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."

Interview with B-Boy Billy Bill

                                                          Interview with B-Boy Billy Bill  

                                

                                                 

B-Boy Billy Bill

                                            

                              conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When were you born?"

BILLY BILL:"I was born in 1956, making me 68 years at this moment."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Alright, and where exactly were you born?" 

BILLY BILL:"I was born in Harlem and I was born in Harlem Hospital."

SIR NORIN RAD:"In which part of Harlem were you raised?"

BILY BILL:"I was raised in Drew Hamilton Projects for the most part. Right there on 142nd Street & 8th Avenue."

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

BILLY BILL:"Oh man, we listened to R&B. Mostly Motown...early Motown when they dominated the charts. We listened to Curtis Mayfield, James Brown of course. Anything that was playing on WWRL.  That was the station back in the day before FM came to fruiton and WBLS."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you do any other kind of dance before you got into Breaking?"

BILLY BILL:"Uh really I was kinda shy at a young age. I didn't really dance too much until I became a teenager...like 13,14.  And I became a B-Boy at 15, 16."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you're saying that you became a B-Boy in 1971, 1972, correct?"

BILLY BILL:"100 percent correct!! Before Hiphop had a name! Put this out there! This is very important. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you see Breaking for the first time?"

BILLY BILL:"The very first time.. Me and my crew went to a place called The Factory West...125th Street in Harlem. And this was 1971..... late "1971, early 1972. So I'm not disputing the landmark they have as 1973. Like I said before Hiphop had a name you saw this dance and it was called Burning. Me and my fellas went down there and it was like, you know...we went there as observers. We weren't full participants as of yet.  So a couple of my fellas got in there. First time, they wasn't ready for it, right? And they danced against females who were seasoned veterans at this and who were known in this place. They (Billy Bill's friends) got their ass kicked!! (laughs) Alright? So we went to the drawing board. Like for a couple of weeks we went there and started making up moves. We were practicing and honing our skills. And the next time we went down there we was victorious, we was good. Yeah, we didn't wanna run into that no more, you know? And ever since then that was it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of place was The Factory West?"

BILLY BILL:"It turned into a club. You had to go up one flight of stairs. It was kind of dark and it had a good sound system and basically that was around the time when gang activity was at its paramount. A lot of gangs used to congregate up there. There was fights outside. As a matter of fact they closed because a guy we knew...he was like a gang leader from up in Harlem..he got killed there. Yeah, that was the end of the Factory West."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall which songs were played there?"

BILLY BILL:"First of all, it was James Brown! Of course!! There was Isley Brothers...."Get Into Something", Earth, Wind & Fire "Moment Of Truth", Kool & The Gang "Love The Life You Live"...the whole version. Just a whole lot of stuff!  Billy Shae-Rae...a song called "Do it!". Oh man! Like I said I'm a little bit more seasoned and there was tracks  that I listened to that I didn't hear at Kool DJ Herc's parties. Kool DJ Herc is my man and all that but there are some under the radar things. Like "Moment Of Truth"..they never played that as far as I know. At least when I was there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did the dance look like when you got into it?"

BILLY BILL:"We didn't really go down to the ground and all that. We did what the new generation calls Uprock. We stayed mostly up top. There was a lot of hand movement and fancy footwork. And basically it was kinda disrespectful because you danced against girls. That was the first battle, not with guys against guys. Let me set this straight for you right now because a lot of guys think it started like this (guys against guys). It started guys and against girls but it ended  because you danced against a girl and you embarrassed her or put your hands on her it's gonna be a fight or she would say,"I'mma go get my brother." You know, things of that nature.  And or you be trying to get next to her later on. So how you gonna talk to her after you embarrassed her? You wanna take her home or something, you know? So therefore that's how guys against guys started. It's important that you document that! I'm the only one to express that but that's the original truth."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name those B-Boys that would accompany you to all those party spots back then?"

BILLY BILL:"Yes, two of them are still alive. One of them is Tony Shamburger. We called him Tee. He moved from the Bronx over to Manhattan in 1971. So we got tight. And then there is my right hand man...his name is Danny Harris. He passed away in 2013. He was a great B-Boy and a great musician. He didn't have a B-Boy name. Then there was Vernon England. Vernon had moved from Queens to Manhattan. We called him Vito. We had Maurice Montgomery. He passed away, too. And let me make this clear, too. Kurtis Blow was a couple of years younger than us and we took him into our camp, like about a year later."

Harlem B-Boy Vernon England

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you improved your dancing skills!"

BILLY BILL:"We was implementing what we saw and putting our own thing to it. Like Karate moves...We was observing other people down there, you know? The best dude down there...his name was John John. He was really animated and he was really really good. He was the best down there at the Factory West."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which other places in Harlem did you go to in order to dance back then?"

BILLY BILL:"Chuck Center! That became our place, too, when The Factory West closed down. And then we would just go around to where the party was, man. You know, the P.A.L. down on 123rd Street. They had a place called "Wham" on 152nd Street. It was an acronym. It was run by a great man named Charles Mobley, a neighbourhood leader. It was a renovated police precinct. Then a lot of the housing projects had recreation rooms that threw parties. We would go to the Polo Grounds. That's where we met Dancin' Doug and his crew. Where I was from there was this place called "The Office". So the guy who got killed at the Factory West his mother was an community activist. Her name was Mrs. Kimble. She had a brownstone and converted it to a place where kids could go to to get off the street. So we used to dance there all the time, too, on the weekend and practice karate there. It was on 146th Street & St. Nicholas. And then that became a spot to go hang out. They threw parties in there and you could also get a summer job there, you know? They had John F. Kennedy High School that used to throw nice parties. It was a brand new high school..it had just opened. And the first time we went in there we drew the biggest crowd we ever saw!! We was dancing to "So Much Trouble In My Mind" by Sir Joe Quarterman & Free Soul. And that's when we knew we was really good!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain what made you feel that way!"

BILLY BILL:"We was dancing against the girls that lived in Dyckman Street. So it was their girls and our boys. We was just dancing the way we normally dance and all of a sudden everybody stopped and came over, you know? It was a big circle. But those was our friends then so we didn't really try to embarrass them."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were the best B-Boys out of Marble Hill that danced in JFK High School?"

BILLY BILL:"I really didn't try to be friendly with anybody 'cause basically when we was in Harlem we was the top dogs. When we came in as soon as we started dancing there was a big circle. We became friends with a lot of the girls. They learnt the moves from us. They would say,"After school you wanna come teach us that?" And you know, we'd go and teach 'em. And next thing you know they was good."

John F. Kennedy High School in Marble Hill

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was there any place in Lincoln Projects where people were Breaking?"

BILLY BILL:"Lincoln had a place that you could go to after school for like two days a week. There was a school right there, right across from Lincoln off 5th Avenue & 135th Street. I forgot the name of the school. But we used to go there right after school. Like from 5 to 7 P.M. they would be playing music in the gym. A lot of people would show up there and they would be dancing." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also go to The Tunnel or The Puzzle in the Bronx?"

BILLY BILL:"Like once. There's not too much info to give on that though. There was a lot of gang activity."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was it important for a B-Boy to be fly back then?"

BILLY BILL:"Yeah, you had to be fly but you also had to wear stuff that you could do your moves in. They had like doubleknit pants and whatnot that stretched. A lot of colors back then. We would wear the  Flechet hats, the Kangols and the brims! That was really important! The brim hats! How you would do your hat tricks! Roll your hat around in like a 720 and pop it back on your head! A.J. Lester's was the spot to go to or Delancey Street. You would buy the leather Cortefiel coats. Mocknecks, Alpaca sweaters, doubleknit pants all that....."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you stay in Harlem or did you also go to the Bronx in order to dance there?"

BILLY BILL:"I went to the Bronx but most of my time was spent in Harlem because that's where I lived. But I went to school in the Bronx so I knew a whole lot of people. I went to DeWitt Clinton High School and I was comfortable wherever I went. Our crew never had no problems in the Bronx." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did you also go to Kool DJ Herc's parties?"

BILLY BILL:"Yes, I went to Kool Herc's parties starting in late 1974, early 1975. Executive Playhouse, you know? Then he started going on the road and he did gigs in Hunter College and in the Promenade which is adjacent to JFK High School. So we followed him around a couple of times."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were the Kool Herc parties similar to what you had witnessed in Harlem?"

BILLY BILL:"It was similar except the guys wasn't dancing against the girls and he had an outstanding soundsystem and he always played great tracks in a special way. Total credit for that!! I'mma tell you after  a while the Burning kinda played out with me, man. So like in 1975, 1976 I just hung out for the music. By that time the dance had changed. And me and my crew we were like,"We been there and done that! So we're just looking for the fly girls now.""

SIR NORIN RAD:" So were you still Burning at Kool DJ  Herc's parties?"

BILLY BILL:"If needed. Like I said by 1975 we got fly so nobody wanted to mess up their good shit down there. We would dance whenever Herc played songs like "The Mexican" or "Listen To Me".  By that time Dancin' Doug was with us.  We used to meet in the train station at 168th Street to go Uptown. We all had to get to the A train. We all hung out with the pretty girls from JFK High School. We had a common thing going, you know? We became friends with them. They was from the Polo Grounds. So if there was a party at the Polo Grounds we would go up there. Or if there was something happening in Drew Hamilton we would meet up. You always had information on where the party was. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you find out about Kool DJ Herc's parties?"

BILLY BILL:"Word of mouth and we just always wanted to know where the good parties was at. It would be like, "Herc got a joint tonight!" So our crew would get together and we would get a gypsy cab that would take us to the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall Burning or Breaking going on at the Renny (The Renaissance Ballroom in Harlem)?"

BILLY BILL:"Yeah, definetely at the Renny. They had the "Dollar After School" parties. Like five times a week. We would be going there right after school and danced til like 8 o'clock. Later on the DJs became the main attraction there. They would play beats and people would go off. That's before the MCees became the main attraction."

                                           

The Renaissance Ballroom in Harlem

SIR NORIN RAD:"I guess you are referring to the Sapphire Crew."

BILLY BILL:"Yeah, me and DJ B-Fats (Sapphire Crew) lived in the same building.  Also DJ Donald D and DJ Al-B.....we're from the same building."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told that at all the original Hiphop jams DJs would play slow joints for the males and females to get their slow dancing on. What do you remember about that?"

BILLY BILL:"Yeah, at the Factory West they would do that, too. They would slow it down and play six or seven slow records in a row."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name some of the slow songs that were played at the Factory West!"

BILLY BILL:"All the singing groups.....The Delfonics "Hey Love!", "Lalalala Means I Love You". The Temprees "Dedicated To The One I Love". The Moments "Just Because He Wants To Make Love", "Sunday" and "Gotta Find A Way".  Blue Magic "Spell". "Day By Day" by The Continental Four. Yeah man, I was into that! I was into the slow jams!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe your style of Burning back then!"

BILLY BILL:"I was known as the puppet at one time. I would move almost like a marionette. So the girls would say something like,"Oh, there go Puppet!!! Billy Puppet!" The girl Shelaine from Dyckman Street gave me that name.  My dance style was looking like a puppet 'cause I basically danced to Funk and to Breakbeats that had the Funk."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was your most memorable B-Boy battle back then?"

BILLY BILL:"The most memorable B-Boy battle. You know, it would be between John F. Kennedy High School and Chuck Center. Chuck Center had some good B-Girls back then. We go to be tight with them, too. You know, a lot of them were cute.  There was one B-Girl down there named Kelloggs. She was really thick then. She was solid built. She hurt one of my boys wrist. He hurt his wrist. He went to get up on her. I think he was in the air and she did something to him. You can't be messing with her!  She weighed more than he did. But she ways pretty!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So at that time a B-Boy / B-Girl battle would go down like this: The competitors faced each other in a circle and danced at the same time. They tried to burn each other with various intimidating and/or ridiculing hand gestures. Is that correct?"

BILLY BILL:"Oh yeah, it was like one-upmanship. Although sometimes they just danced cool 'cause they liked each other. Getting burnt by your opponent was really initimidating. That's what happened to us in the Factory West.  Like I said the girls down there was seasoned vets. This place was already open for a couple of months before we went  down there. So first of all we had to get in tune with the culture. And sometimes you don't know who you're fucking with. There was a couple of B-Girls that I want to name......and they were from different places in Harlem. You heard of Dancin' Doll, right? Darlene Rivers?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes."

BILLY BILL:"Well, we used to go to her house and teach her. She just stood there and be like a sponge and absorbed all the moves! Then she turned it into her own style. There was a girl named Nicky from the Factory West and she was nice with it. A girl named Stephanie....she is still alive.......she was good at it and nobody gave her no credit because they didn't know about her but me and my crew know. She was from Johnson Projects....like Lexington Avenue & 116th or 117th Street....over there down that way. Like I said Kelloggs was good. There was a few. I'm saying, you had to know who you was messing with! So we almost all became a crew. If a dude came and asked for them he didn't know what he was in for! They would fuck him up!!! (laughs) One of the most embarrassing things they would do to you is take your hat and throw your hat somewhere...shit like that.  Depending on who you was it would be almost a fight. Like a guy got his new hat on, he thinks he's fly. She would come up on him and break down and come up with his hat and crush it!!! (laughs) The girls brought it all the time!! 'Cause they was stars! They were the stars of the party.  Kelloggs was an amazon!!! She weighed more than a lot of dudes but she was nice!! And dangerous!!! Her crew would come up to hang out with us. My cousin had a place, we would move all furniture and have parties right there for a minute. That was more for crews. Everybody wasn't invited. We would be  like, "Y'all come on up!!! Come on up!" You'd drink Old English and all that good stuff. Smoking weed...."

Harlem 1st Generation B-Girl Dancin' Doll 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Alright, what were your top five songs to dance to back then?"

BILLY BILL:"Oh man, it's a whole lot of them! But James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose". We liked Mandrill, we liked Kool & The Gang...you know, we liked groups. They had several songs that we might get off to. We liked Curtis Mayfield, we liked the Isley Brothers."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about the Ohio Players?"

BILLY BILL:""Skin Tight"! That was their best one! It came out in 1974! We was going to Kool DJ Herc by then! Earth, Wind & Fire had a song called "Power". We used to go off on that! Those are a few of them! Man , these songs would give you that B-Boy feeling!"

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

BILLY BILL:"Shout out to the Hiphop nation! Shout out to those who have passed on!To the people that don't get the credit they deserve. I'm here to say they deserve it. I have been one of them. To the people in Harlem! Peace to the Bronx! You know, I'm just saying there was inclusion in this. It wasn't always the Bronx. Harlem had their thing, too. Of course my fellas Dancin' Doug, Kurtis Blow, Tony Shamburger, Vernon England. To all the B-Girls! It was all love. It was all love!! And in closing it's been my pleasure to do this interview with you."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much! I wanna give a shout out to my Intruders Crew,to Pluto Seven and to my man Sureshot La Rock!" 

Interview with B-Boy/DJ/MC Les Love (Solo Sounds)

                                          Interview with B-Boy/DJ/MC Les Love (Solo Sounds)

                                                           

                                               conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

LES LOVE:"Yeah well I was born on October 30th, 1956 in Morrisania Hospital in the Bronx but I lived in Manhattan...in Sugar Hill until I was five years old. Then I moved down to the Colonial Projects. It was right next to the Polo Grounds baseball stadium. At that time the stadium was there for a while but then they tore it down and built the Polo Grounds Projects. Now I know you're familiar with Dancin' Doug and all of them. They lived in building 1. Him and his brother Bobby who was my best friend at that time. So even though I lived in the Colonial Projects I used to be with them a lot. We had a little band for a while but then we got into breakdancing. All of us was doing our thing. Now Dancing Doug and Teenie Rock they took  it to a whole 'nother level. They was just incredible with it but we was right underneath them and we used to go to all the parties there." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you remember where and when you saw Breaking for the very first time?"

LES LOVE:"Oh okay, that went back to like maybe 1971/1972......back then  I was around 14 or 15 years old and that's you know when we would be going to the parties. There was this one dude dancing and then all of a sudden somebody else jumped in the circle.  Everybody would be watching and they would go in. They would dance against each other."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did the dance look like back then?"

LES LOVE:"A lot of footwork and a lot of hand motion. You know, every now and then you'd hit the floor but it wasn't basically the floor thing. It was more footwork and hand movement. Getting into a guy's face...Things like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of parties were those? Are you talking about house parties?"

LES LOVE:"You know, house parties were popular in the early days but then you also had Kool DJ Herc. He used to be outside in Cedar Park and while he was in Cedar Park everybody would be out there. Later on he would get different clubs and he would play there. Like The Hevelow, The Executive Playhouse, The Minisink  and all that....and that's where it  really got intense because number one it was packed and then number two people started to go off. You had mainly people  from the Bronx and Harlem coming there, that was really into it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you find out about Kool DJ Herc's parties?"

LES LOVE:"Yeah, you know what the funny thing is? You know that record "I Heard It Through The Grapevine"? That's what it was. It would be like one person tells the next person and then that person tells the next person and before you know it everybody knows about it. It was just word of mouth, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the attitude of an original B-Boy?"

LES LOVE:"Well, what it was....see in Harlem and the Bronx you had to have a reason for the girls to like you. Most of the cats that was breakdancing did it because they loved dancing but it also attracted a lot of women. So the harder you danced, the more you danced  you wanted to build up a reputation so when you walked in the party people would go,"Oh, look!! He's there! He's there!" And that built that attraction up and that popularity. So you would practice, you'd be at home... in the mirror..whatever way you had to look at yourself....to see how you was doing it. You know, it was just the drive to be successful and to be the best at it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and who inspired you to pick up Breaking?"

LES LOVE:"Well, dancing...I used to go to all the clubs downtown. So the dancing thing was kind of natural to me but then when I came back uptown Dancin' Doug's older brother Bobby, Terry and them.....you know, it was a whole crew of us... we just started doing it (Breaking). Like I said my inspiration really came from Dancin' Doug and Teenie Rock. They were just incredible! Oh and Teenie Rock's brother Carl Wright he was incredible, too! It came from us all being around each other trying to get better and better  That's basically how it worked. 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe the original Harlem B-Boy style of dressing to me!"

LES LOVE:"Let me put it to you like this... Harlem had its own style.  Harlem set everything off! I put it to you like this..in Harlem you had to be fly! You had to dress! I see you lay out some of the fly stuff from back then, Norin. The gear....I see it and I be like, "Norin, knows!!!!" The thing is there was mad drug dealers in Harlem. They were like the people's heroes. The way they dressed, that's the way we tried to dress. Where they shopped, that's where we shopped. You know, you had A.J. Lester's and that was one of the top stores, man. A.J. Lester's had all of the flyest gear. You know, then you branched out and went down to Newman Brothers for the Cortefiel suedes and leathers.  You'd go to Leighton's for the shoes. And then they also had a store in Delancey Street called The Joint Store that had a lot of A.J. Lester's stuff. You had to be fly! It wasn't like we was coming there with jeans...nah, nah, nah!!! You had to be fly! The Playboys, the British Walkers........That's how we got it in!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So did you have a crew that accompanied you to those parties back then?"

LES LOVE:"A whole crew! A whole crew! You'd never go to a party by yourself. You'd go with like ten or fifteen dudes. You know you had my people from Colonial Projects and from Building One. We all got together. There was another spot called The Promenade by John F. Kennedy High School........"

SIR NORIN RAD:"That's in Marble Hill, right?"

LES LOVE:"Yeah, Marble Hill. How you know about that?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Dancing Doug, DJ B-Ward and RC La Rock told me about the Promenade. People were breakdancing there, too....."

LES LOVE:"Absolutely! It was like everywhere really. Harlem and The Bronx were considered Uptown. That's where we went, to all the uptown functions." 

Rangel Houses, Harlem ( formerly known as Colonial Houses)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please name those B-Boys from your neighbourhood that were really nice!"

LES LOVE:"Dancin' Doug, Ma Teenie (Teenie Rock), Carl......like you know them already. Bobby Colon, Terry....Terry was nice! My man Pete from Colonial Houses. He just passed away. God bless him! Oh my man Royal Hall....that's Biz Markie's brother. Royal was nice! Pete lived in my building. Kool DJ Red Alert lived right next to us, too, because my building and his building was connected. We called him Red Fred back then. Biz Markie and Royal  Hill lived in building 48."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What were your favourite B-Boy joints back then?"

LES LOVE:"My favourite joint was James Brown "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose". I also loved "Melting Pot" by Booker T. & The M.G.s., "The Mexican" by Babe Ruth, "Yellow Sunshine" by the Yellow Sunshine, "Listen To Me" by Baby Huey, "Get Into Something" by The Isley Brothers......those are a couple of joints that I used to love."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did these joints affect you when you heard them being played at the parties?"

LES LOVE:"Them joints get your feet moving automatically! You'd be like,"Yo, that's my joint!!!!! So it was so much joy when you'd hear that! It's not a regular song that you'd hear on the radio. It's not something that you'd hear everyday. You had to get out there and do what you do! It just releases all this energy out of you.  All of a sudden there would be this energy. It would just let you go to a whole 'nother dimension, another mindstate."

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

LES LOVE:"I tried to be fly, like a real kool guy when I danced, you know what I'm saying?  I had no shakes like Trixie. None of that. I had this joint... I'd drop on the floor and come back up. I remember that penguin walk Doug used to do. It was hilarious!! And the other joint he used to do...he used to get on top of Teenie Rock's shoulders. They used to get it in! I mean everybody had their own little thing. It was just an incredible time back then. That's when life was good, man. We was having fun and that's what it was all about."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You have mentioned the Minisink as one of the Kool DJ Herc party spots that you went to back then. Where exactly in the Bronx was it located?"

LES LOVE:"170th Street & Jerome Avenue in the Bronx."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What kind of place was it?"

LES LOVE:"It was a cadet corps where they had like a big space where they would let them do the parties at."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take back then to become an outstanding B-Boy?"

LES LOVE:"You had to have skills but it was also very important to be fly and charismatic because you wanted the attention. In order to get the attention you had to have something about you that made everybody wanna watch, you know? And then when you get the attention you get the girls."

SIR NORIN RAD:"I was told by all the original B-Boys as well as by Coke La Rock that slow joints were an integral part of the early Kool DJ Herc parties. What do you remember about that?"

LES LOVE:"We couldn't wait for them to come on, you know what I'm saying? 'Cause we used to bump and grind with them slow joints. Those were the days! They don't even do that no more. You'd watch, you'd look around and see the one that you want. You'd be like,"Yeah, I want her!! " So you would be like,"Yo come here, Boo Boo!! You belong right here!" We'd also do the Hustle Dance. It wasn't like The Hustle that you see on TV with that Disco Fever crap! Nah!!! That's what made life beautiful. That's why it's different now. Like you go to a Hiphop party now, man, it's just not the same. The art of really having a good time ain't the same, man! The cell phone and the social media killed a lot of things." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let's go back to A.J. Lester's for a moment, please. How did you find out about that iconic store and what do you remember about it?"

LES LOVE:"I was born into that, man! My family kept me sharp from when I was a kid! You just had to have money, man. It was a money thing, you know what I'm saying? However you got your money was on you. But believe you me I loved them Damon knits, the Italian knits...It was just like.....I  had this rhyme back then: Bootcut British (Walkers), Champaign Cologne the high-powered knits imported from Rome, the Flechet hat to warm my brain, leather and suede hand-crafted in Spain. That was all based upon the way we dressed in Harlem at that time. The Flechet hat was used to transport dope. The Flechet hats are from France, right? And they would use them to transfer dope in them to America and so once they got busted you couldn’t even get no more Flechet hats. They were like the Kangol cap but they were suede… kind of suedeish. I don’t know…the material was different. It was like a suedeish thing. But yo them joints was hard!!! The Flechet brims, the Flechet caps. Oh my God!!! And then you had the velours joints! You had to be with all  of that or else you was a lonely dude! I tell you that! Word!“

SIR NORIN RAD:“I heard that you also used to wear a certain type of underwear.“

LES LOVE:“Yeah, yeah, yeah…the boxers and the t-shirts. Right, you had to have that. When you pulled your clothes off you’d better have like the wife-beaters. You either had the wife-beater shirt or the regular t-shirt but it had to be nylon. It was nylon underwear. And then the boxers to match, you know what I'm saying? When I said you had to be fly.....everything about you had to be fly. From the drawls, the socks, the shoes.....you know, we didn't even wear sneakers like that. We always wore shoes. The only time we wore sneakers is when we played ball (basketball). Yeah man, we always wore shoes with the silk and mohair pants, the sharkskin pants and all of that. It was crazy...."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What about the Pro-Keds though? Many of the original Bronx B-Boys told me that they would go off wearing Pro-Keds."

LES LOVE:"Yeah, some people did that. You see, Harlem was a little different."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you get into DJing and MCing?"

LES LOVE:"Aight, let me tell you! See, I went to high school. Me and my man Earl we used to go to all the clubs Downtown. Like I said we were fly ni***rs. So this dude Milton Lugo said, "I used to see you two guys always coming to the Superstar and all the other clubs." He said,"Yo man, you want a job? You'll never have to wait again to get into a club." And he gave us this address 1650 Broadway, right? It was in Morton Hall's office. God bless the dead, man! Another great man! He was like the world's best concert promoter. So what they wanted us to do is give out flyers to the parties. But that allowed us to get into all the concerts and all the parties and all of that.  What happened was I became mad cool with him. He had all of these clubs. He asked me to get on the mic because I was already spittin' rhymes. I came up with Lovebug Starski, DJ Hollywood, DJ Eddie Cheeba and them. I was living Uptown and Hiphop was going on Uptown. Nowhere else in New York City were they really doing that. Like you had the Renny (The Renaissance Ballroom) in Harlem with Lovebug Starski, DJ Bill Blast and The Sapphire Crew. In the Renny they had a party everyday and it cost a dollar to get in!  It would be like a thousand kids in there, man! Everyday!!! Like after school it was the Renny parties, man! DJ B-Fats, DJ Donald D...I was cool with all of them. And then you also had DJ Hollywood. Him and June Bug used to turn up in 371. And then I started to play there on Wednesdays. It was two different styles of DJing and MCing. Lovebug Starski was more Hiphop but truthfully I give DJ Hollywood the credit for being the first one to ever start rapping. So when I saw and heard Lovebug Starski and DJ Hollywood I was like,"Okay, okay!!" But when I started rhyming my style was different. I didn't rhyme like DJ Hollywood. I just had my own style, you know?  I was more of a crowd motivator. Those were the good old days. It will never be like that again. I tell you that. I also already had turntables at my crib. From me dancing I knew all the records like Kool Herc and Bambaataa and all of them had 'cause I had a friend of mine named El-Roy that worked in Downstairs Records. He was cool, he was like,"Yo, I see you and your man coming here fly all the time!!!  What y'all do? Yo, you MC?? Let me hear something!" So I spit some shit real quick for him. He said, "If you write for me, I'll give you all these records every time you come down here. All the joints that all these dudes ask for that nobody knows the name to." So I used to come down every week with the envelope full of rhymes and he would hit me with all kinds of joints!!!! Like Chicken Little.....Free!! Free! I had all the records but I was really an MC. So what happened was they had me making announcements during the parties. So everybody that DJed in their clubs like DJ Music Man Bruce, DJ Flowers, DJ Maboya, DJ Plummer. I used to be the one who got on their mic all the time. So when I was on the mic I started killing it. You know, I changed the nature of the game. Now I started really rocking the party. I would say rhymes like,"To all the young ladies pay strict attention! Something to y'all I would like to mention. I have a reputation for being fly. I pull the young ladies with the wink of an eye! So don't be bashful, don't be ashamed!  All the ladies in the house please tell me your name! Now what's your name??" And I had the whole crowd going crazy! So next thing you know they had me doing it everywhere.  They became my managers. Him and Winston. They had me playing in Madison Square Garden, Nassau Coliseum. Everywhere. They had me in all the clubs.  

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain how you got down with Solo Sounds from Yonkers!"

LES LOVE:“Around 1979 I moved to Yonkers with my grandparents. My father already lived there and he got them to move up there. So I'm like, "Yonkers????? What the hell is Yonkers?" I had to find where they lived at. They took down all my flyers. I had a whole wall full of flyers. I mean mad flyers with me on it 'cause I was popping downtown. They tore it down, all of that! I ain't got my flyers no more. So I met these girls there. Me and my brother and them was together....going out there. They showed us where we lived at.  There was a dude... his name was Lil Tommy, he originally was from Edenwald Projects in the Bronx. Him and his family lived in Yonkers in my building that I had just moved into. He said,"Solo Sounds is having a party up in Leake and Watts! Man, come up there!" Leake and Watts is a group home in Yonkers. He had seen me rocking on the turntables in my house so he already knew I was nice.  He was like a little bully dude. He kept telling them (Solo Sounds),"Yo, he's nice! Let him get on!!! Let him cut!!" So they would let me get on their turntables. They didn't know nothing about how I was cutting.  They was like, "Yo!!! What???" Then when I got on the mic they went crazy!! They wasn't up to date with what I was doing  'cause I was right there in it with all the top ni****rs that did it. So they said, "Yo man, you wanna rock some parties with us?" I said, "Yeah, I'm with you!" And then we built a real strong relationship. You know, we became good friends and I introduced them to a lot. I was like the plug. I put them on to a lot of people downtown. You know, I connected the dots. We started doing real big things. But at the same time I was still my own entity. I was still doing parties on my own. People asked me to do shows. Les Love was Les Love but I also was down with Solo Sounds. When I was on my own I did parties for like the older people, but with Solo Sounds I did the younger joints, you know, the Hiphop crowd. So I did the club crowd and the Hiphop crowd. I had two different styles. I could switch it up. I could go either way but truthfully I started out Hiphop, you understand? Most of the time when I did shows I didn't DJ. I needed a DJ so we could format the program, you know, the show....and he would cut up the beats. So whenever I was rhyming I needed a DJ. Solo Sounds had a DJ, his name was DJ Big Al, he was a Jamaican kid. He would be my DJ when I was doing shows. DJ Big Al WAS his DJ name but we changed all that. Later on I named him DJ Easy E. After that I took him down to A.J. Lester's and ever since then he was hooked. He was an A.J. Lester's addict. Every Friday and Saturday he would be buying gear....and the rest is history, man. After a while Solo Sounds became like two entities... the Yonkers Solo Sounds and the Queens Solo Sounds 'cause DJ Easy E would never let DJ Davy D (Davy DMX) cut! DJ Easy E loved to DJ. He didn't want to get off the set. He wanted to DJ all night. Davy D! Imagine that!!! Davy D did that song "One For The Treble". He did a lot of joints. That's why DJ Davy D got mad at DJ Easy E and left. He was like,"I'mma start Solo Sounds out in Queens." That's where he had DJ Hurricane and all of them. He wanted me to come with him to Queens to battle Kurtis Blow and all of them because by that time I was battling everybody."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where was DJ Davy D from?"

LES LOVE:"He was from Queens. The manager from Solo Sounds was his uncle."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did he leave to form his own Solo Sounds crew?"

LES LOVE:"I think it was in 1979."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were the original members of the Solo Sounds crew?"

LES LOVE:"See this is what it was. The original Solo Sounds was my man Roger Hambrick. He's a famous reverend now. His name was DJ Gard. DJ Davy D was in it. DJ Gard and DJ Davy D were cousins. And then we had DJ Easy E. The Vicious Five MCees were younger than us. They came in a little later. The Vicious Five were Kool T, Shaun Ski, Sweet Me Me, Shorty Rock and Lorie Lor. I would do routines with them from time to time when we did shows together. We would practice maybe two or three times per week. DJ Easy E would cut up the beats for us. In 1981 we did that record  "Get The Party Jumping."" 

                                             

DJ Gard (Solo Sounds)

July 6th, 1979: DJ Les Love is rocking at the Polish Community Center in Yonkers along with DJ Easy E, DJ Gard and the Solo Sounds Crew.

 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the stomping ground of the Solo Sounds crew?"

LES LOVE:"There was this place called Dock Street.... the Knights Of The Columbus. They used to get that. They would get different little sections and sometimes bars. We did shows in School Street with Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five. We did the Stardust Ballroom with the Cold Crush Brothers for Christmas. We also did shows in the Polish Community Center with them. We did shows in Jackson Street. I mean we did a lot, man!" 

July 3rd, 1980: Solo Sounds are rocking at School Street, Yonkers along with Grandmaster Flash & The Furious Five

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did it take back then to become an excellent MC?"

LES LOVE:"You had to have lyrics! You had to say things that made sense. Back then it was all about the party. So you had to get them into that party mode, you know what I'm saying?  You ain't talking about murdering and killing. And then it's personal...You gotta talk to them like personal..You had to have showmanship! That's the main thing! You had to give them something to look at! You couldn't just stand there and that's what messes Rakim up. You got to have that energy! If you don't got that energy they won't have it either. Just what you are giving them, they gonna  give it back to you.  So you gotta be willing to go out there and do everything it takes to give them a good time. That's all what it is about."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was it okay for MCees to rhyme off beat?"

LES LOVE:"Nah, never! Imagine that! I couldn't even imagine rhyming off beat. I couldn't do it 'cause you're feeling the music. The music is what makes you do it. Music is also a feeling. It's not just what you hear but also what you feel."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What are your top five breakbeats to rhyme over?"

LES LOVE:"Wow! That's a good one....You know "Good Times" by Chic was the favourite joint back then. "Seven Minutes Of Funk" by The Whole Darn Family. That one. Bob James...."Take Me To The Mardi Gras".  King Erisson..."Well, Have A Nice Day" and "Scratching" by The Magic Disco Machine." 

December 27th, 1981: Solo Sounds are rocking at the Webster P.A.L. in the Bronx along with DJ Afrika Bambaataa & The Jazzy Five

SIR NORIN RAD:"My man Sureshot La Rock showed me a Zulu Nation flyer from 1977 which advertised a party that was about to take place in Yonkers. So it seems that Yonkers must have caught the Hiphop bug quite early. What is your take on that?"

LES LOVE:"No, the only ones that caught the Hiphop bug was Solo Sounds. It was no other group like that up there. And then Just The Four came with Imperial J.C. and his brother C.C who had moved to Yonkers. I was down with them for a minute, too."

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

LES LOVE:"Oh yeah, yeah!! Big shoutouts to my man Dancing Doug, to Ma Teenie (Teenie Rock). Big shout outs to the Rangel Houses which is Colonial Projects and to the Polo Grounds Houses. To my man Kool DJ Red Alert and everybody in there, we grew up together. Big shout to Y.O. (Yonkers), you know what I'm saying? Everybody in Y.O. Nothing but love, man! And also a big shoutout to Westchester County! All love and I salute you, Norin!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you very much! I want to give a shoutout to my Intruders Crew, to Sureshot La Rock and to the whole Hiphop Nation worldwide. Peace!"