In December, I sat down for a chat with Grand Daddy I.U, of “Something New” and “Sugar Free” fame, to discuss his early days in Hempstead, L.I., his time as an artist with the legendary Cold Chillin’ label, his classic 1990 debut Smooth Assassin, and the fateful night he and his brother Kay Cee went to Blimpie’s with baseball bats looking to beat down a Biz Markie impostor, only to find the real Biz waiting with a production deal. He also has some decent new music out and an entertainingly raw Twitter feed, which we also discussed a little. I had hoped to have this up in time for the show I organized with him, Son of Bazerk and Leaders of the New School at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn in December but c’est la vie.

JS: Your earliest records referred to something called Steady Flow, which is the name of your record label now. Was that a group at first?
Grand Daddy I.U.: It was just a bunch of motherfuckers who hung out. I was the only one rapping. Read the rest of this entry »

Kanye’s My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy and Big Boi’s Sir Lucious Leftfoot: The Son of Chico Dusty… were probably the two best, most complete rap albums of 2010 (In reverse order, though). But as much as I liked both in that initial, post-release honeymoon period, I never found myself going back and revisiting either with great frequency. Sir Lucious, I played so much when it was brand new that I think I could go without hearing it for at least another year or two. My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, on the other hand, I quickly found to be something of an exhausting listen. It’s so intense, I feel like I need to take a nap after playing it it. That can be a good thing at first but how many times can you ride a rollercoaster before the peaks and valleys go from thrilling to tiring? For me, the answer was not many.

For pure hip-hop comfort food, the album I found myself returning to again and again this past year was Marcberg, the modest yet thoroughly uncompromising debut LP by blue-collar noir-rap specialist Roc Marciano. Read the rest of this entry »

Illustration by Zeruch

In part two of our journey through the unusual odyssey of Son of Bazerk featuring No Self Control and the Band, Bazerk—a.k.a. group leader Tony “T.A.” Allen—emerges from his slumber to discuss the making of Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk, working with the Bomb Squad’s Hank and Keith Shocklee and Chuck D., his relationship with Flavor Flav, and the group’s unlikely re-emergence after 19 years of dormancy. With cameos from Half Pint, Jahwell and DJ Johnny Juice.

JS: How many songs on the Bazerk album were songs that you had originally done with your group Townhouse 3.
TA: Only one of ‘em. That was “N-41,” which was the first recording we made for the radio station WBAU, with the Wizard K-Jee—Keith Shocklee. We had Chuck D. on the original song, and Gary G-Wiz from the Bomb Squad played the bus driver. We was getting on the bus and he was telling us to keep it down. We didn’t have that when we did it for the album. The best one we did was the demo, probably. It’s on a cassette tape, with some others songs called “Kick it Live,” “Freeze,” and a solo one Jahwell did, called “Pep and T.A. Ain’t Here.” Read the rest of this entry »

In 1991, I heard a song called “What Could Be Better Bitch” on the soundtrack to the movie Juice: it had a spare, sinister beat and an evil-sounding hook delivered by a guy with the most guttural voice I’d ever heard on a rap song: “What could be better, beeeeeech.” If there was a rap equivalent to death metal (this was before Gravediggaz, or Brotha Lynch Hung) I figured this was it. Some time later I became aware that the group, Son of Bazerk featuring No Self Control and the Band or just “Son of Bazerk” for short, had made a full album with Public Enemy producers the Bomb Squad. Bazerk Bazerk Bazerk, issued on Hank Shocklee and Bill Stephney’s short-lived MCA imprint Sound of Urban Listeners (S.O.U.L.,) had fallen through the cracks, its slapdash combination of R&B showmanship, rawl rap, offbeat humor and dancehall even further to the left than “What Could Be Better Bitch.” “Change the Style” nonchalantly bounced from the opening riff of the Temptations “(I Know) I’m Losing You” to a straightforward James Brown groove to dancehall chanting to doo-wop, ending in shouts over a heavy metal riff. A squeaky-voiced girl named Half Pint chirped introductions to songs like “N-41″ like Flavor Flav on helium. Over time, Bazerk has become a true cult classic; in a sense, it’s still picking up momentum.

Earlier this year, the group—lead MC Tony “T.A.” Allen aka Bazerk; Jeff “Jahwell” Stanton; Cassandra Jackson, a.k.a. Half Pint; and Gary “Daddy Rawe” Stanton—re-emerged under the direction of DJ Johnny Juice of Public Enemy and Kings of Pressure fame, their first offering “I Swear On A Stack of Old Hits” sounding like “Change the Style” part two with its chaotic tempo and cadence switches. When S.O.B. were only given time to perform one song on their New York date opening for Public Enemy at Central Park this summer, I organized a show for them. It’s going down Dec. 23 at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn. On a recent Saturday afternoon I headed to Juice’s studio, in the backyard behind Chuck D.’s house in Roosevelt, Long Island, to talk shop and history with the group. T.A. was M.I.A. when I arrived (stay tuned for part two), giving Half Pint and Jahwell a chance to share their side of the Son of Bazerk story. Read the rest of this entry »

The Leaders of the New School were my favorite rap group in the seventh grade. Their debut LP A Future Without A Past had just come out and school was about to start when I caught “Case of the PTA” on Video Music Box. It was instantly completely, totally my shit. For the first time, I was hearing rap that directly related to what was going on my life at the time—absolutely nothing. The group’s rhymes were all in some way connected to school—cutting class, getting into fights with bullies and just being a young knucklehead in general. This, I understood. At this time, you couldn’t tell me there was a better rapper than Charlie Brown. Busta Rhymes would emerge as the group’s breakout star soon after his appearance on A Tribe Called Quest’s “Scenario” but it was Brown, always in class-clown character, who the group initially centered on. But when the group disbanded three years later, their collective light eclipsed by Rhymes’ fast-rising solo star, Brown disappeared from public view. In a rare interview, I speak with the reclusive rapper—who returns to the stage, in a show I put together, with his Leaders of the New School partners Dinco D and Cut Monitor Milo at the Knitting Factory in Brooklyn on Dec. 23 about the origins of Leaders of the New School, his fallout with Busta Rhymes, and what he’s been up to for the last decade-plus.

JS: I know Leaders of the New School was a name that Chuck D and Hank Shocklee had come up with, and kind of bequeathed to you. Can you tell me about the original group that you had before you became Leaders?
Charlie Brown: It was the Destiny 3 MCs and it was me, this brother named Qosay, who used to call himself Mystery, and Busta Rhymes, who was going by Chill-O-Ski. And I was Cold Crush B. I loved the Cold Crush Brothers. Read the rest of this entry »

Cedric “ESG” Hill was the first rapper to give the Screw movement some national exposure. The hook for “Swangin & Bangin,’” his debut single, had a slowed-down Public Enemy vocal sample and lines like “Sip syrup, swang and bang, jam nothing but that Screw.” The video, meanwhile, offered an early glimpse of the custom car culture that would come to define Houston hip-hop’s aesthetic, and, just as notably, featured a taste of Screw’s slowed-down remix which, in another first, was featured on the accompanying album, Ocean of Funk. Here, the Everyday Street Gangsta offers a detailed breakdown (without much prompting, really—I kind of just let him talk) of both Screw’s and his own emergence.

JS: When did you first hear about Screw tapes?
ESG: Pretty much everybody met at Fat Pat’s house. We were in the 18-year-old range back then. All the D-boys in the neighborhood would go by. Screw had just started, but no one knew what it was yet. A core group of people in the hood from the South Side would go over to Screw’s to get personalized tapes. You’d have your favorite songs and everybody would say, “Go to Screw’s house, he’ll make your own tape for you.” Nobody was even rapping on the tapes at the time, it was just a personalized mixtape. Read the rest of this entry »

Part of the original wave of Screwed Up Click freestylers along with Lil’ Keke, Big Moe and Fat Pat, Big Pokey has a special place in Screwed Up Click history thanks to his central role in the most legendary of all Screw recordings, the June 27th freestyle. The one-time college football player later released several solo albums, beginning with 1999’s Hardest Pit in the Litter. More recently (Okay, not that recently), Pokey had a cameo in Paul Wall’s breakout-era Houston theme song “Sittin’ Sidewayz,” the hook of which featured his sublimely evocative June 27th line, “Sittin sideways, paused in a daze/On a Sunday night I might play me some Maze.” Here, he breaks down the process of making a Screw tape, recalls the creation of June 27th and explains Screw’s role in breaking the Hot Boyz.

JS: How did you first meet Screw?
Big Pokey: I first met him at a party my homegirl had at this club, and he was the DJ. And then I met him again at his house with my homeboy. It was him, me and Haircut Joe from the June 27th tape. We went over there to talk to him about doing a tape. And from then, we hit it off.

JS: What year was that?
BP: When I first met him had to be like ‘92.

JS: Was word already out about DJ Screw in ‘92? Was he already very well known?
BP: Yeah, this was [when I was] in high school. He had tapes, a little buzz.

JS: What did you think of the music slowed down when you first heard it?
BP: I thought that was the livest shit ever. It had a different sound, and it sounded good because you could understand the words where [at regular speed] it might take you a couple times to catch on. And then the way that he used to chop the beat up and bring it back and just be creative on the turntables with it…I hadn’t heard nothing like that. Read the rest of this entry »

Last week, I published a story in the Guardian on the life and lasting influence of legendary Houston sound pioneer DJ Screw. Truthfully, I originally researched and wrote the article (although the version in the Guardian is much different than that original draft) for a certain U.S. rap magazine that did not ultimately run it. (I’m glad they didn’t put it in the issue it was slated for because the cover is creepy, but that’s a whole ‘nother story). Originally that article was going to focus not just on Screw but the darkness that has surrounded the Screwed Up Click over the years. In addition to the syrup-linked deaths of Screw, Pimp C and Big Moe, the crew has seen several of its members murdered, most notably Fat Pat and his brother Big Hawk. Couple that with the lack of recognition received by the S.U.C’s most talented surviving members and it damn sure feels like a curse. I say this to provide a little background into this interview with Z-Ro, in my mind is the most underrated rapper working today. Our conversation mostly sticks to the topic at hand, and doesn’t go too deep into Z-Ro’s own career or his creative process, but it’s a nonetheless revealing chat with a man who, at least according to the Internet, has given few if any in-depth interviews. Far from the aloof misanthrope one might expect, ‘Ro was friendly and engaging and articulated the appeal of Screw tapes better than anyone else I spoke with.

JS: How did you first meet Screw?
Z-Ro: I guess the first time I met Screw, I was not really meeting him but I was a fan of what he did with the music. On Greenstone [Street in Houston], he had a house with a gate around it. The same story everybody knows about—the house with the gate. If you was in Houston, and you was listening to mixtapes, especially around the ‘92, 93 period…We would just ride up to the man’s house. And when the gate would come open, that would mean he’s open for business. You could come and get a Screw tape. My homeboy Grady really turned me on to Screw tapes. We’d ride out there a couple of times, with different people every time, just to get a tape. I wanted to go and get this tape, Wineberry Over Gold. So I met him a couple casual times just as a motherfucker buying a tape. My boy Grady was like “Man, you need to get up in that house with Screw and get on that mic because you got something.” I was trying to work my way in so I could get the opportunity do that. Read the rest of this entry »

December 23rd: Eve of Christmas Eve. Stay tuned for more info.

Gang Starr was my favorite rap group. They were the best hip-hop duo, period. Others had bigger impacts (Run-DMC and OutKast, perhaps) but Guru and Premier were better for longer. Their second, third and fourth albums were landmarks but their last two albums were probably, front-to-back, their strongest. And it was never just about the beats. I didn’t know what a producer did when I bought Step In The Arena. I just dug the whole package, and the focal point of it all was Guru. Only those too dim to pick up on the wisdom the man was dispensing in his lyrics ever griped about his allegedly monotone delivery. I can’t say I spent any time with his post-Gang Starr/Solar-era output, but I never found any song I did hear with him on it to be dull. Read the rest of this entry »