AllHipHop.com: What sparked the idea to
do this project?
Hasan Pore: We were just sitting down and
talking about the dates that are out there as far as the history with Kool Herc. And we just went back
and realized that in ’74, the same thing was going on in our neighborhoods and
actually was going on before ’74. You know we just started putting our dates
together and really realized, “Wait a minute, we really were jamming in
the parks prior to ’74.
So we started getting in contact with a lot of DJs in our neighborhoods and
started talking to these guys and they were basically like, “Yeah we were
definitely doing it prior to ’74,” and they never knew of anyone else from
the Bronx doing it til later on.
Ron Amen-Ra Lawrence: Hasan and Iwe grew up together. I knew Hasan since I was 7 or 8 years old. So as we were growing up, we took our experiences into the music game. So you know I started off as
the MC, DJ, and then went on into producing. Coming from various boroughs,
everybody had heroes. So cats from the Bronx came out, they were the ones to
take it to move up to the next level. So when they looked to their heroes, they pointed to Kool Herc.
So you know, me coming out the game, and Hasan, being
successful in the game we point to our heroes. Just being that the lights
wasn’t shining in Queens first, we never got to tell our story first. So that’s one of the reasons we went back to say, “You know what, we need to tell our version, to let them exactly know what was going
on in other boroughs as well. Because as they’re concerned, it never existed, because they didn’t know about it.
AllHipHop.com: Now who are some of those heroes of yours?
Amen-Ra: You have Newsounds, you have Disco Twins, you have King Charles,
you have Grand Master Flowers…
Hasan: Dance Master. Infinity Machine.
Amen-Ra: Heating Machine. But if you ask anybody in Queens, they’ll tell you, “Hey this is what i knew growing up.” They didn’t know about Kool Herc, because they wasn’t in the Bronx.
Hasan: The way the clip looks it looks as if
we’re going at the Bronx [but] we’re not going at the Bronx in no fashion.
We’re basically just telling our history. And it just so happens that the
history that’s being told out there is that it started in the Bronx in ’74.
We’re not coming out trying to diss anybody or anything,
it’s just that if you know the way history is written, it’s just people are gonna comment and you know it’s just gonna-like Ron said, we’re just putting it out telling our history of what we see when we
were growing up and what we see playing in the parks. We all heard of theseguys, you know [Grandmaster] Flash and all these guys but it was just a little later.
Back then, it’s not like today where you just travel all over New York. When you lived in Queens, you stayed in Queens, you lived in the Bronx, you stayed in the Bronx. You might have
traveled because you had family in another borough or something, but the
culture you grew up in was basically where you lived.
AllHipHop.com: So in Founding Fathers yall covered
pioneering DJs from Queens & Brooklyn, anywhere else?
Hasan: No. Honestly when me
and Ron talked about doing this, we were just really doing the Queens
theme. But after we talked to these guys, they told us about people that were
in the circle of DJs, and that’s how we ended up going to Brooklyn. And then we
ended up going to the Bronx because you know we got Pete DJ Jones, he’s from
the Bronx.
The story is not just we’re saying that Hip-Hop didn’t start in the Bronx, we’re
just saying it pre-dates the 1974 cause Pete DJ Jones, this guys in his 60s
and he was playing music in the Bronx in the late ’60s.
Amen-Ra: This is where it gets
separated because you got cats like [DJ] Hollywood who we got as well. But the
problem with that is it’s kind of separated because they kind of start with Kool Herc and they leave out the
cats before them because they try to say,
“These cats were Disco DJs, so we’re gonna start with Kool Herc,” you
know what I mean? So what that does is kind of exed those guys out. It kind of exs out Hollywoods legacy as well.
If you look back, the Disco didn’t even exist, it was just all about playing what
was hot. A lot of these cats were digging in the crates, they were finding the jewels. That became a major
problem because none of that stuff existed. I mean the word “Hip-Hop”
didn’t even exist at that time. It was just that whatever they thought was hot,
when they heard the break part of a record, that’s just what was going on.
Everybody had two turntables and a mixer, they was doing they thing.
AllHipHop.com: No pun intended, but
would you say that is when the break happens? Because from what I’ve read and
speaking to people names like DJ Jones and Hollywood get mentioned as precursors
but that it was Herc, Bambaataa and Flash that were heavy into the breakbeats.
Amen-Ra: Well they got it from them!
Hasan: Let me answer this one. Like Ron said
were talking before the Disco era. There was no word for Disco, that word
wasn’t even invented yet. And these guys started playing music even before the
mixer was invented. So they had to learn to go record to record, and you’re
talking about playing with 45s. So they had to extend the records. So they were
playing the intros, the 4-bars or whatever, the little break partthey was doing that.
All the records that Herc, Flash and all these guys were
using, those records weren’t Hip-Hop records. You’re talking about from Jazz,
to Rock, or to whatever. And then people put a title on it. Mardi Gras [Bob
James Take Me to the Mardi Gras] is probably one of the biggest break beats, that’s a Jazz record. So who determined that was a Hip-Hop record? That title came later, that title came in the ’80s.
Amen-Ra: And even after the Disco era
came in, I mean I don’t know why these guys are ashamed of the Disco era, but
Hip-Hop had such an impact before it was even Hip-Hop. Disco had such an impact
on that scene that 90 percent of those break beats, were Disco records. You
know what I’m saying. I mean I can go down a list. I mean there’s “Frisco Disco”, there’s “I Can’t Stop,” the “Freedom” record which Flash and em’ put out, then you had “Good Times” [Chic] which was “Rapper’s Delight”, you had “8thWonder.” I mean all those records, that was the time.
Flash’s right hand man was Disco (Beat), they partied at the Disco Fever you know. Kurtis Blow says “Rapping
to the Disco beat!” on Super Rappin, which was part of the “Good Times” Disco record.
Hasan: You had the Crash Crew in Harlem, Disco Dave…
Amen-Ra: Disco Dave and Disco Mike.
Everything was Disco this, Disco that. They tried to separate it like it didn’t
exist. And you can’t do that because that was a sign of that times.
Hasan: Just like back in the day, before it
was named Hip-Hop, it started from something, it morphed into something else,
but it had its seed somewhere. You know someone didn’t come out of no where and
just start saying “Oh I’m gonna start cuttin’ and scratchin.”
AllHipHop.com: No doubt, everything is in different stages.
Amen-Ra: The thing is, like Herc, Flowers…they may have not been cuttin’ and stratchin’ but the whole idea of playing in the parks with the systems, and if you prefer to say mixin’ back-in-forth- or switchin’ back-in-forthit
existed. Cats would say, “Well it wasn’t Hip-Hop because they weren’t cuttin’ and scratchin’ and they
weren’t spinning on their backs. So therefore it wasn’t Hip-Hop. But you can’tsay that.
Hasan: Yeah because it wasn’t even called
Hip-Hop back then. You know we’re just jammin’,
listening in the parks. That’s all it was. Kool Herc, I was told his history is that he was the first one,
he didn’t cut, he didn’t scratch, he didn’t do none of that; he just played records. So is that Hip-Hop just because you’re playing records in the park? If people want to take that stance- even if they want to
include that and say, “Ok that was Disco”, you can’t include it. The whole idea if taking your equipment to the park and playing music, that’s where the whole thing came fromplaying music in the parks. When you grew up,
everybody wanted to have two turntables and a mixer. That was the culture back in the ’70s.
Amen-Ra: I think the difference was in
Queens and in Brooklyn, there was more emphasis on the
sound systems. Up in the Bronx, they had sound systems but they didn’t compare
to what Queens and Brooklyn had.
AllHipHop.com: How so?
Amen-Ra: When they saw Kool Herc’s stuff, or they saw
someone else for that matter, it looked monstrous to them, you know, it looked
ridiculous. But when it came to Queen, the stuff didn’t compare. It was a whole
other level.
AllHipHop.com: As far as features or how loud it could get?
Amen-Ra: It had a lot to oi with the quality and the amount of money spent on the
equipment.
Hasan: It’s like you having someone outside
playing music with the house system. Then someone comes with a professional
sound system, and these guys were playing with the professional sound systems.
These guys played in clubs back then. They brought their professional sound
system to the club. Like when Flash came to Queens, he didn’t have a sound system. Whenever he played,
and I’m talking about indoors, he would play on someone elses sound system, hedidn’t have a system.
Amen-Ra: He may have had one, but it wasn’t a powerful to the point that
Hasan: That’s what I’m saying. When I say
system, I’m not talking about no house jam, I’m
talking about a real system. He didn’t have that. When he played in different
places indoors, he never came to Queens with his own sound system. He came and
he played on King Charles, Infinity Machine, the Disco Twinshe played on
their systems. And then when he played on their systems, it was a whole
different thing because they were using real studio quality mixers; not the cheap mixers, not the cheap turntables, none of that.
