 |
 |
| |
TIMBUKTU
Timbuktu believes in DeSofo and will be giving an interview right back at us...
|
|
|
|
|
| |
TANYA MORGAN
THE MAIN INGREDIENT tanya morgan's freewheeling, populist poetics
|
|
|
 |
|
| |
GRANDMASTER CAZ
Grandmaster Caz, DJ/MC of the infamous Cold Crush Brothers, the crew that most...
|
|
|
|
|
| |
SHA-ROCK
Sharon Jackson, also known as Sha-Rock, was the first female rapper, and joined...
|
|
|
|
|
| |
WHIPPER WHIP
You can see Prince Whipper Whip, of the Fantastic 5, him battling the Cold Crush in Wild Style--and he still sounds good on the mic today.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
FROSTY FREEZE
Wayne Frost--Frosty Freeze--was a member of the second generation of the Rock Steady Crew--b-boys that helped revitalize an almost-forgotten art in the '80s.
|
|
|
|
|
| |
WANDA DEE + ERIC FLOYD
Wanda Dee was arguably the first female DJ ever, and the first female inductee into Afrika Bambaataa's Zulu Nation. She went on to be the diva voice of techno superstars The KLF...
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
GRANDMASTER CAZ
Grandmaster Caz, DJ/MC of the infamous Cold Crush Brothers, the crew that most influenced Run-D.M.C. Caz is immortalized as "C-A-S-A-N-O-V-A F-L-Y" in the Sugar Hill Gang's version of "Rapper's Delight"--a rap he wrote, but never got credit for. (Later, Jay-Z avenged Caz with a lyric in "Izzo": "Label owners hate me I'm raising the status quo up/ I'm overcharging niggas for what they did to the Cold Crush.")
How long have you beenrunning Jazz Child Records?
Yes, me and my partner, Parker, have had this label for about five or six years now. Basically it's been my personal outlet for my stuff; I'm not running around trying to get a record deal anymore, you know what I mean? I'm just trying to build up my catalog until we get the right distribution deal, and I'm gonna bring up a lot of the other old-school artists that are still available and wanna do their thing. Parker came to work with us--me and my group, the Cold Crush Brothers--and then I just continued to work with him myself.
And you host hip-hop-specific tours of the Bronx?
I'm the host on the bus; we do a bus tour for people who live here and out-of-towners. We start in Midtown Manhattan, work our way up to Spanish Harlem, to Harlem up to the Bronx, and along the way we show a video presentation by Ralph McDaniels from Video Music Box. We talk about the origins of hip-hop, some of the players, some of the places where hip-hoppers performed, different significant landmarks in the city that have to do with hip-hop artists. It's very educational, and it's very fun. (See http://www.hushtours.com/)
Do you feel like the stories of the pioneers of hip-hop aren't out there as much as they should be?
No, I don't think they are. But I think that you have to appeal to people who want to learn and want to know about what happened before, and once you get enough of them, they spread the word. Then people who don't know or don't care can catch on, too. The more people who know, the more the stories will spread.
What do you love most about hip-hop?
The same thing I loved when I was 13 when I started doing it: part of it is mine. I invented a part of it, and it belongs to me. It's not something you venture into and say, "I used to do that;" not for me, not when you start something. I've dedicated my life to hip-hop and the entire culture of hip-hop, not just rap. I've pretty much sacrificed anything else that I would have or could have done aside from it. I chose this at an early age and that's it. I'm 42 years old, and I'm still b-boying, you know what I mean? That's not gonna change.
Where do you think hip-hop is headed?
You never know. The culture of hip-hop, I believe, will remain true and strong to its roots. Now rap; rap is the most exploited element, and that's gonna go through a number of changes before it's all said and done, 'cause it's all over the world--and the whole world hasn't been heard from yet. There are rap artists from Japan, Yugoslavia, Switzerland, from France; they have yet to be heard from on a universal front. Hiphop has a long way to go before it reaches its peak.
By JULIANNE SHEPHERD
|
|
|
|
