Interview with Fab 5 Freddy

- Luxury. - Today we've got part one of a very special two-part episode where we talk to a champion of the melting pot of New York art and culture, the very first host of UMTB rap. - That's right, Tiola, in this first part, we'll be talking about the downtown New York scene and the origins of hip-hop, disco, and new wave. And in part two, we will break down Blondie's rapture, a song our guest was immortalized in. - And sort of encapsulates that. So welcome to part one of our very special conversation with one and only, Fat 5 Ready. (upbeat music) - I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ, Diola Riddle. - I'm producer, DJ, songwriter, and music, collegeist, luxury. AKA the guy who whispers, interpolation. - And this is one song. - Show where we break down the stems and stories behind iconic songs across genres and tell you why they deserve one more listen. - You will hear these songs like you've never heard them before, and you can watch one song on YouTube and Spotify. While you're there, please like and subscribe. - If you're looking for even more music facts, more conversations and more us, these two guys, we've got a Patreon now. Go to patreon.com/DioloLuxury. That's patreon.com, D-I-L-L-O-L-U-X-X-U-R-Y. In other words, our names. - Do all that spelling. As we mentioned, we have a very special guest with us here today, a pioneer in graffiti who brought that art form and many others to the mainstream, the co-producer and soundtrack co-creator and star of seminal hip-hop film while style, the first host of UMTV Rats and now author with his memoir Everybody's Fly. It's out now, you have to buy, you have to read it. Oh my gosh. Please welcome Fab5 Freddie in the building. - Hey, hey, hey, hey, thank you. - That's it. - I need to be here, big fan. - We are so happy to have you here. Your book, by the way, which we've been reading, it does such an amazing job of giving everyone who wasn't in New York in the late '70s, early '80s. Just paint such a vivid picture. You talk about the confluence of hip-hop, disco, punk, graffiti, art books. I grew up, my father was a painter, like I grew up with all the art books in my house. You bring it up, some of us just, I haven't thought about that name in so long. - Wow. - And importantly, because we're both DJs, you talk a lot about the DJs in New York at this time. - All stars with the DJs. - Oh, it also, yes. - Let's give us a tour of the downtown scene in 1980. - Well, I guess even a little before the downtown scene, I'll just give you a taste as a younger kid coming up before I hit the scene, what really was the most exciting thing with the mobile disco DJs. And these were guys, some of the names I talk about, that was wildly popular, was the original grandmaster, grandmaster flowers, it was Pete DJ Jones, my boy, Plumber, out in Queens, you had the disco twins, you had Infinity Machine. These guys have massive sound systems and just the idea of keeping the music going continually as opposed to- - Without the fade out. - No, well, as opposed to in most people's homes, you had a spindle, you'd put five or six 45s, the arm would swing back, the record would drop down, the record would, the arm would go peer, play the record. That's how records were played. If you had a party, that was the mode. The idea of continually keeping the music going, just mixing from one record to the other was a huge innovation, and that is what the mobile disco DJs did. They weren't cutting scratch in a mixin, but they made being a DJ, super cool, super sexy, and these guys would pack. And as a young kid, I didn't have any real paper to go to the clubs they spun at, they'd come out in the summer, play at block parties, and park jams. - Right. - And it'd be three, four, five, six hundred kids or more in these parks until two, three in the morning. This is the classic story. These were the guys that figured out how to bust open the base of the street, like, know which way to connect to 'cause the wrong way, you get fried to a crisp, plug into the city's power supply, and rock until the, you know, early morning. - I gotta bring this up because your book is so good. It's called Everybody's Fly, Fan Five Freddy's Book. So many key details that I thought I knew everything about the spirit. I did not know everything. The idea that these guys would steal the speakers out of train, subway trains, and then try and play music through that. - That's what's so desperate to see DJs, man. How do I get a system together? - That sound quality was absolute garbage. It's horrible, horrible. And like I said, the same flowers and some of the other ones had like these big speakers, right? Like, they had big bass bottoms. This is where you first saw brands like Sirwen Vega, parties that these guys spun at would be promoted with how many watts a different DJ system had. Like, 3,000 watts. That was an attraction. You know, like, oh, shit. This is hilarious. - And then like, you're not gonna be listening to the one, two, three train speakers at this party. - Yeah. - But what I we had heard was because the Bronx was the poorest borough. And kids everywhere wanted to do this. They were like, let's put a system together some way somehow. People would, most people in their homes, this is before stereo became a ubiquitous thing. People had high five systems. Oftentimes it was a TV, like a FM radio, and one big speaker. - Maybe a turntable on the top of it. - Turntable on the top. Radio on the top, big TV, big massive piece of furniture. And guys would dismantle those to try to get a speaker to cobble together some type of system. But it didn't, there weren't stereo yet. Stereo became popular later. WBLS, I know in the black community, real popular radio station. The way they did their station ID oftentimes, it would go WBLS, which would move from the left speaker to the left. That was like, oh my god. (laughing) - I was sent to around 3T, AI, super duper high tech. - You'll be able to send New York. - One old cell. - One old cell. - One old cell. - Story five. - And you're a stereo. - And that made people like when you talk about, yo, I was in so-and-so's house and shit went from listening to that speaker. - That's a very good cast man. I gotta get me a stereo. Because what your mom's typically had or your parents had was a high five. - Sure. - For high fidelity. Everything was high five in the mid to late '70s. I wanna take a second to talk about flowers 'cause in your book you say that like he would open up sets. I'm always interested in like, what were DJ's playing then? What are some of the forgotten songs? And I remember you mentioned like one of the big closers I think was Love is the Message by M-L-F-S-B. - Is the message was referred to as the anthem. (upbeat music) - And then mobile DJ's that was a huge song that was just, oh my God, that was an epic record. And it was really interesting. It was coming out of Philly. - It was out of Philly. It wasn't a New York record. - Yeah. - No, it wasn't a New York record. New York has some, yeah, Gamble and Huff, that Philly soul sound. - Yes, okay. - Had some orchestration. It was like an orchestra. It was like real instruments. - You know, there were like four musicians of that track. - Man, listen, this record was an orchestra. And the actual original record was built up once again to this crescendo, a break, if you will, which was one of the most incredible breakdowns. And then that record was once again, it was a staple across all these mobile DJ's, but then on the beginning of rapping side, people wanted to go crazy on that breakdown part. So Cass wanted to hop on that mic. And that eventually, as people learn how to remix records but the idea of capturing the most exciting part of a record, then versions would come out just any long gated break of that love is the message breakdown, which was so epic, so incredible. - And then man, Zell, Space Funk is another one with one of those epic breaks right at the beginning. - Yes. - You know, those are those really fun. - I have a question. I didn't know I was gonna ask this question. - Okay. - I gotta ask this question. Why did guys really seek out the break beats to rap over? Like, did they just not want to sing over? Did they not want to rap over music? Or was it because like the break beat was like the hypnist part of the song? - Hypnist part of the song, the most fun part of the song. If you knew the record, you're at Wendy's jam, you were waiting for that part. That was the climax, that was the big peak of it all. And you know, the whole story, which when we take it into the beginnings of rap that grows into hip hop, and then you have the Genius Grandmaster Flash. It's like, I wanna be able to continue the energy. He saw there was a decided elevation of the energy when that break beat came in, but it was always really brief. And Herk, when Flash goes, when we go up to the Bronx, was trying to, what they call needle drop, pick that up with his hand and just physically drop it back in the groove. You catch it, you might not catch it. Flash wanted to keep that going continuously and seamlessly, which led him on a research and development mission of every turn table, available, Morance, Gemini, Panasonic, whatever, until he hit, that it wasn't the techniques 1200. It predated that, but it had the direct, - It's like the AK-30, what is it called? - It might have been a different signature. - Different signature, but it was a direct drive. So when he held that record and let it go, it was up to speed instantly. And that was a big difference because then you don't have to, I was thinking for whatever reason last night about like how you used to kind of like when you would stop a regular would be like, yeah, yeah, it took a minute, but that's not helpful in a party. Yeah. It was helpful. And so Flash was obsessed with, and he figured out this was the turntable that allowed that to happen. So that was a major innovation towards what hip hop would bring to the table. But the mobile DJs just basically mixed and blended all the popular songs of that day. That you would hear on the popular Black radio station, but to be outside in a really loud system that was a rarity to hear music with that level of fidelity, especially if your system was dope. So you could feel the bass, you know, and you'd feel it. It was something that people that we all talked about and was sort of in awe of this massive systems that these mobile DJs brought out into the parks. At the same time Richard Long is building a massive system at the Paradise Garage. Well, Richard Long definitely did the garage. He did many clubs and many systems, but he also helped a lot of these mobile DJs with their portable systems. He developed something which became known as a coffin, kind of creepy, which was all in one setup where the turntables would be in there, the mixer. And then he designed these speakers that were just massive. So a lot of the mobile DJs, like I know guys in Queens, like, Oh, I got a Richard Long system and it was like, ooh, name was ringing and then cats tried to emulate and recreate and make their own versions of it. So that was the thing that really drove the fidelity once again. All these innovations are happening on the mobile DJ level and then they start to make the move into the clubs like Paradise Garage. Right. Right. Yeah. But before the Paradise Garage, that was the epic, the cathedral, the Vatican of discos, but there were many that led up to that to what the Paradise Garage was and that was Richard Long's like rise and he continually worked and tweaked. I went to the garage many times, they would add baffles in the ceiling to refract the sound and I heard that he could control. I had the pleasure of me and Mel Sharon from Western records, like a million years ago. But like he told me that Larry had a dial in the booth where he could actually control the temperature. Like he had control over the heat in the garage. Yeah. So like if he was like sneaky with it, that always be like bringing like the temple and the vibe of the party up. He'd actually increase the heat so everybody was just like losing their mind. Yeah. He'd increase the heat. He wouldn't make it go like increasing. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. And you said that like the floor was built on sand like it's just an amazing and I heard on springs and he would in between like periodically the garage would close for updating and maintenance and a lot of it would be things that Richard would be adding to the system to make the sound better. So it was a progression to get to that. The club that was the big inspiration, I didn't get to go to this one. The big inspiration to what the Paradise garage became was David Mankusso's loft, which I think he might have actually lived in. I think it was off of Broadway, maybe in Houston, you'd go upstairs and it was like house party in a way people described a great documentary called Maestro that a young Latin kid made early 2000s. He wasn't even at the garage, but it's the best kind of film about that era, about many of the people. They had incredible footage that shows the garage. Unfortunately, that was the final weekend, which was too, it was like, I was like, I had many friends that were going. I think they party non-stop from Friday into maybe like Monday morning, never stop. Those are the legendary clubs that we've both like grown up reading about and wishing we had been there for. And the thing that I want you to talk a little bit more about because I don't think a lot of people know this, the history of DJing and this era and in this place was the eclectic music that's being played. Talk a little bit about to us what you're going to be hearing at a David Mankusoparty, Larry Levant at the garage. It's not single genre. He's mixing it up, right? That's true. They were playing a broad variety. They might sprinkle a little African, a little phala, maybe in the mix and there were different sounds. I can't up to be honest, which I'm not completely up on all the records they were playing, but they were playing the hottest dance music. And then they were developing this idea of extending the mix and things that were later replicated on the extended disco mix record, the whole long as disco became the thing. But these are places where the DJs that were the true architects, like the real Michelin chefs in the kitchen, Larry was there, oh, what's my man, Rest in Peace, that blew up house music. Frankie. And Knuckles was in the room and this piano is in the mix. Yes, these cats are there. And in that Maestro doc, he talks to different people and he get a real sense of what they were doing and the vibe and the way they played. And so Larry was there. And I guess what they say learned a lot of the techniques that he would later execute at the garage. He, I think Larry, you know, he was doing the continental baths. And that was like a big thing for Larry. And then he took a lot of the lessons of the kind of, go ahead. No, we were talking about Plato's retreat or Laurelia, the kind with the bass was the other one. Yeah. This for swing is also swingers. No, these were primarily like gay. I was primarily gay. Yeah. What they say. And what they look. That was a scene. That was a scene. That was that was a big aspect of the disco scene as well. It was like the gay people could be themselves, let it all hang out. They would really get up. They would help shift the party into overdrive with the abandon with the with the wildness of that energy was so wild. I mean, like people don't realize, first of all, the Paradise Garage was actually a garage that was just a good place for cars. Yeah. And you would walk up this long ramp and as you got closer to the doors, you'd hear the music get louder and louder, build up this anticipation. Yes. You know, the other thing that's really interesting about this, this period, I think is, you know, there, there are a lot of DJs in the mix. And one thing that we wanted to ask you was, were there DJs that you thought were great? And we just, they just never got the attention. Oh, man. Well, a lot of those mobile DJs that I talked about, particularly the ones that I, that were playing in Brooklyn, the streets, the Pete DJ Jones, the Maboya, the Plumber, the grandmaster flowers, these guys never really made records. So they played music well. They had decent sound systems. Once again, the big innovation was the seamless flow of the music. The music never stopped. The only person who did anything close to that was the radio guy who had the ability to continue the music, which, you know, we could play Frankie Crocker, who became the most influential black radio jock because most radio, when he was a kid coming up, was heard on AM stations. Right. So in New York, the main black station on AM was W.W.R.L. 1600. And most people then also, the boom box hadn't come into play. You had a transistor radio. It was kind of mono, you know what I'm saying? And so you might have, you know, as man is thinking like Curtis Mayfield, like, oh, man, I can almost, I can almost hear those drums. We're so, we're so spoiled now it's like, but what happened was Percy Sutton, who was a major play in the New York scene. He was an attorney, he was in politics, and he was in business. He headed up a group that acquired an FM station at an AM and an FM station was W.L.I.B. AM. And then it was W.L.I.B. FM, but then they changed the call letters to W.B.L.S., which was sure for world's best looking sound. Frankie Crocker had worked his way up. He was on some like white pop station W.M.C.A. in New York from not mistaken. Then he went to the main black station on AM, W.L.I.R., 1600, which would have like commercials for cheap ghetto wine, like Thunderbird and like that. And there will be no Thunderbird disparagement. No Thunderbird. No money down, you know, pay for the rest of your life, like ghetto furniture, maybe offering these. You know. And so when Frankie went to BLS, he wanted to elevate, he was a part of the like, George Jefferson moving on up thing. Black folks was like, wait a minute, it's time to get classy, fly, sexy at another level. So he was the program director at W.B.L.S. and the main DJ and he came on from four to eight every day. And man, that became like a huge thing for anybody in the know. You could walk through different parts of the city and hear BLS coming from people's houses and cars, and he would close every show, playing this amazing jazz record, King Pleasure's Moody's Moody's love. My parents love that song. Money. Everybody in that era knows every lyric. There I go, there I go, there I go, there I go, there I go, there I go. And you could check your watch, it'd be right around eight o'clock and Frankie would be going off. You're like, oh man, he's playing Moody's Move for Love. But what Frankie did to get it popping in the beginning, because there wasn't big advertisers. The promoters of these mobile disco parties, the Pete DJ Jones, the plumber, all those cats, they would come and do restaurants in that part in the seventies. The city was broke and people needed help with their business. So these promoters went to these restaurants to say, "Hey, listen, we wanna do a party here. "You can split the bar or you get the bar "and we'll get the door." They would take the chairs and tables out and they would promote 'em on BLS. You would think these were clubs. You were in Brooklyn. You would know that this is really like a restaurant. - Oh, that's fun. - But it'd be like-- - 'Cause a restaurant's probably closed by that hour anyway. - Correct, restaurant'd be closed after hours, not much popping on the weekends. So a lot of these DJs played in these places and they would advertise on Frankie Crocker show. So Frankie, you'd hear these parties, like these DJs will be playing at this place. Nell, Gwen's, Nemo's, superstar cafeteria, different spots. I wasn't in the mix yet, but I'm hearing all this stuff. I had an aunt, my aunt Pearl was, you know, hip and fly, she went to these parties. - It's always that cool on. - It depends on you on so much. - Yeah, you know what I mean? I have a cool relative and whatever. But basically what Frankie would also do, he would be at a lot of these parties. And the hot record that moved the crowd, he would program and start playing these records on BLS. So he wasn't following what the playlist said, what the top 10, top 20, whatever on the black charts was. Because he was a program director. He can play, oh, somebody's playing something high. So as Frankie now is this megaphone, if you will, and he's tapped in to the coolest thing going on, he was playing these records that these DJs found and blowing them up. So he ended up breaking a lot of what became the foundations of disco, like Donna Summer. (upbeat music) ♪ Talking about the sad girl ♪ - Oh my goodness, I gotta imagine. - She cook, of course. ♪ Be fun, fun, run, time ♪ ♪ Be your guest, be her ♪ - He'd be playing these records first because he saw them rock the crowd at this party or that party. And that was huge because if you were tapped in, you'd be like, oh wow, nobody else is playing this. And then Frankie would interview these guys. So he was a huge force in making disco, go from a street underground kinda gaping into the Saturday night live studio 54 level when it became like people magazine feature stories. It was like Frankie and he doesn't get enough juice, but he set a lot of that off. Unfortunately, when hip-hop eases in, as a lot of older blacks from a previous era eight, you know, the aggressive on the corner street energy, it wasn't trying to mess with him. But he was a big inspiration to a lot of it, but he kinda was like, ah. I think one thing that happens during this period that, again, I didn't know until I sort of read your book, was the blackouts in 1977. You know, we're talking about the equipment and how the equipment affected the DJing and how the DJing affected the people's music taste. With the blackout, people stole some turntables. - Some speakers from the stores. - I mean, everybody went crazy, looting. Not that, you know, it was a horrible thing. - It's horrible, it's horrible. - A boy old boy. - There's been private property. - And this is something like Grandmaster Caz and other cats from the Bronx shared this in different hip-hop, you know, history. Like when the blackout in 1977 happened, cats hit the major shopping areas and the electronic stores that had all the stuff stand in the window and, man, I'd love to have that look at this. - The generation of Bobo DJs was boring. - A whole generation of Bobo DJs got good equipment. Some of these guys were pulling the speakers out of the train station. You know, this shit's making the noise. 'Cause I've seen guys trying to jerry-rig shit. I mean, it was such a compelling thing that wanna be in that mix. But a lot of cats got their hands on quality stuff. And the Bronx kind of stepped up a few notches. It was suitably cats, now I got it. Because listen, the bottom line is, this stuff costs money, and it costs a few thousand dollars to put together a real system. It's a really good documentary that I took part in. Friends of mine made, including Ron Amman-Rod Lawrence, one of the great producers of a lot of '90s music, a brother, a good friend of mine, Hassan Poe. They did a documentary called Founding Fathers, which really is about this era of DJs that predate hip hop. And they focused on a lot of these guys out of Queens. And some of these guys were like, their families were a bit more well to do, had a few dollars to give their kid two, three thousand, four thousand to build a system. That's probably in this 2030 grand in this day's money, but four or five grand was a lot. And that's what a lot of these guys are, the jumpstart to go out and put together these substantial sound systems. That sounded great. And so to have that was a desire, but what the Bronx guys would do was, they would completely innovate, dish-rup, shake up the whole game in a super-significant way, because they couldn't compete with what these other guys were doing, but they, thanks to Cool Herk and and other people, they came up with something completely different. That was game-changing. All right, well, we're going to take a quick break. But when we get back, we'll continue our conversation with Fat Five Freddie and ask him, "Is he the reason this music is called hip-hop?" We'll be right back. All right, welcome back to one song. We're here with our guest, Fat Five Freddie. You're so deeply enmeshed in the early hip-hop scene. What is it that people get wrong about it? When people mythologize that era, what are people focused on? That's the wrong thing or what are they missing? The things that I think is connecting to what I'm explaining now is the whole, I think primarily because hip-hop became so big, so pervasive, so massive, globally, that this idea that because Cool Herk was of Jamaican ancestry, born in Jamaican, came up. They figured, oh, he must have brought this old dancehall thing up, and that's what the big inspiration for hip-hop was. That wasn't the case. Because when Cool Herk comes up, he's like 12 or so years old. He's not trying to emulate what King Tubby and the big producers in Jamaica are doing. I spent a lot of time in Jamaica. I directed most of Shabba Ranks' videos, and I loved the Jamaican scene, and sound. I talk about it in my book when it first popped off, when you Roy, I Roy, big youth. I wasn't into all that stuff. But basically, what I feel was happening, which was even more interesting, is the Jamaican dancehall DJ and the mobile disco DJ later, were emulating what the record DJ, which is the actual original DJ, the disc jockey, was doing. He was the guy on the black side deck and talked some slick jive pattern, sounded cool, had all the hot records. He controlled music and playing music, and that's what the DJ actually wanted to do. So when you look, check the early Jamaican sound system, if you really dig in deep, you'll know that the Jamaican DJ, when the weather was right, was able to pick up the black radio station, coming out of New Orleans, and coming out of Florida, coming out of Miami. All the black DJs had late night shows, but when the weather was right, you could tune in, and hear, and that inspired what the early. That makes so much sense, because the early Jamaican DJs, rather emcees, were called DJs, count Michouki, in the late '50s, early '60s, he was a DJ, and then the DJs were called selectors, 'cause they're selecting the music. Thank you. This station for identification, I'm gonna turn it over to your sound dimension, your music, producing. Everybody on the board. So that all makes so much sense to connect those dots there, that what they share in common was they were both separately influenced by DJs on the radio. - DJs on the radio, that was the guy that was doing it, and the New York guys, it was the same thing. You now have the power to be like the radio guy, but he's bringing that to your community, and he can keep the music going and never stop. That was like, oh my God, one record to another, especially if you had a party, come on, the main reason for these parties is guys wanna get with chicks, right? So boom, if the music is flowing, you can dance with a girl for three, four records if the DJ kept it moving, right? But on the other old style with the four or five, 45s on the spindle, the record was a 10 or 20 second stopage. - You got three minutes to close the bill. - You got three minutes and then you got a 20 second pause. - And the other thing that's long gone, I don't know if you guys, they realize this, is the every party back in the days, house party, whatever you want. It was a section where the DJs would play slow jam. - That still existed when I was coming up in the 90s. Like when I was in college in the 90s, I always into the night with like one or two slow jams. - Yeah, and the night, but there were intermittent parts through the party where there'd be a slow jam section. And you'd want to hopefully have a nice chick that you may be dance with on a dance record. And then if the slow joints coming, you would hope Honey would stay there with you and then you got the whole of tight and get your rubber born. - That was epic, that was huge. And then if the DJ can play three or four slow jams, I mean, come on, you practically making a baby. - I had my first kiss to a Mary Jane slow jam. - There you go. - There you go. - There was a little bit of hype guys. - I'm glad you bring up Cool Hurt because there's been some debate online about the specific date of birth of hip hop with you know, there's camps that have said, you know, and I think pretty much everybody embraced the 1973 thing because we just did the right thing. A couple of years back, but there are a lot of people who will say, hey, look, 1975, way more accurate. I think even in your book, you're like, you know, the guy's throwing the cardboard down and like just dancing on the spot, like, that's more like 75 than it's 73 and what is your opinion? Do you think we should clock it from 73, 75 or some more? What Kirk, what Kirk did at that party, him and his sister put together a 15, 20 Sedgwick Avenue in the boogie down Bronx was incredible. It was pivotal. It was a spark, if you will, that set off a series of major moves that would happen including flash going, wow, here what he's trying to do. He's doing the, because Kirk is doing the breakbeats, but they're a little wonky. As you said, well, he's needle dropping, needle dropping, he's playing some of the system. He doesn't have a system to actually keep the beat going continuously, but what he's doing is part, he's a dope and he lays the foundation for the whole thing. He's got the two records and the two turntables, so he's got step one. Once again, yes, so he has that going on. But the key thing, and I get into this in my book, it really, it wasn't hip hop technically yet. It was the beginnings of that and the beginnings of the form of manipulating the records. Flash will tell you, when he was doing his thing, when he figured it out, and he was bringing his set out into the parks, he said people wasn't dancing. They were just staring, staring because they were so amazed at me, like, how are you doing this? This is amazing. I haven't heard this anywhere. So Flash was like, yo, people just stand at me. People wanted to make people move. So Flash was like, man, if I can get somebody to get on the mic and keep them talking and talk to the crowd to get them off of just staring at me and people could get them move. You know, throw your hands in the air waving like just don't care. All of that stuff, which is the basic beginnings of rapping. That was when the first rapper stepped up and, oh my God, I'm not sure if it was Kid Crio or Keith Cowboy, but when he's got stepped up and talked about the DJ, because most of the early rappers, their job was to talk about how incredible the DJ was, because he was the one that brought everything out into the park. He was the focus of attention. Is that the same Kid Crio with the coconuts? No, that's a different Kid Crio, which is actually Mellie Mel's brother, Kid Crio with the Furious Five. It's interesting news, right? It was a Kid Crio. I always get those two coconuts, it's the same way there's like multiple Dr. Drays, there's there's like a couple of names that you can just cycle. You mentioned it a couple of times already in our conversation. It sounds like the really important thing was this continuation. The second things began to be continuous in terms of the music not stopping. That was the hypnotic moment with the big innovation in the overdrive. Music's not stopping you, blending, it was really like blending, one record into another so the music never stopped. That was like wow. It's almost like you could say hip hop don't stop. That's exactly. Exactly right. Right, stop the episode right there. It will. It will. It will. It will. It will. Hip hop, but you don't stop. But what actually happens and I really elaborate on in the book and the ideas that I had which became hip hop's first film, Wild Style, the idea once again was to showcase, I mean myself and aspiring painter, nobody was looking at any of these cultures with any kind of love or it was just, we were the scourge, you know graffiti was whatever whatever I wanted to show. So so many things, everything seems illegal. It's like why are you talking tough over the song instead of trying to sing and make it beautiful? Why are you spray painting on walls? Like it's like why are you creating noise in these parks after dark, you know. Correct. It was no real love there. Yeah. But in trying to take control of the narrative and shape a context for who we were, myself as a painter to show that a lot of it was vandalism and just crazy wild, crazy teenage energy. They were artists and art that was emerging. If you looked at it and said, okay, it's illegal, you probably shouldn't have spray painted all over you. You know, the windows and everything on the train. But God damn, that's a pretty good Bugs Bunny. You know, the lettuce look wild and you got the 3D drop shadow, right? It's like, hey, it's and so, you know, my thing. I loved it when you said you were going to make the train look like a loaf of wonder bread. You're like, that's a moving statue. That was exactly what Lee and I, so the first idea was I was, you know, had gotten found out about. I think about Lee Keonez. Yeah, Lee Keonez. Very famous graffiti artist. Very famous graffiti artist that I linked up with and had these ideas that we could, we should be able to, I figured, let's find a way to elevate out of just doing this on the subways and get this work into a space where it can be appreciated and looked at as artists as opposed to teenage delinquents and Lee got it and I had gotten really into the work of Andy Warhol, you know, the pop artists, Lichtenstein and I'm saying, wait, these guys are looking at similar stuff to what we're looking at, comic books and advertising and soapbox, big bowl bright lettering and Warhol, of course, was just such an inspiration. And I was like, man, I think if we could paint a train covered in Campbell's soup cans as a homage to him, it would also send a message that some of us down here know something about art history. We know what's happening on the other end of this island, backly. And so we did that train, Lee assisted, we went and executed, did a Campbell's soup cans. I did two versions of it. But what we planned to do, a train, we were going to do a Wonder Bread and Tasty, which were two loaves of bread, but it was going to be Wonder Fred and Tasty Lee and we're going to make them look like the loaves of bread. It was going to be awesome. I just want to call attention to this because what's incredible and important is that you're a background as an artist and one who studied, as you mentioned, Warhol, you were able to recognize and identify that by framing what was going on in an artistic way with maybe the language of, and maybe you knew the art world, you understood. I was learning. I was figuring it out. You were figuring it out. You understood that if you could sort of package what was going on, maybe use the right terminology to the right people in the right way. You could reframe the narrative and you did. I did. Exactly. That was exactly my idea. But where was I going to find an audience I could share these ideas with? That was the new wave punk folks and looking at what that was doing when it was page 2, hard news, New York time stories about the sex pistols scaring the hell out of the establishment. I was like, wow, this is wild. These people sound crazy, super disruptive. How could I connect with some people in that space and share these ideas? I would eventually get to do that through initially through Glen O'Brien. Glen O'Brien has this article, has a column, interview, interview, Glen O'Brien's beat. Actually, once again, this grows out of me learning more about Andy Warhol. He started a magazine. He made films. All this multimedia stuff Andy was doing and having fun in the heart of the 60s, a lot of the coolest stuff was emanating out of Andy's crew, the factory, the superstars. And it was like, man, these guys, it's not the like, stayed kind of corny, academic kind of artists. These guys are partying and having a good time, you know, drugs and shit. It was like, it was going down because we're parents, I just want to point out, you do not really partake in all the drugs. No, I did not. There were no. That's why you're here talking to us today. Yeah, but I mean, in terms of what we know about in the 60s, sex drugs and rock ones was happening. But the creative, the creative energy, a lot of it was coming out of Andy's team, the kind of light shows and they would do these kind of wild psychedelic. And you had the velvet underground was the house band. The velvet underground. He was producing and supporting the velvet underground, which featured Nico and Lou Reed. And you hear how it's cool, Jimmy Hendrix, they're all passing through this mix. This is the world I wish I lived in. I was born tomorrow. It's just seen really cool, so in reading about all that stuff has just seen really cool. So basically, Glen O'Brien was in that mix and was the original editor of interview magazine when it really focused on underground filmmakers and really extreme stuff. It shifted a bit after Andy got shot and he kind of backed off of a lot of the, it was literally an open door policy at the factory. Anybody could wander in there and a woman wandered in there and it's like, Andy Warhol was controlling my wife and like shot him and I think it was interestingly on the same day earlier than RFK, RFK was shot and that took the later that day, that took Andy off the front pages. Sorry, he literally got 50 minutes. Haha. Sorry. Okay. Okay. Anyway. So basically Glen had this column, long deep connection with Andy and that whole scene, really was writing about music and it was fascinating. You'd write about dance music, chic, disco, new way, Brian Eno to talking about it. Ain't a public access TV show, too, right? TV Party? Yeah. So what happens was when I, I'm doing a college radio show, me and this kid had a show about reggae. It's called the People's Beat. I'm reading this guy's column and he talks so effectively about reggae and I'm learning and I'm going to buy some of these records and I'm like, wow. You know, Dylan, just CB 200, I'm like, really, I'm like, well, so I can see if I can call this guy. Maybe he'd come out and be a guest on my college radio show, which he did. So he comes, we interview him and then, and I'm like, well, I'm not sure if I can do it. I'm like, well, I'm not sure if I can do it. And walking him back to the train, him heading back to Manhattan, this is Meg Gavis College and Brooklyn, the Community College. I'm pitching these ideas, these ideas graffiti as art. There's this new kind of music where people are wrapping over the tracks and the Bronx. And I kind of see this stuff as all linked together. And he was digging it. He says, you know, in three months, I'm gonna be doing this public access show on cable. Cable was still new, Brooklyn wasn't wired yet. I'm like, public access, but cable TV. Yeah, I'm gonna have this TV show. I'd like you to come on and talk about these things. I was like, wow, really? And basically three months later, he calls me to be a guest on the show. I also end up being a cameraman. So I'm gonna become a regular participant in a public access TV show. This is where you'd pay about 30, 40 bucks if you got a time slot. You would get a half hour or an hour to do. You could curse, you could do nudity, which was unheard of back in those days. Unheard of. That was even our cable. Robin Bird. Robin Bird, look at you. I still live in New York, it's okay. I should take this opportunity. My brother Anthony Rittle was the head of Manhattan, him and in for a long time. Yeah, yeah, that's my brother. Yeah, okay. And he ran brick for a long time. And so public access TV is like something that runs deep in New York fanatic institutions. But yes, exactly. This is, these are the lawless days of Manhattan public access. Completely, and so when I show up three months later to be a part of this TV show, the cream of the downtown new wave scene, the intelligentsia are there. And they're the audience and the guests on the show. So this is how I connect. His co-hosts of "Glennel Brian's TV Party" is Chris Stein from Blondie. And so I get to meet these people. And as I become friends, I share these ideas I'm developing and they're loving it. Oh man, I've seen the graph, that stuff on the train. So a lot of stuff's really great. Oh wow, and I'm like, whoa. So we're trying to figure out how to do this and do that. And "Glennel" they became like mentors, advisors, and really good friends. And that really shifts these things into high gear. This idea I have to make a film and an underground independent film about all this to show all these elements that I think are really interesting. So to jump forward a little bit, if I can, as we put pieces together, we, me and Charlie A. Hohen is the guy I meet at a very significant art show called "The Times Square Show," the most radical show. It's on the village voice, the first radical art show of the '80s. It's 1980. I'm like, this feels like the "Armory Show" of 1913, which introduced Marcel Duchamp and the idea of really extreme modern art. Yeah, "Dada" and all that stuff pops off for the first time. I'm like, man, this art show and it was held in a form of massage parlour, which essentially was a whorehouse in "The Times Square" at the time. And I'm like, man, I want to be a part of this. And so anyway, I eventually meet this guy. I was like a new wave curator's name is Diego Cortez. He's tapping into what we're doing. And he's like, yo, I know the guy that's putting it together. Let's go to one of the first events. At this event, I meet Charlie A. Herne, who's-- and I pitch him this idea-- Charlie's done an underground film about Kung Fu shouting super-rate, the real urban Kung Fu film called "The Deadly Art of Survival" with a black Kung Fu teacher, you know, fighting another Kung Fu thing. [DRAMATIC MUSIC] I don't think I know this film, and I'm just-- Super ultra low budget. Just never really got major distribution. Anyway, I see this guy, Charlie. I've seen the poster for "The Deadly Art" in the lower east side. I know it's one of those underground independent films. I say, hey, man, you know, this idea-- he goes, man, I love it. And he's heard of Lee's work, because where he made this film is in the housing project where Lee lives, the Smith houses at the base of the Brooklyn Bridge. Anyway, Charlie and I team up, and we begin to start working on what becomes wild style. So what happens is, we immerse ourselves in the scene. We go to all the hip-hop clubs in the Bronx, T Connection, X-DC Garage, the Dixie Celebrity Club, disco fever. So we meet the key players. And we as like, these guys are great. This group's great. The funky four is great, because they have just female, Shah Rock, a busy bee, is a riot, a great star, a personality. So we are shaping this film. We can't raise any money from all the independent financing sources. But we actually, Charlie connects with the people from German TV, the people from the fourth channel in England. And they believe this idea we channel for in England. And they give us enough money to get the thing moving. So anyway, we're making the film, we're in production. There's no name for this whole thing. We refer to it as rap, because that's the main thing. But there's DJs and there's-- You don't have the expression hip-hop yet. Doesn't exist. Expression exists among rappers as a way to take a breather, if you will. I'm sure there's a problem. The pop you don't stop. A more proper music term for when you just take a breath in between your rhyme. You could say this to the crowd, to the hip, the hop, the hip, the hop, the hobbit. It's kind of a placeholder, kind of a placeholder. The name of the genre could be, yes, y'all, if somebody else had made the decision. Well, we were thinking, we're thinking, I'm like, what are we going to call this shit? And then I go, I said, Charlie, you know, I said, every other rapper says this as like a refrain, if you will, which might be the term for this moment. When you're literally thinking about what your next rhyme is. So after you spit a nice rhyme, 12, 8, 16 bars or whatever, you back to the hip, the hop, the hop, you know, throw your hands in the air as a bunch of little things in between your raps. To Charlie, I think we should just call it hip-hop. Because in looking at the new wave in the punk scene, which I had been looking at closely as a movement, we knew what that was called and what it was and the differentiation between punk rock and new wave and then no wave and post punk and all that stuff, you kind of knew what those genres are. But once again, you're the insight that somebody named something, you can frame it. So you have to. Because I'm reading a lot of them in NME. I'm reading all the sounds in the journalism. It's usually coming off off of a journalist deciding to call it something and then other people pick up on it. Yes, right. Typically it is. Yeah. And typically it's not. And that's the thing that also inspired my thinking as Max Roach was my godfather, the great bebop jazz drummer, never liked the term jazz is bio that he never got to release. Although he worked on it with Emiri Baraka, the former leader of Jones, he would always tell me, I'm going to call my memoir, Jazz is a four letter word. The origins of the term jazz, apparently he comes from New Orleans and it was a slang expression for sex in the whore houses, I think jazz me was, I think in some jazz book I read that evolved in the relationship to another word too. Okay. And that is the way to, yeah. So that's totally true. I'm going to say that. So did he prefer? I don't know what he preferred as an alternative, but being like an intelligent black man and not being able to have the control of the genre in the ways that they wanted to was frustrating. And I picked up on that. But I always, in saying, look, these guys are already saying hip hop, it felt more encompassing and we could fit all these other components of the culture up under that umbrella. I did run it by BamBotter, he totally said, yes, without question. And then in reference to what you were texting me about, which I think the other brother that wrote that book mentioned in terms of this is these years, 73, 75, the first time hip pop is used in print. I reached out to Michael Holman, who I turned dawn to the game in the culture. And Michael got locked in. He was managing the New York City breakers, Michael, the East Village Eye does a whole issue with several different articles, the idea was the promotion of wild style. We were gearing up for our release. And this is a key downtown paper. So I shared with Michael Holman, we're going to be calling it hip hop. And when Michael did the piss piece, I think in the interview with BamBotter, he referred to it as such, it ends up being the first time it's referenced. And then as we, in print, and as we continue on to promote the film, this is how we reference what all it is. And so essentially that sticks, and I feel like, I like to look at it as a fact, like, no, I didn't name it, but it was a word that was there that I just pushed into help. But to be clear, you kind of named hip hop is kind of what we're hearing now. Let's be clear. Let's be clear. I didn't want to, I don't, you didn't say that I did. Yeah. But essentially it was then, I just helped nudge it into place. It needed to be called something. And we, we had a film coming out, what we're going to call all of it, rapping. It's, it's rapping along with this dance, and this art, it's like, huh? So it felt a lot better. It came, I feel, from the community who had popularized, used to that term, it was there being you. So it was an effortless move. And none of the hip, the many hip hop flyers, which are numerous collections, nothing references it as hip hop. until after that period of time. - But I was gonna ask, we now refer to as the pillars of hip hop. Was that a thing at the time that people were starting to like articulate? - Well, while still, once again, this is what we frame up in "Wild Side." These were the elements that I felt, this is what I wanted to showcase in the movie, to show that we were not the delinquents. What annoyed the hell out of me in this process was whenever you saw a young black or brown kid with swagger, hat to the side or whatever, it was always connected to something negative. And I was like, "Crime." And I'm like, "That, damn, this is wild." Like, we all are not that, just 'cause you put on, you know, the right track suit, you got the right fit, cool sneakers, pumas on or whatever. And I didn't like that. And another motivation for me was to frame this up and to show us as creatives, which we were. And then the other concept of "Wild Style" was to use the actual players in the various forms to play themselves. I'm one of the few people actually acting. A lot of people still think I'm from the Bronx, but I played this character. We actually wanted "Face 2" who literally was a legendary New York or Fidi writer who then progressed to designing flyers, some of the early hip-hop flyers for "Execity Garage" and different gigs. We couldn't get him to play the role. He just wanted to keep it on the ground. So Charlie A. Hunt talks me in to looking at me weird when I'm like, "Charlie, why are you looking at me like that?" Brad, you could be this character. I'm like, I heard that Liqueon has made them get the like the scar across the nose 'cause he was like, "Yeah, I don't want the police to recognize me," and then I think it was Charlie. He was like, "Dude, your face is gonna be 40 feet tall." They're gonna recognize you. He was so reluctant. It was a religious experience, the idea of painting for him. Even though he's, we get him to play the movie, we get him to play the role. We had auditioned different people like Giancarlo Esposito. We saw in an off-roadway Negro ensemble play and we were like, "This guy is great." But he was sad and the film wasn't. We was super dumb or ultra low budget. How are we gonna figure that one out? But what Charlie cleverly came up with, Charlie A. Hunt, was he told, "Lie, well listen, we'd cast Lady Pink and they were an actual item at the time." To, "Well, yeah, Lee, we're gonna definitely have an actor play this role," and of course, you know, there will be a make-out scene. (laughing) - Play for the man's jealousy. - Me, you're like, "Whoa, okay, I'm gonna play that part." But Lee was like, "Would not allow us to film him painting a train." So we got Dondi to double for Lee. So when you actually see somebody walk up to do the painting, from the back, it's Dondi, Rest in Peace, who was a master of it all. So we went through all these kind of wild hoops we had to jump through and climb under and to get the film made and it's remarkable that we did and first movie, first hip-hop film. - We love that movie. We've talked about it at least for maybe five episodes now this year. - Yeah, I heard it coming up. - My favorite movies. I remember when they finally got it's proper DVD release. I was one of the first things that I purchased. There's a story I think about the stick-up kids. Those are actual stick-up kids, right? - Well, I'm not sure if they was stick-up kids, but when we were shooting at the Dixie Club, all the interior performances, these guys were just neighborhood guys that were hanging out. They would be watching us make this film. - So Charlie had this rinky dink. It looked like the kind of sick shooter kids would play with. You put caps in it. - They look fake, yeah. - Fake is fake. - They look very fake. And so with this whole TV, you can curse here. Fake is fake, fake is fuck, basically. So these dudes, so we're actually doing a run-through of the scene, which I'm in. I came out and kind of saved the day, these dudes. We wanted to have a moment that let people know this should just not somehow be duty. - Yeah. - This should still edge-y of it. We're in this boogie-down bronze and this edge-y is fuck. So these dudes watched us do a run-through with the gun. - They said, "Yo, man, what's with that?" You know, that's some bullshit. Let me show you something. The dude goes to his car and goes up under the thing and takes out this sword off, which was the thing back in the day. - Which is illegal then. - Yes, the sword off shot. And he says, "Yo, 'cause I was like, "Yo, that's crazy." Yes. And so these-- - Of course, your armor on set came over and inspected it and made sure it had never been-- - We had none of that. I used to look at films. I remember when we were preparing for "Wild Style," I looked at books about independent filmmaking, underground filmmaking at that time. And one of the books said, 'cause we had no permits or nothing. They said, "If you guys wear NYU sweatshirts or whatever, "you can say you're like, "Studies." So I was like, "Charlie, we gotta get sweatshirts "to the thing we're in the brunt." Yo, they would drive by us. They didn't even look twice with shooting, you know, a little crazy crew. They'd never pay any attention to us. But basically, those dudes, Pookie and another guy, it was his name, played to stick up kids. And improvised their own stick up lines. - Which is iconic. - A to the K. A to the K, A to the Emma motherfucking Z. - Which makes almost no sense. - It makes almost no sense. Just kids that have emerged. I've seen in little chats and shit, they say, "Oh, here's what that really meant." Blah, blah, blah. But I'm like, "No, I'm like, do not have on the fly." But the thing was what was dope about those kids, they was believed what they was real. The way they rolled up was sharp, you know, 'cause stick up kids were a thing. That was a major thing. A big hustle in the hood. Guys would rob you for your clothes, your jewelry, your little money, your sneakers, take them up, run it. Like, I directed a video for, you know, I grew up close to a lot of that stuff. I directed a gangstar video called Just To Get A Rap. - Just thinking of a way and went to get the rubber. They'll be long gone before the kids recover. And back around the way they'll have the chain on his neck. I just went and just wrapped, just to get a wrap. - Just to get a wrap, a classic, you say, "Oh, just this old gangstar song, just to get a wrap." But it was about that whole stick up kid thing. And just doing it to get a wrap. And I was like, "Oh man, I noticed so well." And there was a mad little budget video. But I said, "Yo, I got this guru and guru and Primo and put that together." But anyway, those guys pulled that off, and it was an amazing moment in the film. Yes, A to the K. You couldn't even get together on A to the what? Once as A to the K, they said, "Let's see." - And he pulled the shot gun out, and then I walked out. "Hey, those people are cool, man. I love my people, baby, ease up." "Oh, man, I had no idea." They were your friends. Well, it improvised the whole shit. He just let him go. So that was wild style. - And the soundtrack to this is insane. I mean, obviously, we did an episode about Nasus, you know, Maddie, and the intro to that album, which increased so much of it. - Yeah. - What can you tell us about those breakbeats? I mean, like, was it? - Well, here's what it was. So once again, super low budget film, sampling hasn't even begun. But in terms of the foundations of hip hop, it's these DJs with these really rare, initially hard to find breakbeat records. This is a foundation of the genre as it develops. That Herk helped set up records like Apache, Maddie Grah, Bob James Maddie Grah, impeached the president. I mean, there's a list of these breakbeat records that are the foundation of the hip hop scene. And I'm like, Charlie, come on, this should be somebody going to know, like Rap is barely emerged. Maybe Rap is the light and a few singles are out. I'm like, let's just use what they use in Uptown, baby. - Charlie was adamant that we should, it's gonna be a problem. And yes, later, it clearly would have been. So he goes, no, Fred, and I go that side to outgoing to studio and make these beats and make the music. So I get this cat who's a drummer, white cat, real cool, rest in peace. Lenny Ferraro, but we called him Lenny Ferrari, funny guy, great drummer. He worked on some Atlantic sessions with a reed thing, shit like that, it was together. I said, Lenny, man, I need to create these things. Okay, so I took Lenny into the studio, played him the Supreme Team radio show on WHBI, would have a section called the Supreme Team Breaks. They would play a section of break beats in this show. And I recorded that. That's how you got it. - So you had your tapes? - Yeah, we were talking about that. - We should ready to record, you know. And so I played Lenny some actual break beats, some different varieties. So we went in the studio and laid down a bunch of breaks. Then I knew this cat out of Philly, David Harper, that played with a bunch of Philly groups on the road. First choice, just that and the other. I said, man, he did the bass. And then I realized, then I learned in the studio, well, you should have the bass and drums recording together. I'm like, shit, we had to fix that and get that. So then we get to found that. And then Chris Thine comes in with all different kind of pedals and guitar stuff at different sounds to make these little short one minute tracks. I came up with about 12 of them. And that's how we create the foundation of the music that then I pressed up about 100 pieces of vinyl of those songs and distributed them to the different DJs. Grand Wizard Theatre, Charlie Chase and Tony Ton, Flash, they all get so that they can pick the different songs they want to cut and mix for when the DJs perform. Most of them here, the other ones using down by law, That's what we want to use. That's why a lot of the performances they hear have down by law, but we do use some of the other break beats. And then we record that. The first whole time we filmed it all, we screwed up, had to reshoot all the club scenes, the big amphitheatre thing again, 'cause we didn't know what the hell we were doing. We had a stereo, no good, that was the tape eject you'd use at the time, didn't have it hooked up right. Sound was overmodulated but you just trashed. I love it though. We were talking about that. If you were walking into the building today, we were playing it through this speaker in here, which looks like it belongs on a subway train, but we were playing it, and we were actually literally talking. We love the fact that you have so much like Mike Bleed and the mic is clipping, there's something sort of raw about the whole experience that makes it ironically, you were such a fan of punk and that sort of raw sound, it just sounds raw when you listen to fantastic freaks at the amphitheatre. You know what I mean? I think that's what makes it endearing. That does, and that's so nice of you to say, so because we had a super low budget, people have asked me Kenny Dope to put out a message of work and dance music, sir. Yeah, but he put out a special 45 set of those breakbeats that I did because it became, as we went into the 90s, and DJs began digging, and also looking for everything ever sampled and more things to sample, people were like, what did they use in wild style? They assumed I'd sample some 60 soul, whatever, whatever, and nobody knew. It was this big thing, and I meet guys that were major DJs, and man, what did you use? And I was like, oh, shit, I made all these records and boom, boom. So they never came out as just the instrumental records, and Kenny Dope did a whole thing, and did a really exhaustive research on the line of notes and the packaging and photos of the 1-inch box with all the writing and all that stuff to give you that sense. And so those came out at that point, and that was really cool. But we put all that together, and it was just pretty cool. Well, that's amazing. So that was basically the foundational period where you start working with Chris. Yeah, and Chris Stein comes in and adds all this incredible sound. It was such, it was really a big inspiration through it all. And then released the soundtrack on Animal Records, which was his own label under Chris List at the time. They were the initial people that realized Chris really believed, and I mean, the Blondie was one of the biggest pop bands in the world, so we were able to use their name a lot. And, you know, Chris, you know, Blondie's helping us. I love Blondie, you know, we got Chris and Debbie from Blondie, oh really? To help get over hurdles we had, and it was super helpful in the support of all of that. All right, that's the end of part one. Stay tuned for part two, which we'll be posting here next week, where we in Fat Five Freddie will break down Blondie's rapture, a song that forever immortalizes his name and trust me, even if you've heard this song a million times, you've never heard it broken down like this. Thanks for listening. As always, you can find us on Instagram and TikTok, you can find me on Instagram @DialoDIA, LLO, and on TikTok @DialoRiddle. You can find me on Instagram @LUXX, you are why and on TikTok @LuxuryXX. And you can follow our podcast on Instagram and TikTok @OneSongPodcast for exclusive content. You can also watch full episodes of OneSong on YouTube, just search for OneSongPodcast. We'd love it if you'd like and subscribe. Also be sure to check out the OneSong Spotify playlist for all the songs we discuss in these episodes. You can find the link in our episode's description. And if you've made it this far, you're officially part of The OneSong Nation. Show us some love. Give us five stars, leave a review and send this episode to a fellow music fan. It really helps keep the show right. And by the way, if you're looking for even more music facts, more conversations between Diallo and Luxury and basically more of us, we've got a Patreon now. You can find us at patreon.com/DialoLuxury. That's right. Diallo Luxury. Can you help me in this thing? I producer DJ, songwriter, musicologist, and every Friday night from 10 till midnight KCRW DJ. Luxury. And I'm actor, writer, director, and sometimes DJ Diallo Riddle. And this is OneSong. We'll see you next time. This episode is produced by Casey Simonson, mixing and engineering by Eric Hicks.