Interview with B-Boy Freddy G aka Ant Man (The Shaka Zulus)

                                            Interview with Freddy G aka Ant Man (The Shaka Zulus)

         

B-Boy Freddy G aka Ant Man (The Shaka Zulus)

                                  conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

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

FREDDY G:"I was born and raised in New York City....in Harlem, Sugar Hill. 151st Street & Riverside Drive."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When were you born?"

FREDDY G:"1962."

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

FREDDY G:"It was R&B. Earth, Wind & Fire...stuff like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you got in contact with Hiphop Culture!"

FREDDY G:"My man....the Puppetmaster he introduced me to the Bronx and when I saw the B-Boys there doing their thing it was exhilarating, you know? He took me to Bronx River. After that I was like,"Oh!!!" I was shocked to see the music and the dance moves and everything. I came home and I was like, "Yo, I gotta do this!" It was exciting, you know? I never felt so much soul in music and I had never seen people dancing like that before."

SIR NORIN RAD:" How old were you when the Puppetmaster took you with him to Bronx River?"

FREDDY G:"I was 14."

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

FREDDY G:"We used to take the train, the 6 train." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long is the train ride from Sugar Hill to Bronx River?"

FREDDY G:"Oh, about an hour."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on what you saw and felt during your first vist to Bronx River!"

FREDDY G:"It was an outside party at the Bronx River Center. Afrika Bambaataa was DJing. So the first time I got there I was like, "Oh, my God!!" The music was like so different! I never heard music like that on the radio before. He would play The Jimmy Castor Bunch and James Brown. It was just so different from everything I had seen and heard in Harlem. When I saw the B-Boys dancing I was so excited! When I came home I said to myself, "I have to go back to Bronx River with the Puppetmaster to capture that experience again!" That day my inner soul came out of me. After that I started going back with him everytime he went. Later on we would also go to Bronxdale with DJ Mario. We used to go to Kool DJ Herc & The Herculords parties at the Webster P.A.L. back in the day, too. We would go to The Renaissance Ballroom, The Audubon.........it was great."

SIR NORIN RAD:"From where did you know the Puppetmaster?"

FREDDY G:"Well, he was from the Bronx but he had moved up on Sugar Hill. So one day he said to me,"Let's go to the Bronx and have a party!" Like I said it was an outside party and it was free."

SIR NORIN RAD:"So I guess you must have also known Voodoomaster Herb (another Harlem Shaka Zulu B-Boy)?"

FREDDY G:"Yeah, I know Herb. I met him through the Puppetmaster. He was from Sugar Hill, too." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"You were also known as  B-Boy Ant Man, right?"

FREDDY G:"Yes, the Puppetmaster gave me that name when we was young and we was developing our fighting skills by slap boxing."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please break down to me how you developed your Breaking skills and your own style of B-Boying!"

FREDDY G:"I started by watching the Puppetmaster and the Zulu Kings. Then I would come up with my own moves 'cause everybody had their own moves that made them stand out. I would practice at home in front of the mirror. My thing was the Helicopter! It was great! The music would just hit you and made you wanna move!! It just felt natural."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You were also a member of The Shaka Zulus, right?"

FREDDY G:"Yes, the Puppetmaster had introduced me to Wade (the president of the Shaka Zulu B-Boys). He asked me if I could B-Boy nicely  and so I did a little something on the floor and that's how I got down with them. I was also a member of the Zulu Nation. I was in Chapter 11. We had the yellow B-Boy cards. They were given to us by Bambaataa. We would show the cards to get into the parties for free and everything."  

                                                           

B-Boy Puppetmaster (The Shaka Zulus)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe what you would wear to the parties back then!"

FREDDY G:"I would wear a Kangol hat or a leather chauffeur hat. I would also wear Overlap Pants, a Mockneck and a leather jacket. I'd wear Pro-Keds or Puma sneakers. Later on we wore Cazal glasses, Adidas tracksuits, Sergio Valentes."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Bronx River cats were notorius for chasing B-Boys who weren't from Bronx River back to the subway station. Did you ever experience something similar when you were there?"   

FREDDY G:"Nah, I was always safe because Puppetmaster knew everybody there. I never felt uncomfortable going up there. I felt wecolmed everytime I went there."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How long did it take until you felt comfortable enough to jump into the circle at a party and do your thing?"

FREDDY G:"Well, it was like the second or third time I went. The music was sooo good I just came out of my natural self. I got on the floor and I just started dancing. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you recall the song that caused that reaction?"

FREDDY G:"I think it was the Isley Brothers...."Get Into Something".

SIR NORIN RAD:"So how did feel after your first appearance in a B-Boy circle?"

FREDDY G:"I felt strong. I felt good, I felt good like, "I did my thing!" I couldn't complain. Peabody of the Shaka Zulus jumped in the circle after me and he wanted to battle me."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Peabody with the thick glasses!"

FREDDY G:"Yes, with the glasses. He was nice!!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"So did you go against him?"

FREDDY G."No, he was too nice. When I'd seen him  I was like, "Oh!!!! Right now I can't do it." But the Puppetmaster took him out. After that I just started dancing."

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

FREDDY G:"You had to have certain unique moves. Like we would be demonstrating stuff....you know, like driving a car or taking a person's hat off and throw it in the air. We would do certain characters. It was like transforming, you know? We would transform into different things like characters or movements. When I was on the floor everything just came to me. It came natural. I would just do whatever I wanted to do. I just felt the music......My main thing was the Helicopter and the Freeze. I would spin around and spin around and then I would freeze. You know, I would stop on the floor and I would have my hand on my hat and I would look at my opponent. I couldn't do the Helicopter backwards though, I did it forwards."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which parties did you like better? Those of DJ Afrika Bambaataa or those of DJ Mario?"

FREDDY G:"Well, DJ Mario was good but it seemed like Bronx River was much better than Mario. Mario was good but he was just a little bit quieter than Bronx River. Afrika Bambaataa had way more beats than Mario. He was the Master of Records. Him and Kool Herc..."

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

FREDDY G:"I would say my first one is "Apache" by The Incredible Bongo Band and then....."Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose" by James Brown. My number three is "Get Into Something" by the Isley Brothers. The first time I heard "Apache" it was exhilarating. I never heard music like that before. That was in Bronx River. And then the next time I went I heard "Apache" come on that was it!!! You would do moves to the whole record!" 

James Brown - Give It Up Or Turn It Aloose 1970

   

SIR NORIN RAD:"What do you remember about other music besides breakbeats being played at the jams back then?"

FREDDY G:"The DJs played breakbeats for the B-Boys and then they would slow it down. They would end the party with the slow dancing joints." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were there any other B-Boys or B-Boy Crews in the Sugar Hill section of Harlem during  the mid 1970ies?"

FREDDY G:"No."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Around 1978 many B-Boys quit Breaking and got into DJing or MCing...."

FREDDY G:"Yes, that's when we formed the Mighty Gestapo Crew."

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

FREDDY G:"We used to play at the Battleground in Harlem. We played at Trinity Church. We used to play against The People's Choice on 174th Street and Broadway/ Amsterdam.  We took them out. Then we played at Martin Luther King High School. We had a battle with The Fearless Four. We beat them. We were the number one in Sugar Hill. Our equipment was good. Our DJs and MCees were good. They used to get jealous. Our MC squad was called The Funky Phase Four. It was Prince Whipper Whip, Dot-A-Rock, Count D and Speedy Speed. I would say that we brought DJing & MCing from the Bronx to Harlem, back when we had the Mighty Gestapo Crew and the Funky Phase Four MCees. After that it seemed like a lot of other groups started coming out in Harlem."

December 14th, 1979: The Mighty Gestapo Crew is rocking at the Intercession Trinity Church in Harlem 

SIR NORIN RAD:"So your saying that your crew was playing that BX breakbeat music in Harlem even before The Sapphire Crew did their thing at the Renaissance Ballroom?"

FREDDY G:"Yeah, we used to go to the Renaissance Ballroom but I knew about breakbeats before I went there. We used to go to the Audubon Ballroom. The L-Brothers and DJ Casanova Fly used to be there. It was really good. My brother and Kenny B. used to DJ on 149th Street & Riverside Drive and then after they started hearing our music all of a sudden we started hearing about DJ B-Fats and DJ Donald D (Sapphire Crew), The People's Choice and all these other groups. I guess they got hip to it but I think we were the first ones who started doing all that. "  

SIR NORIN RAD:"How did you manage to make Prince Whipper Whip and Dot-A-Rock join the Mighty Gestapo  Crew?"

FREDDY G:"Well, Prince Whipper Whip used to live in the same building when the Puppetmaster was living in the Bronx and Prince Whipper knew Dot-A-Rock so that's how that happened. After we had our group going on and they had seen how good our DJs were they joined our crew. It was DJ Kenny B and my older brother DJ Chris Chris. We had one room together and my brother used to have at least 20 crates of records. My sister used to work for CVS and she would get him a lot of free records. My brother also wrote Graffiti. He wrote CHOKE 2. Did the Puppetmaster tell you about that?"

DJ Chris Chris (The Mighty Gestapo Crew)

SIR NORIN RAD:"Yes, he did. Were you also a Writer?"

FREDDY G:"I only bombed the insides. I never went into the tunnels with the black light. I used to have a little opaque marker or a magic marker on me.... stuff like that."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What did you write?"

FREDDY G:"I wrote PU 2. That abbreviation stood for PUMA 2."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Which line did you hit?"

FREDDY G:"It was just the 1 train. Graffiti was a part of our culture. Once you started seeing pieces on the trains everybody wanted to have a little name. Long before Beat Street came out that's what everybody was doing." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How important was it to you back then to gain fame as a B-Boy?"

FREDDY G:"I wasn't thinking about fame or anything like that. It just felt good to be part of something so beautiful. I wasn't looking for fame. It was just something natural that was happening. When I jumped into the circle I did not think about fame. I also never really battled that much. I danced because I loved the music and the artform."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How do you feel about the current state of B-Boying?"

FREDDY G:"Right now it's not original. Everybody is copying the spins and stuff like that. That's what they call Breakdancing. We wasn't Breakdancers, we was B-Boyin'!!!! We were doing real moves to the music, you know what I'm saying?? We were incorporating the music.  Not just spinning on your head and stuff like that. Now they're Breakdancing, they're not B-Boying. They're just doing moves now."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who are your top 3 B-Boys of all times?"

FREDDY G:"I would say Cholly Rock of the Zulu Kings, Peabody (The Shaka Zulus) and my mentor the Puppetmaster. I used to just watch him. He didn't have to tell me how to do a move or nothing like that. When I would see him dance I would always say to myself, "Yo, that shit was nice!""

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please explain the importance of the Breakbeats for Hiphop from a B-Boy's perspective!"

FREDDY G:"The breakbeats was like very important because when the breakbeat came on with the drummer and everything like that that's what we would love to dance to. That was the main part that moved us." 

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

FREDDY G:"I would like to give a shoutout to my maaaaaaaaaaaan Mark Muhammad aka The Puppetmaster! To my man Cholly Rock! To my man Kenny B! Gestapo Crew! To Prince Whipper Whip! To my brother Chris Chris! To my men...Rest in Peace...Speedy Speed and Count D! To Dot-A-Rock! RIP!"   

SIR NORIN RAD:"Shoutouts to my Intruders Crew: Scarce One, Akira, A.G., Krwizard. To Troy L. Smith, Pluto Seven. To my man Sureshot La Rock, Input MZK, Kenny IB... UKUBAMBISANA!!! To all the original Kings and Queens of Hiphop! Special thanks to the Puppetmaster for making this interview possible!"

Interview with B-Boy / DJ Shakey Shake

                                                  Interview with B-Boy / DJ Shakey Shake

                                                     

B-Boy / DJ Shakey Shake

                                 conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany) 

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

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I was born in Harlem, New York but I was raised going back and forth between Harlem and the Bronx, you know? So what happened was... at the time my mother lived in Harlem. When she first came she lived in the Bronx, right? She migrated from St. Croix, the island of St.  Croix.  Then she moved to Harlem. When my grandmother first came here from Trinidad by way of Tobago she was living in Harlem. She sent for my father and then she migrated up into the Bronx.  So they did a little switch. So I would travel. Sometimes I would stay with my mother in Harlem. My oldest siblings are born in the Bronx. Sometimes I would stay with my grandmother in the Bronx and sometimes I would stay with my father who also lived in the Bronx. So I was always between the three households."

SIR NORIN RAD:"When were you born?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I was born in 1966."

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

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I was exposed to a lot of music the reason being my parents came here and they was singing Calypso music. My father would play a lot of Soul music. I listened to a lot of Rhythm & Blues. You know R & B is Rhythm & Blues. A lot of that.  A lot of Disco. A lot of records with a lot of breakbeats in it."

SIR NORIN RAD:"You have stated that you were always between three households. Where exactly in the Bronx did you live?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"The first part of the Bronx...I was at 981 Union Avenue, right? And that is directly around the corner from what we call Forest Projects. That's the east side of the Bronx. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Isn't that very close to the Blue Courts?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yes, directly around the corner. As a matter of fact I went to 23 and that's the school right across the street also. Grandmaster Flash played the Blue Courts a lot." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where and when did your first encounter with Hiphop take place?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Well, you see my older brother was always jamming in the streets. He was always jamming, doing block parties. So I'd be at his block parties. It was also a popular DJ by the name of Teddy D from D&D Express down in Harlem. I would be at his jams all the time. I would go around the neighborhood to different jams, you know? And they would jam together. They would hook up. There came a time when DJ Teddy D and my older brother Eddy aka DJ T they would combine and they would be jamming together. So I'd be at a lot of jams." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you when you started attending those jams?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I was still in elementary school. I would be at the jams at an extremely early age."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and when and where did you see people do breakdancing for the first time?" 

SHAKEY SHAKE:"That was back in the 1970ies. My older brother Terry he is the one who was teaching me how to break. So you had the older guys from the earlier generation. Terry and his friends used to break to together and I would watch them. "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did you practice Breaking in order to improve your skill level?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"My brother started to teach me Breaking when we was living on 182nd Street & Buchanan Place in the West Bronx. Let me just say this. Most people have the word "B-Boy" mixed up and confused. Now I'm the hybrid and the reason why I say that I'm the hybrid is because I was born in Harlem even though as soon as I was born my father came and got me and brought me up to the Bronx. So the term "B-Boy".... Most people think that if they break that they are B-Boys.  It don't go like that. The B-Boys were the local knucklehead guys in the neighbourhood. To me the B-Boys were the boys from the Bronx.  So they would call them the Bronx boys. And then they started doing this dance. So I would definetely practice in the house and I would practice in front of the building. Me and my friend Omar we would practice together. In Harlem I had a friend named Wesley and we used to break together down in Harlem. Practice was right on the concrete. We didn't have cardboard. We didn't know nothing about cardboard!!! So we practiced in the house, we practiced on the sidewalk wherever and then, you know, a jam is going on so we're racing to the jam just so that we could be there to listen to the beats and to go  down on the floor and do this dance, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"To which jams would you go and breakdance?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Well, I would even be breaking in school. I was attending PS 180 in Harlem. So you know, they used to always see me break there. I would also go to Morningside Park, you know, right where Sugar Hill was. D&D Express used to be always jamming there. So I was raised to go jamming in Morningside Park and break all the time there. Right on my block 318 West 123 rd Street right there on the corner of Manhattan Avenue my brother used to jam in front of my building. So we'd be doing a lot of Breaking there. You know, at the block parties in the Bronx we'd be always Breaking. Always Breaking!  Later on I would break in 82 Schoolyard in the Bronx.  When I moved to Queens I would be breaking in 217 schoolyard. That was a junior high school. They would take me to U.S.A. Roller Skating Rink. I'd be Breaking there.  A whole lot of places!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Wasn't 82 Park the stomping ground of DJ Whitehead & The Triple A Crew?" 

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Sometimes it would be Dr. Pepper and DJ Whitehead. Now we would take turns. We would be jamming on different days. By that time I had already gotten into DJing. Me and my partner DJ Spice Nice we would be jamming in 82 Park. Sometimes DJ Whitehead and Dr. Pepper would be jamming there and sometimes it would be DJ Hutch and DJ Supreme. DJ Hutch and DJ Supreme from Mother Earth Productions also used to jam on the Blue Courts." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you would be Breaking in Harlem, in the East Bronx and in the West Bronx as well as in Queens. Is that correct?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yes!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"You're the teacher of the legendary Queens B-Boy K-Won 138, right?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yes, I met him when I moved to Jamaica, Queens. We was in Junior High School 217 together."

SIR NORIN RAD:"How old were you then?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I might have been 14. When I got out there and they saw me Breaking evrybody's eyes became open because they were like,"This is the first real situation where we are seeing a genuine real B-Boy go down and break." Because, you know, the people out there were trying to do the dance. I remember Breaking in the schoolyard because I heard some music that we would play Uptown in the Bronx and Harlem that had me go down on the floor. So  I am not 

realizing it but there's a big crowd around me in the schoolyard. So when K-Won came in the schoolyard he thought there was a fight going on because there was a big  crowd. So when he made his way over to the crowd and he saw me dancing he was like, "Oh, that's the guy that I be cracking jokes with in class!" And he said,"Now I understand what the other guys in Queens are trying to do." Now he could see the full picture what the dance is supposed to be like. So hanging out with the Nice & Nasty Crew....the Nice & Nasty Crew was coming to get me to take me to battles. So they would bring me to Hill Crest High School, they would bring me to U.S.A. Roller Skating Rink and they would cut me loose in there."       

B-Boy Kwon 138

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it accurate to assume that there was no competition out there for you in Queens?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yeah! Nah, there was no competition. They couldn't compete with me. I  asked some of my friends,"Do y'all Break out here? So they replied,"Yes!" So I was like, "For real???" Before that I had moved to Brooklyn and, you know, it was the same situation out there. There was one guy that tried to Break and my brother saw him. We was living in  606  Newkirk Avenue in Flatbush, Brooklyn. So my brother ran upstairs to come get me. I said,"What's going on?" So he told me to go down against the guy but the guy didn't know how to do it. So living in Queens I was the person that they saw that could really Break. Somebody that could do the dance in its entirety."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were they also missing that whole flava and finesse that is characteristic of that Bronx B-Boying?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yes, but, you know, I started teaching some guys and they became extremely good."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please elaborate on that! Who were they?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Well, K-Won he is still phenomenal to this day! Big Darryl! His thing was the Shadow Star Rockers that's what he would wear on his shirt. So I did notice before I met him when the Nice & Nasty Crew used to take me to U.S.A. Roller Skating Rink...I noticed a big statue of a guy standing in the circle with his arms folded looking at me and you would hear him say,"Who is this kid taking everybody out?" He was going to 217 also. When we was in 7th grade Darryl was in 9th grade. He was about to leave 217. So then I started to teach him how to Break. I also taught Giorgio Laquentes. A few more guys....The guys from the Dynamic Rockers came to me and wanted to learn how to Break...like Airborn....different guys. One day a friend of mine..he was a little older and he was from the south...he had moved out to Jamaica, Queens....he came to get me. That was my friend Bones.  He said, "Come on, man! Come with me! I'm having a problem with some guys up the block." So it was a bunch of Hispanic brothers. They were trying to dance on the floor.  They were trying. So he brought me over there and, you know, I beat everybody but then I took them across the street and started teaching them how to Break. And those guys later became the Dynamic Breakers. So you had Dynamic Rockers AND Dynamic Breakers. They became real good."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Who were the members of the Dynamic Breakers?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Tony Float, RC, Little E, Al, Professor."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please talk about what you experienced as a B-Boy at 82 Park in the Bronx!"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"82 schoolyeard...My boy DJ Spice Nice he was jamming there. I forgot the name of that crew but they was in the circle Breaking and I just went down for fun 'cause by the early 1980ies I had mostly stopped Breaking. I had gotten into Locking and Electric Boogalo by that time. There were a few times I would still get down for fun. But when I got down in that circle you saw that look of fear in their face. Once I went down in U.S.A. Roller Skating Rink, right? I wasn't Breaking no more but I just went to have fun 'cause I seen some guys coming to the U.S.A. Roller Skating Rink and they was Breaking. And that was...God bless the dead...Glidemaster and Fastbreak and Fastbreak would say that this was the hardest battle they ever had: Me against them two.  But I always tried to tell 'em I didn't Break anymore I was just going down for fun. When my brother Terry used to watch me Breaking he would always say,"You had the fever!" He's the one who taught me. Big Darryl was always in amazement when he saw me Breaking. He would say, "Go down, Shake and do the Forever Spin!"

B-Boy Fastbreak

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you ran into Spy and Twinkle Toes of the Crazy Commanders Crew!"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Now check this out! When we first moved over to Buchanan I used to get lost. Now we lived on 182nd Street & Buchanan Place. So right directly at the corner....'cause we lived in the corner building....but directly at the corner is Davidson Avenue. The next corner I believe would be Grand Avenue going up the hill. So coming home as usual I would make the mistake and walk  past Davidson Avenue up to the next corner to go to Grand Avenue when I should have made the turn on Davidson Avenue 'cause my building was right there towards the corner. So I'm walking up the hill and I hear some music from there. So I start moving fast. That's the exact thing everybody did. When they would hear some music going, they knew that they was jamming and they would start moving fast to get to the jam. So I'm walking up the hill and I hear somebody on the microphone saying,"We're having a dance contest and we need somebody to go against Spy!"  My friend Omar that I used to Break with he used to always say,"Yo, you gotta see Spy!" But me I used to always shrug him off like,"I don't wanna hear about that. I don't care about no Spy." The reason why I used to say that is because your name never meant nothing until we saw you dance. It was two guys on the microphone and I saw two speakers stacked on top of each other. I was looking for the DJ. So when I looked at the wires, the wires were going upstairs into the window. I looked up and I saw two guys shuffling around in the window. So I said,"Okay, they got the turntables upstairs in that window and down here they got the speakers. Like I said the guy was saying,  "We're having a dance contest and we need somebody to battle against Spy." So I felt like,"Okay. So I guess this is Spy I'mma get to see what he got." So I signed up for the dance contest. It was three pairs. I signed up for the dance contest. So it was me and some kid that they said was a Zulu King, Spy....and I noticed that girl from the left corner of my eye coming across the street. You could see that she was kinda happy and jolly and when she came across the street you could see that Spy gave her a hug. They was laughing. So she was the person that was gonna Break against Spy. And the third couple...nobody else came up. So I had to go against this other kid, this so called Zulu King. So I burnt him quick. I did a move that I had seen a Freestyle guy do in Harlem that had blown my mind. It was the first version of what they call the Hollowback. I did the first version ever of that in Breaking. That was one of the moves I would do all the time. So I beat the guy and I won like 2 $. So I'm waiting now to see what's gonna happen now with Spy and this girl. This is the only time in life I ever seen Spy. I remember his go down to this day. He was more advanced than the girl, he beat the girl but you could also tell that they was having fun 'cause they knew each other. I did get to see him Breaking this one time. Other cats who lived in the neighbourhood who I didn't like who I was always ready to Break against was Cadillac Mel and Lil Eldorado Mike.  Twinkle Toes he would always bump heads with my partner Omar. I did get to see them battle right there on 183rd Street & Aqueduct on the sidewalk. This was live!!!!! They're Breaking against each other. Omar beat him but Twinkle Toes was very good. You also had The Little Burnside Crew. There was Spy, Rubberband, Weebles and Tell 2. A little further over by River Park Towers it was Spice Nice, June Bug, Munchy...... All of these guys would be Breaking over there. Spice Nice was very good, too. Harlem had a whole bunch of different B-Boys. I used to go to Mount Morris Park and in the park there was guy that used to Break when we used to go to the swimming pool. His name was Cornelius. He would always be Breaking in Mount Morris Park. When he would be Breaking I would be in the pool and, you know, the concrete was rough and sandy!!! Nonetheless, he would always get down. There was a bunch of guys that used to Break on the other side of the Bronx. Early on I didn't go over to Bronx River Houses. I just stayed where I was 'cause I was a little kid. I couldn't travel too far from home but a lot of those guys later became my friends like Little Boy Keith. " 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the main difference between the B-Boys of the Bronx and those in Queens?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Well, the style....definetely!!! The style and the finesse. It was different. You could see the style when the guys from Uptown went down. The guys from Queens had to learn that. They had to have somebody to teach them style so that you look like a B-Boy. When you saw those guys Break they looked too simple and dry and they didn't have that style and finesse. They thought that just because they did certain moves that they had that rhythm, that style and finesse. You wanna make people feel what you're doing and that attitude, that look, that charisma when you have that when you go down it draws people. They're feelin' you, they're feelin' your vibe! They're feelin' the character!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would you define your own style of Breaking?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I feel like I'm aggressive with a lot of flava. You know, it's places where moves come from which a lot of these guys that came later don't know and they're telling a different story according to he say / she say. So you know, early on we saw Meadowlark Lemon from the Harlem Globetrotters spinning around his hand dribbling the basketball. We would use that! We would imitate that, you know, very early on. Wrestling..I forgot the wrestler's name but they did a move called the Figure Four Leg Lock. That's what we would call the Shoulder Freeze. When we would freeze on our shoulder, we got one side of our shoulder pinned to the floor, our head down and we wrap our legs. Now early on when we would do it real fast we would struggle to get our balance together.  Some folks would claim that they had made it up and they would call it the Chair Freeze.  How you made that up when what we been doing predates that??  We been doing the Shoulder Freeze! My friends would still call it the Figure Four Leg Lock."

B-Boy Shakey Shake Breakin'...

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did you come up with these moves? In the late 1970ies?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"No, we're talking the earlier part of the 1970ies."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how those breakbeats affected you when you would hear them at the jams back then?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"That music made you lose your mind!!!! Hearing those drums, listening to it...the big speakers are playing. It made you lose your mind! You was out of control! You couldn't control yourself! You know, when you hear that stuff, those certain instruments, those elements playing on the record...you lose control. You just wanna get out there and go crazy! Just like how the dance felt good to us, the music felt so good! You just wanted to go off! That music... to this day and time...it's just unbelievable. And when you hear this being projected over the soundsystem through the big speakers....you can feel the music!! "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you say that hearing those breakbeats and going off to them was something like a spiritual experience?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yeah!! Yeah, definetely!! The music would get in your bones. You know, it's a tribal thing. So when you see another dancer or another crew you're ready to go down, you're ready to get it on. It's no talking right now. Let's get busy! Let's go to work! Let's handle this! That's how it made you feel."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it accurate to say that you were a freelancer as a B-Boy?" 

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Definetely! Like I said when I got out to Queens the Nice & Nasty Crew would come and get me. They would take me around. When I was up in the Bronx me and my friend Omar would be Breaking together. Or when I was down in Harlem me and Wesley used to hang out, get together and Break together. I'd be Breaking by myself but if Wesley is around we're hooking up like, "Yo, go down!!!" 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Where did Omar live at?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Omar lived on 185th Street, right there off Grand Avenue. Probably between Grand Avenue & Aqueduct."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Was doing different styles of footwork on the floor already a part of Breaking when you got into it? I'm asking this question since some people have come up with the claim that the black B-Boys didn't have footwork styles in their arsenal."

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Yes, it was...most definetely without a shadow of a doubt. That's what my brother taught me. Other older B-Boys that came before me did footwork, too. They need to study history instead of talking. WE created this."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how B-Boys would dress back then?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I used to like what we would call the Super Pro-Keds with the red and blue stripe on the side. They would have the regular Pro-Keds with the three stripes on the side. I didn't like the Chuck Taylor's at that time. They would have on Lee Jeans, Levi's, Sergio Valentes.....you know, mocknecks..different stuff. The Cortefiels, the pea coats, the snorkel parkas. Later on we'd wear Adidas, Nike Cortez.... "

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

SHAKEY SHAKE:""Apache", "It's Just Begun", "The Mexican" and "Blow Your Head".

SIR NORIN RAD:"What does it take to become a true B-Boy?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Well, first you want a good teacher. You wanna pay attention definetely. You wanna listen. You wanna study. You wanna practice. You wanna give it your all. You gotta be into this heart, body, mind and soul. These are some of the things that you need."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What is more important style or technique?"

SHAKEY SHAKE:"I say both. You need the style, you want the technique. You just don't wanna have either one by itself. You don't wanna be one-sided."

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

SHAKEY SHAKE:"Well, giving honor to God but let me definetely shout out my moms and my pops. You know, my older brother has passed on. My crew: Spice Nice...it would be too many names. I just wanna shout everybody out!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you! I wanna shout out my Intruders Crew, all my teachers from the Bronx and Harlem especially Puppetmaster. Shoutouts to Troy L. Smith, Pluto Seven, Sureshot La Rock, Input MZK, K-Won 138, Princess Teela (RIP)......UKUBAMBISANA!! Peace!"           

Interview with B-Boy Ak La Rock (The Mission Impossible Crew)

                                                    Interview with B-Boy Ak La Rock

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

                                                  

                                           conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders/ Germany)

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

AK LA ROCK:"Well, I was born on Vyse Avenue in the Bronx and I was raised....well, we moved around different neighbourhoods but I ended up on Sedgwick Avenue at the age of 11 in 1972.....1600 Sedgwick Avenue. It's the building right next door to 1520 Sedgwick Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Okay, and when were you born?"

AK LA ROCK:"I was born in 1961."

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

AK LA ROCK:"Well, my parents were definetely listening to Motown. I'd say they also listened to James Brown, Gladys Knight & The Pips....all the Soul groups that were out then at that time. We liked Soul music and Funk music as little kids growing up."  

SIR NORIN RAD:"So you've mentioned that you moved to 1600 Sedgwick Avenue in 1972..."

AK LA ROCK:"Yes, we moved there in August, 1972. We were one of the first families on the third floor. Our apartment was on the side of the high right. 1600 Sedgwick Avenue is one building and it is 26 stories high. In between 1600 and 1520 Sedgwick Avenue there is a park. It's a playground there and my floor was the third floor that was on the same level as the park. It was straight out my window. You could see if someone was standing outside or whatever. It was far, you know the view was far but I could see the whole park in its entirety. Like if people were gathered in the park I could see everyone there from my window.  That was my vantage point."

1600 Sedgwick Avenue, The West Bronx

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe your very first encounter with Hiphop!"

AK LA ROCK:"My very first encounter that will never leave my mind took place on the day when I was sitting in my bedroom  in 1600 Sedgwick Avenue and I heard music. I thought that it was coming from the living room. I thought my siblings had the radio on or something like that and I said, "What's that music coming from the living room?" So I walked to the living room and I looked and I noticed that there was noone in there and that the music was coming from outside.  So I looked out of my living room window and I saw the tall statue of a man standing behind a table. I saw speakers and columns and the horns and the music that he was playing at that point was "Skin Tight" by The Ohio Players. I had never heard that record before but I remember the beginning of it. I noticed that the man was Clive Campbell who I knew him as. I used to see him come down to the playground. Everyone would always give him props and stop what they were doing 'cause he was very popular. But I didn't know that he played music outside. I had never seen someone set up like that outside as a DJ. A friend of mine called me…another original B-Boy from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue...Jeffrey Wyatt aka Spooky..that's what Herc called him 'cause Herc would shout him out on the microphone,"Spooky is in the house!" And then my friend Jeffrey aka Spooky would breakdance. So Spooky called me from my window,"Ak! Ak! Come on downstairs!" I said, "What's going on?" He said,"It's a block party!" I said, "A block party? What's a block party?" And from that day on I knew what a block party was 'cause a lot of people was coming down the stairs, that were there. We had a couple of hundred people showing up that day and that's just word of mouth. He didn't use flyers when he announced his parties, most of them anyway in the beginning. Most of this was word of mouth, you know? Especially the outdoor block parties but the rec room and the clubs? Yeah, we had a flyer. It was amazing. We're on the west side of the Bronx facing Manhattan. You would see people come across the bridges, walking down what we call The Valley...Sedgwick Avenue. Sedgwick Avenue is the lowest ascension from the top of the hill, from University Avenue and other parts. In order to get to us you had to either take a bus around Sedgwick Avenue to the end and then come on the avenue or you had to walk down the stairs. " 

B-Boy Spooky (1520 Sedgwick Ave B-Boy)

SIR NORIN RAD:"When did this take place?"

AK LA ROCK:"This was the summertime of 1973/74. I know that he was already playing music but I had never seen him out there like that before, you know, in the park.  I would also go to Kool DJ Herc's rec room parties later. All of my friends lived in 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. 1520 was like my second home. I knew all of the families and they knew me and my family. I remember when Herc first got his major equioment. He also had a lot of records. His amp and his speakers were official!!! Just like Mr. Lee's. You know back then DJ Mr. Lee was called  Baby Herc or Son Of Herc. His soundsystem was also top notch. He could make the same noise and noone could mess with him. He used to always travel a lot and battle other DJs. It was DJ Kool T and DJ Mr. Lee."

SIR NORIN RAD:" DJ Kool T and DJ Mr. Lee and their Mission Impossible Crew...."

AK LA ROCK:"Yeah, there were B-Boys that were dancing under DJ Mr. Lee and they were called The Mission Impossible Crew."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Were you also part of the Mission Impossible Crew? DJ Mr. Lee told me that you were a part of it."

AK LA ROCK:"Yeah, we was part of that. I was part of the Mission Impossible Crew and I was definetely part of Herc's B-Boys from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was it like to grow up in the Bronx in the 1960ies and 1970ies?"

AK LA ROCK:"There were territorial areas of the Bronx in those days. A lot of gangs were out then. I grew up in the 1960ies. The 1960ies and the 1970ies were the gang era for me.  I would see people with their dungaree jackets, with their jackets turned inside out....their colors, you know, the names of their gangs. The Ghetto Brothers, The Black Pearls, The Black Spades. It depended on what you was. I feel like back then if you wanted trouble you would get trouble. I wasn't like that. We just grew up and enjoyed ourselves as youth. Me and Poe Dean we used to go to some other neighbourhoods. Poe Dean is the uncle of Swizz Beats. Swizz Beats' father is DJ Kool T. Me and Poe Dean we would go to the Bronx River Projects. DJ Afrika Bambaataa was giving parties over there and we would dance against the B-Boys from Bronx River. And there were times when we were chased back on the train, back home. There were incidents like that back then but if you looked for trouble you would get trouble. We weren't about that. We just enjoyed the music."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Is it accurate to say that the West Bronx was calmer than the South Bronx and the East Bronx?"

AK LA ROCK:"Yeah, because some areas like the South Bronx are a little bit more rougher and tougher. This is also true for the East Bronx. The West and the North Bronx.....well, especially the North Bronx was totally different. The North Bronx was more classy, more middle income because of the neighbourhood. Now my neighborhood wasn't bad either. Sedgwick Avenue was a nice neighbourhood. You had three or four high rised buildings on the whole avenue. You had husband and wife families that raised their children, you know, middle income. Other neighbourhoods were poverty stricken. It was different especially during those times. There were some neighbourhoods that were dilapidated. You know, some were burnt down 'cause all the landlords that had buildings would burn them for insurance. Some of the neighbourhoods in the South and East Bronx were left like that for decades. They weren't fixed up. Where we were it was different."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Let's talk some more about that summerday when you saw Kool DJ Herc playing in the park."

AK LA ROCK:"At the end of the day it was like a movie. Herc would call all the B-Boys to come down. He would shout them out and everyone would form a circle and they would breakdance to the music. And everyone had their own style and their own rhythm. They even had their own records that Herc distinctively played and selected. You had guys like A1 B-Boy Sasa, you had Trixie and Trixie was part of the Myers family. His little brother Rossy was a B-Boy, too. Then there was his little sister Kim who was not only a B-Girl but also a famous basketball player back then. You had Wallace Dee and Eldorado Mike Mike. Back then we used to breakdance, we used to do The Hustle, we used to do The Bus Stop which is really something like the Electric Slide.  But all his music distinguished these different types of styles and dances that we would do. We didn't only breakdance to Herc's music 'cause like I said the first song I heard was "Skin Tight" by The Ohio Players. He did play music that had you dance with a girl. But back in the day the first thing was Burning.  And you would burn a girl. Like you and this girl would be dancing and this girl would do a move on you and you would do a move on her. She burnt you, you burnt her. We called that Burning. Then there were times when guys would burn each other. Then it became Breaking when B-Boys would get on the ground and do all these moves with their legs."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the atmosphere like at those Kool DJ Herc parties in the park?"

AK LA ROCK:"The atmosphere was electric! It was hyped! The music was clear and crisp. His soundsystem was very strong, so the music was very loud. He would have a spotlight on the stairs coming down from Undercliff Avenue 'cause we had the stairs that goes up half way between Undercliff Avenue and Sedgwick Avenue. Right at that top of the stairs you had a guy coming down. Let's say Wallace D and then Trixie would follow him. Trixie battled Wallace D in that park for the first time. I remember seeing that. Trixie was doing a dance called The Munster.........we didn't call it Breaking then but Trixie was a B-Boy that was burning Wallace D. Trixie would have his hands in front of him you know just like Herman Munster and he would do the same kind of walking. I saw that. Later on I saw A1 B-Boy Sasa. I saw The Twins and I saw  Clark Kent. I saw Timmy Tim. He was a B-Boy first, then he was a DJ with Herc. Clark Kent was breakdancing with the Twins until he became a DJ. The Twins were my rivals. Me and Poe Dean..that was our rivals! Poe Dean would take both of them on by himself.  He used to breakdance against both of them. I would be ready for Clark Kent. I remember we had a battle at one point in Dodge High School in 1976. Kool DJ Herc had the Twins battle Po Dean and my other friend Derrick Moody aka Derrick D. May he rest in peace! He was also from 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. It was three of us. Derrick D and Poe Dean danced against the Twins and they did good. Then it was my turn. Clark Kent did his move on me first and after he finished his moves he flew out of the crowd!!!! You know, he was Superman 'cause he's Clark Kent. Kool Herc was playing "A Groove Will Make You Move" by The Jimmy Castor Bunch. Clark Kent did his move on me and then he left. I was so disgusted. Everybody was laughing and looking at me like, "He's gone!!" But I think he didn't want it. He knew already. We used to choreograph everything. Back then B-Boys knew every segment of the record. We knew when we would do what move. We always practiced coreographing our moves!! We had our battling down pat."

The Jimmy Castor Bunch - A Groove Will Make You Move 1975  

SIR NORIN RAD:"You've mentioned a B-Boy called Derrick D. Please elaborate on him!"

AK LA ROCK:"Yeah, that's Derrick Moody.His brother Mike Moody hung out with El Dorado Mike. They were like tough guys, you know? Let's put it like that. They were our gangsters that we looked up to like,"Wow!!" They were a part of the scene, too, 'cause El Dorado Mike used to do the Gangster Hustle. The Gangster Hustle is a different animal. They were cool! I was like 12,13,14, 15, so these guys were like seniors to me."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe how you became a B-Boy? Were you dancing as a child already? Who was your main influence?"

AK LA ROCK:"Well, we always grew up watching Soul Train. On Saturdays we always watched Soul Train. We'd see people over there dancing and stuff BUT we wasn't dancing like that. We had a whole different style. It wasn't Hiphop what we saw on Soul Train. But...Spooky introduced me to Breakdancing. He was the one that showed me how to do this dance. That first block party that I witnessed Spooky from that point on had shown me moves, you know? How to dance and stuff like that 'cause he's an original B-Boy. He danced. That's what he used to do. So I looked at that and adapted it. Then maybe a year or two later Poe Dean moved to 1520 Sedgwick Avenue. Cause they weren't there at first. I think they moved there in 1975. So when he and his family moved in I already knew how to breakdance. Kool T started to learn the music.  Him and my brother were good friends. He became a DJ. But if it wasn't for DJ Mr. Lee they probably would have never pursued that 'cause DJ Mr. Lee was the one who had all the equipment. He had everything."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Having spoken to Trixie, Wallace Dee, Bosco Rock, Dancin' Doug, Teenie Rock, Sasa etc. I know that Breaking was originally done mainly on top. Besides, the first B-Boys often danced to the whole song. What do you remember about that?"

AK LA ROCK:"I know exactly what you're saying. Yeah, 'cause in the beginning we heard the record in its entire length. "Give It Up Or Turn It A Loose" by James Brown that record was like more than eight minutes up to the breakdown part. At the early parties Herc wasn't mixing the break part back and forth. No, Herc would play the whole record. We used to see Herc come down with two albums from buying music. He would place his Cerwin Vega speaker outside his bedroom window. It was on the same level as the backyard of 1520. We could stand in the back of 1520 and look inside his second floor window. His  bedroom was a full size bed and albums in crates. He would play the A side from the beginning to the end and the B side. So we would hear everything. So in order for us to groove to the music yeah we had to dance upright. We didn't go on the ground right away. No, we had to dance and do  moves with our feet and our body without getting on the floor. We did our own type of movement in our own style and then we got down on the floor when the break part set in. That's what we were waiting for.  Then we would get back up in continuation of what we was doing. Me and Poe Dean we had that type of style, too. We actually danced in terms of standing upright, shuffling our feet and then we'd do our break moves. Because like I said you didn't just hear break part after break part. You didn't hear that. You'd hear the whole record. Like "Shaft In Africa" by Johnny Pate. You know, "Shaft In Africa" comes on you dance from beginning to end.  There's about three break parts to that record but in order to get up to that you had to do your dancing. One record that everybody loved back then is "It's Just Begun" by The Jimmy Castor Bunch". The break part would come at the end of that record. The dance got on the floor more a litte bit later. That's when we got more dirty."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please shed some more light on your mentor Spooky!"

AK LA ROCK:"He was one of my best friends. He lived on the 14th floor of 1520. Like I said he taught me Breakdancing." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"How would he teach you?"

AK LA ROCK:"I'd hang with him all the time. Every time there was music we would always be together.  We would to listen to Herc playing music when he came home and played new albums, getting ready for a party or whatever.  Sometimes Herc would play and he would look outside his window and see us dancing. So this is why he was like,"Oh yeah, this is the part that the kids like. Let me play it again!" He'd see us do it  and he knew who we were. He'd know,"Oh this is Ak La Rock and Spooky!" He knew what we were capable of doing as far as dancing, you know? Then Spooky moved from the neighborhood a little early. After he had moved Poe Dean, Derrick D and me became a team. Whenever there was a battle we we would be ready." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did Poe Dean already know how to do Breaking when you met him?"

AK LA ROCK:"Well, Poe Dean and them they knew Coke La Rock before I did. They didn't live on Sedgwick Avenue but they lived close by in the vicinity and they had probably heard of the music, what was going on but they was introduced to it when they moved directly above Herc. Anytime they would be the first ones to hear him play. You know their mother she was a nurse, she worked over night and she would be resting during the day and Herc would come home and start playing music. She would tell him, "Could you please turn the music down?" I remember when she used to complain about the music."

Po Dean with Coke La Rock and Kool DJ Herc

SIR NORIN RAD:"Do you remember how you became acquainted with Poe Dean and his family?"

AK LA ROCK:"Well, they was in the Nation Of Islam and they would go to the temple. We did the same thing. Their mother and my mother were good friends. I met Poe in the neighborhood and we clicked right away. I think I met him behind 1520 and Herc would be playing his music and I'd be back there with Spooky. We listened to the music and we started from there. Poe Dean really adapted."

 SIR NORIN RAD:"So what was it like to live in the West Bronx after Kool DJ Herc had successfully managed to build up a name for himself through his parties?"

AK LA ROCK:"Every weekend we looked forward to a Herc party!! It would either be on a Saturday during the day like a block party or it would be a club party at the Hevelow or the Executive Playhouse or The Top Of The Lane or The Twilite Zone. Herc played in those establishments. He also played at Dodge High School, the Webster P.A.L. Herc became so popular that many clubs had to close down because they didn't have Herc there.  And they didn't have the soundsystem. Coke La Rock called it the Herculoids back then. The Herc parties..that was the most exciting thing to do back then besides going to a movie or a concert. Herc was our outlet. You know, at the end of the week we would be like,"Yeah, let's go to a Herc party!""

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

AK LA ROCK:"Well, when I listened to the music, to the record that was playing...to its groove and its melody for me it was about style. I was dancing to make my moves. I wasn't staying on the floor all the time. There were parts where people had their certain antics. Sometimes we would set up like we would play baseball. Like Po Dean would pitch to me and I would act like I would hit. I struck out or hit a home run, take a base or slide into a spin of Breaking. Or like the Twins used to do. They used to do a move where they would be getting in a car. Like one of them would get down and squat down like he's getting into a car. Then he would open the door and his brother would get by him. Then they started moving upright.  Remember back then it was not only the echo chamber and the music, we also had like the strobe light.  That would create a whole different type of vibe. So we would try to enhance that effect through our dancing. We would incorporate the Robot into our dance to catch the effects of the strobe light. Remember every record that we heard was different.  Every breakbeat was different. So the styles was different, too. Like I said we were a team. The Twins were our rivals, they always looked out for us at the parties. They'd locate us where we were and then we'd have a crowd form and you know...that's how the battles began."

SIR NORIN RAD:"What is your earliest recollection of Puerto Ricans coming to the Kool DJ Herc jams?"

AK LA ROCK:"Well, in general we had Puerto Rican friends. In 1520 and in 1600 Sedgwick Avenue we had Puerto Rican families. In 1520 there was a Puerto Rican family that lived on the 10th floor. They were about six siblings. Then on the third floor there was another Puerto Rican family. There was this guy called Chino. Me, Spooky and Chino used to always hang out together so we when used to hear Herc's music in the early days Chino would be there and he would actually dance, too, 'cause he loved the music as well. I knew Chino in those early days. There was no separation or fighting or nothing like that. We would just be there and enjoy the same thing. They were there and to me Johnny Kool is one of the earliest B-Boys I've ever seen. When I hear "The Mexican" by Babe Ruth I think of Johnny Kool. He was Hispanic. I remember when Kool DJ Herc played "The Mexican" in Dodge High School in 1977 and Johnny Kool went off to it. He was nice!" "

SIR NORIN RAD:"Would you also go to the parties at the River Park Towers?"

AK LA ROCK:"Yes, DJs would play down there in between the buildings or in the back of the buildings. They had four towers. Each tower was about 44 stories tall and they sat right on the Harlem River at around 176th Street & Sedgwick Avenue. There were DJs there. I remember one guy his name is DJ Spice Nice. Me and him used to breakdance against each other. He would come up and dance and I would dance. He would do a move, I would do a move on him. We would always generate a crowd. He was a few years younger than me but it's funny cause he is still down. He is still DJing and everything. He met Kool Tee and DJ Mr. Lee and they helped him and gave him his first equipment. He has an older brother named DJ Ice that was DJing back then. "

B-Boy Spice Nice

SIR NORIN RAD:"Did these battles take place in the late 1970ies?"

AK LA ROCK:"Oh no,  Spice Nice was there in the beginning. Yeah, he was there in the beginning at those block parties that Kool DJ Herc had on Sedgwick Avenue. We was breakdancing against each other. He was like maybe nine years old. Breakdancing at nine!!!"

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

AK LA ROCK:""Funky Music Is The Thing" by The Dynamic Corvettes, "Listen To Me" by Baby Huey and "Get Into Something" by The Isley Brothers." 

SIR NORIN RAD:"What was the difference between dancing at a block party and dancing in a club like the Executive Playhouse?"

AK LA ROCK:"(In a club) It was night time, different atmosphere, the way you dressed was different, too. If you'd go to a club you'd put something nice on.  You'd wear Applejack's or a hat and a trenchcoat or a Cortefiel or a leather jacket."

SIR NORIN RAD:"Please describe your relationship with DJ Mr. Lee and his Mission Impossible Crew back then!"

AK LA ROCK:"Being that me and Poe Dean were close friends I was down with them because Poe Dean is Kool Tee's brother. When they went to a club we would go there with them and carry their equipment. We would get inside the club. Of course we didn't have to  pay because we came with the DJs, you know?"

SIR NORIN RAD:"What comes to your mind when you think of that song "For The Love I Gave To You" by The Delfonics?"

AK LA ROCK:"I'm glad you mention that. Yeah, we had slow jams where we would grind with a girl. We called it grinding..the slow dancing. You know, rubbing on her, getting close to her. It's funny that you mention that 'cause every  Kool DJ Herc party ended with that song. That was beautiful because see we battled each other all during the party but then at the end of the party he would wind it down with the love songs. So everyone could get the phone number of their favourite girl, you know? That record is phenomenal and that's Herc signature. To this day when I hear this record I feel like I'm back in the 1970ies in a Kool DJ Herc party and it's closing. Those days were the the best days of my life. Growing up and experiencing that. "

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

AK LA ROCK:"Oh yes, I would like to give a shoutout to 1520 Sedgwick Avenue, the Campbell family, Clive Campbell aka Kool DJ Herc. Shoutout to the Dean family, to the Ruff Ryder family, Terrence Dean aka Kool Tee, Poe Dean, Sandra Dean their mother,  to DJ Mr. Lee. Shoutouts to the Hiphop world!!!  I didn't know that it would reach so far. We welcome everybody!!"

SIR NORIN RAD:"Thank you for this interview! I want to shout out my Intruders Crew: DJ Scarce One (Germany's best when it comes to Breakbeat DJing), A.G, Akira, Krwizard! Shoutouts to Kenan, Pluto 7, Troy L. Smith, Pete Nice. I also want to shout out my man Sureshot La Rock, Input MZK! UKUBAMBISANA!!!!! To all my teachers!!! Peace!"

 

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

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

                                           

B-Boy / DJ Lightnin' Lance 

              

                                    conducted by Sir Norin Rad (The Intruders / Germany)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"Green Eyed Wade!"

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

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

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

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

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

DJ Cool Clyde

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

B-Boy Angel (The Shaka Zulus)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"Scramblin'.."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

SIR NORIN RAD:"When was that?"

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

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

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

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

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

Lafayette-Morrison Cooperative Apartments, Bronx

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

MC Lil Sha Rock (The Super Sonic Five)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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