Billy-Bill and I saw ourselves as rebels, that was our ideology for people who came to our more obscure parties, what I called "ghetto discos." As a DJ, I was already different because I wasn't playing disco. This was seven or eight years before the first hip-hop record came out, but I knew that here was something new and fresh. We learned to appreciate the elements of hip-hop before such a thing existed, but we didn't start writing anything down until the late 1970s.īLOW: I was doing my thing in Harlem and the Bronx, keeping up with what the better known DJs were doing, when I met Kool Herc. WARING: Eventually, we were dancing in the clubs. We learned to appreciate the elements of hip-hop before such a thing existed. Billy-Bill was the guy who got me into all the parties to breakdance. He was doing something good with his life, not like a lot of the other thugs and criminals in Harlem. We started out breakdancing in 1972, house parties and block parties.īLOW: William is three years older than me and he was the only kid my mom would let me hang around with because he was headed to college.
We grew up together, maybe 100 yards apart. WILLIAM "BILLY-BILL" WARING (Lyricist, "Basketball"): Kurtis and I are lifelong friends. I was 13 and I put together two component sets, my mom's and his mom's, and we had continuous music throughout the party. The first time I ever DJ'ed was in 1972 at my buddy Tony Rome's birthday party. I also used to play all the music for the family, spinning James Brown, Motown, the Isley Brothers, Jackie Wilson - all the stuff my mom loved. Guys used to come get me for the local dance competitions, I became a B-Boy. She was popular throughout the neighborhood. KURTIS BLOW: I've always been a big music lover thanks to my mom, who'd been a great dancer in Harlem at the Renaissance, the Savoy and the Cotton Club. Blow's had a long career and remains one of the few rap game elite who actually were down from day one. In 1984, Kurtis Blow dropped his fifth album "Ego Trip." The Harlem native was already hip-hop royalty as the first rapper signed to a major label, the first to tour the United States and Europe, and the first with a gold record, his 1980 smash "The Breaks." Other hits include his debut record "Christmas Rappin'," the Run-DMC collaboration "8 Million Stories," and "If I Ruled the World," which would be famously sampled by Nas.
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