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Of
the Legendary L- Brothers, Fantastic Four & Fantastic 5 Emcee’s. Told
to Troy L. Smith End
of Summer 2005
TS: Thank you for
your time Theodore. I'd like to get right to it. Where were you born and
raised?
GWT: I was born in
Harlem Hospital. Raised in the South Bronx, on Boston Road and 168th
St.
TS: What inspired
you to want to DJ?
GWT: My brother Mean
Gene and Grand Master Flash. Flash and my brother were b- boys first,
break dancing at the Hevalo, Psychedelic Shack and other spots, even
house parties.
TS: So while they
were break dancing, who was the DJ at that time? Pete DJ Jones, Disco
King Mario?
GWT: Well see, Pete
only played Disco music. You got a lot of people that say they was into
Hip Hop, but Pete played Disco music. Hollywood played Disco music. When
we tried to get into Hollywood’s parties, they would be like, “Oh
no! You have to have on suit jackets and shoes" and all
that. Sometimes we would get into the party and some of the guys would
start b-boying and they would turn the music off and say, “Oh we
don’t do that in here.”
TS: (We start laughing.) Tony Tone told me that. He said
Hollywood would say, "Take that s--- down the block to Flash’s
party."
TS: How many years
does Gene and Cordie-O have over you?
GWT: Well I have four
older brothers. My brother Gene is the oldest. Then there is my brother
Isaac, Larry, then Cordie-O. I have a big a sister and a little sister.
TS: So Larry and
Isaac didn’t want to get into this DJ thing?
GWT: No, everybody
else was into thier own thing.
TS: So why is it
that Cordie-O isn’t getting as much recognition as you and Gene are?
You almost never hear about him, the tapes I have he barely gets on to
DJ.
GWT: My brother
Cordie-O was and still is laid back, he mostly helped hook the equipment
up. He usually played music, like, if I wanted to take a break or go to
the bathroom or something like that.
TS: So who started
up the L- Brothers? GWT: Gene and Cordie-O.
Flash and my brother Gene originally had their own group, they simply
called themselves
TS: So why did Busy
Bee leave the L- Brothers?
GWT: Busy Bee is the
type of person that just flows from DJ to DJ. Whatever DJ is bouncing at
that time, that is where you will see Busy. One week you will see him
over there with Cool Dee, the next week you might see him with Disco
King Mario. Next week you might see him with us.
TS: So was he really
a member of the L- Brothers?
GWT: Yes he was.
GWT: I wouldn’t say
it was a written contract….
TS: …No, I
understand that…
GWT: It was a verbal
contract.
TS: Exactly.
GWT: But Busy Bee is
going to be Busy Bee. Back then for him to get on other mics to get more
clientelle for himself, that’s what Busy Bee is going to do. Busy Bee
is always going to be like that. Even now, he flows from DJ to DJ just
to get his paper up. If a person is a certain way, it is hard to change
him.
TS: So how did you
feel about him leaving, did you really like him, did you think he was
really a skilled emcee, was he needed for the crew?
GWT: Well Busy Bee…is
very talented.
TS: Man, I dig Busy
today. When we were growing up we used to all say he is saying the same
thing over and over and over. But even right now he can rock a party. At
one of the recent Zulu Anniversaries he killed it, and this is with
records of today, he was rocking right along with the record, and he was
still doing pretty much his same formula.
GWT: He is an
entertainer, man. He is the crowd motivator. As far as how I felt when
he left, I don’t let things like that bother me, you know what I am
saying? I just kept it moving, man. I am not going to let anybody get in
the way of my goal. My goal was to keep DJing, get my skills up to par
and just go where ever it is going to take me. I was just ready to go!
TS: Where did the
name GrandWizzard come from?
GWT: The emcee’s gave
me that name. The Fantastic Five. The way I flipped the records, I was
playing Hip Hop records with R&B records, mixing records back and
forth, mixing a pair of records. So they was like we should call you
"GrandWizzard". So the name just stuck with me.
GWT: Thank you.
TS: You, Afrika
Islam, I can hear it through the tapes. Krazy Eddie, Jazzy Jay. But I
can’t say Flash. Although I am sure he did some awesome work back in
the days and I say that because through the tapes the crowds go berserk
when he does something visually nice for them. But I do have friends
that are DJs that can really hear what I can’t because I am not a DJ.
so I really can’t take from him. Although I do have a Monroe High
School tape were he goes off. But he is cutting I think Good Times a
thousand times.
GWT: Right.
TS: I read in an
article that Gene originally didn’t want you to DJ, you ended up
having to sneak it to do it. Flash put you on to it. Flash showed you
how to do it?
GWT: Gene and Flash
were down together and people were trying to say that Flash taught me. I
taught myself how to DJ.
TS: Your brothers
were already doing this before Flash even came to your house, didn’t
Flash stay at your house for a minute as well?
GWT: Flash was down
from day one with Gene. Flash couldn’t keep the equipment at his
house, so the equipment was at my mom’s house. Flash was able to come
any time he wanted to DJ. If he came and he stayed till 3 or 4 o’clock
in the morning, he had a room were he could just stretch out. My moms
was like,"You can come and go as you please."
TS: So she had a love for him like he was one of hers. That’s
good.
GWT: Yeah, my moms is
the kind of person where when she cooked, who ever was in the house, got
to eat.
TS: So what’s up
with this other rumor that Flash disobeyed Gene by trying to show you
how to DJ on the low?
GWT: I guess my brother
probably felt we already had two DJs, why do we need with another one?
As far as Flash sneaking me in and putting me on a milk crate and
teaching me, that is a
bunch of bull.
TS: That’s what I
needed to hear, not trying to play him, but what is the truth and what
is myth.
GWT: No, it is what it
is.
TS: So why did Gene
and Flash separate from each other?
GWT: They probably out
grew each other.
TS: So what’s the
relationship with you and Flash today? Because we getting reports here
and there that you are not feeling him and he might not be feeling you,
and its almost coming to that moment were ya’ll are going to battle
each other on the turntables. Is this valid?
TS: Your crew was
the hottest anyway so they supposed to want to bring it to you.
GWT: I am not into
worrying about what the next DJ is doing. I am just worried about
focusing on what I have to do. I don’t have no time for that s---.
TS: So ya’ll not
really cool the way ya’ll once were?
GWT: Oh we cool. We
just don’t get to talk that much. We don’t do parties together or
nothing like that.
TS: Is it because
you not trying to do no parties any more, or time won’t allow?
GWT: We have talked, I
have asked, “What up? We need to do a tour or something together.”
TS: o.k., that would
be real good.
GWT: He knows that I
want to do that and he hasn’t gotten back to me, so right there that
has told me that he ain’t trying to do anything. I don’t know if he
is scared to be on the same stage with me……
TS: You a funny cat
now…(Troy starts to laugh.) you
going to amp it now.
GWT: People will find
out that our skills are totally different and…..and ..how can you say
you taught this person how to DJ when ya’ll skills is like night and
day?
TS: What does that
mean though….your skills are like night and day. (I really didn’t
expect what he was about to say.)
TS:
That’s what I wanted to ask you how many battles and who have you
battled back in those days?
GWT: We didn’t have
too many battles.
TS: Well who did you
battle, other than Cold Crush? GWT: I battled Afrika
Islam.
TS: With the Funk
Machine or by himself?
TS: Oh o.k. so you were really young at this time.
GWT:
Yeah
I was like 12 or 13 years old
TS: What? And he got
you about 3, 4 years
GWT: Yeah.
TS: And you tore him
out the frame?
GWT: I mean my skills
were really advanced.
TS: Yeah like you was
true ball player.
GWT: Yeah,, cats was
like “iI you want to get your weight up, Theodore is the person to
battle.”
TS: I got to give
Afrika Islam props, I have a tape with (tape 11.) him cutting Impeach
the President along with Mardi Gras, and he is killing it, it sounds
like art. Who else did you battle? What about Bam or Mario?
GWT: I was actually down with Mario. I used to go over to Soundview
(East Bronx) and DJ for him. Then we battled Kool Herc in the West
Bronx. Herc had his system there and we had ours.
GWT: We were at the
Galaxy. That was a crazy night. To be honest with you, all Herc could do
to us was turn his system up on us.
TS: I understand, but
did he do any type of show when it was his turn other then turn up his
music? Did he get on at all?
GWT: He mostly let
Clark Kent come on. Clark Kent is not a bad DJ.
TS: So Herc really
didn’t get on?
GWT: I think Herc got
on at the end. He just turned his system up and stuff like that.
TS: How old were you
when you first did the scratch?
GWT: I was like 12 or
13 years old.
TS: Do you remember
what the record was that you were using when you first scratched?
GWT: I was playing with
"Passport" and
"Bongo Rock." It was the beginning of the summer almost
because I was just getting ready to get out of school. So the weather
was just getting real nice.
TS: So that would be a
May or June. Say 1978?
GWT: 1975.
TS: Damn that early? I
didn’t know it was that early. So the first time you did it was at an
out side jam, how did the crowd respond?
GWT: The crowd was hyped! Everybody already knew that I had good skills
on the turntables, after they came to the park and saw me needle
dropping a record and stuff like that. They were even more amazed when I
did the scratch for the first time. Everybody was amazed. It hyped the
crowd.
GWT: It was "Jam
on the Groove" definitely.
TS: The needle drop,
how did that come about?
GWT: My moms had a
little turntable in the house that she played music on. I used to play
45’s on there and just basically skip the 45 back to the break part.
When I finally got to the big turntables, I already had the skills.
TS: Who else did you
battle?
GWT: I battled Jay
Cee.
TS: I heard Jay Cee.
That was with Kool Herc and The Herculiods and was pretty good.
GWT: Yeah, he was
cool. I battled Whiz Kid also.
TS: Damn Whiz was nice
too. He won some trophies too. I got one with him, Jazzy Jay and Charlie
Chase battling at the New Music Seminar. (tape 119.) He went on last. He
tore it up. He won.
GWT: Yeah he was a
good DJ
TS: What about Bam?
GWT: When we went to
play at Bronx River, it wasn’t really no battle. It was just two DJs.
We brought our system in and he brought his system in. Everybody was
looking at it like me and Jazzy Jay was going to go at it and stuff. The
crowd is always going to make it into something when it is nothing.
TS: You mean Jazzy Jay
or Bam?
GWT: Jay.
TS: What about Bam?
GWT: No, never
battled.
TS: What about DJ
Lovebug Starski.
GWT: No.
TS: What made you
separate from Gene and Cordie-O and make the Fantastic 4?
GWT: It was getting
to the point were they wasn’t into it like they once were. Also it got
to a point were the style of the DJ was changing. It got to the point
were DJs were mixing and scratching now, all kinds of new stuff. They
just couldn’t keep up with it.
TS: How did Dot and
Whip get a shot with ya’ll?
GWT: We knew them
when they were running with Charlie Chase and Tony Tone. Originally,
Fantastic wasn’t trying to put them down. Kev, Rob and Ruby didn’t
want them in the beginning. I told them that all it could do is make the
crew better.
TS: Did Kev say why he
didn’t want them down?
GWT: No, Kev was just
being Kev at that time.
TS: (starts laughing) Read the story I did on him, boy, that kid is
crazy. He said if Kool Moe Dee did to him what he did to Busy Bee there
would be some drama. I said "What?" He said, “Yeah, because
that was some real bull $%#* he did, don’t
nobody do anything like that, he called Busy Bee out. That was
disrespectful, that’s not how you have an m.c. battle, you go by rhyme
skills. Not trying to disrespect somebody.” I said, "Damn you
have a point but I never heard it like that." Everybody else loved
that battle, I say he is right but that’s Kev!
TS:
Exactly,
but Kev felt it was too insulting.
GWT: But if Kool Mo
Dee called Kev out, Kev would have had to step up to the plate.
TS: He would have had
to, exactly. There probably would have been some beef afterwards.
GWT: Back then I
don’t think Kev was like a battle emcee, he was more like he is going
to rhyme for the ladies.
TS: Exactly.
GWT: You have some
guys that write rhymes for battles, and you have some who write rhymes
for……
TS: Just to be cool
GWT: Right, just to
be cool, and rap for the ladies.
TS: Right, Spoonie Gee
type.
GWT: Emcee Busy Bee,
didn’t write battle rhymes either. Busy Bee didn’t write battle
rhymes. Kev didn’t write battle rhymes. Rob didn’t write battle
rhymes.
TS: Maybe Dot wrote
battle rhymes. I say that because he had that type of personality, as
well as he was a very good writer as well.
GWT: Dot wrote battle
rhymes and Whipper Whip wrote battle rhymes, because that’s where they
came from, that’s the side of town they came from. If Kool Moe Dee
would have called out Kev there is no telling what would have happened.
GWT: But sometimes
when som one calls you out, you have to go for it,
because if somebody calls you out and you don’t go for it,
people will be look at you like, “Ah man!. So sometimes you have to go
for it.
TS: During the CC4
Fantastic battle what made you put the handcuffs on? (Theodore starts
laughing.) Were you practicing this all week, all month, before the
battle, did you do it at another show before the battle?
GWT: No
I mostly used to do it in the house. I was in the house fooling
around one night, I had some ladies in the room with me.
TS: You is a funny cat. (starts laughing)
GWT: We was smoking
some weed and drinking some beer and stuff like that. They pulled out
the handcuffs and handcuffed me. I started DJing with the handcuffs.
They both were saying the other one had the key, at the same time I am
trying to finish a tape I was making for them. They want to b.s. while I
am trying to finish up, so I just went with it.
TS: So you are
actually the very first person to use handcuffs while DJing?
GWT: Yes.
TS: I say that because
I know about Master Don doing it with his sneakers and other objects. In
fact, nobody was known for these things. You were the very first DJ to
use anything other then your hands?
GWT: Yeah.
TS: Alright this for
the fan that never been there: What was it like in the dressing room
before ya’ll would go on to perform? Say Harlem World was the dressing
room big enough for all of the crew?
GWT: The dressing
room was just enough for us, the Fantastic 5 to get into and chill
before the show. Basically in the dressing room we were doing our last
minute practicing, and stuff like that. We probably would be smoking our
little weed or what ever. And just practicing and making sure everything
is tight.
TS: Who in your
opinion were the 5 best DJs, other than yourself?
GWT: I would
definitely say Jazzy Jay, and I would easily give him a 9. Then
there is Whiz Kid. Whiz Kid was good. I would give him a 9 also. Then
I would say my man Krazy Eddie.
TS: Krazy Eddie from
the Fearless Four, Word? That’s good.
GWT: Yeah, Krazy
Eddie was a good DJ.
TS: Yeah, I know he is
going to love this when I tell him.
GWT: He was a good DJ
because he not only scratched and DJ'ed, but he mixed too.
TS: It’s amazing
because Tony Tone said he never seen him. I said "How in the world
you never seen this dude?" He said he just never seen him. Alright,
you got 2 more to go.
GWT:I would have to
say Barry B!
TS: Barry B? Damn.
Everybody is giving him props. Damn, you ain’t lying.
GWT: Yeah, Barry B is
a bad boy. I would give him a 9. Same thing for Krazy Eddie too.
TS: Who is your 5th?
GWT: Master Don.
TS: Master Don! Damn
they going to love that, I am working on a story right now about him, I
just got finish talking to his mother, Mrs. Martin. Salt of the Earth.
She is going to give me pictures and the whole 9. So what was it about
him that made you think he was up there with the elite?
GWT: Well when he
DJ'ed it looked like he was having a good time.
TS: Damn that’s like
the Disco King Mario. I heard he used to be dancing while he DJ'ed. |
GrandWizzard
Theodore 
GWT: Yeah talking about, "We don’t do all that.”
Grandmaster Flash and the Amazing Mean Gene. After
that, Flash formed his own group and we became the L- Brothers. People
already knew who we were, they just had to get used to the name L-
Brothers. Once they saw me and Cordie-O DJ, people realized that we were
ahead of our time. We were ready like overnight. Then we put Kevie Kev
on. Kev was in my class in 3rd grade. We were doing a block party one
night, and he came up and he wanted to get on the mic. My brother Gene
didn’t want to let nobody get on the mic. Finally he let Kev get on
the mic and Kev started saying some rhymes. The people started feeling
him. After that, he was like, “Yo I want to get down with the crew.”
I was like, “Well come to the house, we will have a little meeting,
then we will make a decision.” I came to find out that Master Rob was
writing the rhymes and Kev was saying the rhymes. When I found that out,
I said, "We might as well put both of ya'll down."
TS
TS: You know what? As I listen to all these tapes that I have, I
told you I have over 160 tapes, and you know how they say Flash is this
and Flash is that and certain other DJs, but I never seen these guys
when I was growing up. But how I could tell who was a great DJ was
through listening to the tapes. When you did that cut where you broke
down "Super Sperm", “Sup, sup, sup, sup, per, per, per,
sperm, sperm, sperm.” (Theodore starts laughing.) I said “Oh man,
this is unbelievable.” So I give you a lot of props on that.
Nobody taught
GWT: 
GWT: 
TS: 
TS: 
GWT
TS: