The Return Of A Hip-Hop Legend
- Harry Louis Williams aka O.G. Rev
- Feb 25, 2016
- 4 min read
"Can you imagine a time when hip hop did not exist?” I asked a young man of about 20.. He shook his head. More than likely hip-hop music had been the sound track of his life. It had thundered in the living room as his mother rocked him in her arms as an infant. It was blasted from the speakers of every passing car in his hood. By the time he reached his teen years, corporations were using it to sell everything from dish detergent to airline tickets. It amuses me. For I remember when it was not so.
I remember the days when hip-hop was considered “ghetto music.” Upscale night clubs refused to play it, nor would they admit partygoers dressed in hip-hop garments.
I remember the days when hip-hop was banned from day time radio. Programmers believed that it was “thug music” even before it contained profanity or references to gun play.
I remember the days when people believed that hip hop was a fad like the hula hoop or the twist and that one day the entire cultural; graffiti, break dancing, turntable art, beat boxing and rapping would simply blow away like the bell bottom craze.
And I remember hanging out at Daddy’s crib.
Daddy-O lived in one the most hardcore high rise housing projects in Brooklyn, New York. Gangsters and hoodlums swarmed the front of the building and often they wanted an explanation of who you were and where you were going. Woe betide you if you didn’t have the correct answer. After they figured out that I actually knew Daddy-O, I could walk through the courtyard unimpeded. Sometimes they even held the door open for me.
Daddy-O was the leader of Stetsasonic; a collaborative of rappers and dancers who hailed from East New
New York; Brooklyn. I can still see him back in those times. He wore thick braids that raced down his scalp and a Malcolm X goatee. His living room was like Superman’s Fortress of Solitude for Brooklyn’s fledging hip-hop community. It was where we went to hang out, talk music, black affairs and hood politics, the kind you don’t read about in the newspapers.
Friday night was heaven for hip-hop heads. The ban on hip-hop music was lifted and Mr. Magic and DJ Marley Marl went to work on the WBLS Rap Attack. At the same time, DJ Red Alert did his thing on KISS FM. I remember seeing Daddy-O and his best friend Delite sitting in the living room one night hypnotized as they flipped the dials back and forth between the two stations; studying and analyzing the rhyme patterns and production values. Back in those times, the vast number of hip-hop recording artists came from the Bronx and Harlem. If you were not from uptown, even if you lived in New York City many considered you fake. This fact alone raised the odds against Stetsasonic’s dreams of hip-hop stardom.
Dreams do come true however. I was there in 1984, at Mr. Magic’s hip-hop contest in Coney Island the day that left a couple of thousand people in screaming, stomping hysteria and won a record deal. I was in Madison Square Garden the night Stetsasonic opened for L.L. Cool J. I remember watching them as they were interviewed on MTV. I remember when Stetsasonic appeared on KRS-1's posse cut, "Self Destruction" along withe the entire hip-hop nation. Who can forget Daddy-O’s duet with Will Smith on the David Letterman Show? Daddy-O has produced artists as diverse as reggae greats Steel Pulse and rock 'n' roll wonders, the Red Hot Chili Peppers. He once did a duet with Queen Latifah called, "The Pros." It is said that he discovered Eyrkah Badu.
Recently, I interviewed Daddy-O for my new book, “Street Cred: A Hood Minister’s Guide To Urban Ministry. He is a walking encyclopedia of hip-hop history. “Harry, Biggie and them didn’t have anything to do with what happened to ‘Pac. I was in the studio with them that night when it happened….” he said.
Daddy-O has returned to the recording studio after a lengthy hiatus and he’s back with a vengeance. He plans to release an album each quarter. His 2015 release was entitled: #anybodybutkrs, so named because he believes that even today he can out rhyme anyone of his generation other than KRS-1. The album contains some bangers like “Graffiti,” “Psychedelic Sally,” and “I Heard A Hustla Say.” However, Daddy-O’s powerhouse opus has been entitled: “The Odad, The Gun and the Children.” It is statement on what he calls police “bestiatlity.” The album is in a word; magnificent.
In a recent conversation I said, “Daddy-O, do you remember back when we were young, when you got to be 23 or 24, people thought that you’d aged out of hip-hop?”
He answered, “We stuck with some of that philosophy that is dead off and dead wrong. What I wonder really is where it came from, right? I know it didn’t come from us. It wasn’t something that we said or believed. Who gave us a time limit?
“One of the things that we made me start recording at this rapid rate is looking at artists like Megadeth, Led Zeppelin and David Bowie (God bless the dead) who released music in 2015. We’re the only genre [hip-hop] that sort of gave up the ghost and said, ‘I’m not going to record anymore.’ It’s a total disrespect to our fans, especially in the internet age.”
#everybodybutkrs is available on ITUNES but Slam Jamz (Chuck D’s personal label) only releases “The Odad, The Gun and the Children” through it’s RCS imprint. You purchase both releases at https://www.rcsmusic.com/.
Can true school hip=hop heroes still get down in the 21st century? Take a listen to Daddy-O's news work and then you tell me.
Comments