Hip Hop Lives Online: We Make the World Go Round

Considered by many to be one of the truest and most underrated innovators of hip-hop, DJ Kev-Ski has been there since the beginning. Since first spinning records in the late ’70s to DJing for the likes of Doug E. Fresh in the early ’80s and releasing his now-classic collaborations with Doctor Luv in 1988, Kev-Ski has been steady touring the globe and releasing his Off the Bench mixtapes with the fourth and final installment due this summer. It was our honor to catch up with one of the most pivotal figures in the formation of hip-hop as we know it today.

HHLO: So tell me about when you first started DJing.

Kev-Ski: Oh, that would have to be the late ’70s in Harlem. I started out with a crew of DJ’s in the neighborhood, one of them being my cousin and shortly I met with Doug E. A lot of people may know me from starting with Doug E. Fresh. That’s actually like my original family. I’ve been with Doug E. to this day, actually. So I started out with Doug E. We were really young, man. Like, not even in our teens yet.

HHLO: When was the first time you really witnessed DJing?

Kev-Ski: Probably sneaking into the places we weren’t supposed to be in when we were young. Sneaking into little holes in the wall clubs in the Bronx and in Harlem and seeing guys like Flash who were older than us. I saw them and that was it, man. Once you see those guys you want to do it, you know? It was a club in Harlem called Harlem World and that was the spot that kicked off everybody. Everybody started in Harlem World like the Funky Four. Everybody went to Harlem World. That’s where the Cool Moe Dee and Busy Bee battle took place too, which is a famous battle. Also the Cold Crush and Fantastic Five battle was in there.

HHLO: Describe that setting in Harlem World.

Kev-Ski: Oh man, it was like the street went inside (laughs). You know, it was like a bummy place. It wasn’t too glamorous and yeah, it was pretty much like the park went inside with a roof. Harlem World wasn’t too glamorous of a place but it was good. It was just what the neighborhood needed at the time. Everybody came through there. That was actually when I first met the Force MC’s. The first night me and Doug E. got on was the MC battle of Christmas Eve 1981, which was also the same night as the Cool Moe Dee/Busy Bee battle. That was the first time we performed. That was an MC battle and a crew battle. So we had the soloist that got on, which was Doug. He was called Doug E. D. at the time and then you had all the groups. You had Cold Crush and different groups like that battling for money and then Moe Dee came out and surprised everybody with the attack on Busy Bee.

HHLO: What was it like for you, going from sneaking in there as a kid and observing it to making it onstage and being part of it?

Kev-Ski: Oh, it was crazy, man. First of all, they treated us really bad. Those guys were a lot older than us, the people that ran those places back then. If you remember DJ AJ who cut for Kurtis Blow and Busy Bee, he was an older guy, so he was like one of the guys who was in charge at Harlem World, so to speak. Not in charge of the building per say, but he had a lot to do with some of the evenings. I think he was like a promoter for some of the club nights in there. So those guys never wanted to let the youngsters in. They wanted you to pay. They didn’t want you to get onstage. It was a hard time they gave us, man. It was a real hard time, but we did it. We made it through. That was just part of the licks you had to take, you know?

HHLO: So when did you start to realize this movement was taking off and that it really was a movement.

Kev-Ski: I probably can’t say one moment specifically. Probably had a few different moments that showed us that this was the thing - Harlem World night being one of them. Another moment that actually me and Doug were talking about when we were flying over to Europe a couple weeks ago to perform was when we used to bring speakers out into the street in Harlem and roll our speakers down the street, set up at the block parties and it was like we attracted five, six blocks worth of people. They all gravitated to us. We were kind of like a magnet. That’s kind of when you knew, man, when people were gravitating to your block parties, coming from other neighborhoods and faces that you never saw before. Even though you were in the same neighborhood, you saw a lot of new faces.

HHLO: And what was it about the music that brought them there?

Kev-Ski: The music was fresh and new. There weren’t many records out back then so you had one crate if you were lucky - one crate with everything that was happening at the time. You know, all the break beats and all the rap records that were out, they were all on Enjoy Records or Sugar Hill so there wasn’t much going around, and I think maybe a couple Whodini. There weren’t many acts happening at the time. It was hot, man. If you had speakers and a sound system you were king at that time.

HHLO: And when did you start to notice that it was bigger than New York?

Kev-Ski: Once our records hit. Once “The Show” and “La Di Da Di” and all those things hit, we started traveling. That’s when we knew it was bigger than New York. We started going not just out of state, but of the immediate Tri-State area, then out of the East Coast, you know, getting on planes and going to places. That’s when you really knew.

HHLO: So how old were you at the point when you hooked up with Doug E. and performed with him?

Kev-Ski: Like I said, with Doug E., we were really young. We were kids cutting school. We used to cut school and meet up in the basketball court on 23^rd Street and Morningside Avenue. Just seeing his face all the time, we just kind of started playing ball and the next thing you know we linked up as a crew. Like I said, I think we weren’t even teens yet. We were 12, maybe 13, and it went from there. We just hooked up and it kept growing and kept evolving.

HHLO: Do you find you are most recognized for your work with Doug E.?

Kev-Ski: Um, it depends. It depends on where I’m at. Overseas I’m more known for working with Doc Luv, but in the States more known for working with Doug E.

HHLO: Why is it overseas you are most recognized for I Ain’t Goin’ Out Like That/Overdose?

Kev-Ski: Oh, because they still love hip-hop. They adore old school hip-hop. We were just there. We’re not even back two weeks yet from Europe. They still love old school hip-hop, man. They love it. For them, it’s got to be good. It’s got to make sense. It can’t just be somebody with a beat and a rhyme. It’s got to really be good stuff. That’s why they don’t really like new school because most of the new school stuff is just a beat and a rhyme and no substance, you know?

HHLO: What do you think about the music today?

Kev-Ski: Not really my cup of tea. I can’t really listen to it. I bring my own music in my car when I drive. I can’t listen to the radio, man. It’s hard.

HHLO: But there are still a lot of people making great music.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, like The Roots and stuff like that, but you don’t hear that on the radio so I bring my own stuff to the car. Like, I bring my own Roots and stuff like that to my car, but there’s definitely no radio going on in my car though (laughs).

HHLO: Since you’ve seen it basically since the beginning, how has it become what it is today?

Kev-Ski: You know, supply in demand. It’s a money game. There’s a lot of money involved and it’s the youth. The youth are the biggest consumers of it all. It’s their kick right now. They’re making it. It’s all theirs.

HHLO: It seems like people are getting sick of the overly mainstream stuff now.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, some people are but you will always have a new breed of youngsters coming up that will love that stuff. But the game is changing. I think it’s changing. I’m not saying it’s going to go back to the days of Rappers Delight or anything, but it’s leaning back towards old school more and more every day. We’re all getting a lot of shine in recent years. We get a lot more show bookings across the country now, a lot of us work very often, so it’s definitely coming back towards this side.

HHLO: Whenever you hear newer MC’s coming out, does anything sound original anymore?

Kev-Ski: No. I mean, the closest that I’d find that sounds good to me or old school is like Kanye West. That’s, like, the closest to me. The rest of it is just rapping, you know?

HHLO: So you actually like Kanye?

Kev-Ski: If I had to pick someone, I’d pick him.

HHLO: What about someone like Jay-Z?

Kev-Ski: Um, I don’t love him. I mean, I don’t love everything he does. I guess people are doing what they have to do. You know, this is a business so a lot of times you have to make music for the mainstream in order to really sell. The fun about what we were doing back in the day is that we were doing what we wanted to do whether it sold or not and it would sell anyway. But that wasn’t the main goal. We just wanted to put out the art. We wanted to put out the idea that we had in our head the night before last, you know?

HHLO: It’s like the way the judge success now is purely on records sold.

Kev-Ski: You know, it’s funny because someone that’s probably even a lot younger than you would think that those guys are the only people that ever sold records. Meanwhile, we’ve all been selling records for 25-plus years. I have plenty of gold and platinum albums on my wall from all the stuff we’ve done (laughs). But you would think that it’s just those guys.

HHLO: And there’s nothing wrong with writing about that stuff, but there’s got be more important and creative stuff to talk about in your music.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, change it up a bit. We already know you’ve got a hundred girls. We already know how many diamonds are on your watch, what’s next? But again, it’s supply in demand. The teens love it and that’s who’s buying it. It’s like anything else. It’s like the hottest car in the street is going to be hot as long as people keep buying it and once the car company sees that the sales slow down, it’ll be something else. It’ll be a different car. I remember when the Nissan Maxima was hot. It was on fire in 1984 (laughs). It was on fire. You just had to have one. You had to have a Volkswagen Jetta in 1986 or you were whack (laughs). So, you know, the game changes, man. It goes around in a circle, man. That’s why I always love going to Europe because you don’t even have to dress fly or anything. I mean, we don’t do that anyway. Old schoolers, we don’t dress up for shows, we just show up. But the new guys have to dress up because you have to impress your crowd. With us, they don’t need to see any bling. We just step onstage right out of the hotel room in a pair of sweatpants. They just want to see you put it down.

HHLO: Now it seems more like an image they have to portray. Like, it’s more of a character that they are selling.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, and I actually feel sorry for a lot of those guys. I really do.

HHLO: Soulja Boy has to go out and do that dance at every performance, every event he shows up at whether he wants to or not. He’s basically a puppet.

Kev-Ski: Yeah. He’ll have to do it when he’s 90. I mean, that’s if it goes that long. I mean nobody will probably know him four years from now, but like I said, I feel sorry for those guys and guys like us, we can be ourselves. We walk out onstage and they scream before we even crack the mic or crack the turntables.

HHLO: What DJ’s do you currently respect?

Kev-Ski: Hmm, DJ’s that are current. That’s funny, there actually aren’t any DJ’s with these new school rappers, have you noticed that? They don’t have a DJ (laughs). That’s funny, but some of the guys I kind of dig - Jazzy Jeff. I love his style. Tat Money. The guys that really chop it up, you know? Those guys. It’s always refreshing to hear those guys play or to watch a Youtube clip of those guys.

HHLO: It seems like, with what you were saying, nobody’s a DJ anymore. Everyone’s a producer.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, everybody is a producer or a rapper and the DJ is a CD now and that’s part of the essence that’s lost too.

HHLO: They do it all on their computers now.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, computer beats.

HHLO: But to me it sounds whack because all the samples they use and everything, they’re not authentic.

Kev-Ski: Yeah, they’re just punching it in. It’s nothing like hearing it, scratching it like DJ Premier, you know?

HHLO: You don’t have that crackling of the record in the background.

Kev-Ski: Yeah. Or even if you go back to me and Doc Luv’s original track “Overdose”, even though that’s a sample, but I was cutting the actual record. So you hear the cuts, you hear my mistakes, you hear it all. It’s in there and it’s live and you don’t have that anymore.

HHLO: It’s like if a kid wants to make a beat with a crazy flute instrumental, they don’t have to sample it anymore. They can make a keyboard sound like a flute and play it.

Kev-Ski: (laughs) It’s sick, man.

HHLO: But it doesn’t sound like a real flute.

Kev-Ski: Yeah. You can tell it’s mechanical.

HHLO: So you’re putting out a new Off the Bench?

Kev-Ski: Yeah. Well, there’s three of them now that people can download off my page, but a lot of people like to get the hard copy because it’s got the nice photos and text and all those things that you don’t get with downloads (laughs). They can always hit me up on the email and get a hard copy from me and I’ll ship ‘em a fresh one. But the fourth and final installment is coming out July or August of this year, 2008, to commemorate the 20^th anniversary of Overdose. It’s gonna be like a special edition. It’s gonna be real nice. I already have it read, actually. I’m just holding it (laughs). Just holding onto it for a couple more months.

HHLO: And what else are you doing?

Kev-Ski: Switched over in the game a bit, I do some different things now. I actually book old school artists because I saw the demand for it. If somebody is requesting Johnny Kemp, like you remember Johnny Kemp had that smash hit “Just Got Paid”, I book him for shows. I book Colonel Abrams, he’s like a house guy in the ’80s. You can find them on my Myspace page. You know, the old school cats. I book ‘em. I work with Rob Base, so I book Rob Base sometimes as well. Basically, we can book anybody. Me and Chill Will from Doug E. Fresh’s group, we book old school acts. Big Daddy Kane, everybody. If somebody wants to put it down old school in their town, just hit us up and we’ll bring it to you.