The Making of Spyder's Web
So it's been a minute since I updated my blog, I've been really busy and it's hard for me to write when things are hectic. At some point I need to sit down and get back to writing this book. I'm a third of the way through with it, but knowing me like I do, I'll probably re-write it 3 times before i settle on the final version.
Writing is an art like pottery and painting - at least good writing is. I remember when I was a little kid and I would see painters doing their thing and would think to myself: "That looks pretty damn boring." A painter - at least a good one,doesn't start off painting a red house and green grass and all that other shit without first sketching the drawing first and then after that is done he colors in the details. It's the same way with writing: you fashion, form, and shape images with words.
With good writing you should be able to hear the writers voice and see what he's talking about.
When I first started writing Spyder's Web I had no idea as to how I was going to write it. My first thought was to cover the story as a journalist and get long quotes from people and build the story that way, but then it dawned on me: This is an autobiography, it must be from the main characters point of view. My favorite books are told from the main characters point of view: "Pimp: The Story of My Life by Iceberg Slim", "The Autobiography of Malcolm X", "A Taste of Power", "The Coldest Winter Ever" are all told from the main characters point of view. Spyder's story had to be told the same way.
After reading what I had initially wrote, I knew I was in over my head. Especially if I had any hope at all of selling the book. But when in doubt or lost, God sends messages through people to get you back on track.
Let me back up for a minute and really take you back. Before I became a writer I had an idea for two books: one was about a Black politician making a serious run to be President and the other was a hip hop Five Heartbeats kind of story. It was going to be about a group of guys that grew up in Queens, New York in the 70's who formed a rap group and found stardom but later got lost in the perils of the music business. Along the way, the perils of street life and growing up in general become blockades to them being able to stay on top. They all get hooked on drugs and get lost in the 80's and only a couple of them emerge in the mid 90's to resurrect their careers.
Now while I was extremely familiar with the characters and the places and era and all that kind of stuff I had the hardest time writing the story. Well after months of difficulty writing the story, enter: Spyder D.
After reading the article I wrote about him Spyder was impressed enough with me to ask me to write his book, which was originally to be called "So, You Wanna Be a Rapper..."
Spyder was almost dead on the character I had been writing about. I jumped at the chance. His book was supposed to be about the perils of the music business. But after talking with him I sensed a much broader story: Spyder came up in the beginning of recorded rap records and through his hard work and hustle was able to maintain that career through the late 80's. His is the textbook example of what can go wrong when an artist doesn't have the right people or the right timing going for himself. Things should've jumped off better for Spyder. He had the right manager, the right record label, and all the right connections but the timing was never right - it was always late. Spyder was doing what Dr. Dre was doing in the 90's - in the early 80's: he was a producer, record label owner, artist and manager, but rap/hip hop was nowhere near as popular as it is now, then.
In the 80's Black radio was feeling itself for real. Luther Vandross (R.I.P.), Freddy Jackson, Melba Moore, Patti Labelle and many others were the staples of Black radio. If you weren't on smoothed out R&B shit you weren't getting on Black radio - at all. Hip Hop was the bastard stepchild of the unwanted welfare stepchild that folks were seriously wishing would just get up an go away.
Back then there were no "collaborations" between rap cats and R&B cats, that was not going to happen. I wish I could've been a fly on the wall in 1982 when (and if) some A&R guy would've called A&M Records and said: 'Hey, what's happening man, this is Donnie, hey man, I was wondering if, maybe we could get Freddie Jackson together with Kurtis Blow for a duet....hello?...hello?
Wouldn't have happened.
As a matter of fact I'm going to write a scene in this book where Spyder and Sparky (Spyder's girlfriend and artist) go talk to somebody from a major record label, he'll be a guy still stuck in the disco era, with the white suit and all, waiting for the resurrection of Donna Summer's career. He'll call Spyder and Sparky: Spider Man and Spanky. He'll say things like: 'Hey, I know this business, I just got off the phone with Gloria Gaynor an hour ago. So, Spider, can you and Spanky team up with that rap guy, what's his name? He did the Bus, the bus, the broken leg? Uh, The Breaks, yeah that's it, Kurtis Brown!"
That was the kind of willful ignorance that rap cats faced in the 80's. This book is going to have all of that and then some, and be a raw tale as well. Just as soon as get off my lazy ass and start writing it again!
Saturday, August 27, 2005
Monday, August 08, 2005
GOLD TEETH. LOTS OF GOLD TEETH: From Satire to Reality
By Almighty Mark Skillz / MARKSKILLZ@AOL.COM
(January 12, 2005)
James Brown once said: “To be a star there are certain qualities you must have: One: Hair. Two: Clothes and the third: Nice teeth.” Of course the Godfather of Soul was talking about nice, straight, pearly white teeth. But I wonder what he would think of gold caps that had spinning rims on them?
A while back photojournalist Ernie Pannicoli made up a fictional story about the rapper Ja Rule having a patented line of spinning gold teeth, he said, “Make your grill say something, tell them you from the hood and down with the hood just by flashing a spinning smile."
Well, what originally was a satire piece about the ridiculous obsession hip hop has with materialism; lo and behold someone has made a line of gold-capped teeth that literally have spinning rims on them.
Shocked, I called the number on the ad and spoke to an Asian gentleman named Singh, who is the owner and designer for a company called www.TripleXGoldTeeth.com I asked him if he really had a line of spinning gold teeth, to which he responded, “Yes, we have a product like that.”
I wanted to break out laughing just like I did 2 months ago when Ernie put his fake news story out. I asked him if he was aware of Ernie’s satire story from a couple of months back, to which he responded “No.” I then asked him where he got the idea for that line of teeth, to which responded, “Oh, we just made it up, we make up designs all the time.” I had to ask him, “So, how long have you been selling this line of teeth?” To which he responded, “Oh I’d say it’s been a little over a month now.”
I then had to get to the most important part, the question that had been burning in all of our minds…
Mark Skillz: So, what makes them spin? Are they battery operated, or do you spin them with you finger first?
Triple X Gold Teeth: Uh, gravity, the way we’ve designed them is so that they spin just from the force of gravity.
Mark Skillz: Oh…so they always spin then?
Triple X Gold Teeth: Yes, pretty much.
Mark Skillz: So…have you gotten any orders for them?
Triple X Gold Teeth: Yes we’ve had quite a few come through in the pastmonth.
So, you know what’s next right? Get ready for some artist to be the first to rock some spinning gold teeth! It’s coming, you know it is, and then some goofball with a sweatband on his forehead and his drawers showing is going to show up at your house, and sit at your table, and say, “Excuse me, does anybody have a few toothpicks? I need to get some meat out of my spinning teeth.”
Ok, while all of this is funny, there really is a sad commentary in all of this. Unfortunately, the gentleman that designed this line of teeth is profiting off of the willful ignorance of the Black and Latino Communities. Any dentist will tell you that gold caps are not good for your teeth. The decay process is accelerated when gold is capped on teeth. Some people wear gold fronts, and have done so for years, but they – if they want to keep their teeth – exercise great care in taking care of the teeth they have.
What’s sadder is that, this guy Singh, probably came to this country within the last 10 years (judging by his accent) and probably learned early in his stay here who’s ignorance to exploit. Kind of like that game “Ghetto Monopoly,” remember that?
We, as black people, bear responsibility for feeding these people these images. At the turn of the last century and the ones that preceded that one, whites were responsible for the ugly caricatures of us back then. Somewhere down the line we were bamboozled into thinking that as long as we profited or we looked good, whatever we were doing was all right.
When I first started writing about hip hop I never would’ve guessed that what I would be chronicling is the decay of a culture. A culture that has turned into a long running joke. A culture so devoid of creativity that cartoonish thugs with Sambo-like tendencies are heroes for a generation. Yes, white and black kids have come together in a lot of cases, under the banner of hip hop’s culture. However, how free are the minds of the youth? Do they, or we as adults see ourselves as freethinking people devoid of the black inferiority complex?
When the Roman civilization was falling, people were being butchered for sport, and people were engaging in all kinds of depraved acts, the Emperor is said to have said, “Panem et circenses” meaning: “Give them bread and circus.” My friends, hip hop is the circus.
This article was first published at DaveyD.com (www.daveyd.com). It is republished here with permission
By Almighty Mark Skillz / MARKSKILLZ@AOL.COM
(January 12, 2005)
James Brown once said: “To be a star there are certain qualities you must have: One: Hair. Two: Clothes and the third: Nice teeth.” Of course the Godfather of Soul was talking about nice, straight, pearly white teeth. But I wonder what he would think of gold caps that had spinning rims on them?
A while back photojournalist Ernie Pannicoli made up a fictional story about the rapper Ja Rule having a patented line of spinning gold teeth, he said, “Make your grill say something, tell them you from the hood and down with the hood just by flashing a spinning smile."
Well, what originally was a satire piece about the ridiculous obsession hip hop has with materialism; lo and behold someone has made a line of gold-capped teeth that literally have spinning rims on them.
Shocked, I called the number on the ad and spoke to an Asian gentleman named Singh, who is the owner and designer for a company called www.TripleXGoldTeeth.com I asked him if he really had a line of spinning gold teeth, to which he responded, “Yes, we have a product like that.”
I wanted to break out laughing just like I did 2 months ago when Ernie put his fake news story out. I asked him if he was aware of Ernie’s satire story from a couple of months back, to which he responded “No.” I then asked him where he got the idea for that line of teeth, to which responded, “Oh, we just made it up, we make up designs all the time.” I had to ask him, “So, how long have you been selling this line of teeth?” To which he responded, “Oh I’d say it’s been a little over a month now.”
I then had to get to the most important part, the question that had been burning in all of our minds…
Mark Skillz: So, what makes them spin? Are they battery operated, or do you spin them with you finger first?
Triple X Gold Teeth: Uh, gravity, the way we’ve designed them is so that they spin just from the force of gravity.
Mark Skillz: Oh…so they always spin then?
Triple X Gold Teeth: Yes, pretty much.
Mark Skillz: So…have you gotten any orders for them?
Triple X Gold Teeth: Yes we’ve had quite a few come through in the pastmonth.
So, you know what’s next right? Get ready for some artist to be the first to rock some spinning gold teeth! It’s coming, you know it is, and then some goofball with a sweatband on his forehead and his drawers showing is going to show up at your house, and sit at your table, and say, “Excuse me, does anybody have a few toothpicks? I need to get some meat out of my spinning teeth.”
Ok, while all of this is funny, there really is a sad commentary in all of this. Unfortunately, the gentleman that designed this line of teeth is profiting off of the willful ignorance of the Black and Latino Communities. Any dentist will tell you that gold caps are not good for your teeth. The decay process is accelerated when gold is capped on teeth. Some people wear gold fronts, and have done so for years, but they – if they want to keep their teeth – exercise great care in taking care of the teeth they have.
What’s sadder is that, this guy Singh, probably came to this country within the last 10 years (judging by his accent) and probably learned early in his stay here who’s ignorance to exploit. Kind of like that game “Ghetto Monopoly,” remember that?
We, as black people, bear responsibility for feeding these people these images. At the turn of the last century and the ones that preceded that one, whites were responsible for the ugly caricatures of us back then. Somewhere down the line we were bamboozled into thinking that as long as we profited or we looked good, whatever we were doing was all right.
When I first started writing about hip hop I never would’ve guessed that what I would be chronicling is the decay of a culture. A culture that has turned into a long running joke. A culture so devoid of creativity that cartoonish thugs with Sambo-like tendencies are heroes for a generation. Yes, white and black kids have come together in a lot of cases, under the banner of hip hop’s culture. However, how free are the minds of the youth? Do they, or we as adults see ourselves as freethinking people devoid of the black inferiority complex?
When the Roman civilization was falling, people were being butchered for sport, and people were engaging in all kinds of depraved acts, the Emperor is said to have said, “Panem et circenses” meaning: “Give them bread and circus.” My friends, hip hop is the circus.
This article was first published at DaveyD.com (www.daveyd.com). It is republished here with permission
DESTINY"S CHILD: DESTINY UN-FULFILLED
Here's an article I wrote almost a year ago, the response to it blew my mind, I got all kinds of emails about it, however, there was one response I got from a sixth grader in the South Bronx whose teacher printed the article out and passed it out for his students to read, the students then had to write their thoughts about the article. One young lady emailed me and said: "I read your article about Destiny's Child and I think they can do whatever they want, cause their grown."
I told her she was right, but older ladies have the responsibilty to teach young girls better...
DESTINY’S CHILD: DESTINY UN-FULFILLED
By the All Mighty Mark Skillz
So after a long hiatus the chicks from Destiny’s Child have reunited and this time the album is entitled: “Destiny’s Fulfilled”. But I have to ask, “Are they still children or have they grown up to be women yet? Apparently they are women, but I have to wonder about the depth of their maturity.
On their latest song “Soldier” they talk about wanting a man who’s “status better be hood or I ain’t checking for him, Better be street if he looking at me, I need a soldier that ain’t scared to stand up for me, he gotta know how to get the dough and he better be street.”
Perhaps these sisters have never heard about what happens to chicks that get caught up with these types of characters. I don’t think they’ve heard of the sisters that have caught cases because they were unknowingly holding guns and or drugs for one of these street soldiers. Have they heard the stories of the girls who just wanted a man with money, and didn’t care how he got it? And how these same soldiers have enemies, real enemies, not some pretty boy actor with gold teeth and Roc a Wear gear, but real thugs, who shoot at cars and don’t care who’s driving it.
When I hear this song, it makes me stop and think about a girl I dated a long time back, her name was Sheila, God forgive me but I can’t remember her last name right now. Anyway, it was the 80’s, and crack was all over like garbage on the street. Everywhere you looked you saw: This one on crack, that one selling crack. It was crazy. Girls at that time were crazy about guys that got their money that way. It was hard on a brother if he wasn’t rolling like that back then.
Anyway, one day, this chick comes from out of nowhere, with this big smile on her face and gives me her number. I called her we chit-chatted a bit and then we went out. While I was talking to her I got to know her and the impression I got, was that she had dated a bunch of drug dealers and wanted a different kind of guy. I also found out she had gotten accustomed to that type of lifestyle: the cars, the money, the jewelry, and etc. etc.
I didn’t get down like that. I was raised to disdain drugs and to never corrupt our communities with that garbage. So, as cute as she was, we didn’t see each other anymore like that. It was one of the many times in my young life that I was really contemplating joining the dark side. I thought, hey I could have the money, the girls the whole nine. But God would not let me go down that dark path. It was rough. But I got through it.
My friends who somehow or another knew this girl warned me to leave her alone. I’ll never forget my man Chuck Money telling me, “Mark leave that girl alone. She’s no good.”
I bumped into Sheila one night at a roller skating rink with one of these characters, we spoke, we were friendly. I had seen her man before, I knew who he was. For some reason, all of these years later, the last image I have of her in mind still stands out like the shining glitter ball that shot lights all over the roller rink that night. Her smile, it was so big and innocent for a girl that had been exposed to what she had been doing.
Not too long afterwards while talking with my brother and his girlfriend at the time, I mentioned Sheila’s name to my brothers girl and she said, “Oh, she’s dead”. In shock I said, “No, can’t be her.” She ran down the description and I said “Yeah, that’s her.” To which my brother’s girl said, “Yeah, she got shot in the head while driving her boyfriends car. She got shot and ran off the freeway into a ditch.”
I was in a state of shock for weeks. In disbelief, one night I found her number and fought with myself as to whether I should call her house. I did. Her mother told me “She’s dead” and hung up the phone.
Later I found out it was a case of mistaken identity. Her boyfriends enemies thought he was in the car with her that night, it didn’t matter who was in the car, they knew that car and they had it in for him.
I ran into so many other girls just like Sheila over the years. Girls, who, for whatever reason were attracted to the gangster lifestyle, and in all honesty, were very naïve as to the consequences. The idea that they could do better was as foreign to them, as the Mandarin language. The connection between prisons, funeral homes, cemeteries and visits to Narcotics Anonymous never came together for them.
So, flash forward almost 20 years later, and here we have a platinum selling group of talented young sisters, and what are they feeding to young girls: Poison. Young girls need better guidance from grown women than that. A man, who, as Lil Wayne puts it, “Has a body marked up like a subway in Harlem” more likely than not, is not going to make a woman’s life any better.
There are almost as many veterans incarcerated in prisons around our country than there are soldiers on the streets. If Destiny’s Child has a destiny to be fulfilled, they are a long way off.
Markskillz@aol.com
I told her she was right, but older ladies have the responsibilty to teach young girls better...
DESTINY’S CHILD: DESTINY UN-FULFILLED
By the All Mighty Mark Skillz
So after a long hiatus the chicks from Destiny’s Child have reunited and this time the album is entitled: “Destiny’s Fulfilled”. But I have to ask, “Are they still children or have they grown up to be women yet? Apparently they are women, but I have to wonder about the depth of their maturity.
On their latest song “Soldier” they talk about wanting a man who’s “status better be hood or I ain’t checking for him, Better be street if he looking at me, I need a soldier that ain’t scared to stand up for me, he gotta know how to get the dough and he better be street.”
Perhaps these sisters have never heard about what happens to chicks that get caught up with these types of characters. I don’t think they’ve heard of the sisters that have caught cases because they were unknowingly holding guns and or drugs for one of these street soldiers. Have they heard the stories of the girls who just wanted a man with money, and didn’t care how he got it? And how these same soldiers have enemies, real enemies, not some pretty boy actor with gold teeth and Roc a Wear gear, but real thugs, who shoot at cars and don’t care who’s driving it.
When I hear this song, it makes me stop and think about a girl I dated a long time back, her name was Sheila, God forgive me but I can’t remember her last name right now. Anyway, it was the 80’s, and crack was all over like garbage on the street. Everywhere you looked you saw: This one on crack, that one selling crack. It was crazy. Girls at that time were crazy about guys that got their money that way. It was hard on a brother if he wasn’t rolling like that back then.
Anyway, one day, this chick comes from out of nowhere, with this big smile on her face and gives me her number. I called her we chit-chatted a bit and then we went out. While I was talking to her I got to know her and the impression I got, was that she had dated a bunch of drug dealers and wanted a different kind of guy. I also found out she had gotten accustomed to that type of lifestyle: the cars, the money, the jewelry, and etc. etc.
I didn’t get down like that. I was raised to disdain drugs and to never corrupt our communities with that garbage. So, as cute as she was, we didn’t see each other anymore like that. It was one of the many times in my young life that I was really contemplating joining the dark side. I thought, hey I could have the money, the girls the whole nine. But God would not let me go down that dark path. It was rough. But I got through it.
My friends who somehow or another knew this girl warned me to leave her alone. I’ll never forget my man Chuck Money telling me, “Mark leave that girl alone. She’s no good.”
I bumped into Sheila one night at a roller skating rink with one of these characters, we spoke, we were friendly. I had seen her man before, I knew who he was. For some reason, all of these years later, the last image I have of her in mind still stands out like the shining glitter ball that shot lights all over the roller rink that night. Her smile, it was so big and innocent for a girl that had been exposed to what she had been doing.
Not too long afterwards while talking with my brother and his girlfriend at the time, I mentioned Sheila’s name to my brothers girl and she said, “Oh, she’s dead”. In shock I said, “No, can’t be her.” She ran down the description and I said “Yeah, that’s her.” To which my brother’s girl said, “Yeah, she got shot in the head while driving her boyfriends car. She got shot and ran off the freeway into a ditch.”
I was in a state of shock for weeks. In disbelief, one night I found her number and fought with myself as to whether I should call her house. I did. Her mother told me “She’s dead” and hung up the phone.
Later I found out it was a case of mistaken identity. Her boyfriends enemies thought he was in the car with her that night, it didn’t matter who was in the car, they knew that car and they had it in for him.
I ran into so many other girls just like Sheila over the years. Girls, who, for whatever reason were attracted to the gangster lifestyle, and in all honesty, were very naïve as to the consequences. The idea that they could do better was as foreign to them, as the Mandarin language. The connection between prisons, funeral homes, cemeteries and visits to Narcotics Anonymous never came together for them.
So, flash forward almost 20 years later, and here we have a platinum selling group of talented young sisters, and what are they feeding to young girls: Poison. Young girls need better guidance from grown women than that. A man, who, as Lil Wayne puts it, “Has a body marked up like a subway in Harlem” more likely than not, is not going to make a woman’s life any better.
There are almost as many veterans incarcerated in prisons around our country than there are soldiers on the streets. If Destiny’s Child has a destiny to be fulfilled, they are a long way off.
Markskillz@aol.com
Sunday, August 07, 2005
Too Many Groupies In Hip Hop Radio
One of the first pieces I ever wrote for the web was for my man Davey D's site www.daveyd.com it was called "Too Many Groupies on Hip Hop Radio". This was the piece that made my name ring on the web. Let me give you a little background on it.
I got fired from my job as telecom tech in 2003. My life was adrift because I didn't know what in the hell to do with my life. For most of life I had been a MC/DJ/producer all of those things, but by my early 30's I could no longer find the inspiration to rhyme. Rap/hip-hop just didn't feel the same to me. So here I was out of work and with no direction. All of my life my mother told me, "Mark, you can write, why don't you do it?"
"Yeah yeah whatever", I'd say. Writing didn't appeal to me. Rhyming did.
One of my best friends is a guy named Dave Cook a/k/a Davey D, I'll never forget telling him what i was going through. He told me something quite prophetic: "Sometimes God closes one door and opens another. You just have to be wise enough to recognize that door."
Well, what eventually would happen was that I would start doing tags and drops for AOL Radio's hip hop stations. So I went back to school for Mass Comm.
I started listening to the radio a little different. I noticed that hip hop radio was like a step child of regular radio. For one thing the deejays shouted instead of just speaking normally. Intelligent conversation had gone out the door. This disturbed me. I grew up listening to the radio. I remember Mr Magic, Frankie Crocker, Just Allah, Greg Mack, Isaac Stevenson, Kevin Nash and many others; these dudes sounded like intelligent cats. Alot of dudes today just don't sound intelligent anymore. There are certain people ( I know I'm gonna catch flack for this) like: Star and Wendy Williams, who sound like intelligent people - you may not like everything they say ( I don't ) but at least they have intelligent conversation and they're not yelling at you.
Anyway here is the article I hope you enjoy!
Too Many Groupies on the Radio
Have you listened to hip hop radio lately? Or should I say what passes for hip hop radio. Like anything else in our culture the standards for urban radio have been lowered.
Instead of deejays on air being conversational –they shout. The art of one to one conversation style radio is lost in hip hop. Maybe station managers think that blacks and Latinos don’t want to be talked to intelligently. Or does keeping it “real” mean that you have to sound like you perceive your audience to be? For instance, take a station like KMEL, the on-air deejays recently, not only sound like they’re from the street – but also like they are broadcasting live from a street corner.
Now, there is nothing wrong with being from the street, however, in our culture – I’m talking about African-American culture, historically, when a person is given the opportunity to communicate with our people, we’ve always strived to present a positive image. But for some reason, when people think of hip hop they automatically lower the standards of excellence.
Black people are not monolithic beings. We don’t speak with one voice and one mind. Neither are all hip hoppers monolithic beings. We range in age and taste. Some of us prefer Mos Def and Talib Kweli, while others prefer Lil Flip. With preferences in tastes so vast you’d think that the people who market music to us would realize that and would have more than one kind of on air personality talking to us.
When I was coming up, deejays like Frankie Crocker, Nick Harper, Greg Mack, Jeff Fox and many others sounded like intelligent people. They might not have been rocket scientists but never the less, these men sounded intelligent enough to communicate ideas to a mass audience without dumbing down to them. For some reason, people think that being a part of the hip hop culture or even black culture for that matter, means that you have to dumb things down to relate to people.
For instance, on the 70’s sitcom Sanford and Son, whenever the Sanford’s came in contact with the police – it was always Officer Smitty (a brother) and some white cop, the white cop would speak in “cop talk” meaning he would say things like “Hello Mr. Sanford we received a call about a domestic disturbance somewhere on these premises, and we came to ascertain the facts.”
It is at that point that Fred and Lamont would look at each other bewildered, as if they couldn’t understand what the white cop had said. They would then look at Officer Smitty for his interpretation – “Fred we got a call about a fight around here, do you know anything about it?”
Like they were too dumb to understand what the white guy was saying, as if the words were too big for them to know. Now this kind of white-speak-black man-don’t understand kinda thing exists today but on different levels.
What else do I mean by talking down? Well, when a grown man, is talking to teen-agers instead of raising the bar for what and whom they should strive to be like, he communicates with them on their level. Hearing thirty and forty year olds saying “What’s crackalatin’” 20 times a day is embarrassing. It’s the equivalent of that 50 year- old uncle, at the barbecue, trying to talk the latest slang and worse, trying to do the latest dance. That’s what’s happening on radio now.
One night I was listening to KMEL and I happened to turn it on in the middle of an interview, now this interview went on for like 10-15 minutes, and in all that time, never once did this guy say who he was, or who the artist was he was interviewing. However, what he did get across was that this artist had a fat platinum chain on and how much he wanted to have one as well. And also this guy enjoys hanging out with him ‘poppin’ collars’ at the Beehive and checkin’ out “breezies”. Now what the hell does all that mean to a listener?
After 15 minutes of this crap when this artist was walking out the door I finally figured out he was talking to none other than Kanye West. Oh snap! I thought, damn I can think of a bunch of questions I’d like to ask Kanye my damn self like; What was the Chi-town hip hop scene like when you were coming up? What influence did house music have on your style? The Nation of Islam is real strong out there, what influence did they have on you if any? The gang scene out there, how did you avoid that trap, when gang culture goes back 40 years plus out there? Did you start off rapping over house records? What Chi-town radio did you listen to, that influenced you to go the soulful hip hop route?
The art of the interview, the art of conversation, all of that is lost in current hip hop radio. Why is that? It’s because we’ve lost our culture to a bunch of groupies. Not just here in the Bay Area, but all over the country. Radio stations like record companies have people working there who are just happy to be down. They are content with the status quo, if you tell them that there is something wrong with hip hop radio, they look at you like your crazy. As far they’re concerned everything is all good and then some, because they’re going to concerts and they’re chilling backstage with their favorite rap stars.
Greg Mack, the pioneering LA dee-jay that was on KDAY back in the 80’s and 90’s, the man that any-artist-that-wanted-his-record broken in LA had to see. When he interviewed an artist, like, Big Daddy Kane, for instance, he asked Kane questions like; “So Big Daddy, where did you first start performing?” “What year was it?” “Who were some of the people that you looked up to while you were coming up?” “What’s this whole thing with the Juice Crew and BDP, the reason I ask is because you seem to be respected by both sides so, what’s your take on things?” “How do you think it can be resolved?”
See, now that was from a KDAY interview I heard in 1988. Never once did Greg Mack ask him how many hoe’s did he have waiting for him back at the hotel or in the limousine like you hear so often today in hip hop radio.
The groupie culture is one that loves to be seen in the places to be seen and to give the impression that they are down. But really ask yourself, do you care if some idiot on the radio was chillin’ in the club with some football or basketball player? What does the stations event that they are constantly promoting every 15 minutes have to do with your school closing down because the state has no money for teacher’s salaries and books for students?
Let’s really go back, to WBLS and Mr. Magic, the man who was the first person to play rap records on the radio. I used to think that Mr. Magic was a big fan of the Force MC’s, because they were on his show a lot, but to his credit he wasn’t riding their dicks, he asked them good questions like; “So fellas, you just won the battle out in New Jersey, how much rehearsal time did you put in for it?” “Ok, name some of your favorite doo-wop groups.”
In defense of the deejays, I have to say, that they are only carrying out orders from up top. If station management didn’t want that style of presentation they would’ve long since gotten rid of them. These are young brothers and sisters trying to make it, trying to find their way in a very competitive field. Managers are the ones that set the tone, so ultimately they are responsible. You’d think someone older with more experience would want to lead them better – but not so. Don’t get me wrong, there are some talented brothers and sisters on the radio today, and quite a few of them have real potential in the years to come.
So what’s changed? What has changed in urban radio from the Frankie Crocker, Greg Mack era to now? Yes, hip hop music is more dominant today, but what about the quality of talent? Does a hip hop deejay have to sound like he just rolled out of the gutter? To a certain degree I can understand why urban radio programmers want their deejays to sound ‘street’, it makes them more relatable to a ghetto audience. But aren’t they doing the audience they serve a dis-service by going that route? Do the station managers know that they are reinforcing negative racial stereotypes of the inner-city audiences that they are catering to?
Yes, hip hop culture is far more influential today than it was when Frankie Crocker and Mr. Magic ruled the airwaves, but does that mean that radio has to appeal to the lowest common denominator? No.
Black people have always talked slang. As far back as the 50’s, the first black radio jocks were rappers - people like Jocko Henderson and many others. Within that style they entertained and informed the community, later, people like Frankie Crocker took to the airwaves and just talked to people in a conversational style. There was no need to ‘talk jive’ on air anymore.
Do station managers know that by reinforcing these stereotypes that they are helping to keep black and Latino youth forever ignorant?
Why is it I can turn on a rock station, and hear guys on there with a sense of humor and who aren’t talking down to their audience? But mostly I don’t hear anyone yelling on rock radio. Except on the records. Is hip hop that low of a culture that standards have to be lower for us than anybody else?
Hip hop radio is now notorious for being shout out and request radio, instead of being informative as well as entertaining.
Now, the whole shout out style comes from the mix tape scene, which works really well in clubs and car systems, but radio should have a different standard. Don’t get it twisted, I like the mix tape dee-jays, but there needs to be a balance between that and regular radio. I don’t need to hear DJ Clue or Whoo Kidd, or even Kid Capri reading liners and doing interviews – let them rock the party
Because I’m down for positive changes in our culture, here’s what I think station owners can do to help change this situation…Station managers talk with your dee-jays, talk to them about being conversational, talk to them about them being role models in our communities, talk to them about preparing for an interview, you know, stuff like researching the artist, so that you can ask different kinds of questions so that fans and non-fans can walk away with more than…”Damn look at all that ice in that medallion!”
And remember mediocrity is only realized in the presence of excellence.
I got fired from my job as telecom tech in 2003. My life was adrift because I didn't know what in the hell to do with my life. For most of life I had been a MC/DJ/producer all of those things, but by my early 30's I could no longer find the inspiration to rhyme. Rap/hip-hop just didn't feel the same to me. So here I was out of work and with no direction. All of my life my mother told me, "Mark, you can write, why don't you do it?"
"Yeah yeah whatever", I'd say. Writing didn't appeal to me. Rhyming did.
One of my best friends is a guy named Dave Cook a/k/a Davey D, I'll never forget telling him what i was going through. He told me something quite prophetic: "Sometimes God closes one door and opens another. You just have to be wise enough to recognize that door."
Well, what eventually would happen was that I would start doing tags and drops for AOL Radio's hip hop stations. So I went back to school for Mass Comm.
I started listening to the radio a little different. I noticed that hip hop radio was like a step child of regular radio. For one thing the deejays shouted instead of just speaking normally. Intelligent conversation had gone out the door. This disturbed me. I grew up listening to the radio. I remember Mr Magic, Frankie Crocker, Just Allah, Greg Mack, Isaac Stevenson, Kevin Nash and many others; these dudes sounded like intelligent cats. Alot of dudes today just don't sound intelligent anymore. There are certain people ( I know I'm gonna catch flack for this) like: Star and Wendy Williams, who sound like intelligent people - you may not like everything they say ( I don't ) but at least they have intelligent conversation and they're not yelling at you.
Anyway here is the article I hope you enjoy!
Too Many Groupies on the Radio
Have you listened to hip hop radio lately? Or should I say what passes for hip hop radio. Like anything else in our culture the standards for urban radio have been lowered.
Instead of deejays on air being conversational –they shout. The art of one to one conversation style radio is lost in hip hop. Maybe station managers think that blacks and Latinos don’t want to be talked to intelligently. Or does keeping it “real” mean that you have to sound like you perceive your audience to be? For instance, take a station like KMEL, the on-air deejays recently, not only sound like they’re from the street – but also like they are broadcasting live from a street corner.
Now, there is nothing wrong with being from the street, however, in our culture – I’m talking about African-American culture, historically, when a person is given the opportunity to communicate with our people, we’ve always strived to present a positive image. But for some reason, when people think of hip hop they automatically lower the standards of excellence.
Black people are not monolithic beings. We don’t speak with one voice and one mind. Neither are all hip hoppers monolithic beings. We range in age and taste. Some of us prefer Mos Def and Talib Kweli, while others prefer Lil Flip. With preferences in tastes so vast you’d think that the people who market music to us would realize that and would have more than one kind of on air personality talking to us.
When I was coming up, deejays like Frankie Crocker, Nick Harper, Greg Mack, Jeff Fox and many others sounded like intelligent people. They might not have been rocket scientists but never the less, these men sounded intelligent enough to communicate ideas to a mass audience without dumbing down to them. For some reason, people think that being a part of the hip hop culture or even black culture for that matter, means that you have to dumb things down to relate to people.
For instance, on the 70’s sitcom Sanford and Son, whenever the Sanford’s came in contact with the police – it was always Officer Smitty (a brother) and some white cop, the white cop would speak in “cop talk” meaning he would say things like “Hello Mr. Sanford we received a call about a domestic disturbance somewhere on these premises, and we came to ascertain the facts.”
It is at that point that Fred and Lamont would look at each other bewildered, as if they couldn’t understand what the white cop had said. They would then look at Officer Smitty for his interpretation – “Fred we got a call about a fight around here, do you know anything about it?”
Like they were too dumb to understand what the white guy was saying, as if the words were too big for them to know. Now this kind of white-speak-black man-don’t understand kinda thing exists today but on different levels.
What else do I mean by talking down? Well, when a grown man, is talking to teen-agers instead of raising the bar for what and whom they should strive to be like, he communicates with them on their level. Hearing thirty and forty year olds saying “What’s crackalatin’” 20 times a day is embarrassing. It’s the equivalent of that 50 year- old uncle, at the barbecue, trying to talk the latest slang and worse, trying to do the latest dance. That’s what’s happening on radio now.
One night I was listening to KMEL and I happened to turn it on in the middle of an interview, now this interview went on for like 10-15 minutes, and in all that time, never once did this guy say who he was, or who the artist was he was interviewing. However, what he did get across was that this artist had a fat platinum chain on and how much he wanted to have one as well. And also this guy enjoys hanging out with him ‘poppin’ collars’ at the Beehive and checkin’ out “breezies”. Now what the hell does all that mean to a listener?
After 15 minutes of this crap when this artist was walking out the door I finally figured out he was talking to none other than Kanye West. Oh snap! I thought, damn I can think of a bunch of questions I’d like to ask Kanye my damn self like; What was the Chi-town hip hop scene like when you were coming up? What influence did house music have on your style? The Nation of Islam is real strong out there, what influence did they have on you if any? The gang scene out there, how did you avoid that trap, when gang culture goes back 40 years plus out there? Did you start off rapping over house records? What Chi-town radio did you listen to, that influenced you to go the soulful hip hop route?
The art of the interview, the art of conversation, all of that is lost in current hip hop radio. Why is that? It’s because we’ve lost our culture to a bunch of groupies. Not just here in the Bay Area, but all over the country. Radio stations like record companies have people working there who are just happy to be down. They are content with the status quo, if you tell them that there is something wrong with hip hop radio, they look at you like your crazy. As far they’re concerned everything is all good and then some, because they’re going to concerts and they’re chilling backstage with their favorite rap stars.
Greg Mack, the pioneering LA dee-jay that was on KDAY back in the 80’s and 90’s, the man that any-artist-that-wanted-his-record broken in LA had to see. When he interviewed an artist, like, Big Daddy Kane, for instance, he asked Kane questions like; “So Big Daddy, where did you first start performing?” “What year was it?” “Who were some of the people that you looked up to while you were coming up?” “What’s this whole thing with the Juice Crew and BDP, the reason I ask is because you seem to be respected by both sides so, what’s your take on things?” “How do you think it can be resolved?”
See, now that was from a KDAY interview I heard in 1988. Never once did Greg Mack ask him how many hoe’s did he have waiting for him back at the hotel or in the limousine like you hear so often today in hip hop radio.
The groupie culture is one that loves to be seen in the places to be seen and to give the impression that they are down. But really ask yourself, do you care if some idiot on the radio was chillin’ in the club with some football or basketball player? What does the stations event that they are constantly promoting every 15 minutes have to do with your school closing down because the state has no money for teacher’s salaries and books for students?
Let’s really go back, to WBLS and Mr. Magic, the man who was the first person to play rap records on the radio. I used to think that Mr. Magic was a big fan of the Force MC’s, because they were on his show a lot, but to his credit he wasn’t riding their dicks, he asked them good questions like; “So fellas, you just won the battle out in New Jersey, how much rehearsal time did you put in for it?” “Ok, name some of your favorite doo-wop groups.”
In defense of the deejays, I have to say, that they are only carrying out orders from up top. If station management didn’t want that style of presentation they would’ve long since gotten rid of them. These are young brothers and sisters trying to make it, trying to find their way in a very competitive field. Managers are the ones that set the tone, so ultimately they are responsible. You’d think someone older with more experience would want to lead them better – but not so. Don’t get me wrong, there are some talented brothers and sisters on the radio today, and quite a few of them have real potential in the years to come.
So what’s changed? What has changed in urban radio from the Frankie Crocker, Greg Mack era to now? Yes, hip hop music is more dominant today, but what about the quality of talent? Does a hip hop deejay have to sound like he just rolled out of the gutter? To a certain degree I can understand why urban radio programmers want their deejays to sound ‘street’, it makes them more relatable to a ghetto audience. But aren’t they doing the audience they serve a dis-service by going that route? Do the station managers know that they are reinforcing negative racial stereotypes of the inner-city audiences that they are catering to?
Yes, hip hop culture is far more influential today than it was when Frankie Crocker and Mr. Magic ruled the airwaves, but does that mean that radio has to appeal to the lowest common denominator? No.
Black people have always talked slang. As far back as the 50’s, the first black radio jocks were rappers - people like Jocko Henderson and many others. Within that style they entertained and informed the community, later, people like Frankie Crocker took to the airwaves and just talked to people in a conversational style. There was no need to ‘talk jive’ on air anymore.
Do station managers know that by reinforcing these stereotypes that they are helping to keep black and Latino youth forever ignorant?
Why is it I can turn on a rock station, and hear guys on there with a sense of humor and who aren’t talking down to their audience? But mostly I don’t hear anyone yelling on rock radio. Except on the records. Is hip hop that low of a culture that standards have to be lower for us than anybody else?
Hip hop radio is now notorious for being shout out and request radio, instead of being informative as well as entertaining.
Now, the whole shout out style comes from the mix tape scene, which works really well in clubs and car systems, but radio should have a different standard. Don’t get it twisted, I like the mix tape dee-jays, but there needs to be a balance between that and regular radio. I don’t need to hear DJ Clue or Whoo Kidd, or even Kid Capri reading liners and doing interviews – let them rock the party
Because I’m down for positive changes in our culture, here’s what I think station owners can do to help change this situation…Station managers talk with your dee-jays, talk to them about being conversational, talk to them about them being role models in our communities, talk to them about preparing for an interview, you know, stuff like researching the artist, so that you can ask different kinds of questions so that fans and non-fans can walk away with more than…”Damn look at all that ice in that medallion!”
And remember mediocrity is only realized in the presence of excellence.
Ok so today was kind of crazy. Had to take the wife to the hospital - she's pregnant with our third (actually fourth, but in a way the fifth) child. Fifth child you say? Yes. Fifth. Let me break it down for you:
The sixteen year old is her first (my step son Aaron)
The 3 year old is our first - kinda (Thomas John Mark Jr.)
The 2 year old is our second - kinda (Malcolm)
Now there is another one coming...it's a boy don't have a name for him yet. Yes, I have nothing but boys. Do I want a girl?
Our first child was a little girl. Her name was Kennedy Malia. I'll never forget the anticipation of waiting on that little girl to be born. I had plans man. She was gonna take karate and ballet at 5, kick boxing at 7 and whatever else she wanted to do after that. Hey forgive me for wanting my little girl to be able to protect herself when daddy's not around. Any way there were complications early on in the pregnancy. First, she'd never sit still long enough for the ultrasound to get a real good picture of her. There was a miscarriage scare, we thought my wife had miscarried - she didn't, the technician at the hospital told us he didn't see the baby while doing an ultrasound. He was wrong.
Three days later when my wife went to see her doctor, what did we see? The little girl swimming around as usual. You now the Stevie Wonder song "Joy inside my tears"? That's how I felt.
Anyway, November 29th 2000 was the due date. My wife called me at work on November 28th and said there was a problem. I rushed over to the hospital. I didn't feel like there was anything wrong. You know how you can just feel it when something is wrong? I didn't feel that.
I get to the hospital and the doctor says: "I'm not hearing a heartbeat." I didn't panic. After all this was a little girl who could never keep still. I thought, "Nah, she's just hiding right now that's all". How wrong I was.
The Ultrasound showed the baby, but she wasn't moving. After we found that out came the most heart-crushing 24 hours of my life. You see the baby had died and now my wife had to deliver the baby just like she would any other.
When you have a problem - especially one of this magnitude, it isn't something you can just walk away from. Nor can you act like it didn't happen. No matter how much it hurts you have to tell people. Especially your family. The hardest part for me was telling my mother that her first grandchild was dead. Broke my heart.
I've always been an optimist. I held out on faith that this was all some mix up or mistake or whatever until the last possible second. When I saw for myself that my little girl wasn't going to be with me. The cord had gotten wrapped around her neck.
It took me a long time to get over that episode. And to be honest: I don't think that I'll ever really "get over it", you know what I mean?
But then on January 9th 2002 God sent me and the wife a present in the form of our son: Thomas John Mark Zuniga- McCord Jr. People that have seen me with him have all remarked how close we are. After losing the little girl, can you blame me? I told my wife that since he's here now I no longer need to celebrate my birthday - because his b-day is 2 days before mine. After 30 plus years of celebrating birthdays - I can step aside and let my little man take over.
And then September 10th 2003 we got another one: Malcolm Alexander Zuniga- McCord.
This latest pregnancy was NOT planned. AT ALL. SHIT HAPPENS you know what I mean? So today the wife gets cramps and starts bleeding, shit started sounding like a rerun you know what i mean? The doctor comes in and says: "Shit ain't looking good" ( my words not hers). "Uh-oh" I thought, "Just when I think I'm out, they pull me back in!"
But nah, everything is looking good thank god. Niggas just gotta be careful you know what I'm sayin'? So I'm gonna have another son...damn a brother can make some boys can't he?
Mark Skillz
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