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Brian: It's Brian Lehrer Show, music history special on this August 11th. Considered the 50th anniversary of the day hip-hop was born in the Bronx. As we do some music conversation and some of your oral history calls at 212-433-WNYC. We're taking it all the way back to the beginning of hip-hop 50 years ago today in New York City. As we've been talking about all morning, New York City is the undisputed birthplace of hip-hop. As such, there are so many places around the city dating back to the late '70s, the '80s, and over the decades that have been physical staples.

Joining us to reminisce about some of the stomping grounds around the city and how they have fostered a sense of community for hip-hop enthusiasts is Miles Marshall Lewis, pop culture critic, music journalist, and author of several books most recently, Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar. He has an article on the website, Vital City called The Challenges of Hip Hop History. That's new. Miles, hi. Welcome to WNYC, happy August 11th.

Miles: Hey, there, thank you very much. Thanks for having me on the show. Happy August 11th to you too.

Brian: Can you tell us a little bit about your own childhood first? Am I seeing you grew up in Co-op City in the Bronx?

Miles: That's true. I actually lived on Marcy Place in the South Bronx until the age of four, which and then moved to Co-op and basically spent the rest of my formative years there but I had two sets of great-grandparents who lived in different sections of the South Bronx, Caldwell Avenue and where else? St. Mary's Park or near St. Mary's Park, that's St. Ann's. I was always constantly there. Finley Avenue as well just revisiting the South Bronx for Thanksgivings and sleepovers and Christmases and then going to the northeast in Co-op City.

Brian: Before we take you downtown to some of the Manhattan clubs that you write about, we'll keep you in the Bronx for one of your early musical experiences. You used to go to Skate Palace.

Miles: Actually, it was called the Skate Key. It was on Allerton Avenue. I remember it being near a 24-hour White Castle up in the Bronx. Yes, that was my first pseudo--

Brian: Like White Plains Road around there.

Miles: Exactly. Yes. It was my first pseudo nightclub experience probably in eighth grade going into ninth grade, high school. Friends and I would go at night and go to the Skate Key and they'd play hip-hop music among other stuff popular to the period, let's say early '80s, mid-80s. We'd skate around and dance and be allowed to be out until 11:00 or thereabouts. It felt like a big deal.

Brian: The music that you mentioned in your piece definitely speaks to a grittier, as you put it, pre-pooper scooper New York City. Let's take a listen to a little bit of the lyrics from The Message by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five.

MUSIC - Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five: The Message

Rats in the front room, roaches in the back

Junkies in the alley with a baseball bat

I tried to get away but I couldn't get far

'Cause a man with a tow truck repossessed my car

Brian: You're right about how you were front-side sliding. That's a dance move to songs like The Message at the Skate Key that roller rink as a team. Want to take us back to that moment in time and what it felt like hearing those lyrics?

Miles: Sure. I remember specifically being in the eighth grade and having some eighth grade outing with the rest of my classmates and us going to the Skate Key during the day and being able to just have fun with them. Eighth grade, middle school being about to be behind us as just skating around. Front sliding is the most basic move you can do as a 12, 13-year-old skating around in circles at the Skate Key but it was a big deal. Planet Rock might've been out by Afrika Bambaataa. Definitely the message by Grandmaster Flash and The Furious Five early when DMC singles were being played.

This is, of course, in addition to other stuff like Rockwell's Somebody’s Watching Me and Michael Jackson's Thriller and Prince's Purple Reign being huge but it was cool to be able to be in spaces like the Skate Key and hear rap artists because, at that time, New York City Radio didn't really play much hip-hop. There were breakthrough records like Rapper's Delight and certain singles from Kurtis Blow, but you had to tune in late at night like 11:00 on WBLS and Kiss-FM to really get your hip-hop fixed because they wouldn't play that stuff during the day with Luther Vandross and all the crossover R&B acts of the time.

Brian: What about the experience, the juxtaposition of having a lot of fun dancing to that music while the lyrics are what they were?

I can't take the smell, can't take the noise

Got no money to move out, I guess

Rats in the front room, roaches in the back

Miles: Sure. Being a teenager tweeners even-- I don't think we thought that deeply about the lyrics. Of course, we knew them, we had them all memorized. They spoke to a lot of inner city realities, but we were just, I suppose, happy that voice was getting to the radio but a lot of that stuff was comical. For example, Rapper's Delight making fun of Superman and talking about going to your friend's house and his food isn't good and you don't know how to tell him. There was a lot of comedy mixed up in the pathos.

Brian: I hear you. Also, joining us briefly is Pete Nice co-curator of the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx among many different roles. Pete was a founding member of the Def Jam Recordings group 3rd Bass. Pete, welcome to WNYC.

Pete Nice: Hey, thanks for having me. It's a great day for hip-hop.

Brian: Indeed. Let me start with the fact that the museum I see is hosting a big block party today to celebrate the 50th. Want to tell listeners where they can come join you and what they can expect?

Pete Nice: Yes, right over by Mill Pond Park where the site of the actual museum is being built. It's been under construction for a couple of years. We're about one year away from completion, but the entire building is actually there. The concert, our boy Van Silk, who's one of the famous promoters from Harlem World, and all the other spots put together this whole show. We got everyone from Fearless Four, Mikey D, Sparky D, and actually, we got some then pulling a lot of favors. I think there might be a lot of surprise performances.

I'll reveal it on here. If you get there early at around 12:00, I think Chuck D and Flavor Flav will perform as Public Enemy. Yes, we're bringing some heat over there today, and it's just a great celebration for this anniversary. Obviously, we have the popup exhibit across the street from this site where the show is happening. That's free for the whole month of August until we close it down at the beginning of September. Everyone should check that out as well. We're closed today, but it'll be open for the rest of the summer.

You come down to the park right over there, the whole block's going to be closed off as well. There'll be like hip-hop heads, hip-hop luminaries all over the place. It'll be like the Latin Quarter all over again.

Brian: That is awesome. We've been talking with Miles and some earlier guests about some of the venues in the city where people have had formative and ongoing hip-hop experiences. I see you were an MC back in 1985. What are some of the places you were playing back then, and are there any spots that you'd recommend fans visit today if they want to see where it all got started?

Pete: Well, when I was coming up, I actually lived in Brooklyn, Queens, Long Island, and Manhattan. The only place I never lived was the Bronx. Now that I'm with the museum, I find myself actually living half-time in the Bronx but when I came up, there were places like Club Encore in Queens. Ralph McDaniels had a little something to do with running that. Russell Simmons and Rush Productions had a lot of there early shows. I think the Beastie Boys performed the first time with T La Rock there. I remember going to that spot, but the spot that probably is embedded in my mind is a Latin Quarter. My partner, the chief curator at the Universal Hip Hop Museum is Paradise Gray. His partner Lumumba Carson, who became Professor X, that was my manager when I started out as a soloist. The Latin Quarter, that's the place where everybody cut their teeth. That was a place where he calls it like the incubator of the golden era when Rakim came on, did his first performances there. BDP, the Bridge Wars with Shan. That was the epicenter of all of that. That club is obviously not there. There's a hotel there in a parking garage. With the city, we're trying to also memorialize some of the great hip-hop sites.

Obviously, you got 1520 Sedgwick with the community room, but there's other spots like the Moore Houses. That's where Kool DJ AJ started out. That community center room is right there today the exact same way it was. There's a lot of pioneers that need to be honored, and there's a lot of locations that can tie the history with New York City.

Brian: That is awesome. Pete Nice, co-curator of the Universal Hip Hop Museum in the Bronx. Thanks for giving us a few minutes. Sounds like in a few minutes, there's going to be some stuff going on.

Pete: Definitely. Actually, we're at the stadium. We have a great exhibit today at Yankee Stadium. We actually got Kool Herc's original trunk that he had in 1973 all the way through the '70s, that he would carry his records to every show. We got the real artifacts in the house today.

Brian: Thanks for giving us a few minutes when so much is going on for you today. Appreciate it a lot.

Pete: Definitely. Thank you very much. Appreciate it.

Brian: Miles Marshall Lewis, in your piece for Vital City, you reflect on the various exhibits this year tied to hip-hop's 50th anniversary. You're right, hip-hop wasn't always museum safe. I think you suffer a little bit of dissonance, experiencing this music of the streets in a museum setting, right?

Miles: Yes, definitely. The first concert of my life was at Madison Square Garden in 1985. It was called the Krush Groove Christmas Party because of the movie that had come out that year, Krush Groove. The concert featured a lot of people in the movie. It was LL Cool J, Dr. Jekyll, Mr. Hyde, and Houdini. What I remember is that there were bands of people snatching gold chains in Madison Square Garden that night. Actually, there were reports the next day of a couple of stabbing incidents. None of this was-- Like hip-hop was not responsible for what was going on there.

I just remember there being a bit of danger connected to hip-hop. To see certain artifacts just behind glass walls and in glass boxes, it's weird a little bit. I'm glad to see it. Definitely, it deserves the respect that it gets. That goes without saying. I remember when none of this stuff would be curated for some place like the Brooklyn Museum or any of the other places that things are being held. Certainly, I was just in DC this past weekend dropping my oldest son off to Howard University, and they've got the Black Smithsonian, we like to call it down there.

Of course, there's all kinds of hip-hop artifacts up in their top floor with the rest of the music stuff. It's weird in a good way. I remember very clearly a time when people thought that rap was a fad and that hip-hop wouldn't last. Here we are 50 years later with LL Cool J's clothes behind a glass wall. It's cool, though.

Brian: Let's get another listener, oral history call in here. David, calling from Charleston, South Carolina. You're on WNYC. Hi, David. Hello from New York.

David: Hey, how are you? Thank you for taking my call, Brian.

Brian: Sure.

David: I'm a former Star-Ledger reporter. I graduated from Elizabeth High in Elizabeth, New Jersey. Jersey has a strong rep with producing hip-hop artists, as we know. I just wanted to say to bring light to how much of a bridge hip-hop has been for me being an Irish-American first-generation to diverse cultures. I remember going to Elizabeth High and being in the minority myself and just getting to know my neighbors through hip-hop. The lyrics are so powerful. Being a writer and a former reporter, today, I'm in Charleston, and I'm a teacher down here.

It's so great to see English teachers using hip-hop as a way to analyze and to celebrate culture and unity. I just want to make that comment that I think in today's world, I think hip-hop can serve, and it does serve as a bridge for not just diversity, but to understanding diverse cultures.

Brian: Thank you very much. Good call, good thought. Hip-hop was also dance. It's one of the things that's come up through the show, right? People talk about music, but it's also dance, it's also design, it's also graffiti. You write about hip-hop headed downtown to mix with the punk and hipster scenes via DJ Afrika Bambaataa, creating a cultural mash-up. Our caller from Charleston was just talking about cultural mash-up across all kinds of lines. The music being used that way, the culture being used that way. Miles, you want to look back at the scene at downtown clubs that you write about, like Danceteria and the Mudd Club?

Miles: Sure. I was a little too young to experience firsthand either one of those clubs. Their reputations preceded them, though, like I knew about them. Definitely, Afrika Bambaataa at some point left the Bronx and went downtown and mixed with what was going on down there. The cool college kids would show up on certain scenes. There was a famous song by Blondie and Deborah Harry shouting out Grandmaster Flash and Fab Five Freddie on the hit that Blondie had back then, Rapture, which is probably the first rapping that appeared on a top 10 hit or something like that. I'm sure it has some accolade like that.

It's true that the new wave audience that Blondie and the talking heads had, they were hip enough to appreciate what was going on in the South Bronx. Rather than go all the way up there, where it might be dangerous for them, they experienced the DJs coming down to Danceteria in the Mudd Club, places where Andy Warhol would hang out and stuff, and got to hear the types of music that Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash and Kool Herc were spinning all the way up in the South Bronx.

Brian: We're going to go out of this segment with a little Run-DMC, from that era, as we thank Miles Marshall Lewis, pop culture critic, music journalist, author of several books, most recently, Promise That You Will Sing About Me: The Power and Poetry of Kendrick Lamar. He's got his article about the challenges of hip-hop history in the journal of Vital City. Miles, thanks a lot. Happy August 11th.

Miles: Thank you so much for having me. Take care.

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