Describe the energy of Hip-hop
(Chris) I was Thirteen I couldn't drive, my dad was into it he brought a banner and we set up my uncles little picnic tent and all kind of people from the community just came to watch and I remember some of those zulu nation people I looked up to they showed up sitting on the lawn just watching. We bumped music out of my little stereo we didn't even have a sound system that year and we were bumping Moment of Truth, by Gang Starr, come to find out i got to open up for Jazzmatazz years later downtown, it was Guru's last show! in Denver before he died I didn't even know he had lymphoma, but I went to the rec center and I met this guy and he was like yeah I'm a referee ill do your thing so we gave him like 20 bucks
He brought CDs too! he was like put on woo hah by Bustah Rhymes when I'm doing this game put flipmode put Rah digga yeah I like mos def! haha the community just came together this guy i didn't know and then other people were bringing CD's and we were just changing out CD's and then we had instrumentals for rap battles and the energy was cool it really brought together the community
(Bruce Ratliff Jr.) There was a real good feel to it and it was community based and we'd have this we had what you'd call jams and jams what they were, were when people in the community immersed in this culture would get out and set up these big radios or whatever they had that could emit these sounds in the park and we'd plug it in to the light-post and they called them jams and everyone knew where in new york there was one on this hill of the lower east side and another on my side and we'd go represent and if you were from this side you'd go to that side talk to their girls and it was like this big mixer around hiphop and you'd hear this good music.
How did Hip-hop spread?
(Bruce Ratliff Jr.) It was very subculture very underground there were little pockets in Bronx and Brooklyn where it was Zulu nation and Africa Bambatta and all these other groups that were community based groups that were lead by black pride organizations so they started this stuff and it was kinda distance I didn't go to the Bronx but then you'd have people from the Bronx come down to my side of town and they looked different they had these big gigantic boombox radios that had like 16 d batteries and they would have to switch shoulders, take turns carrying It put em in little carts and lug em around but they wanted to be heard and they were saying something and they were saying it through the music.
Describe what the music industry was like in incorporating Hip-hop
(Chris)my one friend got offered a deal with def jam and this is when seed 2.0 came out so they were gonna work on those sessions. through his connection they offered me a deal because they were looking for a white rapper. First off they say we'll sign you and give you an advance my advance was $100,000 that's a loan though that's not money so they own you and then they go "you wanna do it at a nice studio?"
"yeah"
"and when your done after wanna do a tour?"
"yeah"
"you wanna nice CD and a music video?"
"yeah"
you think all that their hooking you up it's all coming out of your advance but they still give you the 100k up front but then they have horrible interest deal. They sign a lot of people during tax season so they can fill up their budget and show they used it all
so they sign up a bunch of people between febuary and march
the most interesting is you get a contract that has all the brand names you need to say on your record this is explicit in the game when you hear the chingy song holliday in they buy rights they buy commercial time from these artist so chingy don't care about holiday in holiday in wanted to be on the radio every day because its another way to get of marketing themselves sop you see home depot, loses all of the gun manufactures very tied in to the whole industry and if you go to the funding for Universal Records, Warner Brothers they're actually prompt up by the gun industry and the prison industry so a lot of prisons are invested in these companies so their making money off this manufactured violence fantasy trying to create that scarface
(Bruce Ratliff Jr.) Fat Joe was doing his thing before a record deal on 125th street of Harlem with a mic and an amplifier setting up battles on the streets