Quest Love Supreme is a production of iHeartRadio. What's Up.
It's June and that means it's Black Music Month, and every year on Questlove Supreme and now The Quest Love Show, we honor it by bringing you an episode every day that celebrates black music, its history, and its impact. My team and I have selected episodes from our archive that we feel are specially relevant to the celebration, offering history, insight a little fun along the way. So be on the lookout for four brand new episodes throughout June, each
connected to the past president future of Black music. You're going to highlight trail blazers, innovators, cultural conduits, and revolutionaries whose word continues to shape the world around us. Happy June, Happy Black Music Month.
Suprema So Sun Supremo roll call, Supreme Son Son Supremo, roll called Suprema son Some Supremo roll called Suprema Son So Suprema roll call.
I had a brilliant ro call Yeah for Curtis Blow. But for some reason, you ain't never going.
To know it.
Oh Supremo Sun Sun Supremo, roll called Supremo Son Son Supremo roll call.
My name is Sugar, Yeah, I love you.
All.
Yeah, but once and for all. Yeah, Baseball Supremo, Roll Supremo. Suck some Supremo.
Roll call coming off the cuff.
Yeah, rummer words in English. Yeah, so why it doesn't have to be so damned.
Supreme So Supremo roll call Suprema Son Supremo.
Roll calls em. Yeah what curt is blown?
Yeah?
If your hip hop, yeah, you should already know.
Ro call Suprema Son Sun Supremo ro Cal Supreme.
Can't believe my Supremo roll.
Call one, two, three, four hit it yeah now yeah, I'm gonna spit it.
Supremo. Roll come come back, Suprema.
Son Sun Supremo, Roll cal Supremo Son Son Supremo. Roll call Suprema Son Supremo roll call.
Right, ladies and gentlemen, this is Court Love Supreme. I forgot the name of my own show. We are at iHeartRadio. Thank you very much. We're here with Team Supreme. Unpaid Bill and here is not here. You are not a paid bill, you are a boss bill.
Wow. I knew what I was saying. I knew I was just testing to see if you knew who you were.
Of course, we got a sugar Steve and we have a laia with us on paid Bill right now is doing his thing.
And Broadway, yeah yeah, whenever, whenever he's hit on Broadway, he don't have time for us. No more.
Ladies and gentlemen, plain and simple. You know you hear of kings and pioneers and people bragging about their status and this culture. I'm sure you, ladies and gentlemen, uh that the gentlemen that we're about to introduce is literally the pioneer of this amazing art form that has made trillions of dollars. What can I say, first rapper on a major label, first rapper to get a gold plaque, first rapper to cover a song, first rapper to make
a love ballot, first rabitatur overseas. I mean his production credits looming large. I mean, for God's sakes, he produced the record that was Jay Z's very first purchase of a full hip hop album. Speaking of the Fat Boy's debut, I mean, through this man like this is how we know he was. He was the entry of Russell Simmons into the world, a run into the world of full force, into the professional world of Alison Williams, of the Great
Unhurled Larry Smith and his production credits. The aforementioned Fat Boys, not to mention, gave Salaam Remy his first start in production. Oh yes, a yeah, fourteen year old. Yes do we do? We do our homework. Not to mention, Uh what I what? I credit as one of the rare legit hip hop movies about hip hop culture. This man is starred in as a political activist working with anti apartheid Sun City Project, not to mention organizing the King Celebrate holiday. There's so many,
so many credits. Oh Jesus, we for a lot of us are entry to Bob Dylan and if our culture. This dude, Yes, I'm pointing to the one and only first rapper on Soul Tree. You know, Soul Tree means everything to me, Ladies and gentlemen. I'm so honored to have on Quest Love Supreme, the one and only Curtis.
Bloke. It's a Quest Love Supreme.
Thank you, Thank you man. Uh, this is a long time coming. We have a gazillion questions. This this is like a this show is such a it's nerd out culture going awry. So it's it's just bear with us. If we asked too many nerdy questions.
That that intro was so incredible. I mean you kind of like had me shook there for I didn't know I did so much stuff I was here. Yes, wait a minute, I remember things.
We're we're literally about giving flowers where they're due.
Thank you, thank you, thank you so much.
Yeah, there's so much more that you're doing.
I've been known to make like fifteen minute intros and then it's time to gorl. Right, So what I really this is this is like one of our first chances to interview someone that was there for the beginning of hip hop culture before it came a professional business. So I have so many questions about it's starting its formation in the Bronx to like the parties and all those things. Well, for those that don't know that listen to us that are that are younger, where were you born?
I was born and raised in Harlem.
Okay, Harlem Worm Okay, yes, yes, sir, So could you give us kind of a, I guess, a prototypical idea of what the environment was when hip hop was just a local block party thing, when it was just yes, you know, like on a Saturday, let's let's pick a Saturday in nineteen seventy eight, before it was a business.
Oh man, what was You probably go back before Sudny.
It's really amazing and it's a story that you know, the energy and the vibe and the spirit that was going around New York City the Five Boroughs during that time was something that's so hard to explain. You really had to be there to really understand that energy that was happening. See, we were all like a group of people who understood and really related and loved this culture way before it became a culture. So it was just like something new that we were trying to do and represent.
Of course, you had disco on this side of the fence, and then you had R and B soul music, and most of us grew up on soul music, and we love James Brown and the Motown sound and the Isisley Brothers and all of that stuff and soul music. We started playing soul music when disco became the most prominent thing that you heard on the radio. But if you remember the Motown sound that we grew up on in the sixties, the snare drum, we're talking music theory now.
The snare drum was on the one, two, three, and the four pop pop pop boom babe, babe baby, you know, and and then disco comes out and it went back to the same four on the floor of the floor there talking about the kick drum right, the boom boom boom boom. So that beat for us wasn't like James Brown, because James Brown, in between disco and motown, had a musical revolution with the sound that we call boom.
Bat So the boom back, syncopated rhythms.
Syncopated rhythms, and the drummer, you know, Clyde Stubberfield, was incredible. So as kids, when we heard this new sound, we were like, we lost our minds. Everybody wanted to be James Brown and dance like him. And uh, that's when we started going down to the floor whenever we heard the break because the break of the music was the most important part of the song. That's when everyone did their best dance moves. That's when we created the circle.
So people just literally wanted to wait for the breakdown, like.
Okay, that's what it was five, that's what it was really going to get crazy And I'm talking in nineteen seventy two, seventy three, So here comes cool Herk, the DJ who understood this that the break was so very important, and we were B boys and B girls because we
danced to the breaks that Cool Herk would play. And he would play these funky, incredible songs like give It Up a Turn It Loose, or getting Into Something by the Isley Brothers, or or Listening by Baby Hughey or Jimmy Cast has Just Begun, the Mexican you know, the Melting Pot Apache, you know all these incredible songs. They were soul music, but they were fast and it was the same kind of tempo as disco music. It was dance music. I call it obscure dance music. It was funk,
and we just lost our minds. So we represented and created those circles around us, just like Saturday Night Fever, you know the movie with John Travolta with the white suit on. You creates this circle around him and pretty soon somebody comes in the circle and they do a competition and a battle, and the winner of that competition was the most popular guy. He was the hero of the story, right, And so that's what happened at the
Cool Hurt clubs. Around twelve one o'clock in the morning, he played this give It Up a Turn and Loose, and everybody was standing around waiting for the break. When that break came, we went off. And that was hip hop the first early days.
Now, God, now for that particular record that you gave an example of, give It Up for Turn It Loose, which that particular recording was made in nineteen sixty nine. So even though James Brown himself was trying to keep up with the trends of the day and make disco records, you're basically saying that you guys never left those records alone.
So a song like Get on the.
Good Foot still had life way beyond it's nineteen seventy two release, like It's still was something in seventy four, seventy five, seventy six, as long as it had.
A funk break.
So did you guys look at the commercial music at the time as kind of like how we look at modern pop radio now, Like I don't listen to that.
I listened to No, it was cool. It was cool.
It was a you know, we you know, we listened to it. It was on the radio, but.
Somebody was break dancing to like Stevie Wonders. I wish you know.
No, it was more like, you know, the village people.
Why Okay? So like the commercial disco stuff, Okay.
Down a Summer and stuff like that, You're like, yo, we want James Brown, you know what I mean? So, so the hip hop became that rebellion to disco. I call it, you know, ghetto disco.
Okay for those that been collecting tapes and and really keeping up in sort of the early formation of what hip hop was. The role that MC was once the co star to who the DJ was? So can you What I want to know is, and I've heard like some of these.
Like DJ Hollywood tapes.
Right where in my mind he had an endless vocabulary, an endless combination of rhymes that came up nowhere. Now, I mean most of them season I know, really have a good fifteen to twenty minute repertoire before they run out of space and steam and you know, don't know what to do. But he's his things seemed endless, Like who was who in your mind were like the top five?
First of all? Who was the one? Was Hollywood?
The pioneer of the calling response rhyming k ice right at least in the hip hop sins, I know there's Jocko Henderson and all that stuff back, yes, of course, of course, but who was in terms of hip hop was DJ Hollywood first? Like where does Hollywood? And Eddie Chiba and like all these other mcs that really weren't making records.
Okay, so after herk okay, you have to see there there there were two different kinds of crowds, Okay, first and foremost, you know Flash Grandmass and Flash calls them the shoe people and the sneaker people.
Oh okay, you know the sneaker people.
You know, we partied at the block parties and the community centers, and the park jams and and and and the the small around the way clubs, you know, like three seventy one Disco Fever up in the Bronx and places like that. But you know, Grandmaster Flash was so very important to this transition from the DJ being the focal point of the party. He controlled the music, He controlled the ambiance, he controlled the lights, he controlled the tempo of the songs he was playing. He hired, he
hired and fired the mcs. The mcs were first a diamond dozen. All we did was we we we we went to the house and we got the equipment and took the equipment to the gig and set it up, and at the end of the night we break it down and carry it back to the house, and the DJ would let us in free, you know.
So that's your plus, that's your getting on the guest list.
And so you know, if we were nice to him, or if he was nice to us and feeling good, he would let us make announcements like, Yo, Joey, your mom's outside is ten o'clock, you're gonna go, you know, sound okay, Sam, your car is getting told, you know, okay? And so Flash, you know, now herk played a whole song. He had the most incredible playlist, all the songs I named, and they were about twenty five to thirty songs, maybe
even fifty soul music in a club. And so Flash understood that the most important part of this song that he played was the break, because he knew all the bee boys would go down to the floor and start doing their best moves. Everyone got crazy and started yelling and screaming, you know when the break came. And so he wanted to try to find a way to extend his break because the break was only fifteen twenty seconds long, And so he got two copies of the same record,
and he started playing the break. Her would play a whole song and you have to stand up waiting for the break to come. Right, Flash went there. He just started the break at the top of the song. You know, he'd played a break, and when it got to the end of the break, before the singing started coming back in,
he played the beginning of the break again. So he actually extended this break and made it from fifteen twenty seconds to three four minutes, right, So we had to do more as MC's than make announcements.
So I have a question at the time, what was the transition because are people then are we scratching yet?
Right?
He started scratching and oh he was very very fast because you had to go from one turntable to the other to catch the beat before it ended and got to the whack part, right, And so he extended the break and then shuts right.
Listen to the show. He'll get mad, Yes scratch, yes, yes, we love you.
And so you know it was like DJs like that that gave us the opportunity to shine. So we became like instead of standing on the side of the turntables just making announcements, we went out front and started rocking the crowd and we had to do more, so we started telling stories and rapping in rhythm and you know, using crowd response, throw your hands in the air and all of that stuff, and that's how you know, it
really came off. So Hollywood get into Hollywood. He was a master at the crowd response, and he had a Puerto Rican DJ by the name of DJ Junebuck Rest in Peace and best DJ Iver saw in my life, very fast, accurate, would keep the beat going for Hollywood, and he was just tearing it up. When I saw Hollywood at this club three seventy one, it blew my mind.
I never knew that there was something like this possible, You know, that a guy could just take control of an audience and have them eating out of the palm of his hands, just by the way that he was rapping in rhythm. First time I ever heard rhythmic rap
was DJ Hollywood. You know, of course, there are other MC's before him, like KC, the Princess Soul JJ to Disco King you had up in the Bronx with HERK you had Coch He was the first MC up in the Bronx, rock and just talking smack on the microphone, you know, but Hollywood put it together with rhythmic chance like throw your hands in the air and way. I'm like, you just don't care. And if you got on clean underwear, somebody.
Say, oh yeah, yeah.
Everybody, you gotta say, oh yeah, you know I got I don't commander, Yeah, mama got clean on the So it's was that a Eureka moment for you?
Like it was a Eureka moment, you know? Just seeing herk the first time I saw herk. It blew my mind, just to the fact that he had this big, huge Mungo's sound system and he was playing these songs that I grew up with that I just thought that, you know, give it up a turn and lose. It was my favorite song and he played it loud and and everyone went crazy. And then you had Grandmaster. Flash was another one blew my mind with the speed on the turntables. This guy had white gloves on with rings on and
they would just flashing, He's going to turntable. I saw him at the Hotel Diplomat one time, and that was just amazing to see how fast he was and keeping that beat going. And it's real what we call turntablism. This evolution of the turntable, the DJs and flash gave us the opportunity along with Hollywood. Everyone mimicked Hollywood when he came out. He blew my mind as well.
Did you guys ever venture out of the Burroughs? So was there a thing of like, you know, was touring for you back then, like Okay, I'm gonna do a party in Queen's Or would Long Island be a part of this folklore as well?
Staten Island even like new or was it just or even newer?
Like were or did Burroughs just like stick to themselves until rat became a business?
Well? Me, I was a traveler.
I went from Harlem, you know, I had fourteen years old, fifteen years old, travel on that number four train riding up to the Bronx, you know, to check out cool Herk at the Executive Playhouse. And and it was scary.
You know.
That was during the time when Roots had came out, Alex Haley's Roots, and so there was a lot of that, you know, right straight out of the Civil rights movement, and cats were like feeling themselves and there was a lot of violence on that train. You know what I mean, a lot of.
People you risked everything just to see men. It was worth.
That's why I want to know what makes that's the one the one thing I didn't have, Like I had strict parents that were just like, no, you ain't going so whenever I hear like, uh, the generation after you talk about the Latin quarter right right, and I'm like, yo, y'all could.
Have y'all risking y'all lives to hear this, like you might get stab shot, killed her. But I understand understand.
There were so many things u going around in the community in New York City that was happening during that time. And I'm telling you hip hop was like a saveror you know, like like you know, we had the gangs, the gangs like that that movie The Warriors was real. There were a lot of gangs. I remember running home from school, you know, in the early early seventies, because all you had to do is say they coming and were out, you know what I mean, you know, going
to the corner store from my mom. It's like, yo, you want me to go to store rial.
Okay, I'm glad to know I'm not the only one that would go to crazy And then you had for toilet paper, and then then you had to map out.
You had the drug wars of the Bronx and Harlem coming out of the Frank Lucas story American gangster, right, you know when he went to jail, and I think it was nineteen seventy four seventy five, they had a big drug war. Everybody was fighting for his territory. So there were a lot of murders and gunshots and all around people were just dropping like flies, you know, So it was kind of dangerous. It was dangerous living during that time. So for me, you know, it was my savior.
I used to love to go to the club and just you know, go to the speaker and stick my head and the speaker and the base was rumbling all the way through my toes and I just closed was worth it. I closed my eyes and go off. And that's hip hop.
He just told me the story of the first time I ever went.
To a club, Like everyone has put your head in the speaker and it just changes your life.
Yeah, yep.
What do you think hip hop culture would have been if there was no blackout of nineteen seventy seven.
A lot of a lot of cats talk about that because a lot of Equick equipment was obtained doing those years doing that that that Blackout nineteen seventy seven. But for me, it was more like, you know, we hit the local bike store and I got like three bikes.
So you wanted to travel travel? I told you you didn't want to do that train. Yeah, no more for a train.
That's a long ride to the Bronx.
Yeah it is, it is.
But you know, just traveling around New York City was was was special for me. I just thought that, you know, I had cousins out in Queens and and and forty Projects and and Cambria, and aunts and uncles all around Queens. So you know, I used to spend my summers out in Queens. Actually, you know how how how we all used to go South Where.
I'm going to Atlanta? Where you going? I'm going North Carolina? Where you going? Kim and Kirk, We're going to Queens. So it's like another world probably.
You know.
And and if Suburbia.
That part of Queens okay, yeah yeah.
And so just spending my days out there whenever I could, you know, having a lot of family out and Queens. I hung out with with Russell Simmons, because I met him in college and he was from Hollis, Queens. And we opened up a club in nineteen seventy eight called Disco Fever, I mean night Fever.
Disco Okay, okay, so wait you for that club.
And that was two hundred and first Street in Hollis Avenue, and that's where I really got good as a DJ, you know, DJing and the club and four year and then we actually used propaganda and Russell started putting my name on flies Queen's number one DJ, Curtis Blow.
Okay, So he built the folklore of Curtis Blow.
And Russell was a sociology major, you know, so he understood about the masses and the spectrum and the different movements of people and what they would like and stuff like that. So he convinced me to let that propaganda happen.
So is he the one that talked you into Would you say that your entry into hip is what really put the focus on the MC as opposed to the DJ.
M No, because I think Hollywood did that. He was actually the first king of rap.
He was so hot. He was the first guy that.
Charged five hundred dollars. Before that, we were making thirty forty dollars a night MC's or you know, the the popular ones were getting one hundred, one hundred and fifty dollars a night. But Hollywood was the first to charge five hundred. You want five hundred dollars.
But Hollywood at your partyment guaranteed, you know.
Oh yeah, it was pack You have a line around the corner, you know. And so Kat started, you know, trying to charge five hundred dollars a day.
They were like, shit, nigga, you made Hollywood.
So I guess technically your first single was Christmas Wrapping.
Correct, Yes, nineteen seventy nine.
Okay, so please, how did that come about? And how did you avoid Sylvie Robinson and Enjoy? And also Bobby Robinson Enjoy there's no relationship between the two, right, Like they just both coincidentally have a name, right Robinson, So Enjoy, Bobby Robinson and Sylvie Robinson were not related, correct.
Yeah, Bobby Robinson was from Harlem. He had that store on one hundred and twenty fifth Street. Bobby Bobby's records, you know, and he goes back to the to the forties and fifties. You know, he has a lot of contacts. Everybody knows him and soul music and R and B music, and so you know during that time, of course, sugar Hill Gang when they came out, Well, well let's give a shout out to King Tim the third that was actually
the first personality. Jock, you're listening to the town, but I'm gone and I am here, and so here comes sugar Hill. Every bus, every car, every train and wanted to play that Rappers Delight song.
I said it him. You don't stop the record.
Every taxi, every boom box, every record store was playing at twenty four to seven. And so we were in the studio in October and so we were trying to get a record deal. I think I got my record deal because Rappers Delight was so hot. We went to twenty two different labels, though nice and everybody hated the record except for two people. The first guy.
Liked it.
He wanted to sign it up, sign me up. So he took it up the flagpole to the vice president and president and they said no.
So label was that.
That was the guy's name was Corey Robbins. Okay, Now Corey quit his job because of this, and he went and started his own label, and two years later he signed run DMC and the label is called Profile Records. So the next guy is an English fellow, John Staines, he's ain't on director for Mercury PolyGram Records over in the UK in London. He said, we can recoup this
record in six months, let's sign them up. So actually, actually I became a British artist really signed to a company called Mercury Phonogram out in the UK and my records came back to America on an import.
Wow. Crazy deal.
So they had you first and they knew you first.
Yes, so I was the first artist signed to a major label.
So can I assume that you're in r was the was the person that said why was the night before Christmas?
Before you interrupted them with that wait, hold that wait? Was he was either twice the night that's him. Just put two and two together. The guy was English and you know, and that's those it's you know a lot of the records. It's really weird, especially with your catalog, a lot of your catalog.
And I hope I'm not opening up.
Well, hopefully the grace period is over. Even as I was recapping your catalog, I didn't realize how much, in particular the Bomb Squad when Public Enemy was making Nation of Millions, used a lot of your records as the basis for their rhythms, which I just found out today that from the back Popular Demand album, one of those songs is the basis for the Night to Living bass
Heads remix, which is weird. They could have just sampled James Brown, but they were like, all right, let's sample this meta like, let's sample Curtis Blow sampling James Brown with the extra kicks in there and all that stuff.
So anyway, I'm falling in a rabbit hole.
But my point is, yeah, you were one of the very first rappers to travel overseas. So what is that like literally being the Trojan Horse or the the Neil Armstrong, the or the flag I don't want to say Christopher Columbus because I don't believe I'm just saying on Columbus day right exactly, like to be the flag bear of Like was there a resistance?
Was there? Or did you find that You're.
Like they were really more open because you also at the top of the pops right right right?
Yes? What was that like?
Man, it's like a dream world.
You know.
I tell people this many at times that that my life is like a dream world. It's hard to understand reality when you when you're you know, in the right place at the right time, and you know, big shout out to Debbie Harry who actually flew me out to the UK for a big, big, big, big press conference. And you know, being on a major label that means you know, major press, that means we have a major
office and every major city around the world. And being a college student, you know, I want to work the system. And so I went to the publicity department. I said, man, send me everywhere. I want to travel all over right, you know. And when I got there, I sat up in the conference room and we had all the press you know, lined up from print, magazines, newspapers, radio, television. It was incredible and awesome to just be a part
of all of that stuff. And it was documented, you know, this new thing called hip hop and I was representing this.
So was it tiring, like trying to explain to people know what this was? No in the history of it. No.
No, being a communications major as I love to talk, so and then it was so very very important, like you said, you know, we had to actually you know, be good on stage, you know, because that was very very important to the success of the culture. When people see you live on stage and during that time, if you didn't have a good show, people the next day would not go out and buy your record.
Right.
That's how you know the music business operated. You know, you go out on tour and you sing your new song, your new album, and then the next day everyone goes and buys a record. This is how they support it.
And so going out there on stage for the first times and seeing these audiences and the audiences seeing me for the first time, or seeing hip hop for the first time, a lot of that, you know, where's your band, you know, but at the end of the show they're all saying, oh, you know, and and it was so
very important for us to rock the house. And that was key to you know, my experience and being in New York City around the Five Boroughs, just you know, playing the clubs and you know, like the night Fever Disco and the Hotel Diplomat three seventy one, Skull Fever, you know, the block parties and the park jams.
Just being.
Used to handling a microphone and mic control and MC means my control, and it was so very important I just thank God that I had that experience seven eight years in the biz before I made my first record.
So in touring behind the single, especially mainstream, assuming that you did tours with regular acts and whatnot. Yeah, okay, so I know now, I mean especially with I mean even in modern times like watching the Wu Tang series that's on TV right now, and it's to the point now where at least of this recording where like there is a starting the tour and what I call like wrapper problems, like with the monitors not working and you know, the proper channels for the DJ and you know all
those things and the MIC's not working. Like how difficult was it as far as like opening first of all, like what mainstream bands were you touring with back during this period?
Like who were you opening for in America at least?
Okay, people like Cool and Gang and the Gap Band and Comfunction. I remember going on tour in nineteen eighty, the All Platinum Tour with the Commodoores. The Commodores were really really hot Lineo Richie had all those ballads and stuff, and while we did about one hundred and twenty shows around the country and they took me places I never heard of before, like Tupelo, Mississippi, you know, and a lot of college towns. It was incredible just being a
part of that tour and meeting people. And for me, it was like, you know, I had this thing I had to. It became a mission of mine to meet my heroes that I grew up all though, so singers that I that I listened to as a kid. I just wanted to meet them and hug them. And so I had again, my record company set it up. The
publicity department, Beverly Page. She set it up with people like I met Aretha Franklin really over and she invited me for lunch over at Hitsville Studio and we sat and talked for an hour.
And you know, and this just talk about her rapping son. Oh yeah, I'm sorry.
Like, if you if you have any dealings, if you're in the Hip Found Nation and you have any dealings with Theretha Franklin, trust me, her son's name's going to come up.
I know. Yeah, my sister went to high school with him. Really yeah, he's looking for a deal right now.
Wait, how earlier on was the Aretha meeting? Because I'm wondering, I'm like, how did she know that she needed to have a conversation.
Eighty one, nineteen eighty one. Uh, you can't understand he was a start out the gate.
I understand especial Franklin to understand that as a whole number.
Lie Like well, especially with roller skating culture like really hitting its zenith in like nineteen, like The Breaks. To me, that song was tailored me for roller skating culture, like between seventy eight Boom and eighty three at least roller
skating culture. So it was like, I feel as though that's roller skating cultures would allow boogie music, Like The Breaks wasn't a disco song, so it wasn't like but it still had a groove to it that was like disco but slower so and it made it easier to navigate on skates.
Yeah, all levels, all levels.
And so yeah, they're like I don't recall, like we went roller skating every Sunday in the summer of nineteen eighty and The Breaks had to been played five times, five six times, like without between like Curtis Blow and Rick James, Like it.
Was like the battle of who owned roller skates?
So how important our relationships Because I also know that it's kind of weird. I'm a soul trained expert. So here's the thing about your particular episode. So when Don's talking to you, and this is something that he's known for every episode, he kind of lets in a snarky thing like I'm an old guy.
I don't understand, but you know, the kids love it. I don't get it.
Whatever, But I mean, at least the resistance. How much resistance did you have to go, not only to get your record deal, but like, what was it just like for people not to see the future because people hate change more than anything. Well, even if it's good for.
Them, there's a story behind that.
You know.
Again, it is nineteen eighty right, and I was just coming off a tour in Europe.
Okay, I think I.
Did about thirty shows in thirty three days or something. Monumental tour. But during that time, but nearly over in Europe was the hottest thing on the press with the rest. Everyone was talking about them and their show, their live show, their lip singing. Okay, right, and it was like the record company came to me, the promoters came to me, Oh you can't lip sing. Make sure you don't lip sing. I'm telling you they're gonna boo you and this and that.
We don't play that over here in Europe, and you got to do an hour and a half, you know, right, And so I'm like, okay, no problem. And you know I'm made for that because I have a on every song, most every song about the ten first ten singles I have. The B side has an instrumental and I rap live. You know, we call it half playback. So I got
through the tour. But when I came back to America and I'm setting up for Soul Train, I'm sitting in the makeup room and Irene Carr is sitting right there, and at the forefront of my mind, I'm thinking about, you know, Millie Vanilli and what's going on there. And I know that, you know, they lip sing on Soul
Train their policy. So here comes down Cotney. Oh well, the stage manager comes in with the microphone and microphones, got this phony little plug, right, It's all right, you gotta lip sing and make sure you know you you word the words, you know your mouth the words just like the song, and and and and be in rhythm. I'm like, look, we're weird, right, I am not gonna lip sing. That's not what I do. This is hip hop. We do hip hop here. This is live I need
and plus I got crowd response. I need to say these these words the crowd response and have the whole audience answer back to me.
You know what I mean.
It's very important.
This is hip hop.
I'm not lip singing. And they were like, oh, Don Cornelius came in, what do you mean You're not gonna live sing. This is our rules, this is our policy. They're just say, well, look, mister Cornelius, I'm going home. How about that one? Irene Carroll looked at me like, boy, you crazy, right?
And so because.
Isn't it everyone's dream to be on Soul Training. Yes, yes, and and it was a big thing. But I did not want to get the Europeans and and and and America. Hasn't you know, gotten his news yet about Milli Vanilli yet, Well you're predating and you mean stuff. I didn't want to have that that reputation. So I was the first artist to sing live the breaks on Soul Train. So that's why Don comes out with snorky. You want to know what everybody's making so much big fuss about this? He said.
It was a little it wasn't like.
And I was shocked because I looked at him like I didn't know you did.
Right.
So by this point, was Run your DJ? On this initial Run?
Yes? Yes, yeah?
Oh but no no, no, no, after that, after the before the Commondoer's tour. Here's a story about Run was my DJ before the Commodore's tour All Platinum tour. So Run was out playing basketball with this guy down the block named Jason Mizelle. Right, So he breaks his arm playing basketball, and so I'm like, yo, we gotta go on tour.
Man.
I was asking his dad. His dad's no, you can't go out onto please Dad, let me go.
Let me go.
He said no, no, you got to stay in school. He said no, please dad, let me go on to you. Look, you got one arm, you can't DJ. Yes, I can't look back right right. And so he didn't get to go and he stayed home. So when I got back off a tour about about four months later, that's when I heard that he started a group called Run DMC with his fellas that were up in the attic practicing and hanging out with him. And so the story is, if if Run didn't break his arm, there would be no run DMC.
He had just been your DJ. Yeah.
If Russell didn't have enough pool to be like dad, I'll take care of him. Like was Russell also traveling with you at.
The non Dad was running the show?
Yeah? Yeah, dad.
Dad was very powerful. He bought Run the Turntables.
Three brothers right like Danny Russell and run right. And this is because I was getting okay, yeah, okay, I was wondering.
Russell's the middle child and Joey is the run the youngest. Can I ask you a question that explain so much Russell's the middle child? Oh?
Yeah, you gotta make yourself distinct. What's your question about touring?
Because I know, since you were the first to ever tour like this internationally, there had to be like some mistakes.
There had to be like some.
Moments where you and you and Russell were like, okay, so we're not going to do this like that again. Like there were just so many new things to you guys, Like did you even know about writers?
Did you know? Like what didn't you know that you learned in.
Your first Yes, I had to learn it all.
I learned it all. Fly. Oh it was incredible.
I was I was the most sought after live act because it was just me and my DJ, just two people, two people, two turntables in a microphone.
Really yes, so not the first to start the entourage, right right, So you easy to work with.
But then Russell in eighty one, Oh boy, yeah, so here he comes with Larry Smith. Larry Smith was playing bass, play bass on the breaks and Christmas rap and.
So Larry Smith produced Orange Crust was the band for all those for Christmas rap.
No no, no, no, no, no, not Orange Crushed. That came after Russell took forty thousand dollars of my money and bought all his band and he gave it to Larry. Larry bought the band equipment and they said, all right, you're going out with the band. I'm like, what, how could you do that? I didn't okay this? He said, way, Hey, I'm the manager.
You built Larry Larry uh Smith's career.
Well, I got to give props to him because he was excellent musician, incredible producer. You know. I remember many of the nights we sat up and talked about, you know, my sound and trying to get a sound that was in between James Brown and Chic and Larry was the man.
He was definitely the man.
I love him so who worked on like Christmas wrapping and rapping blow.
And yeah, that was Larry. Larry was on the base. But you had John Trope, I was on guitar. And we had Jimmy Braylile who actually went on to become a Len drum an drum programmer, and he was on drums. And you know, so during that time, you know, we recorded in the studio like the seventies, in the sixties, it was a live band, you know what I mean, And and and we had to rehearse and you know, let's play it one more time and record it and hopefully it would come out.
Okay, I'm sorry, And we do White Guy in the Corner As a question, Yes, John Tropia.
Yeah, the guitarist.
Yes, so was he the guitar He's a to me, he's the famous jazz guitarist, right and.
He's on the breaks. Wow, that's his work, that's his his work on the break.
Run DMC stuff that was not well Edie did Martinez, Eddie Martinez Eddie.
Wow, No, I need to process. I'm not schooling on anything, but I don't know too much about about him, I just I have a few records.
You know, he don't get blown away easily, but it is Curtis.
That's just so really yeah, unexpected, it was unexpected name yeah, yeah, but he's a legend, definitely a legend. And you know, I remember seeing him in the studio because of my producer, JB. Moore was also a guitar player, and he couldn't do the guitars right the way we wanted it and the way he wanted it actually, and so when John came in and played.
It perfect, perfect rhythm, and it was just immaculate drives.
So for your first album, like, whose idea was it to do? Like taking care of business?
Girl?
What's the other one? That the slow one?
That's like all.
Fine that girl.
People don't even credit that as the first love ballot. So it's like for you, you were making in a format that was palatable. The radio was like Frankie Crocker in your mind, like okay was.
The label saying we need something that you know right? Well?
It was all by design, of course, you know, we wanted to you know, have a fusion with other forms of music because it was so brand new, this thing hip hop and rap, you know, so why not rap over a rock and roll song? Why not have a reggae rap? Or I was the first to do a country in Western rap, that Way Out West song. You know, you know we we we just tried to be different and tried to give something new.
Was a limit, man.
I feel in retrospect, though, do you see how like free you were in that moment, Because I feel like a lot of EMC's today out the gate couldn't just say I'm producing that in this different genre.
I'm like, they won't they wi be allowed to?
Well, here's the thing. I always wanted to be a singer, and I remember singing those singing songs that every album I'm put on the singing But listen, folks, it took me a couple of weeks to do those.
So in eighty three, uh in Philadelphia, Uh, Party Time record, Yes, which of course you know, well you would know that Tracy Lee like try to bring try to bring that back. So that was the first time I ever heard Full Force on record. So how did you how did you hook up with those guys as far as like did they produce that record?
Were they just a band? Or like what was how did you guys.
They became producers after that because we sat in the studio and talked about you know, uh JB. Moore and Robert Ford and what they were doing on my stuff and how they wanted to do the same thing but differently more funkier or more creative.
Uh.
So they were incredible. I met them through JB. Moore and Robert Ford and very very very talented musicians and singers, and it was incredible just to be a part of that. But the Go Go song, talk about it, Trouble for Wow, Trouble that was EU you So here it is on my birthday, I turned twenty one years old. I had the number one record in the country, and so I'm going down to play the Capitol Center down in d C. So I had my band, remember the Orange Crushed band.
I ain't got ten Bali's and oh man, we got eight eight nine pieces.
Right.
We rolled down into the Capital Center and I'm headlining this concert and they have all these local bands there and I didn't know what they were, you know what it was. So I'm walking the spot.
I'm here.
First time, that first time I'm here in gog Tell me you were you the whole crowd is going crazy. I'm saying, oh, I'm about to tear this.
Right.
So they were going crazy and it was a band called Trouble Funk. Then another band came on, you Freeze right. They went on the same thing, and the crowd is going crazy again, even more crazy. So I'm like, wow, Chuck Brown was it? Oh my god, right the Godfather. He comes out and tears up the spot too. So it's my turn. So I locked.
It, let me music up.
I throw on Christmas Wrapping. Were playing Christmas Wrapping. The band is tight, clean and everything, but the crowd is like this looking at us like I'm like, oh my gosh, I'm we better get to the breaks and you know quick on this one here, right, So I'm speeding through the set and then we throw on the brakes. Clap your hands there were right, right, and then like.
Still right. Number one record in country.
And so that night I got my butt tore up three or four different times. And for me it was like my mom's always said that you can't beat them, join them.
Hell yeah.
So I got all that numbers.
Nice. Nice.
Next year, I called my boys sugar.
Bear and Sugar Band playing party.
We did party time damn. Okay, yeah, okay, and it's just wonderful to have them in the studio just doing that thing live.
And how many pieces in the studio in that moment?
Oh yeah, it was like seven eight pieces.
Yeah, and so you were the first for that too, I'm guessing the first to do a Go Go collap.
Well, because Flashing them did they did a live version. Well, they actually signed Trouble Funk two records. The first live Go Go that I've heard it was Trouble Funk Live on Sugar Hills.
So the Robinson's got there early on that.
And then actually actually the first sample loop right was on the song if I Ruled the World, and and the sample was Trouble Funk you know that Pump Pump Pump push. I took the percussion part and laid it under if I Rule the World.
Okay, Okay, how did that feel for you to have that song come back and for people to learn that you're you know, you're the origin of of of.
That particular song, because that's all means so much to fans.
And he got better harmonies okay, you know it was just you and Alison Williams.
Actually right, that's Alison singing yes, yes, yes, yes, and Audrey Wheeler Yes.
Yes, yes, yes, and harmonies were better.
It was awesome.
It's it's the ultimate inflattery to to hear your song on the radio that you recorded some time ago. I remember when Sony sent me the tape. They sent me a cassette tape, and it was awesome. I sat there and played the tape in my car for about three hours, kept rewinding and rewinding it.
You know.
It was like, Oh my god, that's gotta be Laurence Hill.
That's gotta be Laurence Hill. You know. So I called them back.
I said, look, Sony, you guys got a big, major, major, monster hit on you. You better put all your promotion in this because this is going platinum. It went triple platinum.
Yeah, Now, did you think that we're too close or the same thing?
You heard it, but I didn't hear it. I didn't hear that song. Like like I sat and you know, listened to if I the World because I feel like the.
Checks are the same, like that song that's played more than the World right about next to close.
It was. It was huge, yet one song of the year I think in nineties something Jesus Christ.
I forgot about Next Day Christ.
That song like the song that you get annoyed because it just played all the time.
That the dance work.
You know, as a DJ, I need that song. So I get it. I know, uh, I don't want to skip eighty four. And I know that your involvement in the King celebration thing, yes, it was important. Can you tell the story. I've heard the story about you personally like Prince funding miss.
Is this celebrates yeah King?
Yes, So how did the idea come to be?
Well, I got a phone call from Dexter Scott King, Martin Luther King's son, and it was incredible. Here he goes, hello, Curtis, this is Dexter Scott King and I'm the son of Martin Luther King. And he sounds like I want you to produce.
A song about my fall.
So no, no, I hung up on him, right. I thought it was a prank. He called me back. I hung on him again. So the third time I listened to him, I was like, well, he's got to be real. He's calling three times. So we got together, became good friends.
To another guy, Philip Jones, who was the other producer on the set, and I went to back to Mercury PolyGram and convinced them to sponsor this song, and uh they paid for the studio and I called all the artists it was no one said no. So the idea was to use all the people that weren't in We Are the World right.
And so.
Houston Whitney said yes, and uh Stephanie Mills said yes, man, no with Ricky it was incredible.
You give us one note?
Who was the one artist is like mm, yeah, I'll make it and then didn't know.
Everyone said yeah, it was incredible. It's such a meaningful song, you know. To be a part of that, and it was. It was a lot of fun to make, you know.
Uh.
So, so the record company did not want to pay.
For the video the music video, okay, so.
Uh dexter dex went and and and got with Prince and asked Prince when he paid for it. And he calls me up and said, Prince said he's gonna put up ninety thousand dollars for his music video. And I was like, oh my gosh, yes it did. And Prince and I became friends after that. I mean, he was really really a nice guy. I forgot and you know me, I'm trying to, you know, hang out with all the stars that I could. And so I went back to my record company and said, ook o.
Something for me and Prince. We got to do something together.
So they did Beverly Page. She hooked up this picture autograph session with me and Prince. I think we were in Detroit somewhere, and the club was packed. There's a line outside of all these women, right, and so Prince signs about fifteen hundred autographs and takes about fifteen hundred pictures and me, I took about ten pictures.
Really, he was a big he was superstar. People loved him. Man, what a great guy. Wow, yep, yep. Still uncharacteristic of them. Yeah, you never know.
Working on the Crush Groove sound movie, Yes, well obviously you know we know that's based on the life of Russell Simmons. But how was that experience for you in general?
Well, it was it was a lot of hard work. I'll tell you the truth, because during that time I was a producer, and so I was producing the Fat Boys second album and producing my America album with If I Row the World on it, and also the Crush Groove soundtrack. So I was producing three albums at one time and had deadlines and all that. So I was going to three different studios every day.
You know.
It was hard work, hard work.
And then I had to wake up at six in the morning to get on film set, you know, to do the movie. And it was a lot of work. As a matter of fact, I kind of like took a break.
You know.
The last thing I did was a Martin Luther King song, and then I took a break for about five years. Didn't go into the studio, couldn't go in.
Too much working. It was too much because he didn't produce the third Fat Boys record. No, what was it like? Just man, Well, were you managing them at the time or just not using them.
Their manager was a guy by the name of Charlie Stetler from Right Right and he also manages Scribbles, DJ Scribbles and Doctor Dre and ed Lover from your MTV raps. But Charlie was their manager and they were signed to Suture Records and Mars Levy it was it was.
Marsh Levy on Sutra.
Yeah, oh wow, oh yeah, yo.
That explains a lot.
I never thought after Rule Records and the hit Man Book, I thought mars Levy.
You got hit Man, like is not good book is hit Man? You know right sleeve owns Sutra.
But they were some good guys man, you know from Brooklyn, good Fellas and None the Fat Boys, you know.
Those guys man Jesus Christ. Yeah, Like for me, that album managed you captured their their humor spirit in a way that you know, hip hop hadn't seen before. And especially that first record like that. I think everyone that's of my age now like that was their first experience, either that or the run DMC record. But yeah, just producing, I mean, how hard was it trying to explain like they don't need music and just beat the culture beatboxing?
And how how did you manage it? How many takes would it take to get like those songs?
They were great in the studio. It was awesome them.
What is on the record that humor that that that that genuine personality comes through? Because I just you know, let the record button go and I remember buff rest in peace. He said one time he said.
Yo yo yo, Kurt Man, Yo yo, All I want.
Is a call. He got two houses and all of this stuff. Man, and these guys were incredible and they love music. I found out as a producer. The basic job of a producer is to make people's dreams come true.
You know.
You take them around a basis and bring them home and when you get home, you know you have that finished product. And that's our job.
Well, how where was it letting a fourteen year old produce you because salam Remy got to start as a fourteen year old kid.
Well, like, he had the tracks, you know, and I wanted to give him a shot. His dad was a very good friend. He worked at the record company. He was one of the promoters promotion department. He actually introduced me to his son and said, you know, he's got some good stuff. And I said, well, I'll give him a shot.
How about that? You know.
So he did the back by Popularity the Man song, you know, and that was great. He actually asked Molly mar to do the scratches on it, and Mally came down to the studio really because of his kid, and got on the record and started scratching and wow, the rest is history.
It's crazy.
So, at the end of the day, what do you want your legacy to be? As far as your I mean, you've done so many things to be first of this and first of that, like where do you see the history of hip hop as far as like preserving it and those types of things like how do you want to see the culture preserved?
Well, what do you think of rap today? That question?
Well, you know, there's there's a project we're working on called the Universal Hip Hop Museum where we want to document this history and put it in a brick and mortar location where the whole world can come and visit and see and be a part of it. And just you know, the many stories, the many uh lives, and the many careers and and the so much talent that has been a part of this way of life that
it needs to be documented. It needs to be stored and cherished and supported in one place, and we're doing that, working on that right now. So you can go to u h h M dot org to find out more information about the Universal Hip Hop Museum. But as for me, I want people to remember me as as a guy who actually was a big part of practical study, so very important even in music. Whatever it is that you want to do in life, I think that practical study is very important. You go and do your research in
that field of whatever it is. Doctor lawyer, businessman, rapper, singer, DJ doesn't matter. Study the history of it, and within that history, find out someone who was successful and study the steps that they took to achieve that success, and then repeat those steps, mimic those steps, and then I guarantee you also will achieve success.
So do you think then, basically, since you were the first in so many situations, Because I'm thinking as you're speaking, I'm like Curtis Blow is sitting next to us. He was the first person to get a major endorsement deal, right, nineteens are just bloomer endorsement deals. Basically, it seems like it should be a part of the education matriculation of an MC right to have a Curtis Blow education since you were reverse right, I mean there are other classes on others.
Well, I'm a big, avid supporter of education.
Education.
Education is the key to success, is the key to getting out of the ghetto. Research, you know, bring the classroom into the culture, and the culture into the classroom. Very important doing your research, like I said, and we as rappers just speaking on rap, you know, the oratory,
we are orators, we are communicators. So I majored in communications and studied the greatest orators of our time like Barbara Jordan and Winston Churchill and Martin Luther King, Malcolm X. And I found out that we have all of these options and windows that we can open, doors that we can open as the orators of this culture, like for instance, public speaking politics. You have broadcasting, you know, uh, television, radio, broadcasting, journalism.
Uh, here's one for your preaching. I've got you our father Walker, you're.
Correct ordained minister and and so and so you know, and study your all. Studying all of the great orators of our time, I found out that the most passionate of the speakers, the oratory or the orators were the preachers and the reverence. You know, many of those speeches like Martin Luther King and Malcolm X. You know that gave me the fortitude and and the will and want to take it to the next level in this field. And as an MC, that means that you're a master
of the ceremony. It doesn't matter what the ceremony is. You can be on the street corner and a circle full of twenty people. You can you at a club, you can be at a block party or a park jam. You can be at a community center. You can be at a concert with five people or twenty thousand. You know, you can be at a bar mitzvah, you know, wherever it is. I've played a couple of bar mins for in my time. Yes, yes, and you know so that is the story. You are a master of any ceremony.
I don't know anybody who has used their communications degree to the levels that you have. In this moment, I just realized that I was like all my life, I think as a communications major, I was like, maybe I should have did business and something like that.
But now that you've broken it down like that, No, you.
Got some windows, you got some communication.
You're literally I.
Am, but I you know, you got to have some multiple hustles, as you know yourself as a former radio host.
Yes, yes, I.
Just want to stay away from politics these days.
More people like you, you know, and in front of the masses. You know, what can I say? Wait, I want to mention that the please I totally forgot. I'm still caring in the history, I totally forgot. So yeah, the hip Hop Nutcracker explained to me this project, like how.
Wow, Well, the hip Hop Nutcracker is a modernized version of the classic Tchaikovsky's incredible classical music. We are now uh doing hip hop dance and break dancing and and and ballet and and and uh bringing the story uh to the masses with the the culture of hip hop in the forefront. And so it's a new modernized version.
Is really something that every family should see is doing the holiday season, you know, when when when love is in the air and everyone's hugging on each other and trying to thank each other for putting up with you all year long. You know, just go out and have a great time seeing this classic, classic rendition of Chaikovsky's hit.
But so like all the songs are filtered through hip hop, so there's like trap versions of the sugar Plum song.
Thing thing thing I might need to do that.
It's incredible because we have a DJ who is actually playing beats under this classic music, and we have an electric violinist who's doing their things. But the creators of Jennifer Weber want to give her a shout out. She's also the choreographer and director and Michael Fittterson Uh put together this piece that is a great, great holiday family fun classic. So it's it's it's a it's it's a show that everyone needs to see. All ages, all races
don't matter. It's incredible. It's it's really a good look for hip hop and a good look for music in general.
That's good. I mean for you being on the forefront of.
One of the first hip hop ballets, and I mean you were there when hip hop was in stadiums with the Fresh Fest.
And to go from there all the way.
To to where we are now, that's that's quite a journey. We thank you for coming on the show.
Yeah, I thank you for having me, you know, and a big shout out to all the dancers who are part of that because we have so much talent that's out there.
You know.
These young dancers are coming out, you know, from all over the world, and they have so much mad flavor, so many different styles from power moves to you know, to to the wave to pop locking. You know, it's incredible to see how it's all look together and how Jennifer whoever did this thing and the choreography is incredible.
Wow.
Oh thank you.
Can I thank John and your wife Shirley too, because this has been like a year and a half in the work. We're here, like thank you, Shirley, thank you, Thank you.
Well, ladies and gentlemen on behalf of the crew, the Team Supreme, Unpaid, Bill Boss, Bill Sugar, Steven Laia, This of course, Love, thank you very much.
Uh whose formats for?
Did you? Did you pleasure? I know them? We are stopping right here, you know this, of course, Love Supreme. We'll see you on the next one round.
Thank you.
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