Stretch & Bobbito

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

In 1998, The Source magazine called the Stretch & Bobbito radio show “the greatest hip-hop radio show of all time.”

[applause]

Ladies and gentleman, Stretch Armstrong and Bobbito.

[applause]

How’re you fellas doing today, alright?

Stretch Armstrong

Not bad. That was a “yes.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

In 1998, you’ve been named the greatest hip-hop radio show of all time. You guys are fans, obviously, of hip-hop radio in New York, how did that make you guys feel at the time? Do you feel like you were deserving of that title?

Stretch Armstrong

If anyone remembers that issue of The Source, there was a photograph in it. Anyone remember that? Anyone remember my haircut? Crazy, crazy. Everyone across the world saw that, and it was very embarrassing. But for me, some of my earliest hip-hop experiences were me listening to the radio in the ’80s in New York. That was an essential part of my becoming a DJ in the first place. I mean, the first time that I knew what scratching was I was hearing it on the radio. I didn’t know what it was but I wanted to find out. So, obviously, getting that kind of accolade was tremendous, but I took it with a grain of salt, ‘cause to me what we were doing, didn’t measure up to what Marley Marl and Chuck [Chillout] and Red Alert were doing in the ’80s, which to me was the ultimate.

Bobbito

I remember being humbled by the award. Taking a step back, and similar to Stretch, thinking about all the people I grew up with, listening to, I did college and community and mix-show promotion for Def Jam from 1989 to 1993. So, it wasn’t like I just listened to Marley Marl and Pete Rock and Kevvy Kev and Special K and Teddy Ted and the Dirty Dozen and Red Alert and Prince Messiah, I knew them, they were friends of mine. They invited us to their shows, we invited them to our show. It was a real community, and it was beyond that ‘cause if anybody remembers, to bring it to the Bay, King Tech & Sway were on that top three list of all time, and we knew their pedigree in terms of having a syndicated radio show. Being nationwide is something that Stretch and I always aspired to, which we eventually wound up being, just by virtue of hand-to-hand cassette dubs and people bootlegging our tapes.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Worldwide, really.

Bobbito

Yeah, that was worldwide. This is pre-Internet. But when I looked at it, and after being shocked and surprised and happy, I actually said, “You know what? We do deserved that.” ‘Cause what Red, Marley, Mr. Magic, Chuck Chillout and all those people were doing in the ’80s was great, but we took it a step... different. That’s all. We just changed the face of rap radio. We had four hours of programming, which none of them had, commercial-free, which none of them had. Stretch would play a GG Allin record.

[laughter]

And if you know GG Allin...

Stretch Armstrong

That’s a footnote.

Bobbito

I’m just saying we had a lot of liberty to do things that other stations either didn’t have the courage to do or...

Stretch Armstrong

...the legality to do. I think that’s where you’re trying to go. [laughs]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

The things about the show that people always point to in terms of why it was such a great program, obviously, [were] the records being broken, the freestyles, the different acts that premiered on your show. But beyond all that, to me anyways, from being there listening all these years, is that the show represented a community and an era in New York. We’re talking a lot about New York City in light of the Academy being in New York this year. And to me it was always one of the great things about this show. You guys are native New Yorkers, your tone, your style, how you talked, how you snapped on one another, how you snapped on the callers: everything was so much a part of being in the blood of a native New Yorker. Me not being a native New Yorker I thought like I knew even moreso what it was like just from listening to you guys and your listeners. I don’t know what your observations are on that.

Stretch Armstrong

Yes. Bob?

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yes or no, Bob?

Bobbito

The thing about the ’80s, even for college radio, and since I was doing promotions, I was listening to a lot of cassettes from across the country. A lot of people aspired to use college radio as a sort of stepping stone to commercial radio. Stretch and I initially had no aspirations for that, we just wanted to do a fun show. We wouldn’t be on the mic like, “And coming up at 5 PM...”

Stretch Armstrong

“We got the mega dope blast coming up.”

Bobbito

We didn’t even give a tracklisting of what we had played. It would drive people crazy.

Stretch Armstrong

For about the first two months, you would actually write down the songs. And then I think at one point, you just crumpled up the list, threw it, did a hook shot right into the garbage and it never happened again.

Bobbito

I think the thing that endeared us to people is that we weren’t trying to be anybody but ourselves, and Stretch drooled on the mic. [laughs]

Stretch Armstrong

You think that’s bad?

[laughter]

Bobbito

When my hairline started disappearing, it was okay, we were okay just to be ourselves, just be goofy and nerdy, you know?

Stretch Armstrong

When we started the first show, I was DJing downtown in clubs, but that was really your first step out in the public realm. On the first show, I’m DJing and I’m nervous as hell ‘cause I know that potentially at least 15 people are listening. So, I’m getting into it and then Bob turns the fader up, “Aaah!” And turns the mic right back down. You just freaked out, remember? You did.

[laughter]

Bobbito

What I said was, “Wassup New York?!” And I was just so scared I just brought the mic back down. It was overwhelming. You’re in New York. This is, like, the hip-hop capital of the world at that point and I’m a nerd.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Listen, the reason why I wanted Bob to do the radio show with me in the first place, I mean, yes, he was at Def Jam, we had only known each other for weeks at that point, months maybe, but it was obvious we were going to be really good friends just from our first initial meeting. One of the reasons I wanted Bob to do the show with me was ‘cause I didn’t want to be on the radio talking. I did not want to talk, I just wanted to play the music that I loved and the idea of me talking was bananas. Then I started talking a little bit. The reason why I eventually became a blabbermouth was because when Funkmaster Flex and 9MM came up – when they were a group on Warlock Records and they had “F.A.L.L.I.N. (And Ya’ Can’t Get Up),” and Flex was up in the clubs uptown in the Bronx – Flex was like, “Yo, your show is killing it. But yo, you’re the DJ! You gotta talk more! People don’t know who you are!” That’s why I became a blabbermouth, but it took a minute.

Bobbito

I never knew that.

Stretch Armstrong

It took a minute for me to even be comfortable talking on the radio, and I think that goes to show the kind of awkwardness of being on the radio in the first place to where we ended up, I mean, it’s just an authentic kind of honest, this is who we are [approach]. The whole time we did that show, there were no windows. Radio stations, the ones I have seen, don’t usually have great views, you’re just in a room, totally sealed off. That’s what the experience was like, it was just us and our friends in a room every Thursday night. It was like Cheers. I mean, if people were listening, cool, but we didn’t need people to be listening. We loved the music we played. We had more fun laughing than I think I’ve ever had anywhere else. The accolades, the feedback from calls, all that was just sort of icing on the cake.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Plus, you also had legitimate, credible artists coming up to the show from jump.

Stretch Armstrong

Yeah, for sure. Certainly, with Bob being at Def Jam, he had a lot of connections from there and I was downtown in the club scene. The reason we met was because the idea of getting promos in the ’80s from legitimate hip-hop labels was like Christmas every day. So when I was popping down in the clubs enough to actually get some Def Jam promos, that’s how I ended up going to Def Jam, and this man was the first person that I saw when I was there. That’s how we met.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What was Def Jam’s office like back then?

Bobbito

We were at 652 Broadway between Bleecker and Bond.

Stretch Armstrong

It was actually odd. I mean, I walked in, no receptionist, looking around, “Is this Def Jam? What’s going on?” It was bizarre, and then I stuck my head in the conference room and saw this guy putting records in envelopes, and I was like, “Is there a Robert Garcia here?” And he was, “Yeah, that’s me.”

[laughter]

And I was like, “Alright. I need some records.” [laughs]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Bob, what was your impression of this gentleman upon meeting him first?

Stretch Armstrong

Woah, he’s gonna talk about hair probably. I had a lot of interesting haircuts. I got an interesting haircut right now.

[laughter]

Last week, I saw this guy –

Bobbito

It’s my turn to talk. Let’s go back to 1990.

[they grab one another]

Stretch Armstrong

One second.

Bobbito

Ugh. Your underarms are all wet.

[laughter]

We're on Red Bull TV right now. Stop. [laughs]

Stretch Armstrong

This is what I wanted to talk about, our friend’s birthday party. We’re not going to go there. We see each other twice a year and he wants to snap on me.

Bobbito

I saw Stretch before I knew anything. I went to [this club] Mars and he was in the basement DJing. When I walked in, he played Kool G Rap as I walked in. And I was a huge G Rap fan, so I immediately was like, “I don’t know who this kid is, but he’s nasty.” And the rest of the night he played Ultramagnetic [MC’s], Uptown’s “Dope On Plastic” on Tommy Boy and just on and on and on. He was just playing joints. That was my first impression of him.

Stretch Armstrong

I thought he was going to say something else.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It was very complementary, actually. You know, Stretch was holding it down downtown at the parties, for those who were not there at the time. I remember going to see a Stetsasonic show on the Lower East Side on 3rd Street. I went into the venue and there was nobody there, it was real early. They had a balcony area and I walked upstairs, looking around at the room, and there’s nobody in the entire place, except sitting in the bleachers upstairs in the balcony was De La Soul, just looking bored out of their minds. Eventually, it filled up but you were playing dancehall early, and I will always remember that night because it filled up, obviously, and it was rocking, but Stretch played a blend of Foster Sylvers’ “Misdemeanor” with Special Ed “[Think About It]” instrumental underneath. Anyways, that’s my own personal memory of that night. Yeah, I’m a nerd too, in case you didn’t know.

Stretch Armstrong

Pre-historic mash-up.

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It was all pre. There were no turntables, it was pre-everything.

Stretch Armstrong

No turntables. I had Foster Sylvers over here and Special Ed over here.

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

When did you guys realize that the show was actually starting to take off? You’re isolated in this room and only with your friends. When did you start getting the feedback that made you realize this was something special?

Bobbito

Like Stretch said, his main thing was to play records and my thing was to try to produce the show as best possible. I would answer the phones, and I would give out the address and read the letters on-air. And the letters were the thing that validated us super-quickly. At first, I didn’t know if I had a right, if I was justified to represent hip-hop on radio in New York. And that’s part of the reason I was nervous on the first show. I mean, it’s New York. It’s a history. Our first audience was the incarcerated population of the Tri-State area. Within the second show we were getting letters from Rikers. I had never been involved in crime or been to prison, but I knew every single —

Stretch Armstrong

Except in the movies.

[laughter]

Bobbito

But we got all these letters from people that would say, “Yo, you’re making my bid easier ‘cause I have something to look forward to every Thursday night.” These are like dudes from Rahway Prison, life sentences. I would read their shout-outs and all of a sudden, their friends and their families could have a dialogue with their people inside. They were our first advocates. They would write home and be like, “Y’all got to check out these people on Thursday nights from 1 AM to 5 AM.” Then, as they would get out... Immediately, we had security guards, cab drivers, all the late-night — we were on from 1 AM to 5 Am on a Thursday night, it was not the ideal time slot to make a world-renowned show. We were the against-the-odds type of crew. But it was really early on. But then in, like, the first three months, we had [MC] Serch, Def Jef, Busta Rhymes, Kurious, Jungle Brothers, Bonz Malone. Large Professor wrote his rhyme for “Live At The Barbeque” in our studio.

Stretch Armstrong

I actually have video footage of him doing “Live At The Barbeque” on our show, reading the rhymes off the paper. It’s not on YouTube. Don’t even bother looking. You will not find it.

Bobbito

So basically, within three months it was no longer Stretch and me calling up cats like, “Yo, you wanna come to the show?” At that point, within three months, now everybody was hittin’ us up. Everybody that you can imagine, from unsigned to indie to major is hitting us up to be on our show within three months. We had 10,000 watts. We had listeners in Delaware, Pennsylvania, Connecticut, New York and New Jersey. We had a lot of listeners.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Now, initially though, you guys split the weeks, right? It was your show on one Thursday and then another show on the next.

Stretch Armstrong

This guy was working at Def Jam full-time, I was a student at Columbia and...

Bobbito

I went to college, too.

Stretch Armstrong

He did. He went to Wesleyan. Very prestigious. Hard to get into. And expensive. [laughs] Alright. I was a student at Columbia. The first thing I did even before I started, I went to the station in the summertime and someone answered the door, and I think before I could even finish the phrase hip-hop, the door was slammed in my face. They were just not trying to have it.

Bobbito

Wait. The reason why I was there, Pete Nice from 3rd Bass in ‘87 was a Columbia student, and he had the first hip-hop show on that station. A lot of people don’t know that. His DJs were Clark Kent and Daddy Rich. Imagine that. And they got kicked off the air for being accused of stealing equipment from the studio. So that’s why they weren’t kind to hip-hop in ’90 when Stretch comes along.

Stretch Armstrong

Which makes no sense, because the equipment that KCR had when we got on the air was like from 1963. Seriously. They had the VU meters and stereo, but one side would always fail, and so we literally had to use the percussive method, which was to actually punch the board. Remember the dust that would come out of that? Big, big dust balls. Seriously, for real. So anyway, and then once the semester started, I got word from a friend of mine who who had a jazz show and he said, “Oh, yo. Adrian,” I wasn’t even Stretch at the time. He said, “Yo, there’s a hip-hop show,” thinking I’d be happy about that, and I was like, “What? Hold on. I was first in line.” So I went back to the station, pleaded my case, and got us on the air. We were alternating with another show. Then that other show, they lost their chance to be on the radio by, I think being intoxicated on the air. We benefited from their foolishness. We hit the ground. We were every week, I would say, starting probably November 8th of 1990.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It’s funny, because the footage that you referenced a little while ago, there’s another clip from that same night on YouTube. Unfortunately, I didn’t have the wherewithal to think about showing it here. But I think there is a clip from that night, because I think you had said on Twitter, something like that, “Yeah, you should have seen the footage of Large Professor.” I know Claw and some other people are up there, some friends of yours. It’s pretty bugged out though to see you guys just from the early days just doing it then. I wonder if you could also speak a little bit about as far as the role of the show and you guys in not only breaking these acts but, really, this community. People don’t necessarily realize that between you guys, your friends, and people you knew who had labels, The Source magazine, and Matty C, this was sort of a platform for a lot of this music to get out there. I mean, you could read about it in the magazines, but you could also hear it on your show, a lot of important people became A&R’s, became the foundation for ’90s hip-hop in New York, through this circle that you guys were a part of. And I don’t know if people realize, that this is all intrinsically linked. It’s just another reason why this show was so important.

Stretch Armstrong

No. Next question. [laughs]

Bobbito

I think we should state some of the artists that we were instrumental in helping out when they were unsigned – [it] would be like this roll call of the most seminal artists that changed the face of the industry for the ’90s and beyond. That would include Jay-Z, who came up when he had a 12” deal, no album deal, Nas as an unsigned rapper…

Stretch Armstrong

Unsigned, coming up by himself from Queensbridge in the middle of the night, as a 16- or 17-year-old. I swear he came up once wearing shorts. Shorts. Who wears shorts going to a hip-hop show?

Bobbito

We got Biggie Smalls, thanks to Matty C, who wrote the “Unsigned Hype” column at The Source and would funnel artists that he was finding out about to us. The first time anyone heard Biggie Smalls outside of Fort Greene/Bed-Stuy was on our radio show. Wu-Tang. Big Pun, when he was Big Dog The Punisher. Fat Joe. Matty C brought us up a group called Poetical Prophets, they later became Mobb Deep. Big L brought up his “8 Iz Enuff” crew, which included Killa Cam, who later became Cam’ron. Murda Mase, who later became Ma$e. And then Simply II Positive MC’s, who later became known as Organized Konfusion, who later broke up and Pharoahe Monch was a part of that. There were 30 or 35 artists. We also helped re-ignite some careers as well. Craig G, Kool Keith. Then there’s the whole super-indie community of Company Flow and Juggaknots, all those cats that really stamped a movement from ‘95 on. Those were the artists that would come up to our show. We were blessed. We didn’t know any of them were going to blow up the way they did. And when they did, people would look back at our show and be like, “Oh snap! Who’s gonna come through their show next?” And it brought a lot more attention to us as those artists started to get big.

Stretch Armstrong

To answer your previous question about when we got the sense that the show started to mean something, all of artists that [Bobbito] mentioned were ’90s artists. I think it’s safe to say that if you were an artist in the ’90s from the New York Tri-State area, you came through our show.

Bobbito

Das Efx, Redman, Fugees.

Stretch Armstrong

What was incredible for me was to have the legends of the ’80s wanna come through our show. And I would say that probably the only artists that did not come through, and didn’t need to, was LL [Cool J].

Bobbito

Rakim never came through. And when Canibus and LL had the beef, one of Wyclef’s contentions with L was that he never came to me and Stretch’s show. It was like, “You’re wack! ‘Cause you never went to Bobbito’s show.” Like, how do Wyclef know that?

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

We had some legendary nights with G Rap. The first time that G came up... You can imagine. If you know G’s records –

Bobbito

We were scared.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Not just the legendary status of the records, but his persona on the records. He’s an intimidating guy. I mean, he came by at 1:30 AM. He didn’t leave until 4:30 AM, and then called up the show when he got home. And we proceeded to snap on each other on the phone. And I’m thinking, “Is this alright? Can I snap on G Rap?”

Bobbito

We snapped on his mom’s five minutes into being on the air.

Stretch Armstrong

He loved it. I mean, no one ever spoke to him like that.

[laughter]

Bobbito

Do you know who G Rap is? Go back and listen to “Wanted Dead or Alive.” You know who also used to call our show too, God bless the dead? Ol’ Dirty Bastard when he was A Son Unique and unsigned, used to call our show from Staten Island and freestyle and we would be jubilant that he would be on me and Stretch’s radio show. Again, it was like the stamp [of approval].

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You guys gave a hard time to most people that tried to freestyle though.

Stretch Armstrong

They loved it, though. Bunch of masochists.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah, they really were. I mean, it was fascinating as a listener to listen to everybody repeatedly call, to try to come at you guys, and Lord Sear, who later became part of the show, and just get destroyed.

Bobbito

People would call up and talk to us and we’d be like, “OK, cool. Peace.” And they would stop, and get quiet, like, “That’s it?” “Yeah, peace.” “You’re not gonna snap on me?” “You big, hot dog-faced...” And then we would cook ‘em. Like, they wanted to get hung up on.

[laughter]

It was the weirdest thing, a whole community of masochists.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who were some of the regular masochists who would call up? Did you know them by name?

Bobbito

We knew all of them by name. We had Paula Apanti. We used to call her Paula A-pantease. Anna from Woodside, Queens. They would call up every week.

Stretch Armstrong

Those were the two women that listened to the show.

Bobbito

No. Madam Superior.

Stretch Armstrong

Three. [laughs]

Bobbito

I was answering the phones, so people started trusting us. This dude shot somebody one night and called me up, “Yo, what do I do?”

[laughter]

“Is this the suicide hotline? Call up 411, I don’t know. I’ve never shot anybody.”

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Write a ryhme.

[laughter]

Bobbito

It was really bizarre. There was a dude named Devious that would call up...

Stretch Armstrong

This guy would call up for five years every week, and when you answered the phone he would make animal sounds. Mostly donkeys, right?

Bobbito

And then he got my home number at one point and I changed my home number, y’all. My home number used to be 982-SUCK. Dead ass. 7825, Look it up. And I had to change my shit when Devious found my home number. There was a lot of characters, man. Bolo Brown. He used to call up, and then we started calling him Bowl of Brown Shit. And then what’s... ? Treasure. [laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Treasure. Hoo!

Bobbito:

Yeah, we’re going to leave Treasure alone.

Stretch Armstrong

How about Big Graveyard?

Bobbito

Big Graveyard?

Stretch Armstrong

Yeah, he was locked up.

Bobbito

Mostly, he had a crush on Treasure.

Stretch Armstrong

Big Graveyard was locked up. He said, “Yo, when I get out, you need any help, back up, I got you.” Oh, boy. He’s still in, though.

Bobbito

He’s going to see this video now, “I’m gonna fuck you up, Stretch.” [laughs] Bitch. Big Graveyard. Peace.

Stretch Armstrong

Love you. Shout out.

Bobbito

Love you Brother. Word.

Stretch Armstrong

Rahway!

Bobbito

I still got all the letters that we ever got. I saved them. I’ve got them in a...

Stretch Armstrong

A lot of artwork. People would do artwork. Nice landscapes.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did anybody who called up and got abused, did anybody from that crew ever actually come?

Stretch Armstrong

Yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Did it go bad?

Stretch Armstrong

Well, they didn’t. JoJo Pellegrino was a caller.

Bobbito

Tame One.

Stretch Armstrong

Tame One and El Da Sensei, Artifacts. They were callers.

Bobbito

They won a freestyle contest that we did over the phone. We invited them up to the show. They wound up getting signed to Big Beat. Become a Unsigned Hype at The Source. There’s a lot of ugly stuff that happened back then too, though. People would call up and give us death threats. There were a couple of times when artists waited for us outside the studio at 5AM. [laughs]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What happened?

Stretch Armstrong

And play shotput with my record crates. Whew!

Bobbito

Unbelievable what adrenaline can do at 5 AM.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Based on what, though? Just a snap session?

Bobbito

Nah, it was never for snaps.

Stretch Armstrong

Usually, it was not being allowed in the premises without being invited. Listen, we didn’t have a staff. I was hustling from Thursday to Thursday getting cassettes, test pressings, and DATs. Bob and I were both arranging guests. During the show, I was literally DJing and this guy was answering the door, answering the phone, co-hosting, making sure no one was violating the... I mean, there was plenty of violating going on, blunts, guns. Sounds like the title of a hip-hop record, right? Blunts, guns and graffiti.

Bobbito

Yeah, there was some people that violated the station, you know...

Stretch Armstrong

Well, that’s just par for the course.

Bobbito

We didn’t let them in, they wanted to get their demo played. Wu-Tang, the first time they came up, Stretch wasn’t there. I was there by myself, I didn’t have an FCC license. I wasn’t supposed to be on the radio alone, and five dudes, I’m sure. I know it was RZA because I recognized him. He had came up when he was Prince Rakeem. It was him, I remember Ghostface [Killah], and three other dudes, and Ghostface was the one that was acting like crazy, like, “Yo Money, play our joint! Play our joint!”

Stretch Armstrong

And Mimi Valdes, a dear friend of ours...

Bobbito

That was another night.

Stretch Armstrong

OK.

Bobbito

They cursed on Mimi Valdes who wound to up becoming the editor-in-chief of Vibe magazine. She was our homegirl. She used to help us answer the door. They apologized. Method Man apologized on air though. But yeah, there’s a lot of ugly moments.

Stretch Armstrong

Shout out to Wu-Tang!

[laughter]

Bobbito

Yo, did you see Method Man in Red Tails?

Stretch Armstrong

Nah.

Bobbito

Yo, ya’ll seen Red Tails? Method Man is in Red Tails. Yo. Go see that, man. Yeah. Wu-Tang!

Stretch Armstrong

Wu-Tang.

Bobbito

So we were the first people to play the Wu-Tang “Protect Ya Neck” record when it was a white label and it didn’t even have an inscription on what it was. So, I played it. Stretch wasn’t there, and his boy, Eli Morgan Gesner, anybody know who that is? Zoo York founder, skateboarder legend. Calls up, he’s like, “Yo, Bob. What was that record with the karate shit in the beginning?” I’m like, “I don’t know. I don’t know. I gave it to Stretch.” And then the rest is history, they became a powerful force in the ’90s.

Stretch Armstrong

Still are. Raekwon came down to the 20th reunion that we had in New York City last year. If any of you have had the joy of working in the hip-hop industry and working with artists, you know that sometimes it takes a few phone calls and reinforcements, and you still don’t know if someone is going to show up on time or at all. I tell you, Raekwon, he showed up and he said, “I told you I’d be here,” and he just destroyed that party.

Bobbito

A lot of people made that night, but he particularly. Yeah, it was another level.

Stretch Armstrong

It was phenomenal.

Bobbito

Shout out to Raekwon. Shout out to Wu-Tang. Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang, Wu-Tang.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Why don’t we play a little something just to give people... I mean, I’m assuming that a lot of people know the show, but this gives you a little idea, the way the show was going down back in the day.

(music: Stretch Armstrong & Bobbito radio show Big L & Jay-Z freestyle / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

That Jay-Z guy, he’s not bad, huh? You know, it’s funny though. I mean, but seriously, this was recorded February 23rd, 1995, and I’m sure at the time it was like, “Yo, Big L ripped it. The Jay-Z guy was cool, too.” You know? Here we are in 2012, and, I mean, Jay-Z is Jay-Z. It’s funny how the perspective at the time... You know how they say in professional sports “The difference between a good team and a championship team may only be just a few different breaks”? I mean, I feel in some respects the level of the talent pool at the time in New York in the ’90s with a lot of these artists really was a very strong pool, you know? Your thoughts, gentlemen? Yes or no?

Bobbito

The interesting thing for me, personally – I don’t want to speak for both of us on this – is that I sort of remember that night. In the ledger of great nights in my mind, that doesn’t even register. To me, there was some phenomenal live performances in our studio that I’ll never forget. I can remember what I was wearing, what Stretch was wearing, everything. Like, what time people showed up. That night is kind of vague to me. Not to take anything away from it, but I think that probably, of anything else, kind of lives on in everyone’s mind as the moment that people identified me and Stretch’s radio show. And God bless Big L, man. Real nice. I say nice kid because he was really that. He was a humble, young brother from Harlem. You bumped into him in the street, he didn’t really have much to say. He was quiet. You would never expect that listening to his rhymes. He respected the hell out of me and Stretch. Came up to our show like four or five times. And really, that was a great freestyle but his other visits were more memorable in my mind than that one. Not to take anything away from the rhyme. But the beat that Stretch played was cool. It wasn’t like my favorite instrumental, personally.

Stretch Armstrong

I think it just works now because of who Jay-Z is.

Bobbito

Yeah. Big L passes away, Jay-Z becomes his multi-platinum artist, and now everybody looks back at that and are like, “Wow.”

Stretch Armstrong

And Milkbone is just...

[laughter]

Bobbito

He’s the dude that did the instrumental.

Stretch Armstrong

About to come out with a new record. Available on MegaUpload.

[laughter]

Bobbito

Shout out Milkbone. Peace to Milkbone.

Stretch Armstrong

Nick Wiz did that beat though, and he’s an unsung...

Bobbito

Shout to Nick. Teaneck, New Jersey, right?

Stretch Armstrong

I don’t know that far down, but New Jersey. An unsung producer from the ’90s who I thought was a really sensational.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Was that “Keep it Real,” the name of the track?

Stretch Armstrong

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

It doesn’t get any more ’90s than that.

Stretch Armstrong

We used to say it all the time, “Keep it real,” Bob and I.

Bobbito

Yeah.

Stretch Armstrong

It was our catch phrase. “89.9, Stretch Armstrong, Bobbito. Keep it real.” [laughs]

Bobbito

No.

Stretch Armstrong

No. That’s a joke. It didn’t happen.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

What stands out for now for each of you as your personal favourite or the most memorable experience? Which is the one?

Stretch Armstrong

For me, there’s no one. When Prince Paul and [Pharoahe] Monch came up and we lost power at the station in the middle of them ripping it, that was some sort of supernatural, “This is too much!” The station went back on and then we continued. When Large Professor brought his SP up and he was there with KRS-One, that was ridiculous.

Bobbito

Lord Finesse brought up the SP for KRS, Large brought up the SP for Pharoahe Monch, Large Professor, Kool Keith and O.C.

Stretch Armstrong

Nas came up one night, and I had just made a beat with a Bobby Hutcherson loop with the Lonnie Smith Drives drums. It wasn’t even mixed. I sort of triggered the drums live, it was on a DAT, though. This was still early in Nas’ career, but he was that dude already.

Bobbito

Illmatic hadn’t came out yet. The most anticipated album of the ’90s by far.

Stretch Armstrong

Just off of “Live at the Barbecue” we kind of revered Nas. I had a chance to get to know him outside of the station. My buddy Rob Reef Tewlow and I, through Akinyele were trying to get him – and I know you as well [gestures to Bobbito]. Both of us were trying to get Nas placed at a label. Me being so young and just revering the whole milieu...

Bobbito

Shout out to Wu-Tang right now for using that word.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Nah. Shout out to Kool Keith: “agimonious.” Do you know what “agimonious” means? Little hamburgers.

Anyway, Nas, off of the one appearance on a record, was already this kind of semi-deity to me. It was really hard for me to deal with him on a business level because I was doing A&R for Big Beat, but this is when no one could trust an A&R person. A Tribe Called Quest had records about record people being shady, and here I was in that position. So, I was trying to get Nas to like and trust us. Meanwhile, he was getting signed under our nose ‘cause other people were making moves a lot quicker. So, Nas is up on the radio station for the third time, and I’m thinking, “I should play him this track that I just made ‘cause I’m kinda feeling it.” I didn’t tell him it was mine, but I put the headphones on and said, “Tell me if you’re feeling this.” His head was bopping, “Yeah, lets do it.” And he spit the rhymes to “Represent,” as well as some other rhymes, over this beat that I made. I dabbled in production, but it was never really my thing, but for me as a fan, it was a pretty big deal to hear Nas spit over a beat I made.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Let me see whether we got this here.

(music: Stretch Armstrong & Bobbito radio show Nas freestyle / applause)

Jeff “Chairman” MAo

We’re gonna take questions in a minute. I just want to ask you quickly about the end of the show. You guys decide to move on to other things. What folks may or may not know is that you were always into other things. This is one thing that people knew about you, and these other interests have manifested themselves in everything that you guys have done since. But what happened at the end of the show? Why’d you call it quits?

Stretch Armstrong

Before I called it quits, we amicably agreed to alternate week-to-week. As a joke, the Thursday I was doing became Thug Thursdays. [laughs] I’d play, like, machine gun sounds, sort of poking fun at where everything was going. The tone of the show that I was doing was doing on Thursdays a lot different than Bob's. More than anything, it was a reflection of how hip-hop had grown and just splintered off into so many different directions. When we started the show in ’90, there was no question about what was dope and what was wack. As the years went on, Bob’s tastes developed and went a certain way, and mine went a certain way. It got to a point where we just wanted the show to go different directions. And more than anything, we wanted to remain friends rather than start to let a professional thing get in the way of that. And at that time we were doing Hot97 together. I think, for me as a DJ on that commercial, mainstream platform, I really wanted to show the sound kind of slick. I had mixed feelings about it. I think a part of me had ambitions about having that show grow into something else and not just be that in and of itself. A lot of the sentiment and kind of vibe of the KCR show, we certainly brought up there, but after a while, I was trying to do one thing and Bob was trying to do another thing. [laughs] I think we even, I can’t speak for you, but it was like, we were sort of unbeknownst to the public, jabbing each other in the ribs a little bit here and there. Bob would take his shtick way over the top, and I would get extra grimy, played the most thugged out, violent music I could find, knowing that Bob would hate it. [laughs]

We were at Hot97, and I don’t remember how it happened, but he walked into the booth and one of us was like, “Yo.” We broke the ice, and I think we walked out of there relieved, knowing that our friendship would be intact and we agreed to do KCR every other night. I think Bob was like, “You can have Hot97. I don’t even want to do this.” I did KCR for – I don’t even know how much longer I did it alternating with you. I didn’t see the point of doing it anymore. It took a lot to do a show that was all the way uptown, four hours, from one in the morning to five in the morning. Even doing it every other week, I was exhausted from doing it. I really found out, by 1998, I couldn’t even find enough music to fill four hours. I just couldn’t do it. I would have to play, either old music, which I didn’t want to do, because I was always about playing the newest and most cutting edge stuff, or I’d have to play stuff I didn’t like. I’ll never, ever – past, present, future – play music I don’t like. It’s not going to happen. So, I called it quits on Thursday. I continued to do Hot for a number of years, until about 2001.

Bobbito

I did the radio show with Lord Sear, who’s now on Shady FM, Sirius Satellite. We renamed it.

Stretch Armstrong

Sear would be there every Thursday. He would be there with me and Bob.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

He was the bridge.

Bobbito

I did it until 2002. We rebranded it the CM Famalam Radio Program. I left in 2002. Similar to Stretch, I felt it was becoming difficult to do a four hour show on a volunteer basis, when I only loved maybe five records that I was playing in those four hours. Me and Sear would be creative and take a lot of phone calls, but it was also indicative of the time. There was a lot of problems. We can go deep into this with the accessibility of hip-hop in the last ten to 12 years, and how it negatively effected the quality of it with Internet and the increase of equipment and mentorship being gone. Stretch and I were looked at as kind of like this funnel. We would take all this hip-hop and then funnel it every Thursday. The very best of what you could hear. Once it became easy to just download and listen... Anyway, that’s a long story. I am infinitely thankful to this brother for inviting me to host the show and infinitely thankful for the community that listened. Because I’ve used the 12 years that I was on the radio as a platform to get so much other work in completely diverse networks that you would not ever think. I’ve walked into meetings and people will be like, “Yo, I used to listen to you and Stretch.” “Oh, yo. Good looking.” That would help with writing. That would help with films. That would help with entrepreneurial things. I opened up a store. I’ve had a record label. I’m working on a film right now. It’s amazing how that position of the ’90s has trickled to so many other facets of my life. Even though you hear me play now, you’ll rarely hear me play a rap record. Period. My set has been like that for 12 years, even when I was on radio. It’s disappointing for some people when they come hear me spin, because they still think that I’m Bobbito 1995, which is fine. That’s fine. To me, it was a pure, positive experience.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I think also, just from what you guys have said up to this point, it was a commitment. It was a choice. It was a decision to get into hip-hop and support it at the time. If it wasn’t, the enthusiasm’s not there, then there really is no point in going on.

Stretch Armstrong

Initially, it wasn’t a commitment. It was an impulsive obsession.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Yeah.

[laughter]

Bobbito

Staying up until 5 AM every week was not good for my my hairline.

Stretch Armstrong

In the early ’90s, we would do that show and then go downtown and go to breakfast and talk about the show. I mean, I can’t stay up past 11:30 PM unless I’m getting paid now.

[laughter]

For real.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

But I do want to mention also the stuff you guys are doing right now. Plant?

Stretch Armstrong

You’ve kind of said it well. Even parallel to the radio show, I was a club DJ and since the mid-’80s, I’ve been an avid collector, fan and DJ of any music that I like. In 2001, when I stopped on the radio, I was like, “I’ve got to just step back from this hip-hop thing.” I just opened my ears and really, honestly, just go where I’m feeling it. I got back into electronic dance music, house music, whatever you want to call it. That’s what Plant is. Even that’s just one facet of my taste. I’m a rabid collector of all kinds of music. It’s great to have that kind of experience and knowledge of different kinds of music, but it’s also challenging. Because it’s confusing sometimes to listeners and fans. It’s confusing to myself sometimes. I don’t know, tomorrow I might just not be into something. Then, I’ve got to go over here. That’s just because I treat it sort of in an honest... I can’t do it any other way.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Bob, of course, besides your label Álala, one of several labels that you’ve done, releasing exclusively 7”s, all different across the board styles. All the streetball stuff, authoring books, TV personality, et cetera, et cetera.

Bobbito

I’ve been blessed to do a lot in my life. Right now, I’m co-directing a film. Actually, I’ve co-directed a film. It’s called Doing It In The Park: Pick Up Basketball NYC. We actually met with Kevin Couliau, who I heard is no longer with Red Bull Media House, but they were interested in acquiring it, so I might very well be part of your family very soon. We’ll see what happens with that. The film was submitted to TriBeCa Film Festival. We’re looking to have it out this summer.

[applause]

The music in the film, as you would have might imagined, is bananas.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

I think it’s just, you know, that stuff to me is so relatable as well. I think for anybody who came up through this generation, from the ’90s, and was passionate about hip-hop, you get older, your interests diversify and that’s just the cycle of life. Do we have any questions for these gentlemen before we get out of here?

Audience Member

Hello.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Please wait for the microphone, where are you?

Bobbito

Karma got a question?

Audience Member

Unknown hip-hop fanatic here in the corner.

Bobbito

Josh! Hi Josh.

Audience Member

Unknown hip-hop fanatic. Being that we are on the opposite side of the country, can you talk about the influence of West Coast hip-hop in the ’90s and how that crept its way into your show as well? That’s not a 20 minute question. That’s the short version, I guess.

Stretch Armstrong

I would say the hip-hop from the West Side that I played really didn’t have an influence on the show. I would say, if anything, the hip-hop that we championed from the West Coast was influenced by New York. That was why it sounded right to us. We played a lot Freestyle Fellowship, Pharcyde, [Dr. Dre’s] The Chronic. I was the first person in New York City to play Snoop [Dogg]. Even though they’re not Cali, but Geto Boys, they sent me a plaque out of nowhere. Rap-a-Lot. I was acknowledged. For a long time, our show was the only place you could hear “Mind Playing Tricks On Me.”

Bobbito

I remember we were cool with Dante Ross. He gave us a demo for “Taxi” [/ “Cab Fare”] by Souls of Mischief.

Stretch Armstrong

That’s not how it went. No.

Bobbito

Wait. Let me just finish my point. Basically the Hiero[glyphics] crew was coming up to our show and they hadn’t even splashed the Bay Area radio network yet. By virtue of our tapes being influential, like King Sway & Tech were our peoples and listened to us, Beni B on KALX was our peoples. I mean, these pillars of Bay Area radio hip-hop were all friends of ours. Sometimes they would hear us play stuff and then wound up playing it. It was interesting that Souls had to come to New York to get a little exposure to start getting love from the Bay, which they hadn’t gotten yet. That’s the story that I know. Maybe I’m messing it up. Stretch could correct me.

Stretch Armstrong

The story is that we were coming out here to the Gavin Convention and Rob Tewlow and I were doing PR for Big Beat. We knew about, through Dante, Dante was like, “You got to check out my man Domino who’s got this crew.”

Bobbito

Shout out to Domino.

Stretch Armstrong

We came out here and I think within like, 15 minutes of getting to the hotel for the convention – we didn’t have badges. We were low budget. No badges, nothing. There was one year, we won the Gavin Award for best college mix show, and we couldn’t even go to the awards banquet because we didn’t have badges. We were low budget.

Bobbito

We won that two years in a row.

Stretch Armstrong

We were outside, jumping up and down. No. We didn’t really care, to be honest, but it was cool. Anyway, within 15 minutes of getting to the hotel, we met Domino and Hiero. We were in the back of some stairwell in a cipher, and Rob and I were like, “These kids are crazy.” It was Casual, Extra Prolific, who was Snoop at the time. I told him. I was like, “Yo, Snoop. There’s a Snoop from LA who I think is going to beat you out of your name.”

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Good call, Stretch.

Stretch Armstrong:

He was like, “Word?” Yeah, he was like, “All right. I got another one. Extra Prolific.” What do you know?

Bobbito

You’re getting long winded.

Stretch Armstrong

I am. I am.

Bobbito

There’s other questions.

Stretch Armstrong:

That’s how we got down with Hiero and then they came and spent... I just really remember this because it was during the Rodney King riots that Souls... Bob and I lived together with the film producer and director.

Bobbito

We were roommates.

Stretch Armstrong

We were roommates.

[laughter]

Oh, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha! You sound so silly.

[laughter]

Sit back, chill out. Alright? They were at our crib during the riots. It was very memorable. They gave me the “Taxi” demo.

Bobbito

Yo-Yo was at our show the night of the Rodney King riots as well. Remember that?

Stretch Armstrong

Yes.

Bobbito

Stretch played “Fuck the Police” by N.W.A.

Stretch Armstrong

Yeah!

Bobbito

One of Stretch’s few political statement moments. Then he went back to Thug Thursdays. [laughs]

Stretch Armstrong

It took a few years for that to germinate. Wu-Tang!

[laughter]

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Wait, other questions?

Audience Member

One of the most interesting cats...

Bobbito

What’s your name?

Audience Member

Damon.

Bobbito

What’s up, brother?

Audience Member

One of the most interesting cats in hip-hop right now is 2011 Red Bull Music Academy lecturer, Doom, AKA MF Doom, AKA Zev Love X.

Bobbito

Oh, he killed me. He killed me in Red Bull Music Academy, in Europe, right?

Audience Member

Did he?

Bobbito

Yeah. He was talking about my hairline.

[laughter]

It got back on me.

Audience Member

Here’s a chance for payback. I wanted to ask if you had any stories from the Fondle ‘Em days when he came out with the Doom persona, with you guys working together.

Bobbito

I got nothing but love for Doom, for real. I’m forever grateful that he came to me via Kurious, because we were all crew. When he created the MF Doom persona, I was like, “Yo, I heard you got an independent label.” I got some demos, eventually put out Operation Doomsday, his debut album. I’m so proud. I’m so proud. He was on the cover of Rolling Stone or one of the rock magazines. He’s done very well with that second life, you know? Rest in peace to his brother Subroc and the whole KMD crew. I got nothing but love for Doom.

Stretch Armstrong

Me too. He spent about two weeks at my place, recording for a lot of the stuff that came out after that. He rarely slept. The work ethic of Doom, that I got to witness, was really something.

Bobbito

He’s a great dude. A great dude. What happened was, him and MF Grimm had sent me a card.

Stretch Armstrong

[exaggerated snoring sounds]

Bobbito

I opened it up and it said, it was like a condolence card. It was like, “Sorry for your loss.” I didn’t know where he was going with this. I opened it up and it was something like, “Yo, we’re sorry, you lost your hairline.”

[laughter]

You didn’t know about that? We weren’t living together any more.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

We broke up.

Bobbito

That’s Doom.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

All right. Who’s next. Karma? No?

Bobbito

Andre. Representing the T dot. Like your hat, brother. Nick, I know you got a question too. You got to say something. For real. Don’t turn red. [laughs] OK.

Audience Member

Hey Bob.

Bobbito

Hey.

Audience Member

For those of you who haven’t seen the Tribe documentary, definitely check it out. Who’s seen the Tribe documentary? Bob’s in it. It’s very good. I liked it. My question, I was going to ask a question about what you think is positive about hip-hop, since the ’90s, what you think has developed in a positive way? I also want to know who you think is going to win the NBA Championship this year, post-lockout?

Bobbito

Second question is, I spent so much time playing, I’m not the fan that people would expect me to be. I’m actually not that much of a spectator. I really couldn’t say who’s going to win the NBA this year. I vote for my Puerto Rican players. Carlos Arroyo, JJ Barrera, who is now with the Wolves. Carmelo Anthony, a lot of people don’t know he’s Boricua, he’s with the Knicks. Whatever team they rock rocking with. Reynaldo Balkman is also on the National Team of Puerto Rico. Whatever teams they on, I’m rooting for them. As far as the positive stuff that’s happened in the last 10 years, I really don’t know. I play vinyl. I don’t own a cell phone. Some people might think I’m antiquated or technophobe. I just really feel comfortable in the space that I am. I love who I continue to be. A lot of hip-hop doesn’t come out on vinyl. For that reason, I just don’t hear it. I might hear about Señor Kaos. He might post his video on my public page on Facebook. Blu & Exile, I’ll hear people talking about them. I’ll hear a joint and I’m like, “Oh, that’s dope.” I mean, whoever. There’s a couple of cats out there. I’m not saying it’s not valid. When I think of hip-hop, of course, I think of it as a universal movement, not just in the rap form. I think there’s a lot of great things. I mean, you guys did Bouncing Cats with my boy, my brother Crazy Legs. Him going to Uganda and showing kids with amputated arms how to break. So many beautiful things have come out of the community that I’m happy about and happy to be a part of. As far as rap, I can’t really tell you. Word.

Audience Member

I’ve got a question over here. Man, you guys sort of talk about your college...

Bobbito

Wait, what’s your name, brother?

Audience Member

My name is Henry.

Bobbito

Peace, man.

Audience Member

Peace, peace. You guys talked about your college radio days. I got my start in college radio as well. I kind of see what it meant to the music, especially when we talk about ’90s hip-hop, getting those envelopes with two copies of the vinyl each and every time. Then, you’re like, “Woo! Tonight’s show is gonna bang!” Describe what you felt the college radio circuit, obviously you guys being right in it, did for the hip-hop boom of the ’90s. For me, it was everything. You could hit almost any town and be like, “Yo, where’s the college radio station.” At some point find a college hip-hop show with some real credible dudes who were like doubling up the record. You were just like, “That’s how it’s supposed to be played.” Could you guys maybe get in to what you felt? Obviously we know what your show was like, but just in general what college radio meant to that movement?

Stretch Armstrong

It’s just the nature of community and college radio. You’re not paying bills. The stations are basically non-profit. They allow the people on the air to do what they want. If the station is blessed to have people that really are passionate and know what they’re doing, that’s what going to filter through. It’s the polar opposite of commercial radio, which we all know is just about unlistenable right now. You got guys on mix shows on commercial radio just mixing the records that you’re going to hear in the daytime. It doesn’t really make much sense. For us, I know when fans would discover our show, they would know that they would get literally maybe minus the talking, three and a half hours, three hours of music that back then, you could not get anywhere else. There was no Internet. These were records that were on cassette, DAT, test pressing, and sometimes, if I couldn’t stop playing a record, it would be a record that you could get at Rock and Soul or at your local 12” shop. It’s just the nature of commercial versus community and college radio.

Audience Member

What’s up? My name is Manny. Thanks for coming out here and...

Bobbito

Sup?

Audience Member

Not much. One question for both of you guys. Where do you like to shop records? Do you guys shop online? I heard you mentioning that you only play vinyl? That’s really badass. How about you Stretch? Do you do digital?

Stretch Armstrong

I am digital. The idea of having more records enter into my life is not something I’m prepared to do. Which is sad, because as the years go by, sometimes when I do go to a record shop just to see stuff, I see stuff that used to cost a fortune being affordable now. Records that weren’t even in circulation among dealers in the ’90s – I do miss it. I used to be nuts. I’m talking about as early as 1990, I would drive off of with Tee Ray or Duke of Denmark. If you don’t know who he is, look him up. Incredibly influential DJ from Denmark who moved to New York in the ’80s. We would drive up and down the east coast, just stopping in random cities and towns, ripping pages out of the Yellow Pages in the phone booth and just hitting up record spots. Eventually, you’re talking to people and you end up in some dude’s basement buying records. “I haven’t played these records since 1973.” Nuts. I amassed a considerable collection, which right now is in boxes in storage. I’m actually going to take them out of storage because I really miss them, but I don’t think I could buy more. [laughs]

Bobbito

To answer your question. Fortunately, for both of us, we travel quite often. That’s an advantage to the DJ that makes a little noise outside of your home town. Wherever I am in the world, if I have the opportunity, I go out and support the local record shop. Here you got Rooky’s, Groove Merchant, and on and on. I actually feel good about my old records. I love buying records that are released in now, like, 2012. One of the best stores for that in the world that I know of is Rush Hour. They’re out of Amsterdam. They send out a weekly update. I don’t want to spend a lot of money for shipping, but to me, if it’s a record that I’m going to play for the next 30 or 40 years, then it’s worth it to have it. Particularly because when I play it, more than likely only 300 people in the world have it. More than likely, the crowd... I’m like the anti- Shazaam app. Whenever I spin, people are coming up to me like, “Yo, the song you’re playing doesn’t register on my phone.” The first time somebody did that to me, I didn’t even know what he was talking about. I don’t own a phone, so I was like, I just didn’t know what he was doing.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

What’s that?

[laughter]

Bobbito

In New York, definitely Turntable Lab. Absolutely. Academy Records. Good Records. A-1. Big City. Those are like the little circuit that...

Stretch Armstrong

I do.

Bobbito

Rest in peace to Fat Beats.

Stretch Armstrong

I’ve got to say I stopped buying records when stores like that started doing all the work for people. You can make whatever you want of that. I really liked going places that no one else was. I have a lot of memories that... I could pick out certain records and I know how I got that record and what it took to get that record. I may not have paid a lot for it, but I had to do a lot of crazy shit to get to the place to get it. To me, when it’s too easy, to me, that takes away the experience. I think some of you diggers probably know what I’m talking about.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Even the shopping experience with new records was different then, because it was community-based. When you go to Rock and Soul on Thursday or Friday after everybody gets paid, to get their records for the weekend for the parties. Everybody’s playing stuff. There’s one turntable. There’s no headphones. Everybody hears you in the store. If they like it, everyone rushes to that part of the store to grab it. It was a different experience that was part of the fun, too.

Stretch Armstrong

Absolutely. Talking to listeners about music. Spending three, four hours. I used to spend, literally, in ‘88 / ‘89, I would spend up to four or five hours a day at Downtown Records, just listening to all the new house imports from Europe. I would be behind the turntables, playing records for people because I was there. It was like I would help people out. You’d learn so much just by talking to people that loved the music as much as you did. That’s gone now, for the most part.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

Who’s next?

Audience Member

Janet. I am probably one of the few people lucky enough to be working and living in New York when you guys were on the radio, so – I don’t want to tell how old I am. You mentioned Gavin, that was a time of like, Impact and Mix Show Summit and Jack the Rapper.

Bobbito

BRE.

Audience Member

Yes. Also labels. Labels that promoted hip-hop. Tommy Boy and Rawkus and Jive. What’s the one thing that you guys miss about that time? Because it’s not coming back, we’re not going to see that again.

Bobbito

I don’t miss anything about it.

Stretch Armstrong

The show. Just the show.

Bobbito

I don’t even miss the show.

[laughter]

No, no. No, I mean, not in a negative way. I feel it’s precious and it’s cherished, but I don’t miss it.

Stretch Armstrong

I don’t miss it. Listen, I’m not trying to make it happen again, but that was the most fun I had in doing the hip-hop thing, right?

[laughter]

Doing the hip-hop.

Bobbito

We did the hip-hop thing.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Rap. Rap isn’t... what did KRS say?

Bobbito

”Rap is something you do. Hip-hop is something you live.”

Stretch Armstrong

I did it and I lived it. Rap and hip-hop.

[laughter]

I didn’t rap. Once. Once I rapped. He’s got it on tape. Not good. Not good.

[laughter]

Bobbito

That’s when we lived together.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

One of the reasons... what did you say?

Bobbito

That’s when we lived together.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

One of the things, I think, we stopped doing the show is because everything in between doing that show was so unenjoyable. Just the hustle took so much energy. In 1990, going to Def Jam and getting promos, that was amazing. Going to Def Jam in 1995 was a pain in the ass, because you got to go mid-town. You got to get your name tag. They got to call up. You got to go up to the 50th floor. You got to do three back flips and then sign in. It was just, you know, the industry became such and industry. That wasn’t fun.

[to Bobbito] What’s so funny?

[laughter]

Kind of a dick. Love you, man.

Audience Member

I have a quick question, this is Señor Kaos.

Bobbito

Señor Kaos, representing the ATL.

Audience Member

Yes, sir. I lived in New York City when I was younger so I was fortunate enough to listen to the show as well. I first heard about the show through somebody who was older. As a kid going to school, people would trade tapes. You had somebody that would tape, you know, the first hour of the show. Somebody else would tape the second hour of the show. If you missed an hour, you know people would trade tapes. That was one thing I did. It’s just the aspect of how the tapes became legendary. You know, go into record stores around the world and people sell old Stretch and Bob episodes in different stores. Also, fortunate enough to have my music played on CM FAM by yourself, which I have on tape from July 18th, 2002, or whatever. I just wanted to hear you guys touch on that. I was also always curious as who was it, was there somebody designated to tape the show? Did you guys archive all of the shows? How many tapes did it take you guys to actually do that?

Bobbito

Somebody take the mic from him, he’s asking too many questions.

Audience Member

That’s it. That’s it. That’s it.

Bobbito

There’s five questions. I can respond.

Stretch Armstrong

I always made a point of trying to tape, but there was so much preparation that went in, I mean, I was literally running around like a headless chicken before each show just getting the records. It was chaos. Eventually, I hooked up a hi-fi VHS to my tuner, which would record eight hours continuous. I would just start recording when I left the house. I would get this great, warm, analog recording of the show. I would say over the last four years, I’ve been digitizing every tape I have and I’ve got about 2,000 files. It’s taken years.

Bobbito

I actually don’t like digital at all. I have all my cassettes still, in a cardboard box. I was always pretty meticulous. I kept a ledger of all the guests that ever came up to our radio show, all 12 years. That proved kind of valuable when Stretch and I would get interviewed or even a retrospective. Stretch would hit me up, he was like, “Yo, Bob. I got a cassette with whoever.”

Stretch Armstrong

Hoomphney Dee.

[laughter]

Bobbito

I would look in the thing and tell him what the date was.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

Don’t know about Hoomphney Dee?

Bobbito

Hoo!

Stretch Armstrong

We don’t see each other that much, and when we do, we have to make up for a lot of lost laughs. Lost laughs. Lost laughs. I can’t do it. Try another one.

Bobbito

I forgot about Hoomphney Dee. I don’t have the date that Hoomphney Dee did.

[laughter]

It’s not on my calender. I got a lot of tapes. People hit me up. I’m knowing as having the stress, too. The craziest thing about doing a radio show is that all these years later, at least once a week, someone emails me. “Yo, Bob! On August 23rd, 1994, at 4:12:15, you and Stretch played this demo. Who is it?” “Yo, my Dude. I have no idea.” Stretch would play like dubpates. He would go to Brooklyn and get stuff pressed up for $50.

Stretch Armstrong

At Don Juan Studios, which was run by Sugar Minott.

Bobbito

So he could scratch. You know, I think it was writing stuff down.

Stretch Armstrong

No one was playing dubplates in hip-hop. Obviously, that’s a whole dancehall tradition there. I was getting acetates pressed up just to mix records off cassette. People were like, “What the ...?”

Bobbito

It was throwing DJs off. They were calling about, “Yo, how does he have that on vinyl?”

Stretch Armstrong

They assumed that because it was being mixed, that it was available, at least from the label, and it wasn’t. You would record the highlights, so when something good was going happen, he would press pause and engage record. Whereas I was recording whole shows. Together, we’ve got almost everything covered. I’m still looking for the tape when Biggie was up there the first. Biggie, featuring Hoomphney Dee, “Keep It Real.”

Bobbito

Yeah, we don’t have that. That’s another moment, it’s amazing, God bless the dead. When Biggie came up, I don’t think we were like knowing that this dude is going to be the next [superstar]. You know what I’m saying? There’s a lot of moments that just passed by and we’re like, “Wow.” Four years later, you’re looking back like, “Oh, snap.”

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

There was a demo contest, too, wasn’t it? Demo versus demo.

Bobbito

Biggie Smalls lost the demo contest to a group called Bronx Zoo. He was mad at Stretch.

Stretch Armstrong

No, no, no. He wasn’t mad at me.

Bobbito

He was mad at me?

Stretch Armstrong

He was just crunchy.

Bobbito

He was crunchy.

Stretch Armstrong

He was a little crunchy with us, and, I forget his name, but it was a friend of mine that was doing the promotion at Arista. He was on a promo bus with Biggie.

Bobbito

Rob Stone?

Stretch Armstrong

No, no, no. If you look at the credits on the back of Ready To Die, it’s just filled with people within the circle that you were talking about. All of our friends, and we’re not mentioned. That’s because he was salty that he lost that battle. Apparently, he was so salty that he contemplated quitting. That was his first time on the radio, and it really shook him up that he lost this demo to a group that was not signed. Nothing.

Bobbito

Crazy story. Crazy story. Redman put us first on his thank yous. Organized Konfusion.

Stretch Armstrong

Fugees.

Bobbito

Fugees. It’s a lot of albums that thanked us. Black Moon was the first group that mentioned us on the record “Who Got Da Props.” Fat Joe “Dedication.” Anyway. That went off your question. All right. Hoomphney Dee.

Jeff “Chairman” Mao

You got one more?

Bobbito

Who was Hoomphney Dee? I forgot.

Stretch Armstrong

Nobody. Don’t feel bad about that.

Bobbito

What about Dr. Hookafoo? We’re going over their hair.

Audience Member

One more question for you guys. We know about some of the legends you guys have been mentioning today. Who are some of the sleepers that came on the show that are maybe some of your personal favorites that didn’t quite get the acclaim that some of the other guys on the list?

Bobbito

Cage. We thought was one of those dudes that was going to be Nas and never panned out. He did well on NBC. There’s too many to mention. I think Raggedy Man was another dude that we looked at. At least I did. I thought Raggedy Man was brilliant. Brilliant. Brilliant. Last Emperor. Brilliant. I mean, this was a dude that comes up with song concepts that were layered and sounded great. Projection, came to the studio, had an aura about them. That was just the time. Some people wind up blowing up. You couldn’t predict it. Other people would be like, “Oh, he’s nasty,” and nothing would happen with them.

Stretch Armstrong

You always knew when artists were really successful because they would sort of graduate from our show. Big L was up there how many times?

Bobbito

Four or five times.

Stretch Armstrong

Four or five times. That was probably about the most. He was local. He lived in Harlem, the station was in Harlem. Artists would come through. The next round they’d be doing commercial radio. After that, they were like, in daytime rotation. It was cool with us. We got to see them spread their wings and fly. Then there were the artists who never really met with commercial success. It was, “Here they are again.” We were always there for them, but...

Bobbito

That was a good question. What’s your name?

Audience Member

Justin.

Bobbito

Thumbs up.

[laughter]

Stretch Armstrong

You did a good job!