DISCO KING MARIO (and Smokey), YOU ARE THE FATHER(S). (Not Kool Herc, DNA test inside) pt 1.
I recently observed GODFATHER/FATHER of this Hip Hop Culture (Clive Campbell, bka Kool Herc) in a recent SOURCE article, speaking on the need for a Hip Hop museum in Jamaica, after visiting a Bob Marley museum: It was HE who combined “Jamaican” toasting, “Jamaican” sound system culture, and some “Afram funk” breakbeats into the culture we know now as hip hop.
REF: https://thesource.com/2020/02/26/dj-kool-herc-museum/ <<<<
Quote: DJ Kool Herc wants Jamaica to reclaim Hip Hop simply “because we are the ones who bought the style and the technique to America, which [later] became hip-hop.” His reasoning “…will definitely open up a whole other world musically for Jamaica. [The island] is a core tourism Mecca and [the museum] could be a place where people would want to go to learn about history. [They will] not only [have to go to the United States] — it will be right here in Jamaica. I think if the government got behind it, it would be profitable and an asset to the country.” Sounds commendable, but I read a statement he made a few decades earlier (my birth year, 1984), and it somewhat contradicts his current stance:
I’m at a loss here;I’m wondering what technique he’s referring to or what he brought to America at AGE 12. Especially when people like DISCO KING MARIO and DJ SMOKEY (of the Smokeatrons) held sway in areas like BRONXDALE, home of the BLACK SPADES — progenitors of *Bambaataa’s Zulu Nation.
Disco King Mario (according to https://hiphopgoldenage.com/forgotten-founding-father-disco-king-mario/)
was born in EDENTON, NORTH CAROLINA JULY 1, 1956 but later relocated to Bronxdale like many other SOUTHERN AFRICAN AMERICAN folks looking to escape harsh tobacco plantation labor/the cruel sharecropper lifestyle.
He was an OG of the ORIGINAL BLACK SPADES in Bronxdale, (*Bam later became a member after flipping/pancaking from The Savage Nomads, making him the first official “set hopper” in hip hop history) and gained neighborhood notoriety for being a fashionable ladies man who had the BEST EQUIPMENT, and threw the BEST PARTIES, and managed to get the best venues…Oh, and for those who said he wasn’t a Hip Hop DJ, this is an odd flyer to be on (with *Bam) , in 1979
https://youtu.be/2aLYjbC1utM?t=829 <<<< here’s the same documentary to hear his story from the people who were IN ATTENDANCE.
Speaking of “sound systems” and “techniques”, this story from
(Yes Yes, Y’all: The Experience Music Project Oral History Of Hip Hop’s First Decade.) is quite interesting:
Busy Bee: “It was Breakout and Bambaataa, and I was rappin’ with Breakout at that time. And Bambaataa needed some help with Breakout and Baron, I’m tellin’ you [laughing]! So Bambaataa had to call and ask Mario. He needed an amp. Mario said, “What happened?” He said, “I’m going to battle Breakout. He said, “Oh yeah? Then you need the Macintosh (sic)[amplifier]. You need this.”
DJ Baron: “Afrika Bambaataa was on one side of the gym, and we was on the other. The place was jam-packed. But Bambaataa had one up his sleeve: Disco King Mario had loaned Bam a power amp. We were going back and forth, and all of a sudden you couldn’t hear us no more [laughs], ’cause Bam borrowed his amp from Mario and blew us out of the water, just drowns us out totally…” Was that a Jamaican amplifier? Was there some type of Jamaican setting that was only accessible to Bam after he borrowed it from Mario?
Bam was also quoted saying “Jamaican sound systems” weren’t part of or influential over…or even NEAR hip hop culture, just a few decades ago
Herc contradicted him somewhat(they didn’t have their stories right in the 80s…was it the coke?) in this quote from the SAME SOURCE* (no pun intended, RIP to Chris Rios) once again saying he was playing music that was being played in the same manner “I got to do what the Romans do. I’m here. I got to get with the groove that’s here”
Another article I read, in regards to the *Founding Fathers* documentary (highlighting BROOKLYN contributors to the embryonic Hip Hop culture) also followed the same “no sound system influence” theme:
http://hiphopandpolitics.com/2014/02/05/founding-fathers-documentary-hip-hop-start-bronx/ According to Davey D:
“To be sure, there were all kinds of mobile jocks in New York in the early 70’s. Hands down, no questions. I’ve always asked the Bronx cats that I’ve interviewed this one important question, “Yo, what impact did the Jamaican sound systems have on ya’ll?”
Everybody from Toney Tone to Kool Herc to Bambaataa said: ‘None, none at all. They weren’t a part of our thing. They did their own thing.’
Which is more than likely true, with one exception: Grandmaster Flash’s sound system “the Gladiator” was built by some Jamaican brothers on Freeman Street. And in Brooklyn, there is no way in the world those dudes in Brooklyn could not have heard the different sound systems. Deejay culture in Jamaica goes back to the 50’s!
The one time I interviewed Kool Herc I asked him about the Jamaican sound systems in the Bronx and he acknowledged knowing a few of them, but said that they had no influence or impact whatsoever.
Well, Davey D, “Deejay culture” in the US goes back to the early 20s, and it ALSO had heavy influence over the Jamaican DJ culture:
Shout outs to Jocko, who was also INSPIRED by the late, great Maurice “Hot Rod” Hulbert, an Arkansas Native who moved to B’more to become on of the FIRST Black hosts on white-owned WITH. He introduced the city to phrases like “googa mooga” and “daddy-o”…Phrases/Jives later adapted by Jocko, and then copied by Count Matchuki, Lord Comic, and Coxsone Dodd. Who listened and watched like a young Beanie Sigel listened to the Lox.
Jamaican DJ culture didn’t exist until African Americans inspired it.
The first Jamaican recording studio (opened by Ken Khouri, a Jamaican of Lebanese-Cuban extraction) was opened in 1947 (after he bought his equipment in MIAMI, and then CALIFORNIA) , and the same individual opened the FIRST JAMAICAN RECORD PRESSING PLANT in 1951, the same year Hot Rod Hulbert hit the Baltimore airwaves.
Fun history lessons and they’re all related to my main point:
Kool Herc didn’t introduce anything new to African American culture, and Disco King Mario needs his place on Mt. Rushmore. DJ Smokey of the Smoke-a-trons needs his place on Mt. Rushmore.
I”ll let OGs from the era speak on that because I WAS NOT THERE:
It should start at 18:03…if not, go to 20:17 for a special guest appearance from “The teacher” (LOL) KRS-ONE. A purveyor of the “caribbean triumvirate” origin myth saying DJ SMOKEY WAS ERASED from hip hop history? Why were people being ERASED and FORGOTTEN? Sounds deliberate.