Jazzy Jay

Jazzy Jay

I am the original DJ Jazzy Jay from the mighty, mighty Zulu Nation, Bronx creation. [Applause] Man, every time I come to Canada you all treat me good. But, man, getting through that border. My God.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Did you have problems getting in? [Laughs]

Jazzy Jay

That’s an understatement. Last time they didn’t even let me in, they just said, “You go back to the US, we don’t want you here.” Y’all want me here today? Can we get into some topics?

Shaheen Ariefdien

Yes, we can.

Jazzy Jay

Can we get into the roots?

Shaheen Ariefdien

Yes, we can.

Jazzy Jay

Are we going to take it from the router to the tutor?

Shaheen Ariefdien

Uh huh.

Jazzy Jay

Like my man James Brown said, (imitates James Brown) “One, two, three, four!”

Shaheen Ariefdien

Thank you so much sir, just for that introduction alone, just getting you guys hyped up. That’s a testament to where the energy and vibe are from. While we’re trying to set up maybe we can start the conversation. As you say, let’s get back to the roots. The conventional wisdom is that a lot of the first pioneers were actually born in the South Bronx, but it’s not necessarily so, because a lot of them were born in different places and moved from different places. Is that true for you?

Jazzy Jay

Well, I was born in a little shack down in South Carolina and I moved to the South Bronx later on. Actually, we’re from the East Bronx. The West Bronx is where Kool Herc is from. Everybody know about Kool Herc in here?

Audience

Yes.

Jazzy Jay

If it wasn’t for Kool Herc, there would be no hip in hop. Me, my partner Afrika Bambaataa, we came out of a small project called Bronx River. We used to call it Bronx River, the home of God, the land of hip-hop. We weren’t rich, we were poor. In fact, we were po’ – we couldn’t afford the other “o-r.” Bronx River came out of necessity. That’s where we developed that love for the music. Bambaataa used to spin music out of his bedroom window the whole damned day. Pretty sure that was his job because that’s all he did. Any time you go by that window. You go by eight in the morning, he might just be brushing his teeth, he’d have music jumping off, it’d be outside the window so people would gather ’round.

That’s where myself and the whole of the Zulu Nation – even before the Zulu Nation was founded, but we can get into that a little later too – was founded, in the Bronx River. Whereas my other counterpart, everybody know the Grandmaster Flash? He was more like lower Bronx, Boston Road area. This is all still South Bronx, East Bronx, West Bronx. Flash was responsible for a lot of the trickery that you see on turntablism. A lot of the stuff going on today, we all owe a big debt of gratitude to the Grandmaster, because he was the original turntable god.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Talking about DJs, I did an interview with legendary graf writer Phase 2, and he knew Bam[bataa] before he was a DJ even, when he was a graf writer. The pioneering DJs, were they involved in different elements of what came to be known as hip-hop as well? Or was it focused, a case of, “OK, this is my craft right now”?

Jazzy Jay

Well, let me break it down. We all started out first of all as graffiti writers, because before we thought about what we were going to do with this music, the music was always flowing through us, through our parents, through different influences, groups that we idolized. Music has a way of taking you back to certain points in your life. You put on a record and you remember what you was doing at that point in time. You remember how old you was. You remember, that’s when I scraped my knee or fell off my bike. I started out myself, Afrika Islam, DXT, we all started out… the very first expression in hip-hop was the graffiti writing, because this stemmed from back in the day with the gangs. Whether you was Black Spades, Savage Skulls, Nomads, the Reapers, the Chingalings, the Ghetto Brothers, whatever, even the (imitates The Warriors movie scene) “Warriors, come out and plaay-ayy!” No matter what gang you were in, when you went in someone else’s area, whether it was for a rumble, or you had a pass, or I had to fight your way through, or I just snuck my ass in there and did it, you left your mark. So that’s how the graffiti started.

Then it branched off. People like the legendary Phase 2, Stay High 149, the 3-Yard Boys, there’s so many, you can’t just imagine. And it just turned into an art form, and for those who did it well, it was expression. I was flabbergasted when Giuliani’s administration came in and went into the Bronx River and, within several hours, they erased history from the projects. These were murals that were put up and people came from all around the world to take pictures in front of them. People had so much respect for it. You’d get the occasional… someone would come and “toy”, you’d put up a masterpiece and someone less talented would come in and scribble over it. But these stood for years. Nobody defaced it. People respected it, and to me, that’s the definition of a true graf writer: he puts up something, people have so much respect for that, they don’t want to take it down. But I guess, the city of New York had a different view. It was vandalism, we were criminals. Only thing we were doing was screaming out to be heard. That’s all graffiti writing is.

Shaheen Ariefdien

It’s interesting you mention the Giuliani administration because hip-hop to a large degree was spawned out of really bad policies made by the government that created a bad situation. Do you want to speak about that?

Jazzy Jay

At that time, especially when you’re young, you’re crying out to be heard. We weren’t happy with the way music was being portrayed. There was a lot of disco going on, and disco ain’t bad, because hip-hop is the bastard child of disco, soul, funk, R&B, gospel. All those genres helped make the art form we call hip-hop today. It was just a situation where we would play only that raw, raunchy, dance-out-of-your-socks type of shit. We would just play that part of the record, whereas if you go to a club like Le Freak, Ipanemas or the Garage, they would actually play the record from the beginning through to the end.

So hip-hop expression, when we came and starting plugging into lamp posts and community centers and gymnasiums, we wanted to be different. So Kool Herc said, “If we want to be different, we’ve got to have our own type of music.” (Cell phone rings) Oh, crap. Talk to you later. We wanted a different type of music format, and for us that was something to make you go off. Before it was called breakdancing – the second form of expression in hip-hop – it’s like boi-oiiing, because they bounce all over the floor. We didn’t have a name for it. We called it B-boying, they were dancing to the breaks. Basically, that was just our expression, just trying to define something that would be ours.

At that point in time when we were doing it, we didn’t have a name for it. We had little slangs for it, “Yo, we’re going over there to the jam.” The jam is not the party, it’s not the extravaganza, it’s not the show. The jam. The jam is where you go and they’re going off, they’re boi-oiiing. You’re doing your thing and we’re going off, when you plug into a lamp post, that’s what it was. And the electricity was so massive you could plug in a lamp post in Queens and everyone from all over the boroughs used to feel the electricity and flock to it, because the word would spread just like that.

I mean, we were always getting combated by the powers that be. In the earlier days it was cool because we had the community behind us. We would set up at 12 o’clock in the afternoon and play until one o’clock, two o’clock in the morning and get confronted by no police. It was a lovely thing. We had the community behind us. They thought these boys could be out robbing and stabbing each other, because we were just coming off the gang era. Police would come round and mess with us and you’d have Mrs. Johnson up on the fifth floor sticking her head out the window, “Leave them boys alone. Why you messing with them? They could be out there stealing your hubcaps.” We had the community behind us so it was a good thing. Whereas today, dude, in New York City it’s the turning of the guard. If I even think about hooking up my system – and I’m still one of those DJs who has a massive soundsystem, every DJ out there who has his own soundsystem, you know what I’m talking about. It’s nothing like pulling up to a party and pulling your stuff out and blasting the hell out of the next guy and everyone’s like, “When are you next playing?” If I do that now, forget it. I plug into a lamp post now, I’ll lose all my equipment and probably go to jail for disturbing the peace or whatever the deal is. And if I have the whole community behind me, most of them would probably go to jail too.

So that’s the difference. Back in the day it was something new and it wasn’t regulated, but the powers that be came and said, “No, we’re not standing for this anymore.” I think that was the beginning of the watering down. That was the form, the stage where Melle Mel, Grandmaster Caz, Grand Wizard Theodore, the Furious 5, the Funky Four, Sugarhill Gang, this is the format they all came from. To take that away, it took a big part of hip-hop away and made it too commercial.

Shaheen Ariefdien

You just talked about your soundsystem. What did a respectable soundsystem consist of back in the days?

Jazzy Jay

I could take you through a history of… (addresses crowd) you don’t get bored with technical stuff, right? Man, listen. Disco Twins – these are two twins, karate cats, nice on the turntables. But they had a soundsystem that would not be stopped. Of course, they were rich suburban kids from Queens so their parents bought them the equipment. Whereas on the other hand, myself, my partner Superman, Afrika Islam, Bambaataa – I was in charge of all the equipment and that was my role in the Zulu Nation. I had to buy Phase Linear amplifiers, BGW amplifiers, Cerwin-Vega speakers, Ultrons, and we didn’t have the money to just go out to the more expensive stores and pay the high prices. So you know what I would do? Hit the lumberyard, buy a couple of sheets of plywood, go to the store and measure all the cabinets, come back home, hit the table saw. We’d be down in the basement for weeks, come out, next thing you know we’d have a soundsystem.

It progressed from that, and that let me know the inner workings of how to build crossovers, how to judge and gauge what a speaker’s optimum level should be. Later on, that contributed to me knowing about stuff in the studio, because once you know signal flow and input/output, where the signal comes from, where it’s going, how it’s being processed before you hear it, that’s a big part of knowing your equipment. That was a defining part. If you were a DJ and you had a wimpy soundsystem and you were playing in the park, someone could just come and set up right next to you and you’d have to tuck your tail between your legs and go home.

It happened to us. Kool Herc and Bambaataa battled at the Webster PAL, this was back in 1979. Kool Herc had just finished doing something else, so this was me, Bam, we’re in there and you know Bambaataa is the master of all the records, so we’re going to throw them on and were saying, “We’re going to kill Herc tonight.” That’s what it was all about, we wasn’t taking him out with no guns or anything, it was about wrecking your image. Herc comes in late, he sets up on the other side of the gymnasium, so we’re rocking. Next thing Herc goes (imitates mic echo), “Bambaataa, Bambaataa, Bambaataa, I’m ready to go on, go on, go on.” Monk says, “Yo Bam, we’re taking him out tonight.” Bam’s passing me records like he usually do, “Yo, play that one right there.” I’m cutting them up, back and forth.

“Bambaataa, Bambaataa, Bambaataa, turn your system, your system, your system, off, off, off, right now, right now, right now.”

“Yo Bam, to hell with Herc, man. We’re going to do this, man.” Bam listening to everyone around him. Last warning, “Bambaataa, Bambaataa, Bambaataa, turn your system off, your system off, your system off, or we will crush you, we will crush you, we will crush you.”

“Herc ain’t saying nothing, Bam. Keep on playing.” I don’t know if you know the song “The Mexican” by Babe Ruth, starts off with soft Spanish guitars. By the time the bass came in, I was on the turntables (makes cueing gestures), “I think we need to turn off, man.” I couldn’t even hear myself thinking, let alone the music we were playing. He had drowned us out. We learned a valuable lesson, you do not go up against the big dog unless…

Of course, later on when we started developing more of an idea of what equipment’s supposed to be, then we could go back and compete against Herc. But I never forgot that day. We got blasted at the Webster PAL. It couldn’t have been any worse if we’d been a building and he came with a ball and just wrecked us. He wrecked us that night. Kudos to him for that.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Could you play us a song that back in the day would’ve been regarded as a valuable song for all the DJs to have?

Jazzy Jay

Let me ask a question, who knows what the first rap song was on vinyl?

Shaheen Ariefdien

It was either [the Fatback Band's] “King Tim III” or…

Jazzy Jay

I ain’t asking you, I’m asking the audience, what’s wrong with you? Something like that is a little trivia question I throw in the audience. Let’s see if anybody out there has any questions they want to ask me before I start playing records. We might turn this into a party and who knows what can happen then.

One of the songs that defined the era, we called it the national anthem, and as soon as you heard it, you knew this was hip-hop. It wasn’t a situation like today where you have the linoleum and the protective armpads. I started out as a B-boy and I came home many a day with my hands scraped up, my elbows all chopped up. After a party you needed a couple of days to recuperate.

Shaheen Ariefdien

So that was on the bare floor at the time?

Jazzy Jay

No, dude, outside, with broken glass. Melle Mel said it in the song, “Broken glass everywhere.” This was one of those jams. If you heard it, you knew.

(music: Incredible Bongo Band – “Apache”)

Somebody scream! It’s getting kind of funky, I don’t know why. Have we got any B-boys in the house? Feel free to take center stage. [Applause] I used to do that, man, but not anymore. It’s taking me to a place where the spirit is willing but the body just won’t do it.

That was one of the songs that was a must-have. Songs like that, songs like John Davis & the Monster Orchestra, “I Can’t Stop”, songs like “Scratchin’” by Magic Disco Machine. A big part of your repertoire was being able to play a song before the other DJ. These were the sacred crates – before breakbeats came on vinyl and everyone could go to the store and get 12 cuts of songs that had taken us months and months and months to find! Me and Islam, digging, we’d leave at 8 AM, come back, Afro would be covered in record dust and we’d be filthy. But you had some stuff that you could use.

Shaheen Ariefdien

How important was the early crate-digging to be able to further your education and expand your repertoire?

Jazzy Jay

The early crate-digging scene, you wanted to be the first to bring it out. A lot of it was trial and error. We used to go stores and dig in the 99 cent bin, the 50 cent bin, and look for records based on our knowledge of performers, players, drummers. If he was on another album that was kinda funky, that we liked, we’d look for the guy’s name, we see it on the back, we’d buy it for that. Or we’d just go to the store and if you see a cover of a couple of cats with bell-bottoms and Afros, you’d just buy that. And then by chance it might be something on there you could play for your audience. We’d go out and buy maybe 30 or 40 records and out of those, maybe five of them would have something we could use. But that’s more-or-less how records got discovered because we didn’t play the popular cuts.

Bob James’ “Take Me to the Mardi Gras” would probably never have been famous without hip-hop, because the song – I forget which one, but it was a mellow jazz tune, maybe a TV theme – that was the real hit. It wasn’t “Mardi Gras.” So when Flash went [imitates scratching “Mardi Gras”], dude, it was over. You know that’s one of the most recognizable songs, and 30 years on, you could still play that song today and still get a reaction. I might throw that on tonight. Y’all might want to come down and check it out. I’m going to take you on a musical journey through time, back and forth, take you into the catacombs. I’m going to make you laugh, make you cry, make you scream. We’re going to do it all tonight.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Earlier on you mentioned the importance of the Zulu Nation. What was the idea behind it? You were there before it even started, when it was in its baby stages. What was the initial idea of setting up the Zulu Nation and the philosophy that inspired it?

Jazzy Jay

The Zulu Nation came from our need for us to stop killing each other off. So we were the second or third division of the Black Spades, that was our territory. Right across the bridge you had the Skulls, the Nine Crew. Different territories had different gangs. What happened was, it was like, we didn’t realize at that point in time, because like I said we grew up in an era where we didn’t have the best of life, didn’t have a lot of money, so the gangs was a way for everybody to unite. But after several years battling against each other and these battles turning bloody and sometimes fatal, came the concept, “Hey, listen. We’re killing each other, the cops are killing us, why don’t we just stop this, let’s make a truce? Because the things that make us all the same far outweigh our differences. Our differences are in our minds.”

You had a Latino gang called the Ghetto Brothers and they started calling out the leaders of the gangs to sit down and talk, let’s talk truce, get our community together so we can strive and uplift. Bambaataa was one of the division leaders of the Black Spades and he saw his godbrother get gunned down, real vicious, and that changed his whole perception of where he wanted to go with this gang thing. He believed in it for so long and it’s really bull. Not Red Bull, but bull-bull. So let’s do something different.

So from the Black Spades, he started a thing called the Organization, and that was about us saying let’s organize, get together and launch a battle to uplift ourselves, get better jobs, better living quarters, better coverage of our community. After the Organization was formed we’d take dues from everybody. So he took the money and made a pilgrimage to Africa. When he came back from Africa he said, “We’re no longer the Organization. We’re the Zulu Nation.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Do you know where he went to?

Jazzy Jay

I really don’t know. I know a lot of people were pissed off at him, “Man, what happened to the treasury money?” But that one trip actually did something remarkable, because the Zulu Nation is the only organization that’s been down with hip-hop since the beginning, since we were plugging into lamp posts, that’s still around today. So every year, when we have our anniversary, and the Zulu Nation has its anniversary in November, that is hands down the official anniversary of hip-hop. So when you think about what hip-hop is going through, when you look at the Zulu Nation, when I got inducted into the Zulu Nation Hall of Fame back in ‘99, that was better for me than receiving any gold albums from the RIAA, receiving VH1’s crap, receiving anything from BET, because basically the Zulu Nation, if they honor you, you deserve to be honored, because they’ve been down from day one.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Through the Zulu Nation, hip-hop is almost defined and articulated because you had a bunch of different things happening, sometimes at the same jam, sometimes in different parts of the city. But the Zulu Nation brought it together under one banner and defined the boundaries of hip-hop. In terms of what you were doing, the cratedigging and everything being almost secretive, how did [drum breaks compilation] Ultimate Breaks & Beats change the nature of the jams, by making them available to anyone with $12 and a turntable?

Jazzy Jay

A friend of ours who used to come to all of the jams – T-Connection, Sparkle, wherever – we used to call him the oldest teenager, my man Lenny. He was responsible for the Ultimate Breaks & Beats. That was his label. What he did was he used to come to all of the jams. He was one of those record diggers whose collection was extensive. He figured, “You guys are the holders of the sacred crates, but I think I could make some money if I make it available to everyone else.” It kind of took the steam out of a lot of cats as far as digging, because then cats would show up at the party and whereas it would take me months to find 12 cuts to fill a session at a party, someone could have all those 12 cuts on one piece of vinyl. Dude, you know what we went through to find these?!

I dug one day and I found a whole bin of a song called “Catch a Groove” by Juice. Now, this was a hard record to find and I found a whole bin of them. I brought them back, sold them, gave some away to a few cats, to the point where I gave them away so much I lost my only two copies and didn’t have none anymore and had to go back and find them. Years later I found it in England for $60. I wasn’t laughing at that point. I had like 30 copies that I bought for 99 cents a piece, gave a lot of them away.

But there’s an art to it. Right now, I’ve got a little close-and-play turntable that works on batteries. Everywhere I go, when I know I’m going to be on the road for a while, I take it with me, sit in a record store for hours listening to records. These are things that we hold sacred. When you go to a jam and you’re able to play something before any other DJ and you’re credited for that – so-and-so brought that out, Afrika Bambaataa is famous for bringing out so many songs that still play today. I brought a few out, not as many as Bam or Herc or Flash. That was our credo – you had to be on top of your game, you had to play the right stuff and have the right type of equipment. Plus, you had to be an innovator, not a follower.

A lot of people these days are like, “OK, I know how to scratch.” Dude, that’s not everything that DJing is about. You have to look at your crowd sometimes. I see cats playing (imitates fast scratching noise) and the people are outside looking at them, “Yo dude, when are you going to let the record play?” You have to take that in moderation and a lot of cats don’t do that. But the thing that really kills me is these DJs who come off an assembly line. I played a party with a bunch of them, these are all the top radio DJs in New York and each one of them got on and practically played the same set. What the hell? These guys are getting paid all of this money, they’re programming music to the nation. They don’t have a voice? They don’t have a say-so? We used to break records. “What is that you’re playing?” “It’s something new. Give it a listen, absorb it, take in the aroma for a second and see what you think about it.” They’d come back two weeks later and it’s somebody’s favorite record. Now, if the radio isn’t dictating or the videos aren’t telling you it’s hot, it’s like the DJs don’t have a mind of their own. The first perspective in DJing, at least what I learned, is you’re playing for the audience, not yourself. And you need to be able to school the audience. If you’re only playing what the radio is playing, why should I come and hear you play? I can sit home and listen to the radio.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Speaking of radio and your expertise in turntables and DJing, how did you get into radio back in the day?

Jazzy Jay

I was the first DJ in the hip-hop realm to actually play on New York City radio, on 98.7 KISS. At the time we didn’t know how to break into radio. Most of the radio personalities were just people who talked on the mic and a technician in the background programmed all the music. As far as what we programmed and what we played for our people, at the parties, at the clubs and jams or whatever the deal is, it was something totally different. We were the personality, the programmer and the technician. Rather than taking certain jobs and separating them, we did it all. When I went on radio I used to make all the stuff at my house. That was back in the days of reel-to-reel. You probably don’t even know what that is. How many people ever saw a cassette? [Laughs] No, y’all ain’t that young. It was wild because I go back to the days of eight-track. I used to make pause button eight-track tapes back in the days. Pause button! It was incredible, you had to be there. Just trying to define that was like: OK, I go into my crib, I’m spinning and I’m doing all of that. So for someone to sit in front of a mic and someone else to play the music on cue, that was something new to me. But when they said, “Listen, we want to programme KISS’s music behind what you guys are doing over at the Roxy.”

Now, let me take you through that era. There was something called “the great hip-hop drought,” that not a lot of people talk about. It happened maybe ‘80, ‘81, it didn’t last real long, but from playing for crowds of 500 to 1,000 people, every one jam-packed – I’ve got a list of flyers. I’m a flyer collector, too, anybody got any old school flyers? Oldschoolflyers.com, you need to check that out, just see your history, where this stuff came from. We had a situation where we’d go to a party, I remember me and Bam going to the gymnasium, a place I think that was in Connecticut, we always played and it was always packed so tight people couldn’t get in. And our crew was playing a full-court basketball game and we were on the stage like this [slumps back in armchair]. Bam was just sitting down. [Gestures changing records unenthusiastically] I was off somewhere, and I think that was a point when everybody had outgrown hip-hop. “Oh, that was that hip-hop stuff, that hippety, hippety-hop, don’t stop stuff you were all doing, that was a fad. It’s going away, it will die.”

The person who single-handedly saved it – and I know because I lived this, I’m not reading it in a book second-hand from Nelson George or any of these other characters who say they’re historians on it, I lived through all of this – was Bambaataa. He started transforming us from the Bronx and Harlem and taking us downtown. A lot of people wasn’t coming up to the Bronx. You get your average yuppie in the city, they’re not going above 110th Street. But if you take this music and you bring it downtown, they might come there. So now, our audience went from being black and Hispanic and a little bit of Asian and sprinkles of white to a massive audience, people coming from all over the world. Now they don’t have to go to the Bronx to hear it and risk getting jumped or stabbed. That opened up a whole new era. Because when the hip-hop drought happened, it hit everybody. Most DJs were selling their equipment looking for day jobs. You’d see an MC, he’d say he’s working down at the Sav-Mart.

So once we started coming downtown, Bam started bringing myself, Afrika Islam, DXT, then later on we started bringing Flash, Herc and everybody started migrating, next thing you know it’s a worldwide thing. I was doing a show one night at the Roxy’s, before the show I’ve got Japanese press coming to my house. They were there before I woke up. They were in the bathroom while I was brushing my teeth. They followed me the whole day! We had a store in the Bronx where you’d go get your 69ers, your leads, get your fresh gear and get ready for the party. They went in the store with me, everywhere. That was something I never thought would happen back when I was plugging into a lamp pole in the early ‘70s, that someone would have some interest in what I was doing. I would never have thought we’d be selling everything from paint to condos. Hip-hop is selling a little bit of everything.

Shaheen Ariefdien

You paved the way, being one of the pioneers. You were the first on the radio. Then you dabbled with production and engineering. What were the first songs you were involved in?

Jazzy Jay

Music production goes back to the art of DJing. Cutting, scratching, we used to remix songs right before your very eyes. Hearing that and that knowledge, that’s the reason they made samplers. A lot of producers at that time weren’t DJs so they had to make machines to emulate what me, Flash and [Grand Wizard] Theodore did. My first machine was a Roland drum machine where you couldn’t sample or change the beats. All you could do was switch from beat to beat. So you had the bossa nova [mimics the beat], you’d switch back and forth, a little funk beat, a little hard rock.

I did a song with my group the Jazzy Five, a song called “Jazzy Breakdown,” and I just recorded the whole thing live to cassette. These days we’ve got multitracks, quadratrack, hi-def this, decaffeinated, who knows, we can do it all with a couple of buttons. Back then, you had to be on point. Somebody slipped up or messed up and pressed the wrong button [makes screeching sound], you had to start over. James Brown can tell you because he did live to two-track. I was running around here yesterday, I see they have an 808, a Roland Space Echo – wow. That was the echo that Herc used to say [echoing], “Bambaataa, turn your system off or we will crush you, crush you.”

This is vintage equipment, which I collect also, so I’ve got the whole repertoire, the DMX, the 808, the 909, the 727, the LinnDrum. These are percussion machines that hold a lot of value to me because I used an 808 to make “Planet Rock.” I used a DMX to make “I Need a Beat” by LL Cool J. I used an SP-1200 to make songs for the Brand Nubian. I used an MP-60 to make songs for Busy Bee [Starski], Bambaataa. So all these drum machines are not something you use and then get rid of, it’s the actual machine I tapped on to make that recording, that composition. Plus, I’m an equipment-monger. I’ve got equipment stacked up that makes my wife go, “What are you doing? Dude, you can only play on two turntables at one time. Why do you have 12 pairs of turntables?” I’m just like that, got to have it, got to have it.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Do you have “Jazzy Breakdown” with you?

Jazzy Jay

No, “Jazzy Breakdown” never came out. It was just my first stab at doing production. I do have a version of it, but it’s on cassette, I’d have to dig it out.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Do you have “Jazzy Sensation?”

Jazzy Jay

Yes, I do. You want to hear that?

Shaheen Ariefdien

And that was released on which label?

Jazzy Jay

Tommy Boy Records, which is another label we were responsible for starting. Before “Planet Rock,” Tom Silverman was just a cat from Boston trying to get his feet wet in the music business. After “Planet Rock,” you know? When we came out of the studio after making “Jazzy Sensation,” I was like, “Oh, man, I love that.” When we came out after “Planet Rock,” I said, “OK, we made another record.”

Shaheen Ariefdien

You’re kidding me. [laughs]

Jazzy Jay

Was I wrong about that! That record took me around the world, so kudos, I love “Planet Rock.” Here’s Jazzy 5, “Jazzy Sensation.”

(music: Afrika Bambaataa & the Jazzy Five – “Jazzy Sensation”)

A lot of the records, like Jimmy Spicer, “Super Rhymes,” what’s that, like 15 minutes long? It has to reflect it, how is he going to take what he did at the jam and put it on vinyl? So this was a new stab at doing it. We were being directed. Years later, when I was doing stuff for Def Jam with cats like Rick Rubin, or with [1984 hip-hop dance movie] Beat Street, or when I started my own recording studio, where I would actually have a hand in doing all the production myself. Because I got tired of someone dictating what my music should sound like, when I had it all up here and knew what I wanted it to sound like, but just couldn’t get it out.

I owe a lot to Arthur Baker, I heard he was here last week. I must give a significant amount of credit to my two engineers, my man Steve Epp who worked with Chungking, and Jay Burnett. Wherever that guy is at, I hope he watches this, because when we went into the studio as two guys from the Bronx, he was, “Don’t touch that, don’t touch nothing in here.” So we had a lot of restrictions on us, we couldn’t touch nothing. How are you going to learn how to program your own music or whatever? I was a drummer, I’d go in and they’d hide the sticks on me. “At least let me do that!” “No, no, no, this is studio equipment, it’s very technical. Don’t touch it.” So Jay Burnett, I used to love him because he used to sit there, and this was the ‘80s. Everybody was getting high. He’d sit there.

Shaheen Ariefdien:

High?

Jazzy Jay

Hell, yeah! My man was well high. But he’d sit there and (points), “Go over and patch 23 into blah blah.” So I started learning how to do the patches. Then he’d be, “Let me show you EQ compensation.” He started talking to me about that. So it got to the point where even if it wasn’t my session, I’d go down to Unique Studios or Quad or wherever he was engineering and hang out with him. It got to the point where he invited me to work and help him with a couple of songs. “Wow!” It takes a somebody to be like, this guy’s showing interest. Let me show him the ropes, show him a little something. From there I just branched off and started doing my own thing.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Before we go too far, I’m interested to know what your role was in the production of “Planet Rock.” You said you walked out of the studio going, “Yeah!” [shrugs] But to many of us that was a life-changing moment. It was the birth of some new shit.

Jazzy Jay

That’s what I was so weirded out about, because it was so unlike anything else that was out at that time and I didn’t know how anyone would perceive it. It was a routine, like I said, that’s where all the songs come from. A lot of cats today are, “OK, I’m going to spit eight bars, then a chorus, spit eight bars, then a chorus again.” It was a routine we used to do at the parties and this routine was a collaboration between the MCs and myself with three records: [Captain Sky’s] “Super Sporm,” “Trans-Europe Express” and “Numbers” by Kraftwerk. We used to blend them together to do the routine.

So what happened was Arthur Baker and John Robie listened to the routine and said we need to turn it into a song, but there’s no way we were going to be able to use the vinyl. Plus that wasn’t the style at that time. Everybody was like, “Let’s go in.” Everyone was using bass, leads, drums, the full band thing. These guys were saying, this is something new coming up, this is the electronic age, we’re going to do this all electronic. So the 808 was there. I said, “This is how the beat should go for Kraftwerk, and then at the end we’ll go (beat boxes) “Doo, doo-do,” that’s “Super Sporm,” see. We used to mimic the songs in our routines, and that’s the formula for the way everything mashed together to make it the super song. We can’t just take credit for that whole thing because a lot of people were involved in the making of “Planet Rock.” Certain songs like that just come together. I’ve worked on a lot of songs in a lot of different studios and different environments where you work so hard to get it, but it flops. Others, you just sneeze it out and it’s a mega hit. And “Planet Rock” came together like that, it was literally kinda sneezed out.

The most tedious process of the whole thing was editing it. We had, like, 30 reels. Arthur Baker was there with the whole editing process, splicing, cutting with a razor blade. What we do now with just a few strokes of the keyboards on a computer. It was a whole bunch of things, that “Sonic, sonic, sonic, sonic force” – it was days upon days of listening to reels upon reels. Just the process of putting it together… “Are you finished with it yet, Arthur? Are you going to finish with the damn song?” We came out of the studio and, like I said, I was like, “Eh, we made another song.” Next thing I’m driving down the Bronx River in my car and I hear this song on the radio. “Damn, this sounds familiar. Oh, man, that’s us!” [mimics losing control of the car] Almost crashed. That was before the days of cell phones, so I’m jetting off the highway to find a phone. “Yo Bam, they’re playing our song.” “I know, I’m listening right now.” I called that many people because it was just so incredible.

Up until then we weren’t being played on the radio. And then, hip-hop was being denied by the radio. I remember because I was in the VIP record pool and we had some program directors from different radio stations in the hot seat. I’ll never forget, “No, hip-hop will never be played on my station, it’s a fad, here today, gone tomorrow, and it will never be played on my station.” I waited for him to make his long drawn-out speech and I said, “You familiar with a record called ‘Planet Rock?’” “Yeah, yeah, yeah.” “You played that on your station. Well, what the hell do you think that is then? That’s hip-hop personified, that’s the Zulu Nation.” He was like (mimics being lost for words). I said, “Dude, hip-hop will be played on New York radio and all around the world. It’s something new and you don’t have the foresight to see it now, but it will happen, regardless of whether you make it happen or somebody else does.” Everybody claps, then next thing you know, we are being played all over the world. I heard some hip-hop song on a country radio station – wow, how big is that? I didn’t think country was into hip-hop at all.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Sorry to harp on about it, but can you remember the equipment you used on “Planet Rock”?

Jazzy Jay

Yeah, we used a TR-808 drum machine, Roland 808. They had the TR, what is it, that makes the bassline?

Shaheen Ariefdien

The TB [303]?

Jazzy Jay

Yeah, the little bass modulator, and that made the [imitates “Planet Rock” bassline], those two machines. And at that time, this was before MIDI, before SMPTE, before world clock and all of this stuff that syncs us up so lovely now and makes the production a work of ease. We used that and a formula that lets you lock the two Roland machines up lovely, that was called Fisk. Fisk was like a prequel to MIDI. It kind of locked the two machines up together. It was printed on tape so everything had to go on live, there were no link-ups or anything. I went up into a couple of rooms in here and they had an 808, a 909, an Ensoniq ASR-10, and these are all machines I’m familiar with that I learned from the cat Jay Burnett.

I learned how to make my own reverb. Yeah, plate reverb. Back in the day, every studio had what was called a plate reverb, and it would be an isolation room. You’d have to have a sheet of metal which you’d stretch with these springs. Depending on how much, the metal would vibrate, that’s how much vibration you’d get on the echo, reverb, whatever it is. A lot of cats didn’t know anything about this, because it was a process. You had to go to the lumberyard, buy the sheet metal, stretch it, put the pickups on it, the same kind of pickups you’d use on a guitar, then that could be hardwired into something that could receive a signal and turn it into a reverberating tone. My first echo was an actual tape machine. You’d go from the playback head and the record head. That used to be called a tape loop. Of course, it was noisy as hell, but in the process it made me understand why echoes worked before we had the Space Echo and all of this stuff.

It was a process, and for me to be going from the straight-up analog stage up into what I’m using right now, which is the full-blown Pro Tools with HD set-up. And before you know it [mimics sneezing], before I can think about it, it’s done. But just being involved in all that puts in you in a league of which a lot of people don’t have any idea or any inkling. This is before modular units, and everything was hardwired. It’s just the process of learning all about the electronics.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Something in your history that’s also profound, but which rarely makes it into the news, is your involvement in setting up Def Jam.

Jazzy Jay

The first office of Def Jam Records was 5 University Place and the first distribution network was the trunk of my 1979 Chevy Caprice Classic. That was part distribution, part office, because me and Rick Rubin used to hang out in that car for days, running around. The first three records on Def Jam were all mine – “It’s Yours” – Def Jam 001. 002 was “Cold Chilling in the Spot” with a drunk-ass Russell Simmons talking nonsense in the studio. He was imitating Busy Bee, and the other side was “The Def Jam,” which came off the heels of Beat Street. We were making original tracks for Beat Street and it was one of the songs that didn’t get used, but that was always playing in my car. When me and Rick Rubin were driving in my car, he was always (imitates Rick Rubin), “I like that song so much, it’s so cool. We have to do something with that.” “OK, let’s do it.” We took it, it was called the “Beat Street Groove,” or something like that. It was supposed to be in the background when the dancers are coming in, or maybe outside. It just didn’t make it the way a lot of other cuts made it, and we used that to make “The Def Jam.”

I used to play at a club called the Roxy every week, and every week this mad-looking guy used to stand in front of the booth. Shaking his head, didn’t move unless it was to go to the bathroom or get a drink. One day he gets up his courage to come and introduce himself, “I’m a big fan, my name is Rick. I like what you do a lot.” Everything’s cool, I’m a cool enough guy, I get along with most people. After I’d seen him a few times we became on a first name basis, start talking. Then he came and said, “I’m doing this remix of a song for the Sex Pistols, it’s a vintage song, do you want to come in and help me out?” You didn’t have to give me a reason to go in the studio, I love to go into the studio, go to jams, go to parties, whatever. To be around music, I don’t need any excuse. I don’t know what became of the song, if it ever came out, but after that we did a few parties in NYU, did a little college tour, just played music for the people.

Then one day he said, “I’m thinking about starting a record label. What do you think?” Once again, “Yeah, let’s do it.” I had been around artists, I had dabbled in a couple of groups that had looked at me because I had some success. I didn’t really know much about management but I figured they could do a lot worse than have me in their corner. Now’s my chance to dabble into the business end of it. I’d already started my own studio because I was tired of engineers telling me what I should sound like. Now’s the time to start a record label. Just did a movie, now I’m ready to start a record label. So a handshake, high five, that’s all it was. Went in the studio, did “It’s Yours.” It came out, the first generation of “It’s Yours” I don’t think anyone wanted to play that song. I think the only person playing it was Red Alert, plus myself. A year later it blows up on the scene. Next thing you know me and T La Rock are all over the country doing shows.

Throughout this time I was still doing Danceteria, Peppermint Lounge, Roxy, all these clubs, and made the mistake one night of introducing him to Russell Simmons at Danceteria. Next day he calls me up, “Russell, he’s so cool.” “Yeah, Russell’s cool, he’s okay, no problem.” At this time me and T La Rock are doing shows, now Russell’s starting to book those shows because the record’s picking up. Rick is hanging out at Russell’s office every day, so him and Russell got real tight. The music business is as prejudiced as everyone knows it is. They weren’t giving $1 million to me, they weren’t giving $1 million to Russell. But Rick, with his family being kinda well off and him having some connections, they gave the $1 million to him, as long as he can keep the jungle bunnies in order.

Russell at that time had Kurtis Blow, Whodini, Run-D.M.C., and the only one who was really jumping off beyond that was the Fat Boys. Russell always had his hands in a little bit of everything, plus he’s always been a hard worker so he’s got to get kudos for that. One thing led to another, when the money came up, that’s when Jazzy Jay got kicked to the curb. But I’m not complaining about that. I was into this and always have been for the love of the music. If you take away all the money tomorrow, I’m still going to be doing this. I’ll have to get another job to support myself, but I’m still going to do it. Not a lot of people will.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Can we play “It’s Yours?” For some people who aren’t aware, just listen to the lyrics, and if you’re familiar with the Illmatic album by Nas, the song “The World is Yours” is jacked from there.

(music: T La Rock & Jazzy Jay – “It’s Yours”)

Jazzy Jay

When we were recording “It’s Yours”, it was never bassy enough for Rick. We were at Power Play Studio out in Queens, a famous studio, a lot of people did a lot of stuff in there: Eric B & Rakim, a little bit of everybody. We were on a shoestring budget, so we were in the subpar room where every time you touch something it goes (makes grinding noise) If the bass went up too much, it would vibrate something and a wire would short. Rick was like, “More bass.” The guy was like, “Look at the meters.” They’re supposed to do this (gestures meters moving short distance), but the meters were like this. (gestures far over) It wasn’t coming down, right from the beginning. It was... (imitates intro of “It’s Yours” with meters in the middle, then moving sharply to the right) “Dude, we can’t use more bass.” “Got to have more bass.”

So what we’d do is make a mix on a cassette and we’d go downstairs in my car. This was before everybody got all these three-million-watt amplifiers in their cars like now – I came from the original school of that car audio stuff, when we had to cut out the back decks, put four 10" woofers, two five-and-a-quarters on the top, three amplifiers in the trunk, three-way crossover, receiver, and the clarity was like, you come down the block, three blocks away like, “Yo, the party’s coming! Oh no, that’s just Jay.” I’d pop the trunk open, it was a block party jumping off. So we’d take the cassette, go downstairs, and if it sounded right in my car… Listen to it, “nope,” go back upstairs. “More bass”. “I gotta compress it.” “No, take that compressor off.”

At the end of the day I was like, “Dude. All you can hear is the bass. You can’t put out a song that’s just [mimics bass distortion]. We have to hear some of the other stuff!” But we had a lot of fun making it. The relationship didn’t last with me and the Def Jam cats but I have no animosity, everything happens for a reason. I was able to go and start Strong City Records and do that and try it again.

Shaheen Ariefdien

And you were responsible for a lot of other people’s careers as well.

Jazzy Jay

See, I was one of those cats that, I give up a lot of information. I was brought up in the church where it’s like, if you’re given a gift you have to use it, you have to share it, or else it’ll be taken away from you. So where a lot of people try to hoard it, I share information, so I was known as the producer that produced producers. Showbiz and A.G., Diamond D, Lord Finesse, Q-Tip, all of these cats were under my wing back when I had my studio in the Bronx. Rick Rubin. These are all students of mine. I just did it ’cause that’s my nature. Working with people, [explaining] “if you want to do something you should do it like this,” ’cause I had the knowledge. If I can get the best out of them then we can both get the best out of the production. I got a lot of cats who come back to me, “Yo man, if it wasn’t for you…” That's a good feeling overall, to have somebody come back and say thanks.

Shaheen Ariefdien

That's a really amazing philosophy because something that is generally lost in hip-hop is the passing on of tradition. You have a whole generation who are unaware of the history.

Jazzy Jay

A lot of people started in my studio, Fat Joe, Big Punisher. I never forget the first day I met Lord Finesse. he came in the studio (adopts high-pitched voice), “You gotta put me on, man, I’m telling you, I’m dope, man.” Like, alright shorty, chill! We used to have to sneak him in, he was like 13 years old, he couldn’t come to the parties, we had to sneak him into the party. Now he’s like, “I’ll never forget man, you used to sneak me up in Danceteria.” Now you running Danceteria, and running all these other clubs. I don't wanna get too long-winded, y’all gotta pull the plug on me sometimes.

Shaheen Ariefdien

No, we’re good!

Jazzy Jay

I’ll start running my mouth and you’ll be like, “Will he shut the hell up?”

Shaheen Ariefdien

People are just taking it in.

Jazzy Jay

In that case, I'mma tell ya, I was born in a little shack… [laughter] But that stuff right there, and even with [Grand] Puba, Q-Tip and those cats, I can call on LL [Cool J] at any point in time, I can call on [Queen] Latifah, Professor X, these are all people that I helped influence and went on to do great things, and that’s a part of me doing that also. Every now and then, when I see Jay-Z up on stage I’m like yo, that’s a part of me up on that stage with him. If it wasn’t for me plugging into some lamp poles and getting shocked up a couple of times back in the ‘70s, he might not be on that stage right now. [Applause]

Shaheen Ariefdien

One thing that I really admire and I was really shocked about, which I shouldn’t be given your history, in terms of when a lot of first generation DJs dropped out, you saw possibilities in terms of studio work. When you got disappointed you started your own label, you were always open and visionary enough to see possibilities. So when I see something like this [points to Serato vinyl setup] and Scratch Live and Serato, it’s almost like, I know cats who started DJing a couple of years ago and they’re like vinyl purists, and here’s Jazzy Jay plugging in a Mac with a mixer you designed!

Jazzy Jay

Limited edition! JJ57SL, Scratch Live, it’s limited edition. See, I was on the cutting edge, I started first with Final Scratch, the Serato version, and there was a plugin for Pro Tools so you couldn’t actually take it on the road with you. So that’s when I guess Stanton grabbed the concept and ran with it, running all the way to the bank. But they wasn’t listening to the people who was using the product. I was one of the first to start letting them know, listen, there’s glitches here and there. When Serato came out they was like, listen, what do you need fixed? And they fixed all the glitches and the ease of use, the setup was so comfortable I just ran with it.

I’m a carpenter by trade, so I gotta have a good hammer, a good screwdriver, a good drill, and I apply the same ethics to my tools when I play for the people. I gotta have a good mixer, something that’s reliable, not something where I get there and it doesn’t work. The reason my name is on this mixer is ’cause the sucker works. I don’t endorse any products that I wouldn’t use myself. Pay me money and I’ll tell you what I think about it but I’m not gonna go and record and tell someone they need to go buy this.

Shaheen Ariefdien

So what makes this mixer different?

Jazzy Jay

Basically it’s the same as the 57 series, we got it done up graffiti style, my man Eric Orr took a little time and did a lot graffiti on it, y’all can see it, it’s upside down from there [lifts mixer up]. Take a look at it later on. It allows me to control, I don’t have to touch the laptop so much, I can scroll through with a twist of this knob, you got your cue points right here, you can do everything from your mixers instead of starting into the screen of the laptop. Back in the day, this was our focal point. I try to stay on top of technology, but do not believe that I’ve straight up made the conversation, because dude, I’ve got close to half a million records in my collection and I’m still buying records, I went to the record store yesterday, they didn’t have nothing I wanted but I still buy records. This allows me to travel a little bit lighter, and I think after all the years of me carrying heavy-ass crates of records I deserve the right to use modern technology! [Applause] Can I get an amen?!

Shaheen Ariefdien

At one of the last academies, someone asked Red Alert what it is about hip-hop that makes this generation of heads to acknowledge the pioneers. Like, the Rolling Stones could get on the road right now and you’d have three generations at that concert and enjoying them, but it’s difficult right now for some of the earlier pioneers to go out on the road. Is it something about hip-hop, or the music industry?

Jazzy Jay

You know what it is, we’re living in a fast food generation. People want everything quick, it’s microwaved, it’s nuked, it’s in and out, you know? When hip-hop was in its purest form, when people like Melle Mel and Grandmaster Caz, when they used to grab microphones they set trends. And it wasn’t an overnight thing. These are cats that worked for years to develop their craft and to develop being superior, you couldn’t get on a stage with Melle Mel back in the day unless you had your shit together. Right now we’re going through a stage where every week there’s a new artist out, and like I said, the people don’t take the time to let [an artist] perfect their craft. Every cat who buys a turntable is automatically, like, “I’m a DJ,” and what happens is the people who pioneered this thing get kinda phased out.

Like me, I lose a lot of shows to DJ Dollar Fifty down the block, ’cause they’re not gonna pay me what I’m supposed to get paid if they can pay him less, or not pay him. It’s a paying dues process, also. The business itself doesn’t take care of the hip-hop pioneers. They’re like, you were then, this is now. Whereas if you look at rock & roll and country music, you get these sponsors that’ll come out of the woodwork to put on a Rolling Stones tour. They’ll go out of their way to do that. Besides Red Bull and a couple of other companies, I don’t see people doing that for hip-hop. ’Cause like I said, hip-hop – and not just hip-hop, but funk, soul, R&B – we’re selling everything. Some of these companies are making a lot of money off advertising to the hip-hop populace and making money off our culture, they need to come back and say listen, let’s try to preserve this culture instead of stealing from it all the time. I know, if you ain’t seen the Cold Crush Brothers in years, they might be – I remember one of them they used to toss him up in the air, now he weighs about 300 pounds so they won’t be tossing him – but these brothers used to get up on the stage and they work hard for the money. I’ve seen a lot of cats who sell a million copies and you go watch them in concert and it’s just boring. But there’s some cats that believe in what they do, when they hit the turntables, they put effort into it, they don't just give you a subpar performance. When I’m playing I take it personal. I’m gonna karate your party, I do that!

Shaheen Ariefdien

Are there any other [artists] at the moment that you like?

Jazzy Jay

I like a lot of it. As I was saying in the interview yesterday, there are only two forms of music, you can call those other categories what you want, but there’s only good music and bad music. So in every genre, hip-hop, rock & roll, funk, soul, you’ve got good and bad in each one of those areas. I could either play bad hip-hop all night or good country music. Dude, I’ll play the good country, don’t force me to play some bad shit I don’t want to play. A lot of cats have the potential to change what they have to say.

I like a lot of 50 Cent, I like a lot of Nas, Dr. Dre, of course, is a phenomenal producer. I like a lot of cats from the past like Teddy Riley, Kool Moe Dee, Melle Mel, Bam, I like a lot of cats because I’m open to good music. But as far as the direction at the moment, the business has put so many ties on the topics they can talk about. What happened to the days of Slick Rick and the storytelling? What happened to just the fun stuff, like, “I got up in the morning and I brushed my teeth, I combed my hair and then I beat the streets?” You want to talk about something other than “Bitch better have my money,” or “This n---- that.” We have all of that, that’s all cool, fine and dandy, but we have no balance. I think the balance and the positivity is something that will be coming full cycle. A lot of artists want it to be heard. Let’s stop degrading each other. You know what I’m really tired of? This really toasts my buns. Every damn drug dealer turns rapper! What the hell? If you want to be a rapper, why you gotta keep talking about selling drugs? First of all you’re incriminating yourself. [Applause] What kind of idiot gets on the microphone and blows their whole spot up?

Shaheen Ariefdien

Snitching on themselves.

Jazzy Jay

It influences others to say, “Yeah, let me talk about that too.” Some of these guys have never sold anything in their life, but they get on vinyl, they’ve got John Gotti money, they’ve got islands because they’ve sold so many rocks in their socks. Dude, we ain’t all about that, not everybody. Can we talk about the hard working cat who gets up every morning and drives a bus for ten hours to come home and feed his family? I could stand to hear some of that. He’s just as big a deal as the cat on the corner who’s never had a job, yet he’s driving a $200,000 car and in his spare time he goes to the studio because he’s bled the community dry and everybody’s hooked on the crap that he’s selling, the poison. So he can afford to go in the studio and lay down some tracks and call himself a rapper and the industry sucks it up and allows this crap to happen. We need some balance. I’m not saying we need to eliminate that, because that’s part of our surroundings, we see it every day walking in and out of our homes. But I want to see some balance happening real soon. Anybody listening here, I’m working with a lot of cats that we’re trying to produce some positive music, change a little trend. We want to have some fun with it, tell some stories. Let’s do some different things.

Shaheen Ariefdien

In terms of doing different things outside of what you regard as the negative things, how do you see the possibilities of hip-hop as a social, cultural and political force in terms of resisting different kinds of oppression?

Jazzy Jay

We hold the key, baby. You’ve got the Democratic Party, you’ve got the Republican Party, what about the “Hip-Hop Party?” We are strong in numbers. Around the world, we can change things. If you find anyone speaking out, they always go after the thinkers first. You start speaking out, next thing you know you’re assassinated. But we have enough power to change things. Coming from the streets and evolving into what has been one of the most lucrative industries, just that in itself lets you know it’s a force that has to be reckoned with. Under the banner of “You love hip-hop and you want change,” we can come together and make this change happen. We can elect our own leaders, our own politicians. All these countries fighting over… and especially the United States, they’re on the top of my shit list. I love Americans, I love my people, but I can’t stand the way my people are persecuted.

But we can all unite together and have something to say about this. The first thing people say is, “Let’s start a war.” No, that will only kill people. We know what’s wrong, let’s address the issues and let’s change things. Stop letting these politicians run our lives and line their pockets with our blood. Sending these boys off to fight, for what? For some oil that don’t belong to you? You’ve got people in Africa starving and they’ve got all the precious minerals right there, yet you’ve got two families who live in castles in Britain and they run all of Johannesburg. Something’s very wrong with that. You’ve got somebody who’s got so much money that they could die five times, keep coming back and still not be able to spend it all. And you’ve got other people living hand to mouth who don’t know where their next meal is going to come from and would jump through hoops of fire just to be able to be recognized, there’s something really wrong with that. We need to address these issues, come together and get rid of these governments. Like back in the old days, just put them all in a pit and stone them all.

Shaheen Ariefdien

It’s a plan, it’s a plan. [Applause] I’m with the wisdom you’re spitting right now. You having had this history and you’ve got children yourself. Are any of them involved in hip-hop?

Jazzy Jay

All of them. My daughter, she likes classical music but she’s started digging some funk. So she’s started coming up to me, “You gotta listen to this.” “Yeah, baby, that’s nice, that’s nice. Your daddy’s only been playing that music for 25, 30 years. It’s good, I’m glad you like it.” I started my son playing drums when he was four years old. My wife comes from a musical background, she plays flute, she’s an accomplished pianist. And my other daughter, that’s the one I don’t know what I’m going to do with. She loves dancing, she’s one hell of a dancer, but she’s a teenager too. I don’t have any grey hairs yet, but they’re coming. So I’ve got them all involved. My son likes a lot of the new hip-hop, but he knows the deal, that someone’s pulling the wool over his eyes, because he’s got a good teacher. I keep them involved and in the loop.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Brilliant. Before we open up to the floor and questions, what are the next things for you?

Jazzy Jay

Right now, I’m going to keep doing a little more traveling. I’d like to start a chain of stores to sell DJ equipment, so I’m in negotiations to start doing that right now. Basically, until they throw the dirt on me I’m going to keep making music. As long as I can be in the studio, and be comfortable and get my family affairs taken care of, my bills, which never stop.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Stop buying records?

Jazzy Jay

Those? No, you pay for it one time, you’re good. Plus, I’m a smooth character, man. I can go up to these companies and be like, “Dude, I’ve got to have that.” Apple and Digidesign, those two companies. Apple, hook a brother up! I’m good about that, man. I get stuff. A lot of the companies, like Numark, Rane, Stanton, they’ve been very supportive and I thank them because they don’t have to show the love. A lot of companies don’t, but Technics. I ain’t even going to get started with them. We’ve been playing on Technics for years. Where’s the love, Technics? That’s what I want to do, I want to be able to open up a store, but I want to sell the good stuff. I don’t want to just sell a lot of stuff just because I’m getting it at a discount rate. I want to sell what DJs need, what producers need, what they want. I’m always up on the cutting edge of that, you know what I’m saying? I’m getting ready to start the work on a book that I’m getting ready to put out. I know nothing about directing any movies or whatever the deal is like that, but I’ve been approached on that level also. So, you know, I got a few little options and things I want to toy around with before I hang up the mixing gloves and all of that, you know what I’m saying? Jazzy Jay ain’t going nowhere for a little bit.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Perfect, we’re happy for that. Thank you very much good sir. Let’s open up the floor for discussion and well, questions, essentially.

Audience Member

Cool. I just want to say I learned a lot. I’m a fan of documentaries and reading books. I always told myself that I wanted to meet a pioneer or something so it’s an honor just being in front of you, man, hearing you talk so I just want to thank you for that.

Jazzy Jay

You’re welcome, my brother.

Audience Member

I thank you, man. Now I got a couple of questions. Just growing up, being a fan of hip-hop, I’ve always heard in the songs about the Zulu Nation. Me not being from New York, I really don’t know what the Zulu Nation is. If it’s an organization, what exactly does Zulu Nation do?

Jazzy Jay

All right, the credo Zulu mentions peace, unity, love and having fun, you know what I’m saying? That kind of sums up what we all about. Zulu Nation came out of the necessity of us, like I said earlier, stopping the violence on each other. Each one teach one. It opened up the possibility, like, it’s not a totally religious based group, but in the lessons that the Zulu Nation hands out, it teaches you about the Muslim faith, it teaches you about the Christian faith, it teaches you about different things and it teaches you about respect for oneself. These are all the lessons that the Zulu Nation puts together. From the very first chapter in Bronx River, which was like the first original seven members, to hundreds of thousands of members worldwide. It’s not a gang, like some people go, “Oh, well, Zulu Nation, I mean...” Of course anybody will kick your ass if you mess with them or whatever the deal is.

Our credo when we used to do the party was, “You come in peace or you leave in pieces.” We didn’t advocate violence, but if you want to come and bring it… you know what I’m saying? We’d be there because we not only have the teaching aspect. We wanted people to excel in life. That’s what the Zulu Nation was all about. We gave you the lessons, gave you the tools and right now we got people that are doctors, that are lawyers, in the music business as record company executives. We got people that own television stations in Paris. It’s an organization that has grown and, like I said, from plugging into the lamp post and because of its positive attributes it always gets met with the negative because we were listed with the Crips, the Bloods, and the Zulu Nation, as if we were a gang. But it’s not a gang or anything, it’s more of a family-based operation that we get together and celebrate and try to advance our status in life.

Audience Member

What’s the process of joining the Zulu Nation?

Jazzy J

They have a chapter out here in Canada. What you have to do is you would have to contact the chapter leaders. You can go right onto the website at zulunation.com or zulunation.net and it will outline the whole directions of what you need to do if you wanted to start a chapter yourself, whatever the deal is. How many members that you would have to petition to start a chapter. What are the rules and the regulations. The one thing we don’t want is just a lot of people joining up for the wrong reasons and filthing the name Zulu Nation. You would have to be informed on what the Zulu Nation is all about and everything like that and if you go on the website it will tell you most of that.

Audience Member

All right. One last question.

Jazzy J

No problemo.

Audience Member

All right, man, I think of you, like your crew, that whole crew that was around that area... like modern minds. Is there any sound of music or any type of experiments that you’re doing? Just with you saying how you used to go to the lumberyard and construct anything. Do you have anything new poppin’?

Jazzy J

You know what? See, the one thing I wanted to share and maybe we got off the subject, is the art of sampling is a truly unique art. I just like to give one tip, when I’m sampling. A lot of times what people do is take a loop from a song, maybe one bar or two bars, and just loop it. What I usually do is I make it a practice to take that loop, even if I like the loop just the way it is, I take it and break it up into 16 or 32 equal parts and take that and spread it across the keyboard, each individual note, and that way I could take that sample and kind of re-direct it and make it a composition of my own. I went to get clearance for a song that I had used with one of my groups, with Ultimate Force, and they couldn’t figure out what song I used so I had to go and dissect a sample and put it back together so they would know what I took it from. I would say just being creative and having an open mind, just like in anything you do. And experiment. Especially with all the tools we got at our disposal these days. Experiment, just go out on a limb.

Audience Member

Cool, thanks.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Anyone else?

Audience Member

Hi, I really enjoyed the story about the battle with Kool Herc and you guys back in the day. Is there any book or something where I could read more of those stories?

Jazzy J

Yeah, they have a book called, Yes, Yes, Y’all. They got a couple of different things. Wax Poetics and a couple of other things. There’s a website. It’s called Tools of War. What you can do is go there and Tools of War lists all kinds of information that it will tell you what type of books if you want to find out more about and then especially if you like, I told you the old flyers and stuff like that, Tools of War is very informative about the whole culture of hip-hop. It will tell you who’s playing, where they’re playing, so even if you live out here in Canada you can go to Tools of War. They’re located in New York, they might tell you more about what’s happening here in the party scene or who’s going to be in your area. You might even know about right here. I would say use that and the book, Yes, Yes, Y’all. Wild Style just released their book. There’s a few of them out there I know, there’s a guy named David Chen or...

AUDIENCE MEMBER:

Jeff Chang.

Jazzy Jay

Jeff Chang. Yeah, Jeff Chang. Put a book out.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Yeah, Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop.

Jazzy Jay

Yeah, you could find out a lot, go to Tools of War.

Audience member

I just wanted to say, how old were you when you were kind of coming through and you were DJing with Bam and playing at the recreation centers at the South Bronx and stuff? I didn’t really get a sense of how old you were when you were.

Jazzy Jay

I was 13 years old, and it was crazy because when I played into the connection... I’m vertically challenged as most of you could tell. I ain’t never been that tall. We used to have to put crates up there so I could DJ from on top of the crates. Me and Theodore was the two youngest. I think Theodore started when he was around 12. We were like that next string. Flash, Herc and Bambaataa. Then the next generation was like myself, Charlie Chase and Theodore, DXT, Rockin’ Rob, Break Out and Baron, so we were like the next string. Yeah, 13, back in 1974 was when I officially made my transition from playing the drums and then started turntables. I bought me a set of turntables and that was it.

Audience member

Did you all finish school? Or did you just drop out?

Jazzy Jay

Nah, nah, I didn’t drop out, my mama... Let me tell you, I grew up in the gang days and I used to come home and have to walk past people rumbling and shivving each other. There wasn’t a badder man in the whole town than my pops. Join a gang and drop out of school? Dude, man, I wouldn’t be here today. He would have killed me. First thing first, finish your schooling. After you finish that you can make up your mind whether you want to go to college or do whatever you want to do. Basically, you going to finish some schooling. You going to do that 12 years. After that you’re a little bit on the grown side, you can do what you want. Fortunately, they leaned on me enough, I went to school and then did four years of college. And basically the man you see here before me, right now, in November, next month on the 18th I’ll be celebrating my 46th birthday, if I make it.

Audience member

Woo!

Jazzy Jay

You know, a lot of years in this thing called hip-hop. You know what, if I had to do it all over I’d probably do it all over the same way, man.

Shaheen Ariefdien

How accurate are the depictions in some of these movies that some of us grew up with in other parts of the world and totally ate up?

Jazzy Jay

Well, Beat Street was totally watered down, don’t believe what you see in there.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Breaking my heart!

Jazzy Jay

The whole thing is, Beat Street wanted a certain type of rating and audience and when you do that you lose some of the story. Bambaataa was one of the consultants who helped with putting the whole thing together. The parts with the gangs and how it originally started with the graffiti, they depicted the essence and the hardships you had to go through doing graffiti at the time. It wasn’t the full thing, but it had its moments where it did it justice. The best parts, of course, were the dancing. If you went back in the day, it maybe wouldn’t show as much colorful movement. At that point in time, we were dancing outside and we weren’t doing windmills on the concrete floor. Other than that, we owe a lot to Beat Street for telling the story. One of these days someone will tell the real accurate 100% story – hey, maybe that will be the movie I’m working on. [laughs]

Shaheen Ariefdien

We have time for a few more questions?

Audience member

Who invented the scratch, was it Grandmaster Flash or Theodore? I’ve heard Flash once say in concert that if someone says differently, smack them in the face.

Jazzy Jay

Let me tell you, I love Flash and I love Theodore. They need to stop the violence, stop the nonsense. Theodore invented the scratch. I love Flash to death. Flash invented just about everything else. Come on man, you are the turntable god, if it wasn’t for you, we wouldn’t do what we do. So stop the nonsense. Theodore invented the scratch.The first time I heard someone go [scratches on turntable] it was Grand Wizard Theodore, aight? I was on a fence, perched up maybe ten feet in the air like this [holds hands out], because I couldn’t believe what I was seeing. I had already seen Flash and every time I was [holds arms up], but this was something totally new.

I talked to Theodore, he’s so sweet. Anybody ever met Theodore? You’ve got to have the Grand Wizard up in here, man. He’s a character. Theodore told me, (imitates soft voice) “You know, I don’t know why Flash…” He’s real soft-spoken, sweetheart of a guy. Flash, on the other hand, love him to death, but everybody knows Flash can be a little bit arrogant, a little bit whatever, but it doesn’t change things. He’s a very talented individual. Theodore’s a very talented individual. As far as all the backspinning technique, the cuts, the quick movement and all of that, hands down, you’ve got to give it to Flash. But as far as I’m concerned, the scratch was invented by Grand Wizard Theodore.

Shaheen Ariefdien

What are your thoughts on the new generation of DJs who’ve taken the technical aspects to other levels in terms of beat juggling and crabs?

Jazzy Jay

I’m loving it, man. They’ve turned the turntable into a whole musical instrument. So I applaud people like Q-Bert, Mix Master Mike, the X-Ecutioners, they’ve taken it to a whole other level. That type of thing has to be recognized. Dude, do you know how long it takes to put those routines together? A seven-minute routine might take you three months to put together, just to make it flow. Give them a round of applause, man. [Applause] That’s a lot of work. It hurts my hands sometimes when I see Q-Bert. [imitates fast scratching] Man, I can’t look at you anymore. I’m loving it. I think they should always stick to the main rule – look at your crowd. If you’re going to DJ hip-hop, if you’re doing an exhibition, cool, fine and dandy, take them to the moon. But if you’re playing for some people who want to dance, you need to be able to incorporate. You ever seen Cash Money? Yeah, that’s a bad man, right? Incorporate your skills but keep the dancefloor popping. Cash Money, Jazzy Jeff, DJ Craze, those are the cats that I think do it the best.

Audience member

I wanted to ask something about women in hip-hop, ’cause it’s a very male-dominated genre. What women MCs are out there actually saying something? You turn on MTV and it’s someone talking about how much money they make and women running round in bikinis. I can think of Invincible and Bahamadia and after that it’s kind of a blank.

Jazzy Jay

You got Latifah. We got one of the females that I produced on Strong City, Ice Cream T, there’s a few of them, but you know what it is? This industry, you know, they dictate, and what they want is to see y’all undressed, shaking your ass, as if you couldn’t say the same rhyme with your clothes on. I encourage a lot of female DJs, help them out any way I can, ’cause just because it’s a male-dominated situation, I know a few female DJs, my girl Jazzy Joyce, my other girl June, a couple of female DJs, Shortee, they’ll kick any male’s ass when they get on the turntables, so I always encourage that. You can set your own type of trend. If you wanna DJ with a G-string, I ain’t got nothing against that but it should be your own choice, you shouldn’t have to be pushed into that in order to be in this business. That’s what I say, if any female DJ wants to jump out there and do their thing, go ahead, do it.

Shaheen Ariefdien

Were there any female DJs back in the ‘70s?

Jazzy Jay

Yeah, you had the Mercedes Ladies, Debbie Dee, La Spank. There were a few of them but not as many as I would have liked to see. Debbie Dee, boy, she was fine.

Shaheen Ariefdien

On the turntables?

Jazzy Jay

On the turntables and off the turntables.

Shaheen Ariefdien

OK, any other questions? Going once, going twice.

Jazzy Jay

Sold to the man in the polka dot underwear. [Applause] I wanna thank y’all for having me. One love, the Funkmaster Jazzy Jay.