Kid Capri Part 1

00:00:00 Speaker 1: Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. Ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to another episode Quest Love Scheme, Quest Love your host. Yeah, we got team Supreme with us. Uh, start with Sugar Steve. Hello, Steve, what's up? Man? Everything's good? You know, working half as hard as I normally do, but still getting you're not working half as hard? Man. You gotta you gotta, you gotta really like monumental jazz. No, I meant getting paid half as much as I know. There you go, Oh my fault. Okay, that's real. I can't help you there. I'm paid. Bill. What's up, bro? You know? Man? Halfway through the summer, living life, driving around children. That's driving around children. That's what I do. I'm like a bus service for my kids. That's my life. Getting ready for the Street that's due season. What season the Sesame Street are you guys about to get into. We're wrapping fifty four maybe and starting fifty five. I think that's right. Yeah, okay, so September. There you go. I'm paid. Bill was just explaining to us that Sesame Street is exempt from the current writers strike and acting strike yep as well, so I get paid the same amount of money, Steve sadly Sorry, well, yeah, I saw some uppets crossing the picket line the other day that show. There you go, all right and uh fontagelo, what's up? Bro? I wasn bro good Man were getting ready. We just announced today made in Durham a Little Brother Block Party seven. So it's like, y'all, y'all little picnic joined, Like what what is? It is one day and one day only and it's for a limited amount of time for hours and then we're going to fuck home. So this is one day go to always always he must have the nicest house. A little Brother, Little Brother, big crid cool kids on to our black guy, DJ's Hourglass and wildly Sparks, h Spinning and Sam J hostly So. October seventh, Downtown Durham, A Little Brother NC hit us October seventh, October seventh, Yeah damn okay. Is this U for the twentieth anniversary of the listening? Yeah? Yeah, twith anniversary with twenty anniversary is a little Brother period, you know what I mean? We wanted to do it, do something in our hometown. Are y'all doing like the entire album start to finish? I'll never do that shit. When people come to see the Little brother Like, I don't like them whole We're gonna do the whole album all that. Like people came here to jams. So if it's twenty years, we're celebrating the whole catalog, I get it. Okay, that's what's up. So people, it's of course we all know it's Hip Hops fiftieth anniversary. Pretty much, we are going in heavy on the conversations with you know, our legends, our participants are our delegates, our ambassadors of the culture. And what can I say, our next guest is a legend, a legend of the mix. You know. I kind of credit our guests for really elevating the role of the DJ. It was it was through him that, you know, I first heard the seeds of ideas. I didn't know we could do. I didn't know that you could take an a cappella from one record and mix it with another record. And you know, just the amount of road trips that I've done in my life, even pre roots with his mixtapes as the soundtrack, you know, it's just it's it's it's to me some of some of the best moments of my life hanging with my friends high school and early early college years from me our guests raps. He produces definitely a very recognizable voice and scream and his his DJ echo voice game is is unmatched. He's been in the culture three decades plus and counting, you know, Grammy Award winning albums and and you know shit, he's he has one acclee that you and I don't have unpaid build this, This gentleman is on a Pulitzer Prize winning record. You know. Of course, younger fans might know him as the narrative voice of of Kinney's Damn Album you know, right exactly. But you know, our guest is has just been ubiquitous with probably the best things about the culture, like one of the best party DJs ever. What can I say, ladies and gentlemen, welcome Kick Capri to Quest Love Supreme, getting better, get all that you did, all that you know, It's time for that, man, It's time for that. How are you today, man? Were you call? Were you speaking to us from? Were you right now? Okay, you're still in New Yorker? I see, I assume yep in Jersey, I consider Jersey New York. Everybody's on top of each other in New York. I had to get away to come over to Jersey. When I want to go to New York and go over with come back to Jersey. Let me ask you, because you know, a lot of the soldiers or the participants of the part of hip hop culture that I grew up on and I'm a part of, and that you're part of as well, a lot of them probably in the mid to late nineties, decided to migrate down south. You know, a lot of our New York legends like went to Maryland and then to North Carolina and Atlanta. Whatnot for you, though, Like what has kept you in the city of New York. Like jay Z don't live in New York no more Like it's almost like I'm pressed to find any hip hop legend that's not still living in New York. Yeah, it's my field, man, It's the feel, it's it's it's what I grew up on. I've been around the world. I've been many places. There's places that I would go and move, but I know I would move there for a short period of time. But it's just something about being around New York. I'm not even in New I'm New Jersey. I'm right over the bridge. But I can get to New York and already, you know. But it's just the feel of of New York, of of everything I come from. The Bronx. I was born in Brooklyn, I was raising the Bronx home and hip hop. I was raised five minutes away from her or kansbur Terrace to see the Avenue is five minutes away. So it's just that feel of it. But then also my daughters is there, you know, my engineers there, my role man. Everything I need is right here. I'm looking for a house right now in this area, a new house in this area right now to move into. But I could sit in moving in Atlanta before in Houston, and the price of living is way different, it's way better. But I just feel like I need to be here. I need to If I moved somewhere else, I'm gonna looks something. So that's what it pretty much is for me. Okay, home is home, I get it. I want to talk about your beginnings at the culture like for you, Well, okay, you're a DJ. First of all, what like what environment did you grow up in as far as like your your love of music? Did you grow up in in a sort of an open format household where music was prevalent or My dad was a soul singer. He so he was the first soul singer to sing with the Lebonne Brothers. Lebomb Brothers is a Latin band that's a well lean Latin band as towards the World right Now, and they made an album in nineteen sixty They made two albums, they made one to sixty eight and one sixty nine. He was the first soul singer with a Latin band. And then he left and started doing northern soul itself and he became really good. He had a record called Baby Hard Times and seventy three. They did good for him. So he was always, you know, doing this thing. My grandfather, what was his name, Dave Love, He had called Baby Hard Times. And his father, my grandfather, he was a trumpet player, which I have his trumpet in nineteen forty. He used to sit in with Miles Davis, count Basie, Theolonians. He's sitting with all these guys and all these sessions and play with them. So the music always been in my family had always been around. At four years old, I started playing drums. About that I started playing drums and four years old and at the time, we had the record player that you had to stand over and look over and there's the big TV on the record player you had to look over into the turntab. I used to play the Turnsta. I didn't know what I was doing, no DJing or nothing, but I was playing these James Brown records and you know, these records with breaks and in and it just it was just attractive to me as a little kid. So at eight years old, when hip hop came alive, that's when I started DJing. And from there one I never stopped. And you know, it all came from me growing up knowing all the music, all the funk music and the soul music for my father and my grandfather. It's rare for us to have someone that was actually raised in the epicenter of the culture. Could you typically just walk me through walk me through a day in which you are experiencing what we know is hip hop culture. What days do these uh block parties happen? Like, what's what's typical for Like what they're DJing, What did the speakers look like, what what does the equipment look like? Just walk me through your observation of like a typical Bronx hip hop experience. Back in the days before there was hip hop records, it was just the break beats. It was just the MC's rhyming over the break beats. DJ's arguing over which records they could cut, like Freedom and Apache and I can't stop the records like that argument argument like it would be it would be crazy because it would be seven eight DJ's and one MC, right, and because the DJ was so much more, it was so much more. To remember, the MC didn't come and be so prevalent until records came out. But when when you had the Furious Five and you had Fantastic, you had Cold Crush, it was always the DJ first Charlie chasing the Cold Crush, Grand Master, the Flash and the Furious five, you know, grand Wizard there on the Fantastic. So it was always about the DJ more so they would argue about who would cut each records they would cut because it was so many DJs on this party. So that's what it was that it was going to the record shop trying to find the records and standing in the in the block parties in DJ and in the rain while it's raining and the crowd still coming and they standing out there and party with you. You ain't making no money, you're blowing your equipment up all that, But it was so much of we wanted to have so much fun and want people to see what we're doing, that we didn't mind it. We just had. We just went out there and did our thing, and it didn't matter what block it was at. We were set up on a pole, plug up to a pole, and that was the beginning of it, and we would just keep going from there. And this went on for a lot of years before records even came about, and even after records came about, it still went on. But before records came about, it was more contained, you know. And keep in mind, this is the time when they're telling us Shore that's just noise y'all doing. Ain't gonna last long. They ain't gonna be here long with y'all doing. Fifty years lad on what we had talking with quest love thank you all right, So technical questions I always wanted to know or get answers too, So you know, everyone knows, or at least for those that don't know, the legend of course, of the first hip hop Party. August eleventh, nineteen seventy three, Cool Hirk throws a party for his baby sisters Cindy, and he gets this epiphany that he's just going to instead of making you wait for the highlight, which, of course, like, if you're playing a six seven minute jam, there's always like a sixteen bar part of the song. That's the breakdown, that's the best part of the song. It's just the drums, and everyone goes crazy for those sixteen bars and then it's over when. Of course, Cool Hurk's idea was like, let me just play all the drum breaks at once, you know, play give It Up for Turn to Loose by James Brown, and then play somebody the you know, incredible bongo band. Just play the breaks. So I'm under the impression that these parties last for what five hours at least. The first time I heard hip hop, I'm on my block. This kid named this guy named Joe. He has some dice in his hand. He's going, yes, yes, Shaw took the beach, y'all, and he's throwing the dice and I'm standing there looking at him. I said, what do you mean, yes, yes, Shauan, What is he saying? He's kept saying it, yes, Yes, Shaw took the beach y'all. I'm like, you know what he's saying. So that Friday I went to Marbig Go Projects. They used to have the parties in the community center. You get to pay for dollar coming to go see Rockwall Incorporated, DJ b WA, keV kV Rock Well, all of them. They were right there. And I've seen DJ b Wall playing and I've seen the MC on the mic with the echo yes chef Sean y'all to the beat shawl y'all. I said, oh shit, So I'm standing there watching and then I ran home. I said, your mom, I want to be a DJ. She said, what's that? She brought me a mixer that had no headphone. Home. It was a Gemini mixer. It was a phono one phono two X and might no headphone, no plug, the plugging in and I had to guess all the spots on the record. That's how I got better than everybody else in the neighborhood headphones to work with. Right, I had no headphones. A when I'm eight years old standing on top of but milk crad. These older dudes are looking at me like this little kid's bugget no headphones busting their ass and a girl named All the Carter. That wasn't all that was a circle the younger. She was thirteen years old at the time. She said kick the Preside like a good name for a DJ. At the time, my name was DJ doctor Spank. It was a terrible name. But she said kick the preside for DJ while we're going in the classroom. I ended up trying to name. Six months later, she was shot and killed by a straight brother by accident, so I had to keeping the name. Yeah, her name was All the Carter and I end up keeping the name. Took me to the top, but I was there from the beginning, watching all this and being a part of it and seeing what it is. That's why I appreciate my career so much, because it wasn't something that was just giving to me. It was something I went through, all of the phases of getting doors closed and everything I had to do with just having just learning the business and being a part of it and learning to appreciate what you had when you and knowing when you didn't have it. You know what I'm saying it And I was Gail for that, So I appreciate it in a big way. When you're spinning these records, and of course, like you know, if you study the b boy Bible, of course, now like people know like the foundational breaks of the culture, you know, like you're, let's dance by a Pleasure or get up and dance by you know, Freedom, or those particular records which weren't necessarily hits. You know, these weren't songs that were played on radio. So what I want to know is, all right, so take take a break like a Catcher Groof by Juice, a song that was not a radio song. It was not a hit, but yet was the staple for hip hop parties. How do you like what is? What is what would be a DJ's version of like cash Box Billboard Magazine to know, Oh man, I gotta get Planetary Citizen because that as a drum break in it? Like and how how do you find these breaks? Like back in between, you know, seventy seven to even eighty four, before like the Ultimate Beats and Breaks compilations were made which put all those brakes on one record. I mean, how typical was it for you to go to a local mom and pop record store to see, you know, a bunch of James Brown give it up for turnal loose or funky drummers. Just like in the Bend, you had to go to certain stores and what would happen is a lot of stores started bootlegging records when when hip hop started, like blow your Head, Blow your Head was never a forty five or never a twelve Mounes they made a white label or blow your Head, so that was became so big. James Brown's bad Yeah, Yeah. All the apachees that came out was all bootleg apaches. It was different, different labels that put it out, like different I guess independent labels or whatever, Mico labels, and as Paul Winnley labels, Paul Whinney was a ficial Paul Winny was the one that put out the super disco breaks. He would get claimants for all these break beats and put him on these albums and put these albums up. But Paul Whinney was the first one, was the one that put Cheap Achieved out with George Best right yo. So he did that before the super disco based so he was in in that realm and he did it. He kind of did it the right way. But a lot of times, like the records was in Downstairs Records on forty thirsty they would take these forty fives and make these forty fives and these downstairs records, and these forty fives will become just as support and as finding the original record because there was a limited Amountain like my man Louis lu he still have those downstairs records, those downstairs records like Planetarian Citizen and records like that. These was world recording. Planetarian City was eleven forty five. So to have that, it's like a gem, you know what I'm saying. No, my mother man Louis Lou, Louie Lui down downtown, Louis Lou Downtown. We grew up together. He was in eighty two eighty three. This dude would have he was. It used to call him litle bambody. He had so much stuff way back then. And he's still collecting like he's still doing it. So you know, we was way ahead of the game. But a lot of stuff, like I said, a lot of stuff got bootlegged on forty five, and that's how we got it because a lot of times we didn't know the names and stuff. We didn't know what it was. And even more now then I got older, I didn't realize how much stuff was in the world. I got so much from work in Brazil and just so many different places around the world. But when we were coming up with the essentially break beachs, we didn't think that far. You know what I'm saying. We would we would. We were going about what Bam was playing with Charlie Chase was playing, what Flashing It was playing. We would. That's how we knew what to play and how we found out the names is because they were bootleg the records you can't say, so that's how we would go. We go to the record shop a whole bootleg section, just glad we needed we had I can't stop white label like it was. That's how we got our Oh okay, that explains it. Because I was gonna say, maybe five months ago Cool Hirk had auctioned off a good portion of of of his gems and whatnot, some artwork, some flyers memorabilia, and some of his records. So I copped like four or five of those records and I was like, wait, wait a minute, these are just white labels. These aren't the original ones. But I always wanted to know like how prevalent and how and how much of an abundance was like, uh, and impeach the president back in seventy nine, eighty one, eighty two. You know what, if peace got more wherever to get in the later years, earlier years it was a little easier to get, but it still wasn't It still wasn't something that anybody could just get, you know what I'm saying, Like you had to really know that beat, like like Louis. Louis was the first one I heard play that, and you know, he was just so in depth with what was going on, you know what I'm saying. But the regular person that just wanted great beats, they didn't know Impeach, they didn't know. They knew, they knew the regular things that they heard on the tapes. And they're later on and Peach became more prevalent. WI year would you say was like the the the highlight of or the pinnacle of Downtown records, Like for you, if you're an upstart DJ post save your like Pioneer one point five. This is what I took from LL Pioneer one point five, like Post Flash, Post Theater and Post Bam and hurt Is Downtown records, like your your mecca is that the only place like where would you shop for the record to in New York City? Oh, downtown all and our record on on Fordham Role Music World on thirty fourth Street. But what was interesting is that they used to be a Crazy Eddy on Fordham roll in the box. When I was in Crazy Eddy this day right, check this out. I was Crazy Day and Cowboy and Miss the Nest Scorpio. They walked in Crazy Eddie. They had on boots and leather and feathers and all that, but they were right stars to me. He was like looking at these dudes like okay. So they came in seeing them, they left and this dude walks in with a box. Now what they used to do with Crazy Eddy. They would take the new record that's out and put it on top of the counter and play the album out in the store. This dude comes in with a box. They pulled the record out and it was Captain Sky Super Sperm. He puts it on top of the counter, he plays the album. The super Sperm part comes in. I hear it. Run to the front. You what the hell was that? Gave me two of those. I bought two of those and I bought two serious for cookies. I think I'm the very first dude with super Sperm man because I was there the day came in and then it wasn't out before that, so I think I'm the very first dude super Sperm And then they did uh and then they remade the album and put Doctor Rock on the album. Okay, yeah, right right, so but the original Super Sperm album didn't have Doctor Rock on it. And I was there that day and Crazy d the day came in, so I was there in the I was trying to get everything at this time, but there wasn't a lot of places. I didn't know a lot of names of stuff, so I would just get it as I go. But Crazy Yetty started started bootlegging some records and they started putting stuff in yeah, stut stuff and then a course the street right directed a course the street from Crazy Yet it was R and R Reddy and they had all the brakes there. They had a lot of stuff there, so people would go over there and buy their stuff, but it was it wasn't a lot of places. Every at Burnside Avenue in the Bronx Dads still over there that we still always go to, and they's had a lot of bootleg twelve inches and stuff like that, and that's how we got it. Okay, So and and and forgive me for asking a lot of pedestrian DJ questions, but I feel like, you know, a burden of hands two in the bush and like you know you're you're the closest to to this era, so I can get all my questions out. Okay. So how old were you when you first started DJ? And like your first block party? Your your first party? I okay, So equipment wise, how are you transporting this? Like? How far from your house is the destination for which you're going to DJ the gig? And how do you get it there? Like, I know, if you're a nine year old, you're not carrying one turntable at a time, one mixer at a time, the table, So, like, how do you organize? My building was here? The Total Park was right up the street, set up right in front of the Total Park. And then a course, the street was my school director of course the street from eyes I can look out my window, look in the schoolyard. John Peter TikTok at one forty three, we used to do parties up in there. In there. Everybody just come and grab the equipment, bring it up, bring it down the street. And that's how we did it. Plug it up to the pole, and we was out there all day and then we would go to other blocks. Two questions. One, how loud is the system? And wasn't loud enough to rock a party area? My block, first of all, was the main block everybody would come to because it was just the fly dudes on the block. We just we just had a way of carrying ourselves from our block, so all the different areas would come. So whenever we was out there with the system, that ship was super loud and people would just know from Fordham, from Marble Hill, from for the Independence, from Heath Avenue, from Bailey Avenue University, they would just hear the music. They would just know it didn't the word of mouth would get around too, you know, kids rocking out there, they doing the block party whatever. Next you know, the whole block is swamp okay, it used to be crazy. So my second question is how are you protected? Like you know, as a nine year old you're with turntables and a mixer and your records and whatnot. Is there any situation of like because first of all, are other boroughs allowed to come to your borough to represent, like as a Bronx child, are you allowed to go to Brooklyn to spend that block party? Or like are you staying just where you know? No, I will go with I was invited everywhere because I got at a young age earlier on my name travel real quick, so I would go anywhere. The problem was where you could go anywhere. But if you wasn't good, you get your ass beat. So if like if you cover the box, you go to Brooklyn and you was not good, you may have a problem if you don't they love. So it was that type of thing has there? So I wanted to know has there been situations of like, oh yo, st we're taking his turntables or never, We're still not for you. But do you know stories of like man he got his mixture story? Oh yeah, I've been a block parties went, dudes got guns for DJs, got put guns for that him. How are you protected from that action and how often would that happened? It never happened to me because I was rolling. I had you know, my dudes is gonna make sure I was right. But I think I'm gonna tell you this question even to now all the you know, all to try two on the shows a year, even that it's the I don't carry that all that people wanted to do things to me, and you know it was never like that. I never I never went another people's neighborhood and acted funny or you know, treated people funny. You know, I just never did that. So I never had that problem. But you know we're doing here, We're gonna vob you or any of that. I never had that energy, but I always had people around me to make sure that I was straight. You know what I'm saying that I never went places that I didn't I wasn't straight. I mean, I've been in some dangers the age of the places, but I was always good. But my energy make people feel a certain way. So I don't want to get Gavin to most gangs with dudes. You know the reason why I asked you this question because I actually asked Dre this question. You know, pre nWay where you know, so if you remember the scene and straight out of Compton where he is about to play Marvel, Let's uh please wait mister Postman and he mixes it with Planet Rock, and Drey explains to me, like yo, that was like such a risk for me to do because he was like, unlike those other parties. You know, like at any other party, they might give you one chance to spin a dud that they don't feel and you might have twenty seconds to fix it. But you know, Drey was explaining to me that he was spinning out of but that was absolutely relentless and not forgiving at all for like the wrong record. So for him to take such a risk, like he knew in order for him to make a mark, he had to take a risk. And it's like, all right, I'm gonna make them think I'm gonna play some old motown ship. Then they ain't gonna get upset they want to plane at rock. They're gonna be like, oh shit. So he was like purposely saying that he had the lower expectations but just fast enough to elevate them. So like, what space does that leave you as a creative? You know, because you know I told you, as I explained at the top of the show, that you were big on like these these classic mixes of like mixing R and B with hip hop and this acapella with that song, and you know, things that at least for you know, maybe it was a typical New York. But I wasn't getting that in Philly. So like you were the first tape DJ that I was getting in the late eighties early nineties, like when I was in high school? Not so, how would you find a space? Like when did you start figuring out like ways to make your trademark? Noon? Well, first, let me say this. I'm a fan. I'm a fan of great things. I'm a fan of good music. I'm a fan of good groups and just music and just everything about it. I'm a fan when I when I go to my shows and do my shows, I look at myself as a person in the crowd watching myself, And how would I want to feel if I was that person watching me? What would make a promoter I want to bring me back? What would make these people want to pay to come to see me again? I think like them? So with that, I like things that are good. I don't put a date on things. If it's good, it's good, And when it's good, it's time is to me. And I could take something that will be unusual, nobody ever heard before, never heard it, don't know nothing about it, and make it sound like it's familiar. It's just the way. It's just the way it comes. Of course, keeping my question love we DJs. Anybody could play these records. Anybody could play these records. It's how you play. It's the impact you give. I'm always an impact dude. The element of surprise. What's gonna make it go to the next level. What's gonna make these people feel better than they day before they see me? Well, you know what I'm saying. How can I make them feel like they're never gonna ever go to another event that's gonna be better than this. They're never gonna feel that feeling. That's my focus. So with that, I'll try certain things. Even if you know I was the one that started playing records and taking it off in the fourth bar. And the reason why I was doing that as it because I had that comedy j until it was the show and I was doing the comedy the concerts and I only had a fifth team in the set, so I had to play records quick. And I'm watching these people going through a frenzy. Every time I play this record quick, I throw one on and if you if you don't throw the right one on after each other, you'll kiss somebody off. So it has to be the right one that's gonna make them forget that one, and they like that, they want to hear it. You're cutting off. So I'm watching these big crowds losing their minded this to this. So I applied it to the parties and then I've seen it working the parties, and you know, DJs followed that. But you don't need a whole lot. You can. Sometimes you play a record too long, it gets borning. Sometime the hook is just the best part. Sometime this the count offers the best part. Sometime the intro is the best part, and you're leading into something else. But that's building a continuity that's built. That's that's painting a picture for people and kind of giving them a story from beginning in the middle of and you kind of tell the story. And I've had somebody tell me that, he was like, Yo, i've seen you. I'm in the six of your shows. It's like you're trying to talk to us. It's like you're trying to tell us the story. And that's exactly what I'm doing. So if you play I could play Save for the Sun, Chrissy Joe, Sad for the Sun, Boo boo boo boo boo right in the middle of the party. The way I play it make the crowd go crazy. But if I played a different way to look at me like, what the hell is he doing? So it's all the way, it's all in the presentation, it's all high you deliver it, and I've been very lucky with that. What year did you really start DJing? Like what's your actual like first year, nineteen seventies six, okay, in that period in which you're collecting records and doing this, what was the holy grail of breaks or records that wasn't available or as prevalent as it is now for you back then? Like what was like, oh my god, I found it, like even though I never used it, Like finding Funky Drummer on forty five meant something to me. But I found Funky Drumma on forty five, Like yeah, what like ten twelve years ago, you know, like, oh, I never knew they made this on forty five and then I found a bunch of them. But for you, like, what was that record? Like, oh my god, like I can't wait to What was the hardest record to a choir back then? In your formative views, Locket in the pocket, Yo, what is it? Okay? Can you explain to me? Like as as a break officionado and I get it, like I've I've heard many of those mixtapes, cats rhyme over whatever. I mean. Right now as I speak to you, I'm on a break uh rehearsal with LLL even ll goinges on. They're like, Yo, we gotta do something the rocket in the pocket, We gotta do something. Rocket in poet like what is it? And is rocket in pocket? Sarone? Saron? Yeah? Sarone is a French drummer Rocket in pockets kind of like a break of his. I don't know if this is a live album or not. There's a crowd in it. Yes, a live record, and we had to put it on forty five forty five. I was about to say it was very slow, ye, what is it about that record? So when that album first came out back then, like all of you'all were going to eight chip like I gotta get rocking in the pocket, I got damn mind. Whenever I remember, it was a pool, a pool womb. There was a pool wom on he favoled in the box and Louis came to the pool room and they did his party and then Louis was DJ and he played rock in the Pocket. Man, it was like the whole room just stopped, like everybody was like, what the fuck is that? End he played it, he played every time he cut it. People he just seemed it was just crazy. And then from that day on, that's that next time I heard it was with Cold Quest. But from that day on, Rocking the Pocket was like one of the top dress and he couldn't find it nowhere because there was two rocking in the pockets. That was the one, there was the studio rock in the Pocket, and then it was the live one. The live one is the one, so it was hard to hit that live one, so they bootlegged it. Ah, I gotta mint. When when you spin it on forty five, it sounds it sounds covered kind of a little worldly because you know, the the guitar is kind of on top of the snare, so it does it it sounds like some futuristic shit, which it just sounds like an industrial breakbeat. So okay, Rocket in Pocket, that makes sense? Yea? Was King Tim the third? In your opinion? Was that a pioning moment for you guys? Or was it just sort of like shrug, okay, King Tim the third, No big deal. And what was your reaction to the rappers to light like hearing what you're you're involved with on a local kind of a local basis, now being on a record, what was your reaction to it? Well, let me say this. First of all, Bill Curtis from the Fat Batman is my uncle. Oh wow, oh work, yeah, he's mouth. I just so. I interviewed him recently on I. He gave me some new He gave me some two inches of some of their old stuff from the seventy stuff. I ain't going through it yet. I just I just did a record form that you were real good in London and you have his masters have him over here and Wicki Wacky. Yeah, I got that's what I want to use. I want to do Wicky Wacky. Yo. That's crazy, he said, Yo, yos, that's crazy. I did, I did it. I did the beat. I just didn't like the rob yet. But the beat is done. But that's crazy, he said. We just got back from London with the Chili Peppers and I did a DJ gig. I didn't realize that Wicki Wacky is a religion and It wasn't until Giles Peterson reminded me that even on the song Maureen by shot Day, she mentions like a good time in her life was her and her girlfriends dancing a WICKI wacky in the nightclub. And I didn't realize that's when I put that song on. It was like I put on smells like teen Spirit of the Yo Bill my uncle man very talent. I produced the reacket for them recently called band Bang Bang is doing real good in Europe for them, it's doing real good. As a matter of fact, he's ninety years old. Man, he's still going, still going, still touring, still traveling, still in the studio, comes over here to my crib everything, So he's really moving. But to ask you a question, let's go back. Because people think hip hop started with rappers, the light with records started with rappers. The light right, King said. The third was The Personality Job was the first rap record in our way of doing rap, in our way of doing hip hop. But rap started way in the forties. The first rappers was the Juwilees, a group called the Juwbilees for for a singer gospel kind of singers, but they rhyme just like a rapper. If you're going you listen to they listen to go pull up their video on YouTube. They rhyme exactly with the bars, with the flow, with everything. It's it's amazing. And this is in the forties. The first time a rap record was made was here Come to Judge from Pigmy Market, pick Me Mom Hip Mark Hims, comedian, he had his record here Come to Judge, had the crazy heartbeat to it. But James Brown was the one that gave the format of where hip hop was going to be. Pig Me Martin was picky Mark. Him was the first one to rhyme as a rapper as in the rap in the rap waight on that type of music. So it was already here. What we're doing is just a remix now in our way. Yes, Hurt came in seventy three into this room when he's playing these these soul records, you know, and that was the beginning. But I remember being that young watching everybody Break Das at seventy three, seventy two, seventy three, seventy four. I remember watching people break Das and the jet begun the James Brown cracked your hands and fast leg of potential records like that. This was back then out and you know, I was a young kid watching this, so eventually agreement too. When seventy seven came around and DJ started, all that was tied together. But it was way before we even was even born, you know it just that you know, black people, It created so many things that got overlooked, you know, so many things that was pushing the side, and this was one of them. You know it just it just took many more years for us to really catch on and make it prevalent. But it was going rap was going on since back then. What do you consider because you know, I, in my eyes, I consider you like the first generation of superstar DJs where you know, just way past the pioneering stage of like we're flashing. Boombada took it like you as a product, but for you, like coming out the starting gate. I knew of you, and I knew of ron G like, but for you, who were the the main the forefathers of the superstar DJ errors where you're making mixtapes, where you're tearing up black colleges, where you're starting to get mainstream love on like television shows like who do you consider who's the peer group of the superstar DJ Era for you, I gotta put Red Alert up there. I gotta put fair Mass and Flaship there. I gotta put Charlie Chase up there. And it is why I say these names because and hurt, of course, because they were the ones that was there first. They were the ones that you know, I always say this like I work with everybody. Everybody. You see my BT performance, I put curated the whole BT show, and my whole thing was to make to get across that the young and the old party together and enjoy itself. And I think I hit that mark. But you know, my heroes is always the dudes that came before me, the dudes that didn't make the money ILL made or got the fame that I might have gotten, all the accolades I've gotten, but they built it from the ground up. You know a lot of times some of our elder statesmen, they get stuck in their school way of thinking and they don't want to change. You know, I'm saying it, change is gonna happen. I remember how a talk with her one time and I told her, I said, it hurt, you know that it wasn't gonna just stay in the Bronx, it was gonna go a worldwide you know, because what happened was a lot of times we got selfish. We was in the Bronx, we made it. We wanted to stay there, like this was something that the world was gonna take over, you know what I'm saying. So a lot of times the world could be harsh to the ones that helped build it, and it makes those people that helped build it feel a certain way. So now when they say something, it looks like they're being old. It looks like they're mad at somebody, It looks like they're bitter, you know. But what it is is that they feel like they didn't get fulfilled in the way that they think they should, you know. And that's why Hip hop fifty's great because now it's no it's a balance. It's everybody's being seen, everybody's making money, everybody is being appreciated, and the young dudes are seeing how important these older dudes were are and what they've done in the path did they put forty younger dudes, But the older dudes got to understand that the younger dudes is going to change and do what they want. It was relevant to them with what they like. You don't have to like it, but you cannot. Days are going to change. Hi, folks, this is shiit of Steve and right here is where we're going to pause this interview. Check back next week. We're looking at your podcast feed for part two. In that conversation, Kid Capri speaks about his transition to album making and production, how Bismarquis helped him get a deal, and what motivates him today. Thank you for celebrating fifty years of hip hop with Questlove Supreme. If you haven't already, please check out our interviews this month celebrating hip hop innovators. In addition to Kid Capri, we have conversations with styles P and slum Village. Questlove Supreme is a production of iHeart Radio. For more podcasts from my Heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.