All that was going on like at the same time."

DJ Cool Clyde

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you receive a Shaka Zulu t-shirt after you had joined them?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I remember that they had membership cards. It was some green cards. I don't know if it was a dollar back then or five dollars. Now it could have been a Zulu Nation / Shaka Zulu card. I wish I still had it. It was smaller than an index card."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please shed some light on the other B-Boys that were down with the Shaka Zulus! What do you remember about Popeye?" 

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yeah, Popeye! Dark skin Popeye! He lived on Watson Avenue. Yes, he was nice!!! He used to hang around us, too. He used to come to Lafayette to hang with me and the Thomas twins."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Later on you would DJ with the Thomas twins, right?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes!! Later on I formed a crew with the Thomas twins. It was me, the twins and another guy called Pokey. His real name was Clyde but we used to call him Pokey back then. It was like four DJs in the crew and one of the guys that used to MC for us, his name was Ricky. We called him Champ. These were like my day one dudes. We hung out together like every day for like four years straight."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What would you do together when Popeye came to your block?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"We used to do a little bit of everything. We used to smoke weed, drink beer...We used to have a boom box and we used to throw on some tapes. Then we  would go down to the basement and we breakdanced in the basement 'cause where I lived it's a tall building. It's like 19 floors and down there...it's called the C.......the C-Level...a cellar. We used to go down there and breakdance. We even did parties down there! The first couple of parties I did took place down there in the cellar...in the laundromat. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you're saying that you used to be DJing down there?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, yes..that's how it started as far as me being a DJ."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do you remember about Angel? I was told that he was a Puerto Rican Shaka Zulu B-Boy."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yeah!!!! Angel was no joke!!!!! He had the crazy footwork. He was very tall and he had them long legs. He would do the helicopter and all that. He was from Bronxdale. He used to write Graffiti. He used to write with us. He wrote SLIM. Remember all these things went hand in hand back then. Him and Pudgy used to be B-Boy partners. He married Ingrid. You also had Finster. He was from Watson Avenue. That's Lefty's younger brother. Both were down with the Shaka Zulus. Finster was nice, too." 

B-Boy Angel (The Shaka Zulus)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which other places did you breakdance at?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I'mma tell you truthfully when I was young and I was doing this anywhere from 14 to 16 I wasn't going to the West Side of the Bronx, I wasn't going to the South Bronx. I was mainly on the East Side of the Bronx. So it was basically 131...that's another school....Monroe Center which is right on Story Avenue a couple of blocks from me. JHS 123, Bronx River....wether it was inside or outside the center, Sack Wern, Soundview Big Park. Then there was a place called The Shoehorse. It's in the back of Soundview at the end. Mainly when I was a B-Boy I was not DJing. So that had to be anywhere from 1976, 1977 and a little bit of 1978. By 1978 I started getting into DJing."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the scenery at those jams!"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"All this was new, challenging, exciting, it gave you that, "OH!" about yourself. If you was a shy kid, it made you come out of your shell, you know? Then you had girls looking, watching all of this stuff that you was doing. You was getting noticed. Especially if you was a fly kid, if you had fly gear on and fly sneakers. Stuff like that! But at the same time it wasn't all smooth back then. You had stick-up kids. Certain people in certain areas, in certain projects you had to watch out for. It was a lot of stick-up kids. Like Bronx River.....it was a dangerous place to go into in them early days and even in the 1980ies. Put it this way. You had a lot of projects and in like each project you had some tough dudes that was trouble making or trying to rob you. If you knew somebody or you was cool with somebody that was a plus. If you had family in these  projects and they respected the family that was a plus. They would kinda leave you alone. But it was fist fights, too, going on. I had a lot of fist fights. After a while people starting knowing who I was. They knew my cousin Cool Clyde and they knew his older brother Peabody who was a B-Boy also. He is three years older than me. He was going to Bronx River way before me. He knew a lot of the Zulu Masters like Squirpy (Shaka), Zambu, all of them...."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you got into DJing! What made you start? How did you get your equipment? I think you told me that you bought your equipment from DJ Afrika Isaac."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I'm gonna elaborate on that. I'd say around 1977......like around the time when the Blackout happened... a lot of cats got equipment 'cause they went into the stores stealing shit. But if you started in that mid-1970ies era you had mismatched turntables. It was like... DJs started out in crews! It wasn't like maybe one DJ, you might have had three, four or five DJs putting stuff together to make something happen. You mighta took something from your mom. Records or 45 records... a lot of the James Brown music, the Isaac Hayes stuff. A lot of that Funk music is what created Hiphop. You know, that sound created Hiphop music. As far as the equipment...I started in my house. I had a Garrard turntable which was my mom's. It was no belt drive, it was direct drive. So it wasn't no spinning back or none of that and not too much doing that zigga zigga zigga (scratching). And then I had this big unit that you could not reall carry out of your house and that had a separate turntable in it. And in between it had these two buttons that I used to slide. Like the way I hooked it up..it was like hooking up a separate turntable and a unit with a tuning system, a turntable... you might have an 8-track in there and it had slide switches that you would press in order to hear one turntable or to hear the other one. It wasn't even no mixers involved. That's how I started in my house. It took me to work for like summer youth corps and getting money to  eventually buy some Technics."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on that working aspect!"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Well, it was like this...your mom may had a low income. Back then they was giving summer youth corps jobs out. We was getting minimum wage. It might have been  3 dollars in change back then. We're talking 1970ies. I started working summer youth corps in like 1976 as soon as I was able to get my working papers. And you would work three weeks to get a one week's cheque and it might be a 100 dollars in change. And then the next two weeks you would get a two weeks' cheque. And then as the summer went on you would stop working and they would send you another cheque later on. Say like today was my last day working. Another two weeks I would get another cheque.  And that was the bigger cheque. It seemed like that was the week that they held back from you. Now you was getting the cheque with three weeks in it. And that money was everything to us, man!!! We were young kids... It made you feel responsible!! You bought your sneakers, you bought your Le Tigre shirts, you bought your mocknecks. That last cheque that you got that was your cheque to buy your school gear. Mad people was getting robbed for their cheques!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So I guess you invested that money into building up your equipment, right?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes. Some of that money was used to buy turntables, my Technics SL-210s. So we're talking like 1978."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall where you bought them at?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"It was a store on Southern Boulevard....Simpson Street. On Simpson Street they had a lot of Jew Man stores where people would buy their clothes. Their A.J.'s, their mocknecks, their Cortefiels and later on Sheepskins."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you buy both of your turntables at once?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"No, you would put down money...lay away. That was the thing back then. Say the turntables cost 150$. You go in there, you put down like 30 $. Then next time you may pay a little bit more money.  And I was selling weed, too!  I was selling weed in high school. Like the loose joints..."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Scramblin'.."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, that's what we used to call it. That's how you made some extra money. 'Cause remember the summer youth corps job that's only a couple of months. It's summer time you're doing that. You're working in the park. You're cleaning stuff up. That's what you're actually doing when you're working for the summer youth corps. But yeah....the first step was trying to get your turntables. Just your turntables, then the mixer. It was the Gemini mixer.  They had the Gemini, those were popular. They had the Clubman Mixers and they even had those real small mixers. I forgot the name of the model. They were real small. The first mixers that came out were with the up and down. They didn't even have the crossfader. So the DJs of the early and mid 1970ies they was doing their thing on the up and down mixers and then the crossfaders came. This was all 1970ies. After you got the smaller stuff which is like the turntables and the mixer , then you advanced to the amp. My first amp was a bass linear amp and that amp always gave me problems. One of the channels would always be blowing. I remember that. That was like our first amp. Like I said when we started DJing as a crew it was the Thomas twins aka DJ Jazzy A and DJ Thunder Rock they had their equipment, they had two Technics and I had my set of turntables 'cause you know I had to practice in my crib. I was practicing like every day. The twins lived in the same building I lived in. They lived on the first floor with their mom and I lived on the 11th floor."

DJ Lightnin' Lance (standing in the middle) with DJ Thunder Rock (left-hand side) and DJ Jazzy A (right-hand side)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you would sharpen your DJ skills!"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Come home from high school, smoke a joint or two....not in the house (laughs)....I'd go in my room and practice for maybe two, three hours. You know, once I got the Technics I was more like needle dropping 'cause remember I started out with just the Garrard and the component set.  That was the beginning stages of me DJing. Well, actually if you wanna get technical I used to play with my mother's records as a kid. Just picking them up, playing  them on their record player at my grandmother's house. I was a kid like three years old, four years old playing with records."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you got your speakers!"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"The Thomas twins had their speakers first. DJ Afrika Isaac from Monroe made their cabinet. They had these things called folden horns. That's what they were called.  He made them their speakers. My dad..as an early graduation gift..asked me in 1979 what did I want for graduation present. I graduated from high school in 1980. It was either a moped..those were popular at the time or a set of big speakers. I thought about my career as a DJ. I said, "Being that I'm serious about this DJ thing  let me get these speakers!" The budget was 500$ which was a lot back then. I don't know why I didn't go to Afrika Isaac 'cause he could have built me some speakers as well. So I don't know how I found out about this company called Wes Sound. They was out in Queens. Me and my dad went out there. It was like a warehouse and it had speakers already built. So we went in there and I was amazed. I was gonna get the double 18 inch scoops but those were too big. You know, I was sharing a bedroom with my brother. So I got the double 15 inch scoobs instead."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long did you stay together with DJ Jazzy A and DJ Thunder Rock?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Once we started doing stuff in the parks, Pokey he wasn't DJing in the parks. He would DJ in the house or when we was in the basement. But once we started getting to the parks it was just me, the twins and then my cousin Cool Clyde 'cause by that time Clyde knew all of them. He used to come to Lafayette and, you know he was part of us, too, for a little while 'cause the twins didn't stay DJing long. I say I give them a good two or three years."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When was that?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I started DJing in 1978. I didn't have a DJ name then. I wasn't even Lightnin' Lance. So when I first started I didn't really have a DJ name. They used to call me LJ. I'd use my initials for Lance Johnson."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did your DJ crew have a name that you would put on your flyers?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Actually, we might have had just two flyers. We were just the Lafayette Crew basically. That's how they knew us as in that early era."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where would you play at?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"The beginning stages started in the basement parties down in our building and these buildings over here. Where we lived at they got four tall buildings and then they got another set of four buildings and then down by the other four buildings which is close to Colgate they got another two buildings called Evergreen. They're  not really under the Lafayette Morrison development but when people said, "Let's go to Lafayette!" They would include them as Lafayette but it was called The Evergreen." We did parties over there. We did parties over here on our side and across the street. So back then it was a combination of ten tall buildings on this side over here. So just imagine ten tall buildings and each building has nineteen stories with at least ten units on each floor and every building has a basement or a community center. And that's where we used to do parties in the early, early days. Now by the time we got the big speakers we're talking maybe like 1979, 1980 we came out in the parks in the circle area, the basketball courts over where we lived. Being that this wasn't the projects we'd come out for like an hour, an hour and a half , close to two hours. The cops would come and tell us we couldn't play ' cause a lot of people over here were working people. They wasn't trying to hear that loud music. Out of all the outside jams we did on this side we only might got it off one time with the cops. We battled some dudes from Monroe and we played on Evergreen and it was the twins' and my soundsystem combined. That must have been like 1981. But other than that in order for us to get off a complete jam without the cops bothering us, we had to play in Soundview, we had to play in 100 Park, we had to play in Bronxdale, Bronx River, Sack Wern, Castle Hill. These are all the areas where we did the outside jams. And most of them jams the twins wasn't DJing at 'em. There might have been two outside jams we did together.  One of them was an outside jam in 100 Park with DJ Afrika Bambaataa that took place around my birthday in August, 1980. There was a lot of people. We're talking at least 800 to 1000 people. The twins was a part of that. We would be on one  side of the park and DJ Afrika Bambaataa would be on the other side with DJ Jazzy Jay and The Cosmic Force. I wish I had the tape of their side. We had the tape of our side 'cause you know we had our boom box to record our set. Once that party set off everybody knew about us!!!  You see, once you play in the park, the park holds a lot of lot people and people are hearing the sound from blocks away. That's why a lot of people came to find out about us that day."

Lafayette-Morrison Cooperative Apartments, Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which qualities did a DJ have to have back then in order to make a name for himself?" 

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I'mma tell you how it was before I got into DJing. It wasn't no scratching and it wasn't no speed cutting. The DJs that I mentioned before like Tex DJ Hollywood, Kool DJ Dee, Tyrone The Mixologist and DJ Mario...when I saw them I knew nothing about Grandmaster Flash, about Grandwizard Theodore...they came a little bit afterwards. So it wasn't about being too fancy on the turntables in the mid 1970ies. It was based on your soundsystem, the clarity of your soundsystem, how you had your soundsystem set up.  What you was using. If you was in the parks you had to have powerful amps.  And it was about the records you played and how you played them. Now when I got into it which was a couple of years later, not a long time but a couple of years later I heard about Grandmaster Flash, he was the top dog and I heard about Grandwizard Theodore. Theodore was young, he was younger than me. He was out young making a name for himself but that was because he had older brothers:  DJ Mean Gene and DJ Cordie-O. And he was around Grandmaster Flash a lot 'cause Mean Gene and Flash were partners. But anyway...when I got into it you had to cut the record on beat. You had to have some quickness to you 'cause remember a lot of these breakbeats were short. We wasn't calling them breakbeats back then. We knew the names of the records but we wasn't calling them breakbeats. That didn't come until later on. A couple of years later they started calling them breakbeats. You had to be skillful, keeping the record on beat, on time, you know? Doing a lot of zigga zigga (scratching), being quick. I was always the type that was an on beat DJ. That's what stands out and then I was quick. I was a good needle dropper. You know, dropping the needle and catching the beat where the average person would have to spin the turntable back. I was needle dropping first, then I started spinning back. But I was always quick and precise."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I guess that's also where your DJ name stems from."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, and I didn't give myself that name.  I forgot who gave me that name. It was either Ricky Johnson, we called him Champ.....he was the MC of the group....I think he gave me that name or maybe Afrika Bambaataa gave me that name. Bam used to come over to our projects in the 1970ies and he used to give us records. He used to give us like some rare breakbeats. He would also give us the names of some rare joints. And back then they wasn't doing that. DJs wouldn't give you that kind of information unless they was really cool with you. They wouldn't tell you the names of their records. The would hide the names by putting tape over the name of the record. " 

From left to right: DJ Cool Clyde, DJ Lightnin' Lance and MC Champ in 1979

SIR NORIN RAD:"So DJ Afrika Bambaataa was really cool with you."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes! Like I said I knew DJ Afrika Bambaataa early. I met him through my cousin Cool Clyde. He knew Bambaataa before me. Bambaataa used to come over to Cool Clyde's building and they used to be talking a lot. That's how I met him. You know, this is after I got down with the Shaka Zulus. This might have been in 1977. That's still early in his career. He used to come over to Lafayette a lot and he used to watch us DJing in the twins' house. Like I said I used to be a needle dropper before I knew what needle dropping was. I didn't know it was called needle dropping back then." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"I admire DJs who possess this skill."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yeah, it's a real skill. Not too many DJs had the skill to do it quick and precise like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you do needle dropping at the jams, too? Or would you just do it at home in your room?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Nooo!! We're talking parties. That's how I was doing it. "Catch The Groove", "I Can't Stop", "Good Times"....even 45s! Especially if the breakbeat was at the beginning."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain the importance of the breakbeats for Hiphop back then!"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"They was EVERYTHING because that's how you battled dudes in that era. It was by the type of records you was playing. You was playing something that was dope and funky that not everybody was familiar with, that moved the crowd and made the B-Boys  dance, you know?  You wanted to outshine the other DJs. See, it was battling for the crowds back then. The original battles were based on that. Like I said you had to have a loud soundsystem. I mean it's one thing to have a loud soundsystem but it has to be lound AND clear. There's a difference because if it's too loud and not clear it sounded muffled, it sounded distorted. So you had to know how to set your soundsystem up in order for it to be clear. And you had to have the right type of amps and enough of them 'cause if you got like six or seven speaker's you're not trying to put all those speakers on one amp 'cause now you're straining them and it gonna sound cloudy. You might even blow your amp in the middle of a party. I experienced that one time at one jam we did in the Stardust Ballroom with that same Phase Linear. One of the channels was messing up. And this was a paid party. It's one thing if it's a free party out in the park or something. You'd start with the basement jams, then you'd go to the parks and then once you started getting recognition people would hire you to do indoor parties."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You're talking about clubs like The T-Connection, The Stardust Ballroom or The Ecstasy Garage..."

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I played in all of them spots. I was a regular at The Ecstasy Garage. That's how I met a lot of these dudes. Like Grandwizard Theodore..I use to come on either before him or after him. We're talking as early as 1979. Who else? The Cold Crush Brothers, Busy Bee Starski, the Zulu Nation was playing in there, Grandmaster Flash came in there, DJ Rockin' Rob..... And I got tapes of all of this stuff.  I used to tape a lot of joints." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it true that Lil Sha Rock is also related to you?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Yes, she is. She is my baby cousin. She's Cool Clyde's youngest sister."

MC Lil Sha Rock (The Super Sonic Five)

SIR NORIN RAD:"From what I have heard she was an MC for the Super Sonic 5. Did you DJ for that MC crew?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Okay, I'mma tell you how this began. In 1980 we was still trying to get real popular. We already did the outside jam in 100 Park. We needed to find a club to rock in. Cool Clyde met DJ Cisco. He was from Monroe Projects. Then he met DJ Bucko. DJ Cisco and DJ Bucko are brothers. They're from our side of the Bronx..the east side but they was doing jams on the west side. Cisco was a karate teacher. He used to have a karate school on Burnside Avenue. Cisco had a name on the west side. He was getting that Kool DJ Herc crowd. So Cool Clyde got with Cisco and Bucko. They was DJing in the Ecstasy Garage. There was two Ecstasy Garages. One was on Jerome Avenue. That was open only for a short while. The other one was on Macombs Road. That's where they was playing that. 1980 I used to go to the Ecstasy Garage. I remember the first time I tried to get in there. I was getting in free. DJ Mean Gene was the promoter and also the house DJ with DJ Greg Ski. Their MCees were the Tantalizing Three MCees. I started going there on the regular. I started bringing my tape decks. Next thing you know I'm getting on the turntables people not really knowing who I am. So I'm on the turntables and I'm bringing my records in there. But back to Lil' Sha Rock.....It was originally The Super Sonic Four. One of the original members left the crew and this made an entry for Lil Sha Rock.  She might have been 13 years old at the time. She was actually the youngest MC out at the time. 13 years old!!! 'Cause Cool Clyde was 14. They used to be rocking in the Ecstasy Garage. Later on another young MC called Lil Ice joined the group. That's how they became the Super Sonic Five MCees.  Vicious Cee, Dwayne D, Ricky T, Lil Sha Rock and Lil Ice. They was the youngest MC crew out at that time. Most of them came from the west side of the Bronx. Then something happened between DJ Bucko and DJ Cisco. They had a falling out. So my cousin Cool Clyde told Cisco,"Yo, my cousin Lightnin' Lance he is good. He got equipment, too." I got in the group. I made the third DJ in the group. There was even times when I used to go there and used to play and they wasn't even there. I used to start going like every week.  There were a lot of times Cool Clyde and Cisco didn't go. We had our own bookings there, too.  Like on flyers and stuff with our names on from 1980 to 1981. That was a short lived spot, too. A lot of these spots were short lived but if you was playing in these spots that's how you was getting your name up in that first decade of Hiphop. There was no Run-D.M.C. or LL Cool J out yet. "

February 26th, 1980: DJ Lightnin' Lance, DJ Cool Clyde, DJ Cisco & The Super Sonic Five are rocking at The Ecstasy Garage in the Bronx.

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did the Super Sonic Five ever come to your house in order to practice there?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"They never came to my house 'cause they was DJ Cisco's MCees. I would just play beats and they would rock to them. I would just say that I was a little bit more skillful. DJ Cisco was good, DJ Cool Clyde was good but I was Lightnin'!! (laughs)"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which other type of music would you play besides breakbeats?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Disco music. We played a lot of Hustle music. Like El Coco "Let's Get It Together". Like towards the end of the party you would play slow stuff.  Like "Always And Forever" by Heatwave. You may play some Teddy Pendergrass. Stuff like that. Just letting them know this party is winding down."

February 7th, 1981: DJ Lightnin' Lance, DJ Cool Clyde, DJ Cisco & The Super Sonic 4 +1 are rocking at the Ecstasy Garage in the Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:"How many crates of breakbeats did you have in 1982?"

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"About 8 plus I also had a lot of 45s. After 1982 DJs mostly stopped playing breakbeats because from then on Rap records were being played."

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

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"Wow!!! "Blow Your Head" by Fred Wesley & The J.B.'s., "Shaft In Africa" by Johnny Pate.....wow, I can name three but there's a lot of them. Put it this way..I'mma name the breakbeats that I first heard on that 8-track-tape. "Bongolia", "Bongo Rock", "Apache" those are all on the same album by the Incredible Bongo Band. "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose" by James Brown, "Yellow Sunshine" by "Yellow Sunshine", "Funky Music Is The Thing" by The Dynamic Corvettes. The Isley Brothers' record...."Getting Into Something". Those joints right there!" 

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

LIGHTNIN' LANCE:"I'mma shout out the Most High... God..for allowing me to keep living.  I also wanna shout out my cousin DJ Cool Clyde. You know, he was DJing a little bit before me.  He always kept me afloat. He was like the organizer, the big promoter. He was more like the go-to person. Very sociable with a lot of people. I'mma shout DJ Mean Gene, DJ Cisco, DJ Bucko, all the MCees I had. I'mma shougt out Lil Sha Rock! I also wanna shout out DJ Disco King Mario (RIP), DJ Kool Dee, DJ Tyrone The Mixologist. My new DJ partners DJ Kool Bob Ski and DJ Dr. Rock. I'mma shout out the Hypnotizing MCees. Oh and I can't forget Green Eyed Wade, Bam 5 aka Puppetmaster, and all the Shaka Zulus!!! I'mma shout you out, too, Norin!! The historian!!! These interviews are very important. Keep doing what you do!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you, legend! I want to shout out my Intruders Crew, Sureshot La Rock, Pluto 7, Troy L. Smith, Pete Nice, Mr. Wiggles, Cholly Rock, Puppetmaster, Trixie all the true Kings and Queens!!"

Interview with MC Shelt La Rock (The Mark V MCees)

                                          Interview with MC Shelt La Rock (The Mark V MCees)

          

MC Shelt La Rock (The Mark V MCees)

                                             conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

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

SHELT LA ROCK:"I was born in Harlem, USA in 1961 and then when I was eight years old I moved to the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which section of the Bronx did you grow up?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Castle Hill. That's like the Southeast Bronx. Not the South, South Bronx but the Southeast Bronx. That's where Remy Ma, Just Ice and Jennifer Lopez come from."

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

SHELT LA ROCK:"Beautiful music. Motown Christmas Special came on the other day with Smokey Robinson. So I had to look at it 'cause Smokey Robinson was a classic. So I used to listen to Smokey Robinson, The Chi-Lites, The Stylistics, The Temptations, Al Green. All beautiful music. I hear it nowadays and I can transfer back to a time period where I used to sit on the floor and my sisters..I have five sisters...and they used to be hidng my basketball jersey 'cause I was waiting for the center to open at 7 o'clock. I can hear certain records like Gladys Knight & The Pips "Midnight Train To Georgia"..I can hear stuff like that and I can just transport to the time when I was twelve years old. The music can transport you back. It was beautiful music back then." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"When and where did your first encounter with Hiphop take place? I guess that took place before the culture was called Hiphop."

SHELT LA ROCK:"No, it wasn't called Hiphop then. There was just jams. People would be like, "Yo, where they jamming at??" And then it was called Hiphop later on in life. So the first time I heard MCees rapping over a beat......A good friend of mine he lied to me....he told me the truth later on....he would let me hear a tape and I was like, "Yo, that's dope! What is that?" And I asked him, "Who is that?" He said, "That's me! That's Rapping and everything...." Then later on he said, "No, that's not me. That's Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Four!" I was like, "Oh, okay!" And ever since then I was hooked on it. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"You had been a member  of The Sound Masters Crew before you joined DJ Kenny Ken & The Mark V MCees. Could you shed some light on that crew, please?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Okay, the Soundmasters formed in 1975. There was three DJs. It was DJ Pill, DJ Shondu and DJ Dee. In 1977 DJ Dee went out to Compton 'cause he got family out there and he brought that breakbeat DJing out there. So they was loving it so much that they became the Soundmasters of the West. Coolio (RIP) was a member of the Soundmasters. He always used to say, "I'm a Sound Master for life!" I started out as a DJ but I couldn't really DJ so I became an MC. At one point the Sound Masters had like six DJs and twelve or thirteen MCees. When we started coming outside...of course we played on our block first....Castle Hill.  So we played for a couple of years. We did a whole lot then. Just Ice joined the group later on 'cause he was in Brooklyn. He joined like in 1977. He wasn't an original Sound Master.  I met Master Tee in Stevenson High School and we later formed the Mark V MCees. DJ Kenny Ken.. our DJ..he came from DJ Mario.  They lived in the same building on the East Side of the Bronx. In 1979 he broke up with DJ Mario and we became his MCees. That's when we became DJ Kenny Ken & The Mark V MCees. The Grand Imperial....that was his name....The Grand Imperial DJ Kenny Ken!!"

                                                     

Coolio (The Compton Sound Masters)

                                       
SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to be at a Sound Masters park jam in Castle Hill during the mid-1970ies?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"The scenery was great! It used to be like...you'd hear the breakbeats come on and you'd see a crowd gather around. You'd think it's a fight because as soon as you'd see a crowd gather around you'd automatically think that a fight had started. Then once you got to the crowd you'd see people breakdancing. So it was a fight, but it was a breakdancing fight...a battle!!! So as soon as "Apache" came on or "Indiscreet" or "The Mexican" that's when you knew that the B-Boys would be getting on the dancefloor!!! They would be rocking!!! It was a beautiful atmosphere!!! That was the best time growing up! Me I tell people Hiphop was a spiritual thing 'cause when Hiphop was really formed it was after they had killed Martin Luther King and Malcolm X so there was no voice of the movement any longer. So Hiphop became that voice! I loved to listen to the breakbeats. We used to be walking, "Yo, where they jamming at today?" We didn't know so we just walked. And while you were walking you would hear those beats and you knew they was jamming over there. You would hear the beats from blocks away, vibrating off the buildings." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What's the story behind the name Sound Masters? Did you call yourselves that because of your soundsystem or because of your breakbeat arsenal? "

SHELT LA ROCK:"Well, it was actually a little of both. We had a very nice soundsystem and we also had a lot of beats. We would chip in every week to get new breakbeats from Downstairs Records 'cause you know when you're young you got your little hustle, you worked in a supermarket packing bags, selling newspapers. Me I worked in a meat department when I was 15 years old. That was my first job. So we was getting money and everything.  And then we was putting money in every week, buying records and turntables and stuff like that. That's where the name Sound Masters came from. The masters of the sound."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were the best B-Boys out of Castle Hill in the 1970ies? Cholly Rock told me that he battled a B-Boy called Peppy in 1974 in St. Andrew's Church in Castle Hill."

SHELT LA ROCK:"Peppy was good! He was one of the older cats. But to me the best B-Boys out of Castle Hill were Raydeen and Izicataa., they were brothers. They were the first Zulus in Castle Hill, too. I brought Raydeen  to the Mark V MCees. He became an MC.  Raydeen and Izicaataa lived in building 2245."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was the whole Sound Masters Crew part of the Zulu Nation?"

SHELT LA ROCK:" Not all the Sound Masters, at that time it was only just Tre Dee, Izicataa and Raydeen. Bronx River had the Zulu Nation. Bronxdale had the Black Spades and Soundview had the Cozy Corner. A lot of hustlers and killers used to hang over there. So Castle Hill.. we was just Castle Hill.  We fought against the Black Spades one time. That's when we started to get our reputation."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What is the story behind the name Mark V MCees? Was it inspired by that car by Lincoln?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"I don't know why we came up with that name. I just know we adapted to it. They might have had that name before I got with them. Master Tee came up with that name. There were like five different Mark V MCees. The original Mark V MCees was Master Tee, me, Terrence Tee, R. Cee...those are brothers..and then Teddy Ted. They was from the west side of the Bronx. I think Master Tee had known  them before and I think Teddy Ted was down with DJ Charlie Chase for a moment. They wanted me to get down with the Mark V MCees. We was in high school but Master Tee was with them already. Terrence Tee and R.Cee wanted to hang in the street too much. They was wild. So that's when him and his brother left. That's when I brought my friend Dr. Kik down. And then Kid Shadow got down with us, he was before Raydeen. So I brought them down and to me that was the best Mark V. We had like four or five different sets of the Mark V. Donald D was down  with the last set before DJ Afrika Islam brought them out to Califorina and a whole lot of shit happened. Everything happens for a reason though because I'm sure I would have been in that car with Raydeen that blew up. You know about that, right?"

                                                                 

The Mark V MCees......(top left to right:) Master Tee, Shelt La Rock, Teddy Ted (bottom left to right:) Dr. Kik, Kid Shadow

               
                                                      

SIR NORIN RAD:"No, I don't."

SHELT LA ROCK:"Raydeen died. He had a car accident out there. The car flew off a cliff and blew up."

SIR NORIN RAD:"May he rest in peace! What caused you to leave the Sound Masters?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"'Cause me and Master Tee was good friends.....number one.  I knew him from school and me and him we always got along well. And number two the Sound Masters they wasn't really going nowhere like that. We were just doing our thing in Castle Hill and a lot of them just wanted to hang out. I couldn't really run behind nobody all the time. If you wanna be a group you gotta dedicate yourself to the music. It can't be, you know....half ass. I took it very serious and they was just playing around. Then it became a lot of us and everything so I was like,"That's too much!" Then when the opportunity came to form the Mark V MCees I was like,"Alright, bet!" Me and Master Tee was good friends anyway. So I said,"Let's do this!" That's when I brought DJ Lightnin' Hands Billy Boy down with us. Him and DJ Lil Dee would also DJ for us. Lightning Hands Billy Bill was one of the fastest DJs on the cut back then." 

MC Master Tee (Founder of the Mark V MCees)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which MC had the biggest influence on you?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Melle Mel was the first one to influence me with the words. Still to this day nobody ever said rhymes like he did in Beat Street. Nobody did no rhyme like that to this day!! Like I said The Furious Four were the first group I heard. Soon as I heard it I fell in love with it. I had a spiritual awakening."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So would you go to see Grandmaster Flash & The Four perform live?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Hell yeah, I have seen all of 'em. The Funky Four,  Flash and 'em, The Fantastic Five, The Cold Crush Brothers. Yeah, I have seen them all. Then later on we performed with them. We was playing with them at the Ecstasy Garage, The T-Connection..."

November 21st, 1980: The Mark V are rocking at the legendary T-Connection in the Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:"Ok, and what exactly was the K-Connection Crew about? I have seen that name attached to DJ Kenny Ken and the Mark V MCees on many flyers. However, I have also seen K-Connection Crew flyers without any reference to the Mark V MCees."

SHELT LA ROCK:"That's Kenny Ken. The K-Connection is DJ Kenny Ken. That's what the "K" stood for. There's a lot of shit that happened back then. Many people were jealous of DJ Kenny Ken because he broke up with DJ Mario and DJ Afrika Bambaataa and he formed his own group which was us The Mark V and we was a threat. A lot of people would envy us. We used to do shows and it used to be like eight performers. Everybody was doing good until we got on. Then somebody pulled the plug. So the crowd would react like, "Oooh man!!!" A lot of us believed that it was the Jazzy Five from Soundview. It was a lot of competition back then 'cause we was all friends at the same school.  We were from the same area. They felt they was better and we felt we was better but we had some stuff." 

The Grand Imperial DJ Kenny Ken 

                                                         

March 21st, 1980: DJ Kenny Ken & The Mark V MCees are rocking at 1965 Lafayette Ave in the BX

                                                      

SIR NORIN RAD:"So please describe the efforts that went into your group's live performances!"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Oh, we practiced every day! We used to have Shure microphones and we used to have them in a case like it was a gun. And we used to walk from Castle Hill to where Master Tee lived in Carrol Gardens which is like a minute away from Monroe Projects where DJ Kenny Ken lived. We used to walk there and practice every day!!! So we was tight. That's what it took......when Melle Mel and them said,"Take five MCees and make 'em sound like one!" That comes from practice and that's how we was. We had good rhymers and then we also had good harmonies. Nobody had more harmonies than us."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on that because I feel that a lot of the components of original MCing have faded into oblivion."

SHELT LA ROCK:"When we were rehearsing in Monroe Projects we used to do tapes. We used to have like two or three people in the house that were like good friends, like my boy Andre.  So we used to listen to ourselves to see where we could improve it or where we messed up. That's why we used to make tapes all the time. I wish I kept those tapes, man! We practiced a lot. We used to do rhymes, we used to do routines..like we used to do shows. From the person who would rap first to the one who went second....my place in the order was always the fourth.  I think Master Tee was first, then it was Dr. Kik, then it was Kid Shadow and then it was me and then Teddy Ted. My thing was always fourth. And then we used to sit down at a table and we used to write together. We used to write harmonies or I would write the first two sentences and then another MC would write right behind me. That's how you keep it tight and how you keep flowing in a line! We had a whole lot of ways to pass the mic. Plus we liked each other, we were good friends, you know? We used to write our rhymes in Master Tee's house then we went over to DJ Kenny Ken to practice."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which beats would you prefer to write rhymes to?"

SHELT LA ROCK: Like most of our harmonies we did to "Love Rap" and our best harmonies was off  "Seven Minutes Of Funk". That was the shit!!! We also did routines to "Freedom" and we definetely used "Got To Be Real" and "Catch A Groove" a lot. After like doing five harmonies in a row we would hit them with lyrical content before we went back to doing harmonies again."

November 28th, 1980: The Mark V MCees are rocking at the Ecstasy Garage in the Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the role of each MC of the Mark V MCees! Like who was your top lyricist? Who had the girls go crazy? Who was your crowd pleaser?" 

SHELT LA ROCK:"Our crowd pleaser..that would be Teddy Ted. He was like the weakest link but he was still good because he was like Cowboy of the Furious Four / Five. He had a good voice and he'd get the crowd hyped up. The rest of us would just drop bombs! Dr. Kik was like Easy AD 'cause he used to get all the girls! He used to ask the girls, "You wanna go to my house, to your house or to the roof?" So we used to call him "Pigeon Man." That was his nickname. He used to get girls on the roof! (laughs) That was my best friend, too. I taught him how to rap. He's Puerto Rican. So when I first brought him down they used to try to make fun of him like, "Oh shit, Shelt, you got your boy down! His name is Ricky Ricardo!"  'Cause you know he had a Spanish accent back then. But he looked black. You would definetely think he was black. He's not a light skin Puerto Rican, he's brown skin.  Then eventually, you know, he still had a little accent but he started getting better and better.  I was mostly writing his rhymes, too. Then he started writing his own shit. So I got him down like that. Master Tee was a good rhymer. This is why.. I'm not trying to brag...but this is why I feel we was better than a lot of these groups because if you look at the Furious Four...Melle Mel was a dope lyricist. The rest would just rhyme, they was alright. Grandmaster Caz was a dope rhymer with the Cold Crush Four.  The second best was Almighty K.G. But we could have dealt with them. And then J-DL was their crowd pleaser. Easy AD would get all the girls. We had four good MCees that could rhyme. Any group that I named they only had on or two at the most. We also had more routines and harmonies than everybody else. We was the truth. Afrika Islam broke that shit up when he went to California with Master Tee, Raydeen and Donald D. That was the time when they was making records. We wasn't making records. It wasn't meant to be. Once Donald D came down you knew that he would bring Afrika Islam with him because they was in the same group..the Funk Machine. It was Donald D, Kid Vicious and El-Roy. Jazzy Jay and Afrika Islam were their DJs. So then Afrika Islam took who he wanted to California. Master Tee's mother Ms. Carne was like,"How you gonna take them to California and leave Shelt La Rock? Shelt La Rock is the best in the group." And then he was like, "Yeah well, it's my connections, my contacts and my money. I take who I want out there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the main stomping ground of DJ Kenny Ken & The Mark V MCees?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"100 Park."

September 6th, 1980: The Mark V MCees are rocking at 100 Park in the BX

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take back then to become a dope MC?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"I mean good lyrics, you know what I'm saying? The people in the crowd know if you're a good rhymer. To me the Golden Era of Hiphop was before rap records. Like The Furious Four, The Cold Crush Four, The Fantastic Five, The Funky Four, The Mark V MCees, The Treacherous Three, The Fearless Four...that was the Golden Era of Hiphop to me 'cause in order to be out there..like when the breakbeats came on you had to be nice!  If you're a bum they let you know, just like the Apollo. "Get him off the floor!! Next! Next!" The people in the crowd wanted to be entertained. That's why I know when we first started out in 100 Park... we was good because the crowd was loving us and that's when we started going around to other places. Like 63 Park and Rosedale Park. You know, all the parks that people played at. We got our rep up until that shit happened in 1981. So we was together for a good two years until Afrika Islam came along and split us up. That's when DJ Kenny Ken got together with these other crews like the Serious Five and that's  when Kid Shadow got into service." MCees and DJs that made a name for themselves in the parks they're legit!! Real proofs....Back then everything was authentic. DJs and MCees did it because they loved the art. I wrote a rhyme about that two weeks ago,"Rap buffoonery, sheer lunacy, tarnishing the legendary Rap legacy, I heard Hiphop since the year 73 and  it don't sound the same to me." That's why I wrote this hook because Hiphop just ain't the same no more. Now it's Rap buffoonery."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did the MC battles go down back then? Were they similar to what is going today?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"No!!  Back then it was like a real battle. It was like, "Let me hear your rhymes!" It wasn't about, "I'm gonna kill you!" It's just so disrespectful right now. Those are not real battles.  Back in the days you had like thirty minutes to go and then the crowd would be on your side and then when your thirty minutes was up the other crew would turn their music on and the crowd would go to their side. Then the crowd would usually be the judge. That's how a DJ/MC crew battle was, you know what I mean? It was like that! Now the battles are just mad disrespectful. It's no real battles anymore, it's just rap disrespect. "

                                                       

December 20th, 1980: The Mark V MCees are rocking at The Double 6's Club

  

                                                                

December 27th, 1980: The Mark V MCees are rocking at the Soundview Community Center in the Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you say that those classic Soul bands like The Temptations, The Chi-Lites etc. were a huge influence on the original MC crews from the Bronx and Harlem?"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Oh of course yeah, we all was influenced by that! We were also influenced by James Brown and Sly & The Family Stone. That's another reason why a lot of people believe that Hiphop is not the same anymore because it ain't really the soul beats no more. Music affects people in different ways. I was dong an interview the other day and one dude tried to argue with me and said that he don't believe that music influences people. I said, "Of course you do! If you gonna listen to Smokey Robinson or The Chi-Lites...you know, the slow music...we called that love making or baby making music back then.....you wanna make love.  When you hear Disco music you wanna go to the club and party. When you hear gangster music you wanna fight and shoot at people. It makes you become aggressive." This goes for the beats and the lyrics. All music affects you in a different way. Like I told him..when they got King Kong down from top of the Empire State Building in the original King Kong movie of 1933 they got him down by playing music 'cause they say music calms the savage beast. So right now this Rap music that we got...they call it Drill Music or whatever...that's really just gangster music. That's not calming the savage beast down, that's enraging the beast. That's why I see a whole lot of kids getting killed right now or going to jail. They don't learn the real culture of gangs. The real culture of gangs wasn't what it is right now. Our job as gangs was to protect our neighbourhoods because they was trying to run us out. A lot of white dudes didn't want us in the neighbourhood when we first moved into the housing projects. So they used to hit us with sticks and this and that. So we had to form gangs to protect ourselves from them and from the cops. Now we form gangs just to fight each other and to do stupid things. That's why Hiphop is important 'cause Hiphop to me stood for Highly Intelligent Professionals Helping Our People. But now it's not helping our people, it's hurting our people. The four elements of Hiphop are Breakdancing, Graffiti (Writing), MCing and DJing but the fifth element was always knowledge. Melle Mel was spreading that knowledge in the early eighties already. People need that knowledge about the culture. But yeah, Soul music... that is bringing out your soul! It makes you feel good!! Soul is the emotional part of man. Soul music has you laughing and dancing like the B-Boys back then in the park." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you for the interview!"

SHELT LA ROCK:"Thank you, Norin! I appreciate what you're doing!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Shout outs to my Intruders Crew, my man Sureshot La Rock (thanks for the flyers, my mellow), Andre Wilson (thank you for the flyers and pictures), Troy L. Smith, Pluto Seven and Pete Nice."

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

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

DJ Mr. Lee (The Mission Impossible Crew)

                             

                               conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/ Germany) 

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

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

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

DJ MR. LEE:"Yeah!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DJ MR. LEE:"Yes."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DJ MR. LEE:"Yeah."

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

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

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

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

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

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

Kool DJ Herc & DJ Mr. Lee

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  

                                                        

B-Boy Cadillac Mel (The Mission Impossible Crew)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, please!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

DJ Black Jack (The Herculords)

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on that."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"Grandmaster Flash?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                                 

DJ Les Les (The Mission Impossible Crew)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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