Evansville, Indiana - November 1st 2002

Just getting off tour with Dilated Peoples and Blackalicious immediately segues into my 11th year of being on the college lecture circuit. Flying through Cincinnati on my way to Evansville, upon driving to my gig at Viccennes University between Evansville and Terre Haute Indy, I stopped at a Subway to get lunch. I was served by two white kids behind the counter who, by appearance, were hip hop fans. I thought back to when RUN-DMC paved these Indiana roads, bringing a slice of their QUEENS, NY existence to jell peeps together forever in the name of hip hop. Using it to build bridges, being the soundtrack of many a young cats life as well as watering the seeds of the rap game worldwide just so many artists afterwards could come and pick the fruit. This was also two days after a modern day QUEENS existence took the life of RUN-DMC’s heart and soul, their DJ who made all our damn day, Jason ‘JAMMASTER JAY’ Mizell.

Jammaster Jay is a hero to me, and I’ve had the fortunate experience to have mutually considered one another friends in both the business and personal sense. The first time I saw him with RUN and DMC I considered him representation for these fresh new cats coming from fifteen minutes away from HOLLIS, QUEENS to do their absolutely first radio interview at our WBAU, the 90 watt station of my college ADELPHI UNIVERSITY. My life friend BILL STEPHNEY had the inside contact to this new energy coming out of QUEENS, through then BILLBOARD writer NELSON GEORGE. BILL recently interviewed, befriended and had gotten the digits to the RUSH scene. We as the eastern neighboring county, NASSAU county-ites, sought to integrate QUEENS into our rap listening format as the closest, easiest and best accessible way of legitimizing ourselves with NEW YORK CITY hip hop fuel. After all Jamaica Avenue was still the black shopping magnet at that time with a thick black population that we wanted as an audience. An N6 or N4 bus ride away, and from there you could easily E or F train it to Manhattan or the other boroughs where hip hop was burning. RUSSELL SIMMONS had been a known name to us for about 4-5 years now as this cat in QUEENS who was a mover and shaker with the the then looked down upon rapgame. I remember seeing his name on flyers using the name RUSH to throw parties both at the parks and in the clubs from ‘77 to around 1980 until when I saw he was associated with the first rap superstar KURTIS BLOW.

BLOW literally blew all competition away with his performances and MERCURY labeled records that also bore the SIMMONS name. Alongside BLOW was this 12 year old boy wonder of rap named DJ RUN who was billed as ‘the son of KURTIS BLOW’. These cats had developed a ‘vibe’ attached to hip hop that was different from the BRONX and MANHATTAN innovators but still authentic. Around the summer of 1982 I’d heard that BLOW’s rhythm section, ORANGE KRUSH, had cut a song named ‘ACTION’ with singer ALYSON WILLIAMS, lacing vocals across the ‘krush groove.’ The beat was a hint of things to come.

1983... we were the stalwart rap DJs of INTERMETRO Record Pool and had first dibs on the few promo records that rap companies released. We’d gotten this white label promo from PROFILE RECORDS with an artist name that sounded like a car or machine or something, RUN-DMC. My co-radio partner BUTCH CASSIDY had been talking about this record he had heard the week prior at a giant black disco club named ‘ENCORE’. All he said is that he couldn’t describe it, only that he couldn’t stop moving to it and the beat was as big as hell.

At the same time KAWASAKI MOTORCYCLES was running an ad with this incredible backbeat during commercials on the MR MAGIC show, the legendary DJ who ushered in the form of rap radio. It was the same beat from the ‘Action’ record the year before. Sure enough when KEITH SHOCKLEE had made it back from the city, indeed this was the record that contained both songs…IT’S LIKE THAT and SUCKER MCS. Immediately BILL STEPHNEY blasted the record across the airwaves, both cuts, 4 crazy weeks before anybody had played it. As a DJ…sheee this was like our private uranium find.

After the 4 weeks both the small college station and the song had a local buzz. The group was achieving NYC recognition and the station was gaining a reputation for tapping into these brand new rap sounds. After a month the first interview took place. These young, still teenagers were so nervous that we thought it might be more informative to play the record ..’2 years ago, a friend of mine’……I didn’t remember JAY’s name at the time but MR BILL made it a point to keep kicking it over the airwaves.

Visibly he was the ultimate b-boy prototype, Cazals were the rage.... the official eyewear of hip hop circa 1981-83 and he sported them right. Lees on the legs, Adidas on the feet like the song the gear was classic Jamaica Ave. He appeared to have the most confidence, the more streety of the young cats. After that they blew up in the spring of 83…the summer was theirs, ultimately NYC. A new thing was born.

The next time they came back to the station RUN and DMC were less shy , after touring the country with cats like the BAR-KAYS, GEORGE CLINTON, etc their confidence had risen to the same level JAY had starting off. Then after the single JAMMASTER JAY in the winter of 1983 everybody had known his name. It was simple then, identify your unknown non-vocal members by either naming a cut after them, or lacing a hook (A method I’d adopted in making TERMINATOR X a known member in the record REBEL WITHOUT A PAUSE). With this name credibility JAY would do things to advance hip hop while still keeping an ear to the gutter, ‘gully’ as cats put it today.

JAY would make regular trips back to BAU , while taking on air tapes across the world, taking pride in playing joints nobody heard. JAY prided himself in coming and spreading his celebrity status across the local airwaves, talking back and sharing road experiences to Queens and Long Island, whereas DMC and RUN chilled from the radio when home on a welcomed break from never ending touring. JAY was the glue that accepted the BEASTIE BOYS, who then one night attended BAU with him and his street credibility made cats listen to these 3 white kids over blazin beats.

One of those nights I’d just finished a radio-promo demo named ‘Public Enemy Number One’ off of two tape decks looping the start of the JB’s BLOW YOUR HEAD, which was always an interesting break but never was long enough to loop. Besides it was too strange, only an extreme b-boy would understand. JAY overstood thus took the radio tape to RICK RUBIN and with the BEASTIES played to Def. RICK was then calling my house for a year looking to find the extreme flip side of his 16 year old LL COOL J prodigy discovery of only a year prior. I definitely thought I was too old, but JAY, DMC, ADROCK, MIKE D and YAUCH, as well as my own cats DOCTOR DRE, BILL and HANK thought otherwise, but again the catalyst for this energy was JAY.

1984; outside the parking lot of the PHILADELPHIA Spectrum JMJ is holding court getting cats in on FRESH FEST 1. As a man of his word he says drive down and he’ll cover it. He did. My mind was blown by the magnitude of the show.

1985; JMJ is bringing to BAU the initial tape mixes of RAISING HELL, we get a glimpse of things to come…

1986; Jay and crew at MADISON SQUARE GARDEN where 20,000 peeps put their Adidas in the air, afterwards JAY looks at me as if to say "see this rap thing ain’t bad, Chuck."

1987; Jay drives up to catch our last show on our first tour in NEW HAVEN, CONN as we open for the BEASTIES on LICENSE TO ILL... the HOLLIS CREW connects STRONG ISLAND, the bridge is family. In the process he takes one of the BAU acts, the CHOICE 5 outta UNIONDALE LI, and hooks them up with ARISTA as SERIOUS LEE FINE.

1987; JAY and RUN at JFK on their way to a LONDON tour convince myself and HANK to sneak our b-side bonus ‘Rebel Without A Pause’ on our second single after RUSS says no because he was worrying about album sale confusion. It was JAY that heard it first and said it must come out.

1987; JAY and DMC blast ‘Don’t Believe The Hype’ in the lower streets of NY in DMCs Bronco making myself and Hank look at the discarded record as our lead single.

1988’s RUNS HOUSE Tour with PE, EPMD, JAZZY JEFF, FRESH PRINCE, JJ FAD. JAY virtually was the tours spiritual leader as initially on paper against the DOPE JAM TOUR. At the same time our package seemed not as powerful but the solidarity of the acts gained tremendous momentum by the middle of the tour and ran off everything in sight by the end. This leadership set the groundwork for tour solidarity, which makes a better all around show, no drama , no beefs.

1988; I remember during a show in PHILLYon that tour I was adamant about hanging the KKK klansman as a part of the show (which I did 2 years later on our tour). JAY and I got into a hot discussion over it. JAY was against it and said it posed possible issues with some arena workers especially when we got down south. We talked like men in the Spectrum locker room and emphasized the fact that it was the RUN’s HOUSE tour. Simple as that done JAY… respect due.

Later that year we toured together through EUROPE and had the time of our life. One day while riding our bus through the SWITZERLAND Alps JAY showed me his passport which had so many stamped countries it needed added pages, I vowed to get my passport to look like his. Since then I have been through 3 passports and on 46 tours because of that. Meanwhile on that tour I made JAY envious of the fact that I had portable battery operated clippers that kept my hair and facial hair neat. It was the first clipper of that kind no plug up. 3 weeks in EUROPE back then would have you fro’ed out. That year in BERLIN we spoke on radio how stupid the wall was and that our fans on the other side should get the hip hop. JAY and the HOLLIS CREW fitted us, PE, out full regalia in Adidas gear.

1990; JAY brings me in the studio with ICE CUBE to do a version of BACK FROM HELL, it’s my only collab with RUN DMC and I’m still looking for an unedited copy, mp3 or anything.

During the 90s JAY was always the same JAY. JAY, RUN and D asked that we put ourselves back together and alongside KRS do the GARDEN in 1997. What a fun night as RUN –DMC blew us both off stage with an unbelievable performance. No matter the gaps in time we’d always pick up where we left off. A couple of years back PUFFY incorporated my rap-metal cats CONFRONTATION CAMP in a metal version of PE#1. JAY was at the video shoot. Same JAY. Just this past February at the NBA All STAR WEEKEND in PHILLY at an old school reunion concert, backstage I introduced JAY to my cats from publicenemy.com, he took flicks and everything. Same JAY. It was also the last time I would see them perform. HOLLIS CREW around the world. Still working with the cats from the block, always stayin up to the styles. I would dig when he’d pick my brain for possible ideas, like when he had his JMJ label and Walker Wear clothing line he co-worked. Everything was exchangeable in ideas.

RUN DMC’s record company, PROFILE, had held them back from much of the fruit of the rapgame, of the seeds they watered. I always felt that JAY deserved along with RUN and DMC much more, ownership, a better contract etc. and they were trapped setting off an industry that all of a sudden recognized that rap was cool and now profitable across America and abroad.

And now, today, virtually 20 years from the day we met the music industry picks fruit from the rap tree. The fruits are huge but also watered by gasoline and radiation. One sided promotion of stereotypes resulting in an imbalance of a climate that speaks against being together forever. On tour RUN-DMC were doing big shows with KID ROCK and AEROSMITH at the same time we were out so I couldn’t catch them in concert. Heading into their 20th year the prototype for rap longevity would have to roll through them. The BEATLES of rap. And now we lost a paralleled JOHN LENNON.

When the news was heard, two of my guys and myself headed over to the scene. A dampened cold night, where JAY just got back from a gig in ALABAMA headed to do an event the next night in DC with JORDAN’s WIZARDS. 150 gigs a year, always working in a rapgame where cats are overpaid for their efforts. From the scene to the wake to the funeral, it was extra hard to handle the fact that this cat was gone. Especially when I saw the HOLLIS CREW all dressed in Adidas and leather... hatted out carrying out in essence their cat, their leader , their man…JMJ.

The simple tragedy in all of this madness, I saw a mother bury her son. A wife bury her husband. Young children bury their father before they were grown. In the name of the rapgame? People are saying that this is not related to hip hop. But if we really peep the game right now many cats have lyrically played that scenario out. Maybe someone should write a song about a cat who is sliding on grease on the getaway after he did such a crime. Or maybe someone should write a song about how a murder just doesn’t kill the victim, but takes a little life away from all connected to the victim. Its bittersweet seeing the hip hop/ rap community and legends come together in mass, but still only at such a solemn occasion. Sports, they all see each other at the joyous gatherings and a funeral from natural causes. The rap community? Murder victims. It’s necrophilia. Sad. Pain in full. Especially at this moment. JMJ R.I.P.

mistachuck@rapstatio n.com