Can't Stop Won't Stop (79 page)

11.
Gunst,
Born Fi Dead
, xvii.

12.
Evelyne Huber Stephens and John D. Stephens,
Democratic Socialism in Jamaica
(London: Macmillan, 1986), Table A-20, 397.

13.
Omar Davies and Michael Witter, “The Development of the Jamaican Economy Since Independence,”
Jamaica in Independence: Essays on the Early Years
, ed. Rex Nettle-ford (Kingston: Heinemann Caribbean, 1989), Table 4b, 85. Director Stephanie Black contrasts Michael Manley's views with those of IMF official Stanley Fischer while documenting the effects of IMF, Inter-American Development Bank and World Trade Organization policies on the island's dairy farming, beef, carrot and banana industries. She also covers the disastrous “free trade zone” experiment, where sweatshops producing
Tommy Hilfiger and Brooks Brothers clothes are closed after workers begin demanding better working conditions.
Life and Debt,
directed by Stephanie Black (Tuff Gong Pictures, 2001).

14.
Melville Cooke, “A Killer Interview,”
Jamaica Gleaner
(August 23, 2001).

15.
Stephens and Stephens,
Democratic Socialism in Jamaica,
132–135.

16.
Michael Manley,
Struggle in the Periphery
(London: Third World Media Limited, 1982), 140.

17.
Katz,
People Funny Boy
, 246.

18.
Steve Barrow, liner notes from The Abyssinians and Friends,
Tree of Satta, Volume 1
(Blood and Fire Records compact disc BAFCD 045, January 2004).

19.
Laurie Gunst,
Born Fi Dead
, 96–106.

20.
Ibid., 105.

21.
Katz,
People Funny Boy
, 305–307.

22.
“When Johnny Comes Marching Home” was reportedly adapted by Union Army band-leader Patrick S. Gilmore from an African-American spiritual.

23.
Gunst,
Born Fi Dead,
106–108.

24.
Katz,
People Funny Boy,
411.

3. Blood and Fire, With Occasional Music: The Gangs of The Bronx.

  
1.
Grady-Willis, Winston A., “The Black Panther Party: State Repression and Political Prisoners,” in
The Black Panther Party Reconsidered,
ed. Charles E. Jones (Baltimore: Black Classic Press, 1998), 370–372. Ward Churchill and Jim Vander Wall,
The COINTELPRO Papers: Documents from the FBI's Secret Wars Against Dissent in the United States
(Boston: South End Press, 1990), 138–139.

  
2.
Hoover in Churchill and Vander Wall,
The COINTELPRO Papers
, 111.

  
3.
Afeni Shakur, “We Will Win: Letter from Prison by Afeni Shakur,” in
The Black Panthers Speak
, ed. Philip S. Foner (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott and Company, 1970), 161, 163.

  
4.
“New York Illustrated: The Savage Skulls with Piri Thomas,” produced and directed by Abigail Child, WNBC Community Affairs Program (New York), aired November 18, 1973.

  
5.
Pete Hamill, “The Gangs,”
New York Post
(circa May 1972); from the papers of Rita Fecher.

  
6.
“Execution in the Bronx,”
New York Times
(June 17, 1973).

  
7.
In 2004, Eddie Perez, a former Ghetto Brother from Hartford, Connecticut, became mayor of the city.

  
8.
Ain't Gonna Eat My Mind
, directed by Tony Batten (1972).

  
9.
Gene Weingarten, “East Bronx Story: Return of the Street Gangs,”
New York
(March 27, 1972), 35.

10.
Ibid., 34.

11.
Jose Torres, “Ghetto Brothers,”
New York Post
(November 6, 1971).

12.
Jerry Schmetterer, “Trouble Was His Scene,” New York
Daily News
(December 3, 1971), 3.

13.
See “Ain't Gonna Eat My Mind” in Eric C. Schneider,
Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings: Youth Gangs in Post-War New York
(Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1999), 243–245.

14.
Edward Kirkman, “Gangs Hold Rap Session on Cops,” New York
Daily News
(December 17, 1971).

15.
See “Ain't Gonna Eat My Mind” in Schneider,
Vampires, Dragons and Egyptian Kings.

16.
Aida Alvarez, “Savage Skulls Feared As Worst Bronx Gang,”
New York Post
(September 15, 1975), 28.

17.
“Execution in the Bronx,”
New York Times
(June 17, 1973).

18.
The 51st State: Bronx Gangs,
hosted by Patrick Watson, WNYC (New York), broadcast in 1972.

4. Making a Name: How DJ Kool Herc Lost His Accent And Started Hip-Hop.

  
1.
Jack Stewart,
Subway Graffiti; An Aesthetic Study of Graffiti on the Subway System of New York City
(Ph.D. diss., New York University, 1989), 148–190.

  
2.
“TAKI 183 Spawns Pen Pals,”
New York Times
(July 21, 1971), 37.

  
3.
Greg Tate, “Graf Rulers/Graf UnTrained,”
One Planet Under a Groove: Hip Hop and Contemporary Art
(New York: Bronx Museum of Arts, 2001), 38.

  
4.
Herbert Kohl and James Hinton,
Golden Boy As Anthony Cool: A Photo Essay on Naming and Graffiti
(New York: The Dial Press, 1972), 120. This great little book offers insight on how far Herc had now moved from the gangs: “On gang rosters we sometimes see inscriptions such as ‘Clarence as Lefty.' However, they are not common; the ‘as' phenomenon is more often found on lists of names of people from the same block or of boys and girls that ‘hang out' together. It is more likely that ‘Lefty' would stand alone on the gang roster. The name Clarence, identifying ‘Lefty' as the son of his parents, is more thoroughly renounced through gang membership than through becoming part of a more loosely structured and less demanding peer group.”

  
5.
Steven Hager, “The Herculords at the Hevalo,”
Record Magazine
(February 1985), 34.

  
6.
Davey D, interview by Afrika Bambaataa for Hard Knock Radio, recorded at KPFA-FM, Berkeley (November 29, 2002).

  
7.
It's interesting that these beats shared the element of cinema or theater. While David Toop believed the Incredible Bongo Band was a Jamaican disco band, they were in fact a band put together by sometime film composer Michael Viner, featuring another soundtrack composer, Perry Botkin Jr., and the formidable bongo playing of King Errisson, a Jamaican immigrant. Dennis Coffey was a studio musician whose career was furthered by his work for blaxploitation soundtracks. James Brown's “live” record was actually recorded in a studio and given live audience overdubs. It was later marketed as a performance in his hometown of Augusta, Georgia.

  
8.
The Rock Steady Crew's Jorge “Popmaster Fabel” Pabon, a respected hip-hop historian, said in 2001, “The most respected b-boy crews was the Zulu Kings, the Twins formerly known as the Nigger Twins. There was a group that the Twins told me about called ‘The B-Boys.' They have a very interesting claim. They say that the word ‘b-boys' was really referring to those guys. Like for instance, the Lockers. There was a similar argument that came up where one of the Lockers recently [was asked], ‘What do you do?' And he said he's a Locker. And then some young kid said, ‘I'm a Locker,' and he looked at him and he said, ‘No you're not,
I'm
a Locker.' In other words, it gets into semantics like you know how to lock, okay, but I'm the Locker, I'm one of the original Lockers. And that same argument I heard pop up with b-boying. Where the Twins said, ‘Well I don't know why everyone's calling himself a b-boy. Those guys were the B-Boys!' Hey, I have an open mind and it's an interesting concept. I'm not gonna debate it, I don't have any artillery to debate it with!” (Interview with the author, November 20, 2001.)

LOOP 2. Planet Rock: 1975–1986.

5. Soul Salvation: The Mystery and Faith of Afrika Bambaataa.

  
1.
Steven Hager, “Afrika Bambaataa's Hip Hop,”
Village Voice
(September 21, 1982),73. Kevin Donovan is credited as the “Arranger” on the label of Bambaataa and Cosmic Force's first record,
Zulu Nation Throwdown, Volume 1.
Bambaataa had no love lost for Paul Winley or his house band. This from Hager's
Village Voice
article: Finally, in 1980, he succeeded in obtaining a deal with Paul Winley's struggling label. In November, he recorded two 12-inch versions of “Zulu Nation Throwdown,” one with the Cosmic Force and the other with the Soul Sonic Force. When the first single was released, however, Bambaataa discovered Winley had added instruments without even consulting him. “It was crazy,” says Bambaataa. “I recorded the songs to just drums. When the record came out, Winley added a bass and some crazy guitar music. Then, when it came time to get paid, he started jivin' us.”

  
2.
Jens Peter de Pedro and TBL, “The Godfather of Hip Hop,”
Underground Productions
(Stockholm, Sweden, August 1997). Special shout-out to Joe Austin for the article.

  
3.
Gary Jardim, “The Great Facilitator,”
Village Voice
(October 2, 1984), 63.

  
4.
Steven Hager,
Hip Hop: The Illustrated History of Break Dancing, Rap Music and Graffiti
(New York: St. Martin's Press, 1984), 6.

  
5.
Ibid., 9–10.

  
6.
The Universal Zulu Nation actually dates its anniversary to November 12, 1973, which is likely the date The Organization came into being. Its Infinity Lesson #3 reads: “The Universal Zulu Nation was founded in the year 1973 but started to come into power in the year 1975 A.D. by a young student at Adlai Stevenson High School named Afrika Bambaataa. . . .He also ran the group called The Organization for 2 years and the street gang called the Black Spades for 5 years.”

  
7.
“Two Shot Dead in Bronx Duel,” New York
Amsterdam News
(January 11, 1975), B-9.

  
8.
Stewart,
Subway Graffiti,
260 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

6. Furious Styles: The Evolution of Style in the Seven Mile World.

  
1.
Luis Angel Matteo, “Origins of Breakdancing,” interview by Mandalit Del Barco, National Public Radio (October 14, 2002). Available online at
http://www.npr.org/programs/morning/features/patc/breakdancing
/.

  
2.
Zora Neale Hurston, “Characteristics of Negro Expression,” in
Folklore, Memoirs and Other Writings
(New York: Library of America, 1995), 835. The article was originally published in 1934.

  
3.
Ibid.

  
4.
Cristina Verán, “(Puerto) Rock of Ages,”
Rap Pages
(September 1996), 47

  
5.
Stewart,
Subway Graffiti,
229 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

  
6.
Richard Goldstein, “This Thing Has Gotten Completely Out of Hand,”
New York
(March 26, 1973), 36, 39.

  
7.
Lee Quiñones wrote this in a famous 1978 piece done with BILLY 167, but Henry Chalfant has documented other instances and Jack Stewart dates the slogan to 1974, before Lee was on the trains. Ibid., 475. Another Lee mural, called “Roaring Thunder,” has this: “Graffiti is Art, and if Art is a crime, let God forgive all.”

  
8.
Ivor Miller,
Aerosol Kingdom: Subway Painters of New York City
(Jackson, Miss.: University Press of Misssissippi, 2002), 109.

  
9.
Richard Goldstein, “The Fire Down Below,”
Village Voice
(December 24–28, 1980),55.

10.
Stewart,
Subway Graffiti
, 382–387 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

11.
Ibid., 457–458

12.
Phoebe Hoban,
Basquiat: A Quick Killing in Art
(New York: Viking, 1998), 36.

13.
Style Wars,
directed by Tony Silver, produced by Tony Silver and Henry Chalfant (1983).

7. The World Is Ours: The Survival and Transformation of Bronx Style.

  
1.
For a recording of the Flash and the Furious Five's live beatbox routine in its context, including Flash rocking the beatbox, find the version of “Flash It to the Beat” on the Bozo Meko label, an apparently bootlegged tape from the Bronx River Community Center in 1979 or 1980. Bonus: the Furious Five get the crowd going in a frenzied “Zulu! Gestapo!” chant! The flip-side features Jazzy Jay cutting up breakbeats on a track entitled “Fusion Beats,” an early classic of the instrumental hip-hop record genre. There is a studio version on Sugar Hill of “Flash It to the Beat,” also a great listen, but the house band sounds almost anemic, stripped down to a bass, drums and percussion.

  
2.
Craig Castleman,
Getting Up: Subway Graffiti in New York
(Cambridge: The MIT Press, 1982), 137.

  
3.
Ibid., 142.

  
4.
Joe Austin,
Taking the Train: How Graffiti Art Became an Urban Crisis in New York City
(New York: Columbia University Press, 2001), 130.

  
5.
Reproduced in Stewart,
Subway Graffiti,
203–204 (see chap. 4, n. 1).

  
6.
Nathan Glazer, “On Subway Graffiti in New York,”
Public Interest
(Winter 1979), 207.

8. Zulus on a Time Bomb: Hip-Hop Meets The Rockers Downtown.

  
1.
“Henry Chalfant: Photographer to the Cars,”
East Village Eye
(August 1982), 24.

  
2.
Goldstein, “The Fire Down Below,” 58 (see chap. 6, n. 9).