The “Call Out!” by J.D.L.
I was asked by Troy L.,
to let the hip-hop world know about the time
when “Flash and the Furious Five”
called out the top M.C. groups.
Well it happened on a Thursday night. It was the grand opening of “Skate
Fever”. A roller rink on Mc Combs road in the Bronx, (across the street from the
Estacy garage) It use to be called Jerome roller rink until Sal, the owner of “Disco
Fever” bought it. It was real big and spacious and had a hollow wooden stage in the
middle of the skating rink. So if somebody was performing the crowd could either skate
around them or if it was real crowded just stand, dance and watch the ghetto superstars
perform. However when Sal bought it he had it remodeled. He built a stage upstairs
elevated next to the D.J. booth. He also built a bar and dance floor downstairs that had
that had a big screen T.V. so the downstairs crowd could see the performers perform while
enjoying there drinks. He did not take down the stage in the middle of the rink. It just
was never used anymore. A lot of groups came that night for the grand opening of
“Skate Fever”. 
It was the winter
time, this was after the Busy Bee, Moe Dee battle and Us verses the Fantastic 5. Star
Child was the D.J. for the night and when Star Child plays who ever comes in gets
acknowledge on the mic. So all at attendance that night was Kurtis Blow, Love bug Star
ski, Busy Bee, Dougie Fresh, Treacherous 3, Fantastic 5ive and us….The Cold Crush
Brothers. Fearless Four was performing that night. The Furious Five and the Treacherous 3
was already having beef with each other at the time. The hip-hop world was just waiting
for the battle to jump off anyway. The party was jumping hard, jammed packed. All the M.C.
crews was playing high post (meaning each crew was positioned in the party) not really
mingling with one another even though some groups was cool with each other. Us (Cold
Crush) and Fantastic wasn’t cool, they wasn’t digging us too much cause they
couldn’t handle the fact that even though they won that battle, that in reality we
really won, just listen to the tape. The truth was that after the battle there careers
went down and ours went up, up to the point that we ran N.Y.C. and it was all about us! So
it was a little tension in the air but thy did not want it with the Cold Crush 4! So the
fearless 4 got on. They were dressed in leather suits. The M.C.s had on red leather suits,
the D.j.s had on white leather suits. So a
lot of people came from downstairs and the skating stopped and the Fearless Four did there
show, which is a real good show too because the fearless is a real combination of the
Treacherous 3 and the Cold Crush with there own signature flair and pizzazz rolled in one.
They was well respected for being that way. That’s why we formed the alliance (Cold
Crush, Treacherous 3, Fearless 4 and Dougie Fresh) Cause we were all each others mirror.
They was doing their show and the crowd was responding to them real well and in the middle
of there show, (I think they was doing there hit “Problems of the World”) and a
tour bus pulls up in front of the skating rink and the bus said “Grand Master Flash
and the Furious Five” on the side.
Everyone could see the bus because the front of the
rink has a big see through glass windows. So the bus door opens and in walks Flash, E-Z
Mike, Mele Mel, Scorpio, Rahiem, Kid Creole and Cowboy (R.I.P.) dressed to a tee! With no
security! They had on tailored leather suits with mink vest, Mele Mel had an exclusive
black mink vest with a bunch of little minks biting on the edges of the whole vest. So
they came through stomping there way to the old stage. Flash and E-Z Mike went towards the
D.J. booth. When Flash got to the D.j. booth he made O.C. and Crazy Eddie cut the music
off, by this time the Fearless show was stopped and they didn’t know what was going
on, all they could see is the Furious Five up on the stage stomping around causing a crowd
frenzy and you could hear people say “oh shit”, “oh shit”, and being
that the old stage is hollow, the stomping from there boots is making a loud bassy sound.
The crowd is wondering what’s going on, the Fearless is tight now they are coming
down from the new stage to see what is going on. All the M.C. groups are looking at them
like what the fuck is these cats up to now interrupting the Fearless 4 show. Now all the
groups are on a B.Boy stand at this time. That’s when Mele Mel screamed out to Flash
“send a mic down here” E-Z Mike and one of the other weekday house D.j.s set up
4 mics with stands. Now shit is getting quiet cause everybody wants to see what they have
to say. The mics come on and they check them and Mele starts off by saying “The
Furious and mysterious ever so serious five m.c.s in this mother fucker and we just came
off tour as you can see our bus is right out side and we are the number one group in the
world. So we come home from tour and we hear mother fuckers talking shit about us, like we
ain’t got it no more and all we got is records and we can’t fuck with this crew
or that crew. And you hear Cowboy in the back ground saying “say some names Mel say
some names” Then Mel said “Naw I ain’t going to say names, they know who
they are” The crowd was feeling all the hoopla and was amped up on the fact that
something was going down tonight. People in the crowd was looking at groups. I looked over
at the Treacherous 3 as they approached were we was at. Around this time the groups all
started forming on the rail facing the Furious 5. I was getting a feeling in my stomach
that what they was saying was a message sent indirectly to us and the Treacherous.
Everybody in Skate Fever was in awe the way the Furious 5 was prancing around striking all
kinds of poses. The people also knew that when they leave that night they will have a
story to tell those who did not attend, what
will go down in history as “The Call Out”.
So we
were standing there listening to them pop mad shit and I really wanted to step to them
right then and there but Caz was like “Chill L., Chill” So I chilled and watched
them carry on. So Cowboy said “Fuck that I’m going to say names” and he
say’s “We talking about Busy Bee, Fantastic 5, The Treacherous 3 and especially
the Cold Crush 4” Now Mele Mel said we got one thousand dollars cash right
here” and he takes two nice stakes of bills and slams them together in front of him.
The crowd was bugging now as Mele Mel continues, and says “Yall can come up crew by
crew or yall can gang up together but whatever way it goes were ready to battle all yall
right now” Mother fuckers is like “of shit” at this time you can see Kool
Moe Dee and L.A. Sunshine breaking on the Furious saying “Lets go anytime any
place”. I totally flipped out on them and started barking on them with some
“Cowboy you..ain’t shit and the rest of yall is riding on Mele Mel’s coat
tail cause he write all yall shit. Cowboy was saying “I’ll take you out,
I’ll take you out” and I was “come on, all yall” “Come on fuck
yall” “Yall just jealous cause we run shit”!!! Fantastic was saying
something and then about as minute later they (Furious) walked out got back on the bus.
“The call out” has been made in front of a capacity crowd on the grand opening
of “Skate Fever” The Furious 5 definitely showed there asses that night. Out of
all the groups that were there that night it was only one group there, that would of gave
them a run for there money and that was the Treacherous 3 m.c.s. However there was another
group that was there that night that would of busted the Furious Five’s mother
fucking ass and set the record straight once and for all!!! The only group in there that
nobody wanted it with period!….. AND THAT’S CHARLIE CHASE, TONEY TONE AND THE
COLD CRUSHIN MOTHER FUCKIN TOUGH ASS FOUR EMCEE’S!!!!!!!!! And The Furious knew
this!!!! I will explain why.
Later
on that night when me and Caz went to Disco Fever for the after party, while we was in the
V.I.P. room Mele Mel had came in, so I was like “yo Mel what’s up with that shit
yall pulled tonight? He told us that they had to do it that way because they been on tour
so long that when they came back they found out that N.Y.C. wasn’t there’s any
more, it was ours. And he also said and I quote “if yall (Cold Crush) would of
battled us tonight yall would have beaten us hands down” unquote. Then he said
“we just did that to get things going our way because were going to be doing some
shows in the city, that all”. We told him we respected that and thanks for his
honesty. But right after that night we
decided that we were going to say there names in our Rhinestone Cowboy routine and not
giving a fuck no more. The Treacherous 3 started saying there routine off of boogie
wonderland with the Furious name in it too. So when ever Chase used Planet Rock in our
shows we did Rhinestone Cowboy with the Furious call out. We did not see the whole Furious
too much after that just Mel and Scorpio in the Fever and shit, nothing else was said
about that night but we never slept on them or no other group neither!
There ended up being a battle but not until the middle
nineties and I was not there, Cowboy(R.I.P.) was not there either. The Furious 5 lost to
the Cold Crush Brothers in the Paramount theater!
Note: Portions of this
monthly editorial are excerpts from J.D.L.s forth coming book titled J.D.L. THE MAN THE
MYTH….THE LEGEND…(The Untold Truth)
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