Curse Of the Revenge Of the Fly Girls

(Youtube version is here.)

Revenge Of the Fly Girls

(Youtube version is here.)

A Fly Wack Girl Guy!

(Youtube version is here.)

The Boogie Boys Vs. Kool Moe Dee

I'm surprised more people don't know about this one, though I guess the reason why is kinda obvious: it's a 12" exclusive B-side to a song that didn't catch on. But it's cool, and really ought to be better appreciated.

Ya see, back in 1987, Kool Moe Dee issued the now infamous "Report Card" - where we he graded the twenty or thirty-odd top rappers of the day, giving them scores in various categories like vocabulary, voice, creativity, etc. (click right to enlarge-->) - with copies of his latest album, How Ya Like Me Now. I actually didn't see it until years later, because the report card wasn't included with the cassette version. :( The lowest scoring group was (unsurprisingly) The Beastie Boys, earning a C (70). The second lowest was The Boogie Boys (77, C+).

True story: I have a friend who, when she got a C in grad school class, went to her lawyer, threatened the teacher and school with legal action, and got her grade improved to an A. How fucking Ferris Bueller awesome is that?

Well, in that same spirit, I guess The Boogie Boys decided not to take heir C lying down, and issued a diss record towards Kool Moe Dee. "Body" b/w "K.M.D.[as in Kool Moe Dee, see?] Step Off" dropped on Capitol Records in 1988.

In an interview I did with Romeo JD, he described working on the third album, "You know, I'm not really criticizing the producer to a degree, because he was just trying to be on the next level. Sometimes you've gotta do that; it's a risk you take. But at that time, we were like the only group that was on a major, major label, and we had to do something to try and separate ourselves. But you have to be careful, taking yourself so far that you take yourself out of your element. That's why on the Romeo Knight album we tried to make sure we reached back and had a couple of joints that were just real basic and raw. We had a song called "This Is Us," that was my favorite joint on that album. It had just this beat, you know? Another joint Boogie wrote was "Pitbull," and that's the kinda joint we really wanted to make sure we had on that album. And then we had a couple joints that were a little more musical or whatever, because some people expected that from us." Well, "Body" would surely fall under that latter category.

Actually, like all of The Boogie Boys' production, it's got a pretty cool, unique sound. It's got a hard, fresh beat and some interesting samples and a few cool scratches. The only real corniness comes from the songwriting's basic concept, an ode to the human body. The lyrics have a distinct "this was written for children" vibe that comes up in a number of Boogie Boys songs. But if you can get past how silly it is (and nobody's around to overhear the silly songs you're listening to), it's a pretty solid song, worth checking out.

But if "Body" is an example of the Boys' crossover capitulation to their mainstream audiences, then "K.M.D. Step Off" is one of their most successful cases of keeping it real and raw.

Now, this is kinda interesting. First of all, "K.M.D. Step Off" isn't on the album, it's an exclusive B-side. And if you actually read the label (which is no easy feat considering the shiny silver lettering they printed over the bright yellow background!), it's the "12" Remix" version. But there was no other version released before or since, so this "remix" is actually the only version ever (except for some lost original version probably locked away in Capitol's vaults somewhere).

This version doesn't feel much like a remix, anyway. It's one hardcore, kinda West coast sounding (like something early NWA or CMW would use) breakbeat, with scratches by both DJ Shock and Romeo JD. At first the lyrics are standard battle rhymes (although the opening, "From the South/ To the West/ To the East/ To the North/ K.M.D./ Step Off, step off!" is clearly a reference to The Treacherous Three's "New Rap Language"). But about halfway through, Boogie Knight calls out Moe Dee specifically, and the rest of the song is about him (and they call him "homepiss" a lot):

"K.M.D.,
I'm screamin' on you.
My name is Boogie Knight
From the Boogie Boys crew.
Homepiss, you're dope,
I must admit;
But your judgement on the Boys
Are illegit.
On your report card,
We got a low score;
But you're on your own tip.
You got us all wrong.
Got the nerve
To say you're more versatile,
When we rap AND sing;
You must be wild!
Nigga, please,
To you no credit is due.
The rap world
Doesn't revolve around you.
Our records are better
Than the ones ya made,
Even though
We didn't get... stupid paid!
Survival of the Freshest
(in old school, harmonizing style) Was a masterpiece
In versatility...
And creativity...
And most of all,
In originality.
(back to straight raps) Check out the rap called
'Colorblind World;'
The words and rhymes
Made a scholar's head twirl.
K.M.D.,
For your own concern,
Take notes, homepiss,
Look, listen and learn!
I know you, I see you,
I can't believe
You got beside yourself
Like that - nigga, please!
Just got on the chart
And you're talkin';
We had an album and a single
That went top ten.
Next time you're judgin',
Better look real deep;
Compared to whatever we do,
(Say what?) You're weak!"

One really cool part of the song is how they vary their styles, at one point declaring "now we're gonna do just what you do, but do it much better than you" and diss him in the "New Rap Language"-style delivery. It sounds really fresh!

So, it's a fun piece of old school rap history... even "Body" isn't so bad. And it's a cool little sticker cover 12" with dub versions of both tracks, and it can be scored super cheap. Even if you passed on Romeo Knight (and you're missing out on having one great album cover in your collections if you do), the 12" is definitely worth scooping up.

Oh, and by the way, the MC who scored highest marks on Moe Dee's report card? K.M.D. himself, of course.

Werner Interviews Romeo JD of the Boogie Boys! (Part 3)

...Continued from part 2. Or click here for part 1.

So, what did you do during the break between Sweet Sensation and your current projects, which we'll come to?

I actually just started working. I got into telecommunications, man, Telecom. Doing transmission work and with data circuits and stuff like that, which is how I'm really paying the rent right now. It was big back in those days, then kinda fell apart with the dot comers and all of that, but it's starting to come back now. And I'm still working, still doing telecom, and I keep that. I tell young cats now in the business, get something under your belt, man. Don't ever abandon your passion. If you feel like hip-hop is your passion, then learn the business. Learn about publishing, learn production, learn all the aspects of the music industry. You don't have to be a rapper to be in the music. If you're a songwriter, be a songwriter; but there's so many aspects in the entertainment industry where you can be lucrative. But while you're working on that, you gotta hold up your manhood and get a job. Get your degree. I thank god I developed that telecom skill, because that's what helping me eat right now, you know, and take care of my seed, my family. But if music is your passion, you'll never be able to abandon it.

But looking at the scene now, looking at hip-hop, it's kind of distressing to see that everything is about guns, hoes, drugs, cars and whatever. I know there's a lot more avenues and aspects to hip-hop, like the stages where Public Enemy, KRS and people like that were using hip-hop as a tool to reach their people; but all that got put to the wayside when all that gangsta stuff came out. And it's a shame because hip-hop is a tool that we need to use to communicate, because kids'll listen to hip-hop more than their teachers or parents or priests. So if that's the primary channel of communication we've got, how can we not use that to reach out to them and show them that there are other aspects to life that they could pursue? There's nothing wrong with jewelry and having a hot whip or getting money, but it's not all there is. And anybody can make money, but what we need to learn is how to keep money… and how to make money make money. It's just something we don't get trained in, in urban cultures, in terms of finance. And we need to pay more attention to that.

So I decided to get back in. And also, besides the seriousness, I think cats miss being able to party instead of listening to records about murder. There's some stuff like that that I dig, just because I'm digging hip-hop, you know? Like I dig Mobb Deep; they're one of my favorite groups. I don't necessarily aspire to the things they discuss, but I love their approach to hip-hop. Sometimes I get past the lyrics and I get into the flow, but if I want to hear lyricists, there's people like Rakim, Talib Kweli, Black Thought, cats like that. I still aspire to hear lyricists and wordsmiths. Like my favorite from this era would have to be Jadakiss or, um… I even gotta give it up to Eminem. It's all about the wordplay; it ain't about black or white or whatever. If you're sick with words, you're sick with words. So for me, when there was the prospect of working with Melle Mel, I was like, "oh hell yeah."

Somebody got at me and said that he was working on some stuff and wanted to hear some beats. So I let him hear a couple of things, and he was diggin' the production approach. So one song turned into two, and two songs turned into three, which turned into eleven. And we ended up recording pretty much the whole album here in my facilities. And for me, whether you sell records or not, it was just an honor to be a part of that process. You know, just last year, The Furious Five became the first rap group inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. That's a big thing, and couldn't've happened to a nicer dude.

So that's how all that jumped off, and after doing that with Mel I was like, I'm not gonna be able to sleep and rest until I put out another record. And that's why I jumped right back in and am working on my joints right now.

But you've done a little more production, too, during that time, right? Like I think there was an artist named KDM?

Yeah, yeah, KDM. Damn, how you know about that? Wow… that's crazy that you know about that. Before or around the same time I started working on the Mele project, I opened up a studio in Queens. And one of the main artists I was working with, her name was Antel. And she was an R&B singer… she was just kind of raw and didn't really have any studio experience. But she made a demo, and I could listen through the demo and hear that she was actually a pretty good songwriter and had a nice voice. So we spent about a year in that facility doing that album, and KDM was a project that came up during that time; and working on his project actually paid the rent while I had that studio open.

He had a real hot joint on that album called "Beach." You know, he was like a reggae artist. I really don't know what happened with that project. I know we finished that album… I think he put it out on the internet or whatever. I didn't really hear anything about it after that. So, yeah, I had artists like him and a couple of other little independent cats that I was trying to work with. I'm trying to work with people who are serious about their art, but it's hard when you're grindin'. Some of them don't have jobs, some of them are going to school, some of them are hustling but they don't really have the money to pay for hundreds of dollars of studio time. So I was working out a deal with them where I wasn't charging them by the hour, I was charging them by the song, and give them the track and the studio time and everything included. Because when you're new, a lot of them have been rapping and writing for years but they've never been in the studio before, and it can be a little bit of pressure. If you're paying $35 an hour, and you've got four hours to get your joint done… when you're in the booth you're like, "damn, I can't mess up!" It's a lot of pressure for an artist. So my approach was to be like, "yo, you pick a day when you're ready to do your track. You just come in, relax, eat, do whatever you do, and just record. You're not on the clock, you just record 'till you get it right." And they appreciate that approach. Sometimes it's harder to make money that way, but like I said: I never got into hip-hop just to be rich. For me, it's important to preserve the culture and if I could - if I was rich - I'd have free studio time and free beats for everybody.

But that started to get a little too expensive… the Antel thing fell apart. She decided to go do her thing after I showed her how to record and make hits and how to write songs… Well, I didn't show her how to write songs, but I showed her the ins and outs of how to make a record professionally. But she got different aspirations and she went on her way and did whatever, and I ended up closing that studio down and bringing everything back home. And that's where I am now. The lab is in Harlem, in my home; I've got a separate bedroom dedicated to it. And I stepped it up. You know, a lot of the stuff I was using was from fifteen years ago... technology changed a lot, so I had to step up. I got, not a whole lot of pieces, but just a few primary and high-end pieces, and it's just a real good sound coming out of that room. I've got cats that come in here that spend money to go in million dollar studios, and they say, "yo, you've got a better sound coming out of there than the million dollar studio I recorded in." And that makes me feel good. So I don't really want to be in the studio business, that's not what I do. But getting people a few beats together and getting a little paper, it's paying the bills.

Are you expecting to do more with Melle Mel at this point? Is he planning a follow-up album to Muscles?

Yeah, Melle stays working. He's working on a tour right now which is gonna be him, Sugarhill and I think Kurtis Blow. He just stays busy. In the interim, while working on that album, we also did - there was this lady named Maura Casey who wrote a children's book called The Portal In the Park. And it's a book teaching kids how to deal with their emotions, like anger, frustration, and she incorporates things like bio-fitness; and Melle Mel did the narration of the whole book. He did five or six different characters, and we did six songs. I produced six tracks and we recorded the whole audio book here in Black Solaris Studios, and we just finished that a few months back. It's out there… available at Amazon and all the usual outlets. And we just did a little recording a few weeks ago, because he just did a promotional thing for Dr. Oz, because he's working for a national school program with Dr. Oz. And he mentioned he wanted to get back in the lab and start working on some other stuff.

But that Muscles album - that's not dead yet. We're still working on the marketing campaign for that, because the problem is that album never really got heard.

It must've done well in some circles, though; because I know in some places I check for the album and single've both sold out.

Yeah, yeah. It moved some units, but it should've got more recognition, or… it needs more exposure than it got. They're working with a whole other marketing team now. So before he just throws a whole other album out there, we're not giving up on the Muscles album yet.

So you think another single off of that?

Definitely. I definitely think so. There's one song on that album called "Crossfire" and it's about the gunplay on the streets and all that. It's so deep; it's like classic Melle Mel. It brings tears to your eyes when you hear it, so I hope that's the next single. I mean, it's not for me to call, but there's definitely some singles left. But like I said, he stays working. He's like, yo, throw me some beats, because that's his work ethic. If he can ever get his ass out of the gym, because that's where he lives! So I don't know if I'll be doing the whole next album, but you know, I've gotta get one banger on there.

Well, there were a couple other producers on that album, though, right? Muscles, I mean?

Yeah, there were two other producers actually that did songs.

I think one was Dame Grease.

Yeah, Dame Grease did one and Rsonist did the other one. They were hot tracks.

So, was that something where Melle went off on his own to get those tracks recorded, or were you all in the studio together?

I think he may actually have had those done before he started working with me. I'm not sure. But I never worked with those cats before, nah. I didn't have any contact with them at all.

Ok, and now I know you're working on your solo album as Bliss.

Yeah, Bliss the Illest album is taking a long time because: myself, personally… I don't know. Some days when I come in I'll record a party song, because I feel people just want to get back into partying, and sometimes I'll record something that's just real grimy and angry, depending on what kind of day I had or whatever. And it's real mixed up. On the one hand, I don't want to confuse people, but on the other hand, I am who I am, and I think the best approach is to just stay real with it. So if I record something love and mushy, or if I record grimy, it just is what it is. So I'm recording like fifty songs, and I'm just gonna pick like twelve hot ones.

I would've had it done a long time ago, but when I work on my album, I don't wanna work on anything else. So working with Mel, that pushed me back like a year. And now, to be honest, I'm actually working with another artist, his name is Phase 1. Spanish kid, a rapper, he's nasty. Got half of his album done. So, once I'm done with him, I'm gonna jump on this Bliss album. So, I'm working in between… on the train or whatever, and when I get a chance to cut it, I cut it.

Right now, I'm also in a transition stage because over the last year - on the production end - I've been working with Sonar. But I just recently switched platforms to Logic. So now I'm working on a Mac, which is a whole new beast, but I'm kinda combining it. The new Intel Mac can run Windows programs, so I run Sonar and Logic. And since I've still got a learning curve, if I've got something I wanna get done and I'm feeling it, I just jump into Sonar and get it done. But I'm really liking Logic right now. I invested into a few high-end pieces like pre-amps for my mics, but I'm still old school with my approach to hip-hop. Like everything is in a digital domain, but I can't really get away from that Analog sound; it sounds real good. But at the same time, the digital is really convenient when it comes down to editing the audio and processing. We're at this stage where, if you've got a few grand, you can build a studio in your bedroom that would've cost a good two hundred, three hundred thousand dollars just a few years ago.

Especially with hip-hop, I've stepped back into making my production approach simple. It's not about how much stuff you've got but what you do with it, and I'm walking the line right now with samples… I'm still not that crazy about using samples. Because that's the whole thing right now, people sampling choruses and pitching it up to get that Alvin and the Chipmunks sound. It's cool or whatever, but I've never been one to conform to what everyone's doing, so you're not gonna hear none of those pitched up choruses on my album. Not to knock cats who do it, get your money, man; but that's not what I do. And I'm hoping that people will be able to respect my production because it won't sound like whatever everybody else is doing. And I'm hoping I don't curse myself like that Boogie Boys curse, taking it that one step too far! But I'm not really worried about what nobody feels; I'm just doing what my heart says where my music should be right now.

So what exactly have you got coming out? Like, anticipating the future as much as you can, what can people expect when?

Well, I've got this new artist I'm working with… it's actually a dirty South record coming out next. The artist's name is Tuolles Par, and the record is called "Shugga Mama." That's the next project coming from Black Solaris.

And when can we expect that? And the Bliss stuff?

In like a month; that's the first single. And then, the first Bliss single… a couple months. By the summer.

And is that gonna be on vinyl?

Yeah, I respect vinyl. There's still a lot of DJs that stay scratching vinyl or buying their music on vinyl, so I'll also be putting stuff out on other formats, the internet or whatever. Like there's DJs now, they don't even have to carry crates, they just come in with their laptops, and they've got 300,000 songs on there. But I'm always gonna make sure my music is available on vinyl, too.

So there you have it. Thanks to Romeo/Joey/Bliss for reaching out and then sticking it out through my laundry list of questions. He does have a myspace; where you learns ome more and listen toa couple tracks he did off of Muscles. But he's in the proces of putting his official, proper website together now, so look for BlackSolaris.com to be up soon and then that'll be the official spot to check for everything he's working on. Also keep an eye out for Tuolles Par (I heard "Shugga Mama;" it's a trip), and check out portalinthepark.com if you're interested in that children's book with Melle - you can hear some of the music on there, too.

Tags: Romeo JD, Boogie Boys, Bliss the Illest, Joey Mekkah

Werner Interviews Romeo JD of the Boogie Boys! (Part 2)

...Continued from part 1.

So, going back for a second to cover some little things we kinda skipped over… you guys had some songs on the soundtrack to a movie called Enemy Territory… there was like a four-song EP.

Yeah, that was a Ray Parker Jr. movie that didn't do jack. I think the main song on that was "Dealin' With Life," off our second album, and Lil' Rahiem was actually the creator of that song. I gotta tell you, man: a lot of what happened back then in the 80's is like a big blur to me now. I don't even remember how that happened… back then, I was just kinda drifting. I just wanted to be in the studio, and if something was jumping off, it was cool. And I wasn't even really paying attention to where anything was coming from. If I was paying attention, I would've learned a lot earlier about publishing!

So from there you went on to Romeo Knight, like you said… do you know who did that cover, because that was classic.

Yeah, that was an artist from New York who was one of the biggest dogs in graffiti, whose name was Phase II. Boogie Knight hooked that up, as a matter of fact. That was crazy, we had a whole Egyptian thing going on with the pyramids and being born on January 13th, 1964 - Phase dug deep on that. Me and Boogie always talked about old R&B who had album covers we used to love, like Earth Wind & Fire. So yeah, that cover was crazy.

Also on that album, in the liner notes, you've got The Awesome Two, Teddy Ted and Special K, credited as "special hip-hop consultants." What does that even mean? What did they do?

Well, the Awesome Two were actually the first cats to interview the Boogie Boys. They ultimately ended up taking us on the road a little bit… As a matter of fact, I talked to Special K yesterday. Those cats are some of the few people I maintain contact with in the industry after all these years. And they are still doing their thing, they're still doing a show on Sirius Satellite radio. So more than likely, if I get this situation going and go on the road, that's probably who I'm gonna have handling things. They're still in my circle, and the circle is small.

So, they were more credited for being involved like promotionally?

Actually, they've been in this hip-hop thing since the beginning. So we would like consult them with beats and concepts we were working on, on the album - and like the show, how we put it together. And they ultimately took us on the radio, like Special K was road manager and Teddy Ted would DJ for us. That's a friendship that I seriously treasure in this music industry. Some people are acquaintances, some people are business acquaintances, some are friends and some are just real cats… and the Awesome Two, they're all of the above, and still are.

And you also had a DJ Dynamite credited on that album?

Yeah, Dynamite was a guy named Daryl who also went to Brooklyn Tech with Boogie and I, and yeah, he did some cuts on that album. Wow. You bring me back… like I said, I lot of the stuff we did in the 80's are like a blur and Dynamite… I don't know where he is these days.

So how did you transition from being an MC and singing into the production end of it?

Well, during the production of all the albums, my favorite part was being in the studio. We used to be in the studio for hours and we recorded most of the Boogie Boys' stuff in a studio called Unique Recording here in New York. It was a real high-end studio here in New York with state of the art equipment… like we were one of the first artists using an instrument called the Fairlight. The only other artist using that instrument was Stevie Wonder. So I really got into being at the boards while we were recording, and I got into using drum machines. And back then we used something called Sequential 440, and the 808 drum machine of course, the classic. And it really wasn't about sampling, we were using the real 808 drum machine. And I just always dug it. So when I started making money, I didn't really buy a whole lot of jewelry - I bought some jewelry, you know - but most of my money went to keyboards and drum machines, and I kept all that stuff at home. And I built a little studio at the crib: a little four-track studio. That's where I wrote "Hooked On You" for Sweet Sensation and where I did production for the Boogie Boys' stuff. You know, we didn't get no production credit, but we did a lot of our own stuff. Like Boogie Knight, on alot of the songs he originated, he did a lot of his own drum programming. I did my own drum programming, keyboard playing and stuff. And I really got into it, man. And when I got back into it, I had to dust off all the stuff I had kept in my closet!

So I kept my focus on keeping things simple. What I learned in the room that they had built in Queens, there was a lot of stuff… there was a bunch of samplers, a bunch of sound modules and just a whole lot of stuff in there. But what I realized when I came home, is that it's not really about what equipment you have. There's a lot of cats out there with million dollar studios producing garbage. I learned it's not about how many things you have… when you had a small system like I had, you just had to make every sample count. So I went from a room that had like twelve samplers to a room that just had one, and I only had enough memory to take like four or five samples. So that meant that every sample I took had to be the bomb. That really taught me how to simplify my production approach, and I kinda still live by that today.

Yeah, when you listen to the Boogie Boys albums… right up to the last, there's a unique, really strong production sound to it. And there's a few recognizable samples, like obviously "Fly Girl," but for the most part it's something different, and really distinct.

Yeah, yeah. It was really kind of a blessing and a curse for us. Because, like with some of the songs I did, the approach was to try to do something different than everybody else was doing. I didn't really have anything against sampling, it's just that that's what everybody was doing, so I was trying to get more into clean instruments and playing sounds and being original with it. The problem was that we would present the songs in a real simple and basic format: like a hot beat, maybe a little sample, and a bassline, keyboard… a little sprinkle hear and there. But then, after we got into the studio, the producer would like bring in other keyboard players and start adding shit… mad strings and all kinds of crazy stuff. So it ended up being a lot more polished than it should've been; and that's something that Boogie always used to beef about. Like, "yo, it's not street enough. You're making it too pretty." Like we had a song called "Always On My Mind;" it was like a slow jam, a ballad. We were actually doing some singing on it, but the original joint was like real raw. And when it came back, it wasreal polished up.

You know, I'm not really criticizing the producer to a degree, because he was just trying to be on the next level. Sometimes you've gotta do that; it's a risk you take. But at that time, we were like the only group that was on a major, major label, and we had to do something to try and separate ourselves. But you have to be careful, taking yourself so far that you take yourself out of your element. That's why on the Romeo Knight album we tried to make sure we reached back and had a couple of joints that were just real basic and raw. We had a song called "This Is Us," that was my favorite joint on that album. It had just this beat, you know? Another joint Boogie wrote was "Pitbull," and that's the kinda joint we really wanted to make sure we had on that album. And then we had a couple joints that were a little more musical or whatever, because some people expected that from us.

But, you know, that's kind of our legacy - we never really got as big as some of the other rap groups did at the time. But people who really listened to the Boogie Boys and got into it, really loved us, you know, for what we did. And I don't regret anything; it was all experience.

So, from what you were saying earlier to sounds like… was there sort of two separate stages of production? Like where you guys would do a rough version of the song, and then where you'd go to like Ted Currier for a second pass?

Yeah, we were presenting them with the basics of what it was. We'd come up with what we were saying, come up with our beats… like I said, we did that programming ourselves. And then Ted would take it in the studio and sometimes yeah, he would call in other keyboard players. Like one guy he always used to use was Gary Henry. Phenomenal keyboard player, but again, some of the stuff just went too far, like with the orchestration. But like I said, I'm not trying to knock Ted, because he was trying to make our album sound different than everybody else's. And even from working on the stuff like "Fly Girl," we used the emulator on that - you know, the "fly- fly- fly- fly," and all that - and a lot of people weren't really using it; we were like one of the first ones to use the emulator and do all that sampling stuff, which was cool. And also, on one of the songs, I think it was "Colorblind World," we had The Funkadelics - the original Parliament Funkadelics - doing backgrounds on the song.

Oh wow; I didn't realize that was them.

Yeah, yeah. That was like phenomenal for me because Parliament and George Clinton was the reason I ever got into it. The first concert I ever went to when I was young the Flashlight Concert. "Star Child" and all that, "The Bop Gun." I was young, man. I was so small, I had to stand up on the back of the chair in The Garden and hold onto the person's shoulder in front of me - I didn't even know them. But back in the days, it was love like that. I was young and my moms let me go to that concert; I couldn't believe it. And when I saw them, I was like, "yeah, that's what I wanna do."

So it was real deep for me to work with The Funkadelics. Also, there was another cat that played keys on the album; his name is Rob Kilgore. He's a synthesizer genius, and he actually did most of the synthesizer on Shannon's stuff, "Give Me Tonight" and all that. And that Shannon album was the album I used to play… because I used to have a DJ crew, too. So we had big speakers and that whole set-up for outside, and I used to play those big speakers inside, full blast, sitting in the middle of the room listening to the Shannon album. So when I found out we were gonna use Rob Kilgore who played on that shit, I was like blown away.

Things like that - working with Ted and having the budget gave us access to a lot of stuff that other people didn't have. And, like I said, that was a blessing and a curse. Because other people didn't have access to all of that, so they kept it grimy and gutter, and that was part of the sound of hip-hop. We were just a little too polished and a little too far ahead of our time, as far as our production approach went.

That's interesting, though, because if you listen to like Boogie Knight's stuff after he left Capitol, he didn't really take it anymore street. It still had that heavy kind of production sound, plus a lot of dance and love songs… he kept going in that direction.

Yeah, I don't know what that was. I think he did that overseas in Germany, and I think maybe he was trying to appeal a little bit more to what the European hip-hop appeal was. But the original, basic and raw hip-hop, that was in his soul. There ain't no question that's where he came from. But he was also a visionary. He wasn't afraid to try different things and do different things. You know, really nobody would listen to him or us when we would complain about the stuff at Capitol, because the reality,coming off a record as big as "Fly Girl," there was a lot of pressure to try and get another hit. It was like a shot in the dark. Like, damn, do we abandon what we did to begin with, or try to follow the formula and harden it up a little bit, or what? It's hard to know when you're in the middle of it; and you don't know until after whether you made a mistake or not. Even afterwards, if the record didn't get big, that doesn't mean you didn't do the right thing.

We were stuck with Capitol who actually learned on us. They had no idea what to do with hip-hop. They got "Fly Girl" and didn't know what to do with it. We were telling them that "Fly Girl" was the hit, and they disagreed. They wanted to put out "City Life" because it had the singing in it and everything. And we were like, "yeah, that's something that we do, but we gotta hit our market first. Put 'Fly Girl' first, then we can come with the other stuff." So we compromised: we put out "City Life" as the A-side and "Fly Girl" as the B-side; so when it came out, DJs were like, "yeah, 'City Life' is hot," but then when they flipped it over and heard those drums it was like, "oh shit… what's this?" So that's how it jumped off; and the streets is gonna make happen what they want to happen. So "Fly Girl" is the record that popped off and they still didn't do a video for it. People were running in the stores trying to find "Fly Girl" for weeks and weeks, and they didn't have any copies in the stores. So Capitol got caught with their pants down. Doug E Fresh came out with "The Show" and they had mad records in the stores, so he sold crazy records and we got shitted on.

The catch was, by the time they decided they needed to do a video, the record was "You Ain't Fresh," and that's why the video ended up being for "You Ain't Fresh." When really all they had to do was throw out a cheap video of "Fly Girl" and we would have blown up really crazy if they had done that. But it is what it is.

To be continued again, immediately...

Tags: Romeo JD, Boogie Boys, Bliss the Illest, Joey Mekkah

Werner Interviews Romeo JD of the Boogie Boys! (Part 1)

Earlier this week (that's right, this isn't "Necro'd" - it's a brand new interview), I had the chance to speak to a real old school legend who reached out to me. Romeo JD, of the Boogie Boys. And we had a really long, in-depth discussion - we got to cover everything, from the forming of the group, to the production equipment they used, to his production work for Melle Mel and others under his new name, Joey Mekkah. He's also working on a solo album as Bliss the Illest with his production company, Black Solaris Entertainment... but I'll let him tell it:

Well, let me start be asking you: how did you get into the Boogie Boys?

Well, Boogie Knight and I used to rap together on our block, where we lived in the projects, across the street from each other. I met him because I was sitting in one of the little bodegas on our block, and this lady came in and was like, "wow, you remind me of my son, the way you're sitting there thinking. I want to give you his number and I want you to give him a call, because you look like somebody he'd get along with." So, I called the number, we ended up speaking a couple of times, and we actually lost contact. And then about six, seven months later, I ended up going to school in Brooklyn and there were a couple of guys that were in a clique from Uptown. So we all used to ride the train together from Brooklyn back to Manhattan. And we became cool, and I'm talking to this guy and we started talking about hip-hop and blah blah blah and he asked me what project I came from and he was like, "you're the dude I talked to like six months ago! My moms gave me your number!" We actually met again. Through some ironic situation we wound up going to the same school and becoming friends anyway.

I actually had my own crew at that time and he had his own crew. Then he started coming over and asking if I wanted to do some stuff with him. He actually got his deal with Capitol, but he had done some records before he got down with them. The Boogie Boys' first record was "Rappin' Ain't No Thing," and that was with his old partner Keith, who also went to school with us. So, in the context of that situation, before they got signed to Capitol, I actually did a few shows with them as their DJ. We were kind of the only group doing shows at that time where everybody in the show could rap and DJ, so it was kinda special. So I did a couple shows with them at that time, but I wasn't on that first record that they did.

But, then, when he got the deal with Capitol Records, he was still in the Air Force at that time, so he brought me in to the studio to sing the hook on one of those records. And when I went in there to sing the hook, the producer was like, "yo, can you rap also?" And I was like, "well yeah, that's actually my forte." So I did a little rappin'…

Do you remember which record that was that he brought you in on?

Yeah, that was "Runnin' From Your Love." And I sung that hook and then Boogie and I started talking, and he brought in Lil' Rahiem, and it kinda flew from there. We wound up getting signed all to the same production company and we wound up on the album, and yeah… that's actually how I came in to the group situation.

But, like I said, Boogie was still in the Air Force during the time they released the album, and Capitol Records wasn't really aware of that. But they were like: you have to hit the road, the records are heatin' up. And we had to like keep the front up until he could get out without Capitol finding out that he wasn't able to tour. And so that's what we did. So doing the shows was ok, we were able to say, "Boogie Knight's not with us but he'll be back next time we come to your town."

But then we had to shoot the video for "You Ain't Fresh," and that's where the ugliness kinda came in. You know, I've seen an interview where people were saying, "they did the video and he was lip-syncing," like I wasn't really on the record. And I'm like, wow… that's pretty ugly. But we did what we thought we had to do, because the last thing I wanted was for him to come back out of the service, come home, and the deal was gone, he didn't have a deal anymore. Back then, we felt we were doing the right thing; but in hindsight, 20/20 vision, you know…

But you guys stuck together and kept doing records after that…

Yeah, yeah. After he got his release from the service, we began work on the second album. He was home, we were all together, in the videos and the magazines and everything, so he did get his recognition. But the problem, I guess, was that none of the records we did subsequently were as big as "Fly Girl." So he didn't get to see that impact that we had… although we had one record on the Survival of the Freshest that got a little buzz. So he did get to go on the road and see some pretty big situations… we toured with Cameo for a little while. But in the back of his mind he always had a little thing about the very first video.

So after that, he decided he didn't really want Lil' Rahiem in the group anymore. So the last album we did wound up just being he and I, Romeo Knight. And that was the last thing we recorded together, because there was still little relationship issues and he wound up just leaving the situation. I stayed with the production company, but I knew I wasn't going to try to record as Boogie Boys anymore. So then I got a solo deal, but that album never got to come out because they cleaned house there, and the A&R people that actually signed me got fired. So that project got dropped and that was like the end of that deal.

But during that time I also started a Latin Freestyle group called Sweet Sensation. I wrote their first hit, "Hooked On You;" and that blew up. Then I wound up doing like 70% of the album. And I was making money doing the Latin hip-hop thing for a minute. And also with that production company was a guy named Tony Terry - his biggest record was, "When I'm With You," this R&B ballad - had a couple of songs on his album. And the long and the short of it is that, after being with this production company for ten years, I found out they were robbing me for all of the publishing, 100% of the publishing. So yeah, they got me. I never really calculated it all, but somewhere in the area of a million dollars they robbed me. So, needless to say, my spirit was broken after that; because you work with these people for ten years, you think that they're your family, you know?

So, coming from the streets, I was battling the decision to handle it like street-wise, like go in the studio with guns like, "yo, you owe me money," or just let it go. And I wasn't gonna screw up my whole future doing something stupid, so I just ended up coming out of music. It was a crashing period for a couple of years, but then I decided to get back into it and do some production… Because I actually did all of the production for the songs that I wrote on the Sweet Sensation album. All of the production was me, but I got noproduction credit at all. Let alone the money. You know, even if I hadn't gotten paid, if I had gotten the production credit, that could've generated more work for me. "Hooked On You" was a pretty big record.

They're back together, as a matter of fact, working on a new album right now. They contacted me, but I'm not gonna be interested until we get the financial issues resolved from twenty years ago. You know? It's nothing with the group, I love the group to death. I love them, I'd do anything for the group. But they're fucking with the same management, so I really can't have anything to do with it.

And during that time, were you involved at all with the projects…? Like Boogie Knight had a solo album…

No, he just did his own thing. I think he might've done something not even in the United States… I think it was in Germany, because he actually wound up going back into the military; he reenlisted. He did do some music and he wound up doing an album there, but no. To answer the question, I wasn't involved in any of that.

Ok, because there was like a couple singles, and then the album. And the album is just credited to Boogie Knight, but a couple of the singles say The Boogie Boys.

Yeah, yeah… I don't know. I don't know what his situation was over there, if he was confused if he wanted to present it as The Boogie Boys or just him. But I saw a picture once of an album he put out with a whole group of people, like four or five different people… there was like a chick in the group, almost like it was a band or something.



No idea who any of those people are?

Nah, that was totally separate from my situation.

He does shout you guys out in the liner notes, though.

Really?

Yeah, on the album.

Wow… that's deep. I didn't even know about that. Wow. Around that time we didn't talk a whole lot. But we did talk after that; we were able to resolve our differences. In the end, we were friends.

We actually tried to do music and get together, after all the drama, all three of us - me, him and Lil' Rahiem. We did a couple tracks, but the blood was still… little emotional issues kept coming up. And it just wasn't worth it. Because my mindset is that I'm only doing music and hip-hop now because I enjoy it. If we get paid, we get paid. If we get some hits, we get some hits. But all the drama and the bickering over twenty year ago shit, I don't need to have around me. I was like, "let's just stay at peace with each other and stay cool. Obviously the music thing right now is not working, and let's try again in a couple years." But other than that, let's just be able to get together and enjoy each other's company. And at the end, that's what ended up happening. We weren't able to do any music together.

And are you still in touch with Lil' Rahiem?

Oh yeah, definitely. I hung out with Lil' Rahiem last week.

So, do you think there's any chance of you two working together anymore? Or is it still too caught up in the old drama?

Ummm… I don't know, man. I actually got a call from a guy from France who found me on the internet, I guess, and asked if I was interested in doing a show. And you know, I was like… you can't do a show as the Boogie Boys without Boogie Knight, because he's not here. But in retrospect, I was thinking maybe if I brought Lil' Rahiem on the road with me and do "Fly Girl" with he and I doing Boogie Knight's verses and have like, I don't know, a big screen shot of Boogie Knight and kinda pay homage to him. I'm thinking about that, but I haven't even talked to Rahiem about it yet. But the promoter was saying he was booking a show with Melle Mel and Sugarhill Gang, and just a whole old school tour type of thing, and I told him, you know, let me sleep on it…

Rahiem would probably be down, he's doing a lot of singing now. He's doing a gospel thing. So I'm trying to see about working with him, but not doing a gospel album, but doing a hip-hop album. But I'm not really looking to be in a group right now, like my hip-hop career right now is a solo thing.

To be continued immediately...

Tags: Romeo JD, Boogie Boys, Bliss the Illest, Joey Mekkah