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Harlem World T- Connection and other clubs by Grand Master Caz and Troy L. Smith Troy L. Do you remember the first time you played in Harlem World? Caz
The first time I played in Harlem World was as Casanova Fly! I
was like damn I am down in Harlem. I was D.J.ing as well as rocking the
mic. Then the next time I came back I was with the Cold Crush. We did
not start headlining until after a few M.C. Conventions really after the
battle in 81. Troy L. When was the first time you played T- Connection? Caz Me and J.D.L. as the Notorious 2! Troy L. I thought you might have played there as Casanova Fly or with the Mighty Force. Caz No we mostly did Ecstasy Garage. Troy L. So T- Connection wasn’t really banging just yet? Caz T- Connection was mainly uptown Break Out Funky 4 territory . Troy L. What would you say is the difference between Harlem World and T- Connection? Caz I don’t know, Harlem World was more a show place. T- Connection was more a homey place like for the brothers in the hood. It didn’t have to be a big production it was just jammin’. Brothers just came to hear other brothers jam. When you went to Harlem World, you went to see a show. By the time, it got to Harlem World groups where more tighter, their presentations where better. Their shows where more like a show then just getting on and rocking. Troy L. Which of the two did you like the best, to do your thing? Caz I liked Harlem World. More people had access such as Brooklyn. You could not get Brooklyn to come to the Bronx. Troy L. What was your Relationship with Ritchie Tee of the T- Connection? Caz Just a D.J. to a club owner. In fact Ritch was also a D.J. and in the summer he used to play in the park known as Arthur park. The name of his D.J. crew was the “Super DJs”. His boys names where Rough House and Fire House as well as Ritchie Tee. Ritchie Tee had been in the business long before us. He might have been 7 to 10 years older then us. He opened as a disco club but respected our game cause he was in the music business of getting money. Troy L. So how was your relationship with D.J. Randy of the Harlem World crew? Caz Pretty much the same, Randy was the D.J. the head promoter that used to book us to play. Randy was more downtown more clubish more discoish; they didn’t have no real bad rappers. However, they had personality you know Charlie Rock, Son of Sam and Tastic. Troy L. Which show do you think was your best show at Harlem World? Could it have been the battle between Fantastic 5? Caz
No I don’t think that was our best show that night, cause there
was a lot of tension that night. There was a lot on the line and we kind
of got caught up in the moment we weren’t as relaxed. I didn’t even
complete the rhyme I did about Kevie Kev and Master Rob about “the
closet full of clothes and a lot of jewelry”. Troy L. I am glad you brought that up I love that show. Was that staged when that heckler said after the rhinestone cowboy routine “I’ll give you a dime if you get off the stage” and you went into your routine of dissing the hell out of this heckler. Caz We didn’t stage it but a lot of cats dug that rhyme, cause they just used to love the way I used to dig into a fools ass. So brothers used to just f--k with me on purpose to get me to say it. If nobody was out of hand, then there was no reason to do it. I only did it if somebody said something out of line then they would duck down in the crowd while I blazed them. Troy L. The best show at T- Connection? Caz Like I said earlier it was grittier. Moreover, just fun. I remember having good times at the T- Connection and not even performing. We did do a lot of free styling up in the Tee. If we were not doing a show sometimes we would be, right up in the booth with our D.J. know what I mean. When he is cutting we were rhyming. Many times the best stuff be right there in the both not on the stage. Troy L. So how many people could fit in the booth? Caz It was a long both, you could get people up in there but basically Ritchie tried to keep it cleared. All the equipment all the amps were up in there. Whenever there was a D.J. there was a M.C. right next to him. Even if there is a show we going to rhyme right up until the show. Then we get out of the booth do our show, finish and go right back to the booth. Troy L. So in your opinion are those the two best clubs? Caz No no no I wouldn’t say that. The T- Connection was a better place, it was more organized as a club but the Ecstasy garage was more a big space, and we did a lot of parties at the Ecstasy. Many skating rinks that open during that time as well had good parties. Harlem World was the Mecca though. You couldn’t just go down to Harlem World and B.S. we went down there and set the standard for what you do. That is when people came down with shows, even came dressed, having dances and routines. Troy L. What about the Fever or Audubon? Caz The Fever was the spot to hang out after your jam. It was like the place if you had any juice in hip-hop you would get in the Fever free. The Audubon was the places were they use to have the conventions. They started in the Sparkle. But it was moved to the Audubon on Oct. 6th once they had these D.J. conventions and every D.J. brings his own system. Cats looked forward to the Audubon cause it was 5 to 6 groups performing one after another. It was like a special thing because everybody was going to be there. So to be on the card was a big deal. Moreover, many cats just were not on that level to rock at the Audubon. However, it was not a regular thing that was going on every week. Troy L. That didn’t last too long at the Audubon did it. Cause I only have a couple tapes from there so that was like 79, 80. Caz True, you are right because sparkle was 79, 80 cause after following Oct. was Audubon parties. Troy L. Can you remember your last party at T- Connection and Harlem World? Caz No not really because everything mostly started going down town. You could not get one borough to fill a party any more. You need to be somewhere were all the borough’s connected. Troy L So yall went into like 1984 still doing shows at Harlem World and it still stayed packed or it just died out. Caz It died out there because more spots where opening up. Performers started going on the road. More records were coming out. Therefore, it was not that every week you know it is a party going on. Cause bigger cats were moving up and moving on. Troy L. Do you feel that the Cold Crush started doing more shows at Harlem World then any other spot. Caz Yes because we became the main draw. Troy L. So yall was like just about every weekend doing something in there? Caz Yes Troy L. So what was it like when the Cold Crush pulled up in their Limo? Caz It was official when we showed up. See promoters started putting everybody on the flyer. This one and this one and this one. Just to draw the crowd but many those acts would not show. So after, awhile in hip-hop cats was like there was unsureness if the acts were going to show. Because there were so many parties that people had given with every body’s name on it and you didn’t know who was going to be there or not. So a lot of times people waited until the act got there, before they walked in. So that would be the case at Harlem World when the Limo pulled up and they see the convoy behind us and we step out, the crowd would say, “yes it’s on”. All right, let us get in this mother----er. Troy L. Who was your real competition back in the days. To me Fantastic didn’t really blow up blow up until yall battled them. Caz See the Furious 5 had gone out of state doing tours with R&B groups we was still here in New York grinding for the number one spot in the city. Fantastic had been out long time ago they had juice from the L-Brother days from Grand Wizard Theodore being the no.1 d.j. after Flash. So a lot of their juice came from that once they added Dot and Whip their juice became even more out here. So once they became the Fantastic 5 they already had been out since 1977 cause all of them were original pioneers except maybe Ruby Dee. Troy L. Cold Crush was the top group so yall got the top money right? Caz Treacherous 3 was getting the most because they had hit records. But even cats with hit records we would head line. So we were not far behind them when it came to the dough. Because we really were the group to see. After we got off the stage, the crowd was leaving. The show was over as far as the crowd was concerned. See in the beginning we all basically got the same thing. As you draw more people, you became the premier act. Your price goes up, because you’re a headliner. As opposed to somebody they just throw up on the show to fill it up. It still really wasn’t a lot of money back then you can tell by the conventions back then. You have a m.c. Convention and the winner gets $300. Troy L. So was it a struggle in the early days to get bookings in T- Connection and Harlem World? Caz Not really I had my own clubs to play in. T- Connection and Harlem world was the main stream clubs for all the people to play hip-hop in but everybody had there own spot. Love Bug had the Rennie and the Fever, A.J. had the Renaissance, Theodore and them had spot called Rock City down on 169th. in the Bx.(nick named Duck City cause you had to Duck your head to get in there). Flash had the Black door (later the Dixie) I had my spot 462 club and a spot called the Blue Lagoon up in the Bx. With out those main clubs we still had our own clubs to rock. Troy L. Once yall blew up yall could just go into any of the main stream clubs and rock soon as yall walked in the door and get paid. Caz Yes Troy L. All crews and m.c.s knew that yall were no.1 so no one never really complained that y’all went on last once y’all were the kings. Caz Everybody pretty much knew we was the one except Fantastic cause they figured they were the best so they should go on last. After the battle they had no say so over who went on when, cause we were the number one group. The loser won and the winner lost. Troy L (I had to laugh) it is unbelievable how that worked out. J.D.L. told me the same thing. He also made it sound like yall were trampling over people as far as the battles with other groups and how yall performed whenever Fantastic was headlining with yall. Troy L. Thank You Grand Master Caz and Thank You Jayquan. This was done in the summer of 2003  Troy L.
from the Grant projects in HARLEM. One
© 2003 Troy L. Smith c/o Jayquan Dot Com. No parts may be copied without authors consent. |
We shared the card with many hip-hop groups and a few
r&b groups but not that much. We did a few at skating rinks with New
Edition but at Harlem World, it was mostly hip-hop acts.
The crowd picked up on
the rhyme, but they really caught it once they heard the tape. I see you
now have the whole version of the rhyme on your list of tapes at tape
120 at our 21 anniversary.