When did you start playing? What made you start playing records? I played up there once, for Junebug’s birthday. After that, a guy named Starchild had the contract there. Right there, Junebug and a guy named Sweet G. This guy named John Brown, he used to go to my school – Alfred E. You never used to see him, they was in a room. Instead of disrespect, you know, you dissed me. Guys just used to breakdance… Right then, slang was in, and we shortened words down. My terms came in after I started to play – I called them b-boys. That was just the break, and people would go off. Yeah, people were dancing, but they weren’t calling it b-boying. But before Disco Fever there was the Puzzle. Disco Fever used to be right here on 167th. It’s where we used to meet up and party at. Me, guys like Phase 2, Stay High, Sweet Duke, Lionel 163 – all the early graffiti writers – used to come through there. A place called the Tunnel and a place called the Puzzle, right on 161st Street – that was the first disco I used to party at. I started to get involved in it right after my house got burned down. When did you start to get involved in it? Yeah, to see how the kids danced, see how they talked. The Murphy projects was like a recreation room, where they used to give parties once a month, right by the Cross Bronx Expressway, about a block off Third Avenue. At the time people couldn’t understand what I was saying because I had a heavy Jamaican accent… There were places like the Murphy projects. took out the speakers and made my own little boxes for my room. But when I got here I saw a lot of abandoned cars and TVs. And we’d sit on the side and watch, “Oh shit, that’s such and such.”ĭid you ever think, when you heard the sounds, that you’d end up doing that? “Yeah, that’s such and such, man.” We’re little kids, but their reputation precedes them. We on our skateboards, skating round, you know, and you saw the little gangster kids, and they knew who was from the gangs, or the bad boys. If I was 17, 18… yeah, I would have been definitely up in it. But this guy named George – Big George, King George – used to bring his set there.ĭo you remember any of the parties in particular? I didn’t know the name of the soundsystem. Which were the sounds that played where you were? The whole yard would be concrete, and there’d be a high fence, so you can’t see in. Matter of fact, I lived in a dancehall one time. They used to make watercolor signs and put them on light posts, to let people know there’s going to be a dance coming.Ī dancehall… you all could tell a dancehall, a spot where a dance was at. And before that, a guy used to put up watercolor signs. We used to be playing at marbles and riding our skateboards, used to see the guys bringing the big boxes inside of the handcarts. There was a dancehall near where I lived, up in Franklyn Town. When he came here, he started to work at Clark’s Equipment Company, out in Queens.ĭo you remember the soundsystems out in Jamaica? In Jamaica, he used to work in Newport West, fixed the high lifts, the forklifts. He caught a seizure in the water… People and didn’t rescue him out of the water. No, he came here, but he was going back and forth. My father died, and it took something out of me. I lived on Second Street, around by the Ambassador Theatre… Right now, they say grass grows in the streets there. He used to live on First Avenue, or First Street. My first neighborhood I lived in was Trenchtown. He didn’t know people was worshipping him like that. When Selassie came to the plane window, he turned back in and started crying. They never seen so much Rastas in all their fuckin’ life in Jamaica. I remember when Emperor Haile Selassie came there.
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