Interview with Kool DJ Dee (The KD Crew)

                                                           Interview with Kool DJ Dee 

                                                 

Kool DJ Dee (The KD Crew)

                                          

                                        conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/Germany)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

                                                            

                                            

DJ Afrika Bambaataa & DJ Mario

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you write?"

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you write?"

KOOL DJ DEE:"Around 1971."

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

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

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

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

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