Bobbito Garcia

Bobbito Garcia

One-two, how you all feel out there? [Whoops from audience]

Julian Brimmers

When I said that you are one of the premier storytellers in many fields –  you’re a DJ, a filmmaker, a journalist, a writer, you design streetwear, and one of the prime sneaker ads of your days – how do you do all these things without having a cellphone? [Laughter]

Bobbito Garcia

Well, I do now have a cellphone. I have a child, I’m married — my wife put the hammer down when our son was able to walk and I started taking him to the playground, and she said, “You know what Bob, all that ‘no cellphone’ is cute, but you’re getting a cellphone,” and as any married people here know, when your wife talks, you gotta listen [laughs].

So I now have a cellphone but I haven’t really let it change my culture of communication, and I always remind people that human beings did very well without telecommunications for hundreds of thousands of years. It’s really a recent phenomenon, in the last century, and cellphone use is less than two decades deep, so we’re very capable of making plans and planning ahead and organizing so that we stay in contact with people and we’re present, and that was my reason for not having a cellphone for a long time. I was finding that while people were able to communicate more, they were communicating less in an intimate setting. But I have used the cellphone to my advantage, and my Instagram following now is at 30,000 [laughs] since getting a cellphone, so there are some advantages.

Julian Brimmers

And besides being new to the cellphone family, to the 21st century, you left New York very recently. How does that feel for someone who’s spent quite a few decades in the Big Apple?

Bobbito Garcia

I have not spoken about this publicly, so thank you for putting it on blast [laughs] but that’s fine, we’re not avoiding any questions today. Stretch Armstrong, how many of you are familiar with him? Alright, cool, so we did a documentary titled Stretch and Bobbito Radio Change Lives, it’s available here in Bulgaria on Netflix, it’s available in 192 countries.

The success of that film led to National Public Radio in the United States approaching us about doing a new podcast. We hadn’t done radio on a regular basis since 1998 when we parted ways. NPR’s headquarters are based in D.C. My wife was born and raised there and we have a three year old who is very energetic and likes to run around, and we just decided as a family to make the move to explore the potential for what the platform could be, but also to just switch up the environment. Being 50 years old and having checked off everything on my bucket list for life goals, I felt like, “You know what, I’ve lived a complete and full life in New York, it’s OK if I make a change.” At age 25 I would’ve never done that, but at age 50 we can invite that, and it’s been great. And D.C. is close to New York so I’m up there every single week [laughs].

Julian Brimmers

So maybe we can listen to a track that will kind of bring us back to Harlem and back to New York real quick?

Bobbito Garcia

Let’s go for it.

(music: Elenita Ruiz Con Conjunto – “Ya Nada Me Importa”)

Y’all give a round of applause for that song? That was my father playing vibraphone on that song.

Julian Brimmers

And that’s the only recording that can be found of his?

Bobbito Garcia

Well, that can’t even be found. So a little background, the artist is Elenita Ruiz, and I don’t know much about it at all. My father was a Latin jazz Musician who performed at the Palladium, he did some community centers and weddings with a little band called Ramon Garcia Y Su Conjunto. I knew that he had done some songwriting, and he had a lot of jams at the house growing up, but it wasn’t until after he passed — he passed away 20 years ago, in 1997 — that one of his musician friends hit me up, some years afterwards, and he was like, “Hey, Bobby, come over to the house, I just found something.” I was like, “Great.” He lived in the neighborhood and I stopped by. William Hernandez — he was a flute player in my father’s band. He said, “Here, this is for you, I think you should have it.” And I looked at the 7” – it’s old, from the early ‘60s — and I wasn’t familiar with the artist, wasn’t familiar with the label, and he said, “Your father played vibes on that,” and I was just blown away.

Upon listening to it, I obviously got emotional because he was no longer with us. So, I spoke to some of my family members. They were unaware of the song as well. Then in 2009, myself and one of my best friends, Rich Medina, we did a compilation for a label called R2 in London, in the UK, called The Connection. It was modern explorations in Afro-Latin and Afrobeat. That was one of the songs that we included on the compilation, on my side — we did a double CD. The licensing supervisor could not find the master or publishing owner for the song, it’s that rare. I don’t believe that the singer is even alive anymore, so it’s unfortunate that I can’t find out more about that song. It speaks volumes to me just hearing it now. I’ve played it in sets but never at the height of the night, usually really early on when nobody’s in the room, so this is the first time I’m hearing it with the community, and it’s beautiful. It’s a beautiful song. I hope you all enjoyed that. [Applause]

Julian Brimmers

Thanks for sharing with us, that song and that story. Is it fair to think that might be the music that was all around you while growing up? Was it Latin music, or what was the soundtrack to your upbringing?

Bobbito Garcia

Well, yes, I was very fortunate and not fortunate, in that my father was a musician, so I was exposed to some of the very greats of Latin jazz in my house. Many of whom I had no idea they were as famous as they were, or as accomplished. Most notably, a tenor saxophone player by the name of Chombo Silva, who played with Cal Tjader, Mongo Santamaria, and recorded some of his own albums as a band. He was from Cuba and moved to the States in the ‘50s. He just took over, he was the prominent tenor sax in Latin Jazz. [But I was] four years old, five years old, I wanted to watch cartoons in the morning on a Saturday and these guys were just jamming out — and not Saturday morning because they just got together, but like Friday night going into Saturday morning, you know?!

I couldn’t really appreciate it as a child, I didn’t have a sophisticated enough ear. It wasn’t really until I got to my adulthood, and a lot of thanks to hip-hop. Because if you’re ahead, especially in the ‘90s where we were really going deep with sampling, a lot of us started to dig a little bit deeper — what is this foundation music that’s feeding all this incredible rap music? So we started digging for soul, funk, jazz, disco, world music, African music, Latin music.

It was at that moment that I got so intrigued and fascinated by the music from before, that I started really diving into Latin music, maybe more so than other DJs that I know, because, you know, I’m Puerto Rican. And discovering that Ray Barretto had been to my house, and Joe Bataan had been to my house, and that my brother studied under Charlie Palmieri… and, I mean, once the floodgate opened and my mom — because my father was no longer around — started telling me who had visited the house and played, it was like, holy fucking shit!

One thing I did know about my dad is that he opened up for Tito Puente, who is the foremost Latin musician of all time. I mean, 100 albums recorded… there may be singers who have sold more records, but I’m just talking about in terms of critical acclaim and really pushing the envelope and just being so creative. Tito Puente is the top of the food chain, and my father really looked up to him and opened up for him at the Paladium, which was the biggest club for Latin music in the world in the ‘50s and ‘60s. That was a huge deal to our family. My father, years later until his death, that was his shining moment. And it wasn’t really the biggest shine, it wasn’t like he was the headliner, he was just the opening act. But that was a big deal for him and we were all very proud of his moment.

A lot of this stuff I will go into deeper detail in my next film, it’s titled Rock Rubber 45s. It’s in production right now, it’ll be out in 2018. If you enjoyed my first film, Doin’ it in the Park, or my second film, Stretch and Bobbito, I hope that you keep an open mind and keep it on your radar for Rock Rubber 45s. Hopefully maybe Red Bull can bring me back out and we’ll do the screening and Q&A for it and everything. Shameless plug for all you people online.

Julian Brimmers

Fair enough. So what was the first music that you felt was yours? ‘Cause growing up in a musical household, there’s their music, and you might enjoy it, but there needs to be some form of rebellion where you have your own [moment of] “That’s my shit, you don’t understand this.” What was it and how did you find it?

Bobbito Garcia

That’s a great question, and it’s never been posed quite in that manner, so I appreciate your line of thinking. My father, while he was very proud to be Puerto Rican, and my mom was born in PR and moved to New York, they both were incredibly open-minded individuals and I’m thankful for that. They both listened to Frank Sinatra, Tony Bennett, Natalie Cole, Dinah Washington, opera, classical music, Tchaikovsky, Pavarotti. You name it, there was so much music in the house.

When I was seven, I had a moment in the living room to myself. My father had played Stevie Wonder quite often in the house, and it was the first time I was going to select a song myself without my brothers telling me, “Shut that shit off,” or whatever [laughs]. And I pulled out Innervisions. That’s the first album that I ever played and listened to — Side A, Side B, all the tracks — on my own. If you’re familiar with that album, imagine that being your introduction to the LP format. I was blown away. So I claimed that. Stevie Wonder really spoke to me. And then the next sort of movement that I was able to really claim was my introduction into hip-hop.

Understand that in the ‘70s, no one called it hip-hop. We didn’t know there was going to be this global force that would sustain for decades and impact the world. It was just something that we just, you know, you played basketball, you played tag, you played football, and you listened to music with your friends and you danced and you rhymed, and it was just part of the daily experience. When I got involved in that, it really hit a chord with me that was unlike soul music and unlike Latin music and unlike anything else I had heard. It was fun, it was really, really fun.

Even sonically, I remember the first time my friend Timmy Fobbs, on the 12th floor of my building, played Trans-Europe Express by Kraftwerk. We went into his bedroom and he was like “Yo, I’ve got this new record, I want you all to check it out,” and we were playing electronic football. I don’t know how old all of you are, but there used to be this board and you’d plug it in, and the board would vibrate and the little football men would go, but they would never go straight — it was a pointless game, they would always go out of bounds, you could never win, you could never even play it! It was just a shitty electronic game [laughs] I’m digressing. But he played Kraftwerk and we all sat there in 1977 with our jaws open like, “What the f…” You’ve got to think, a lot of stuff that we just assume and take for granted… It was mind-blowing to be introduced to this. Mind-blowing. And then to hear it on warm analog vinyl, too. It was great.

Julian Brimmers

Did you understand that it was sampled by others? Did you understand at the time?

Bobbito Garcia

It wasn’t sampled yet!

Julian Brimmers

No, no but shortly after, when the first records came in that used these other records, when Soulsonic Force came in. Did you understand that connection?

Bobbito Garcia

I did not see the continuity at the time. It’s really when I became a journalist and a critic, an advocate and evangelist and… someone who was almost like an ambassador, in the ‘90s, that I was able to look back and be like, “Oh yeah, Bambaataa, Arthur Baker, they were using these electronic sounds.”

At the time when Tommy Boy [Records] was releasing all that music, we were just enjoying it. No one was really trying to critique it. It was just like, “Aw man, this is a jam, let’s dance to it!” You know? I wasn’t like, “Oh man, I hear it, I hear the sample — that’s the snare drum from 1978!” You know, we weren’t nerds yet. We became nerds in the ‘90s. At least I did.

Julian Brimmers

So I assume that you split your time between being on the court, as someone who had high hopes for a sports career as well, and being with music friends, talking about music a lot. What was the power ranking back then? Was basketball more important for the time?

Bobbito Garcia

So there was no split. Let me make it clear. I played ball as a kid every day. That was my complete existence. From 1980 to 1988, I only missed three days of playing basketball. [Audience laughter] That’s it. And I know that for a fact because those three days I was actually sick. Holidays I hated, because the gym would be closed, so that meant I had to sneak in the gym or I had to play outside in the cold, which was fine. But I had lofty goals of playing professionally and I was very driven, and I was immersed in this basketball culture, so I wasn’t going to clubs back then. I wasn’t DJing back then, I wasn’t a radio host. It all comes later in the ‘90s — in the ‘80s it’s all about basketball. Anything that revolved around hip-hop and music was a byproduct of that.

Like, OK, we’re at the court, they’re playing Treacherous Three’s “Body Rock” during half-time and before the game. “Wow! That song is incredible.” OK, we just went to camp in Spanish Harlem, gotta go get lunch before we gonna go back out to the park and play again, we’re eatin’ lunch. “Yo! Did you hear the Grandmaster Flash? Yo, let me get a dub!” It was like the music conversations were byproducts, the basketball was the thread of the day. That was my experience. You know, there are people whose entire existence was hip-hop and basketball was the backdrop. They were a fan of the Knicks. I wasn’t a fan, I was an active participant of basketball. I started coaching basketball when I was 15.

Julian Brimmers

More time in the gym.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, gym and outdoors. And it paid off. I played professional basketball in Puerto Rico in 1987, and that’s a career highlight for me amongst many that came years later, but that one I really, really worked hard to get. And I had no business playing professional basketball.

Julian Brimmers

So, fill in the gap for us — you played professional basketball in Puerto Rico, but you also shortly after got involved in the music biz, working for Def Jam. What happened?

Bobbito Garcia

I went to Wesleyan University in Middletown, Connecticut, from 1984 to 1988. Between my junior and senior year that’s when I played professional basketball. And I returned to school, finished my studies, graduated, and… Let me backtrack. A year prior to that I started hanging out with two artists by the name of MC Serch and Prime Minister Pete Nice, who wound up becoming the group 3rd Bass, got signed to Def Jam. We just did a lot of things together. You know, we hung out, we all played ball, I used to give Serch haircuts, I would go to shows with them, I was dancing for them at one point. And one day Serch and Pete hit me up like, “Yo, there’s a job opening at Def Jam as a messenger,” and I just went with it.

You know, I had a sense when I graduated from college that I wasn’t gonna be an all-star in Puerto Rico, I wasn’t gonna make the national team. I was very honest with myself. Sure, maybe I could’ve went back and played, and played more, and maybe had an impact there, but I didn’t really see that happening, although I was still curious about it. But shit, I’m in New York, it’s the mecca of basketball. Can’t stop me from playing, I’m playing tournaments. So I had that for the fix, for the jones, like, oh, I could play ball every single day. I’m still playing ball every day. I’m not getting paid for it, but who cares? I already got paid for it. I know what that feels like. Let me challenge myself and do something else, and I had a sense that maybe there was something in the music industry for me to pursue and it paid off.

You know I got a job at Def Jam in ‘89 and I moved up the ladder very quickly there, ‘cause I was super hard-working and passionate about the label and what they represented. I mean, fuck — we had Public Enemy, LL Cool J, 3rd Bass, and Slick Rick. Are you shitting me? It was like the five biggest… and the Beastie Boys had come out prior to that, even though they weren’t on the label anymore. W’re talking about the prominent label, not just of the year, the decade. You know? And opportunities worked, it was priceless. And I milked that for all that I could.

Julian Brimmers

And it’s also where you met Stretch Armstrong for the first time, in the offices over there.

Bobbito Garcia

So Stretch Armstrong and I met at Def Jam. He came by to pick out some records and we hit it off immediately. It was so instantaneous. We wound up starting a radio show in 1990 and, you know, eight years later we look back and all these unsigned artists that came through our doors wound up changing the face of… forget rap, I’m talking about music industry period.

Julian Brimmers

Let’s do a quick roll call maybe?

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah. Nas, Biggie, Wu-Tang, Mobb Deep — Prodigy, rest in peace. Big Pun, rest in peace. Big L, rest in peace. Eminem, Jay-Z. Those were the unsigned artists that came through our doors, and there were a ton of artists who were signed like The Fugees and Cypress Hill, who had no props until they came through our doors and then, you know, their careers started changing after that. So we were fortunate that we were in a position to highly influence our audience with our tastes and also highly influence artists and musicians with their tastes. Because once the light bulb went in people’s head, that, “Oh, man — if I make this song and it’s experimental, there’s a home for it to be heard.” Right? So that opened up the door for people to branch out.

So we had a great run and it’s documented in the film Stretch & Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives. And the reason it’s titled that is because it was transformative for myself and Stretch, for the artists as well, but really for our listeners. And so there’s three narratives in the film. We interviewed the common person that none of you know, because to me, as the director and writer of the film, it was just as important to hear what people went through to listen to our show in an age where it was not accessible. Completely different to now, where everything’s accessible so long as you have wi-fi. So yeah, it was an amazing project to be a part of.

Julian Brimmers

And you really had to search for it. You had to know where to find it. We’re talking about dialing in.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah. And if you missed it you had to ask a friend to tape it for you, and if you lived outside of the radio signal you had to hope that… I mean, I knew people from France that would fly into New York just to tape our show, and then go back and bootleg our show to sell it. And our show got bootlegged all around the world. Which, when we found out about, we weren’t completely too mad about, because it brought our names to cities we had never gone to, but also we were in it to share the very best music that was available in hip-hop, and by virtue of the bootlegging, it helped a lot of artists that were getting played on our show that weren’t getting heard otherwise. That helped create a platform that some artists from the ‘90s are still living off today. There are artists that are still touring and still doing shows that came through our show and got known through the tape circuit. This is pre-internet, so it’s a beautiful thing.

Julian Brimmers

Did that come in handy while producing the film? The fact that all over the world people might have bootlegs? Because I assume you couldn’t have that running all the time, you must have forgotten to record some of things.

Bobbito Garcia

We did, we did. Recently Prodigy from Mobb Deep passed away, a big loss to the hip-hop community, but the first time he came up with Havoc was April 1st, 1991, when they were unsigned. They were a group called Poetical Prophets. Four years later they splashed as Mobb Deep with their album, went platinum and everything, but we didn’t record that night. The first night Biggie came up as an unsigned artist, in ‘91, we didn’t record that night. It’s like, we didn’t know these guys were going to become who they became! If we knew, we would have had two cameras up there, we would have hired the two of you, because you’re so handsome, and we would have weekly recorded video and audio — but we didn’t. We were just trying to play the best artists that were out, whether they were signed or not, and it was years later that we were like, “Holy shit, Nas just blew the fuck up — we should have filmed that!” But, yeah, there were definitely some nights that were not filmed.

The Biggie night we actually wound up finding the audio of when we made the film, so for those of you who saw it, that was the first time Stretch and I had heard that freestyle since it was performed live in our studio. It’s a highlight of the film for a lot of people.

Julian Brimmers

We actually have that cued up, we have the freestyle cued up, so we can play that — that’s track four, that’s the audio from the actual movie, so you’ll hear a little bit in the beginning and at the end, just to hear a 16-year-old Biggie.

(music: Biggie Smalls demo tape, The Stretch & Bobbito Show, 1991)

Julian Brimmers

That’s a whole lot of cursing for a 16 year old. [Audience laughter]

Bobbito Garcia

He was actually 17 at the time. That was a little fact-check that we found out after the interview. But props to 50 Grand, his original DJ, who produced that demo. He produced Biggie’s demo, but he was also the only person that we’ve found that actually recorded that night that Biggie came up as an unsigned artist. For those of you who don’t know, Biggie wound up becoming, him and Tupac, the premier artists of the ‘90s. His second album sold 10 million copies, the first hip-hop artist to ever sell that many copies, so he’s very large in the history. We were just in the right place at the right time with the right open mind to have invited him up.

Julian Brimmers

The craziest thing is he came in at 16, or 17, and already had the flow locked down, the Biggie flow, it was already there. That’s the craziest part. People forget how young they [Biggie and Tupac] were when they passed away, both of them. So, with Biggie, the story behind that is pretty crazy, right? He didn’t get rejected, but he lost the demo battle or something? He sent in a demo and it lost against another group, Brooklyn Zoo?

Bobbito Garcia

Bronx Zoo. So, what we used to do on our radio show was, because we wanted to play the very best music and have the very best MCs, unsigned or signed, on our show, we used to invite people to mail in their songs. It didn’t matter to us whether they were signed or not, so we had Bronx Zoo and we had Biggie’s demo and we played them against each other and we would just open up the phone lines and be like, “Yo, call in and vote for the best demo of the night.” And Bronx Zoo won. But I think Biggie, in the long run, won a little more. Maybe a lot more. [Laughs]

Julian Brimmers

Shout out Bronx Zoo, wherever you may be.

Bobbito Garcia

Hey, I liked their demo, you know? Biggie was pissed off that they beat him, so that’s why he came up and he was like, “I want to set the record straight.” He actually wanted to battle them live in the studio, that’s why he came up there. I mean, artists used to come up to our show very focused. You know how before a basketball game, when the team is with the coach in the locker room and they’re like [closes eyes and shakes head in concentration] That’s how artists would come up to our station, you know? Because they knew that the world was going to hear them, and for some of them who were unsigned, that was everything to them. They didn’t know that they would get signed so they really took it seriously.

Julian Brimmers

So in retrospect, all these big names that came through, it’s quite surprising to think that that was your side hustle, right? For you and for Stretch. That was one of the things you did at the time, but it’s not like you got paid crazy money from a big broadcasting corporation.

Bobbito Garcia

Well, we did the show for free! I mean, it was college radio, so we invested a lot of resources to produce a weekly program that took a toll. I mean, we were on the air from 1 AM to 5 AM — that’s not an easy time slot. You go to bed at 6 AM, 6:30. How many DJs are here? I know you used to DJ. You ever do a gig and afterwards you’re on a music high, because it’s like, “Oh my god, I just heard all this incredible music.” And you go home and you take a shower and you can’t go to sleep because it’s just like the music, it’s just in you, like, “Oh my god.” Think about that, on a weekly basis. We’re hearing the most incredible MCs in the world, women and men, and you go home at 5:30, 5:45, you can’t go to sleep. We used to go home, when me and Stretch were roomies, and we would put the tape on of the show when we would get home. We’d go to bed at 6:30, 7 AM. I had a regular job, I worked at Def Jam. I had to go to work the next day, so it was taxing.

It was really taxing and it hurt the most on the basketball court, because then I would go and have a game Friday night, Saturday and my body would be just, like, taxed. I would play like shit and then people knew who I was because I was on the radio. It’s not a big deal when no one knows who you are and you play like shit. When you got a court and everybody knows who you are it’s like, “Aw, man.” So, yeah, that was tough. When I retired from radio, I did not miss it. To this day, I do not miss the time slot. It was hard.

Julian Brimmers

Although, to be fair, when you did the reunion, the 20-year reunion of the broadcasts, you still went for the same time slot.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, well, originally I told Stretch, “I don’t want to be up until 5 AM. I’m in my forties now, I’ll stay up there until 3 AM, I promise.” And 3 AM came along and I was not cognizant of the time at all. 5 AM came along, it was like [I was] on a high, I was giddy, I felt like I was 25 years old again. 6 AM came along, like, “Can we just keep on going?” And this was completely drug free, I don’t drink, I don’t — nothing. This was just straight drinking water and being in the studio just high off of music, t he euphoria of the listeners and the artists. The radio show that we did, it meant a lot. I’m very happy that we’re going back on the air with National Public Radio in the United States with a podcast — although it’s not gonna be a music show, it’s not gonna be mix show. It will be an interview-based podcast where we go in depth, kind of like what you’re doing with me, with our guests. We’ve already recorded some and we have some phenomenal interviewees that run the gambit from politics to film to music to hip-hop to literature to the art world.

A lot of people are gonna be shocked. Some people might be disappointed, actually, ‘cause they’re gonna be like “Yo, where’s the hip-hop?” But, it’s like, I’m 50 years old now. I was never solely defined by hip-hop, not even in the ‘90s. That’s what got me out into the world and I’m thankful for it, but with Stretch it’s the same thing. We have multiple interests and we’re diverse characters and we want the podcast to shine a light on all that is important to us.

Julian Brimmers

Were you intimidated by that? Because if you take away the music element, the radio show was always defined by the chemistry that you and Stretch had. The beautiful thing about the film that you made, the real triumph of the movie, is the restoration of that friendship, I’d say. Were you intimidated by the fact that now it’s all on us, it’s all on us and the guests?

Bobbito Garcia

No! No, I’m not intimidated. I’ve interviewed Stevie Wonder, Michael Jordan, Chaka Khan, Gil Scott-Heron, Isaac Hayes, Dan Marino. I’ve interviewed some of the most famous people in the world. Quincy Jones. For my film, Rock Rebel 45s, I interviewed Lin-Manuel Miranda, Tony award-winner — this dude is insanely popular globally, with Hamilton and In The Heights, and now he’s doing films with Disney. That means nothing to me, you know? You put me in front of somebody who is cool and has a story, I’m gonna talk to them the same way I would to Irina about the history of Bulgaria. I’m fortunate in that I’ve always been able to make people feel comfortable around me. As a unit, that’s what we’re doing with the podcast. We’re really getting people to open up. I can’t wait for all of you to hear it. It goes live July 19th this summer on NPR.org, as well as the NPR One app.

Julian Brimmers

I’d like to back up real quick and talk a bit about you as a filmmaker and the various things that you’ve evolved into. It seems that, with all respect, that you get into things without being trained for it. And then excel pretty amazingly at them, just by virtue of having the opportunity to do them and then going at it. Maybe if we can watch the video number two from your first film, Doin’ it at The Park, which you co-directed with Kevin Couliau from France. It’s little segment from that that I would like to play.

So, that was Crazy Legs, a legendary B-boy from the Rock Steady Crew. You are in some way affiliated with Rock Steady Crew — did you also break at some point?

Bobbito Garcia

I never broke. I grew up being friends with members of the Rock Steady even before Rock Steady formed. Ken Swift and Doze, we used to play football with each other. And then I grew up in Rock Steady Park, which the basketball world called The Goat. It was named after playground legend Earl Manigault. So I used to see all the Rock Steady Crew members practising, I witnessed all that, but I wasn’t active in it. Because in the ‘80s, as I mentioned to you, my whole life was basketball. In the ‘90s when I started putting some time into being a hip-hop participant as well as activist, Legs and I, our paths were bound to cross. We met in 1991, and we hit it off immediately because we were both Puerto Rican, both had a lot of similar experiences growing up. Knew a lot of the same people. We both really wanted to see the best for the culture in the decade, and so we started collaborating on events. Early on his goal was to bring back the park jams of the ‘70s, ’cause they kind of like disappeared towards the late ‘80s.

A couple of members of the crew passed away, and unfortunately some were murdered. And the Rock Steady Crew anniversary was founded to commemorate the ones who had passed, but also to try to give younger people the experience of the outdoor park jam. We started in 1991, and because of my position with the radio show I helped program it. Because any of the artists who were nice on the mic, I was like, “Yo, here’s who we should have perform.” And then Legs asked me to host it, and then it took off. I mean, by ‘94, ‘95, we had like 5,000 people from all over the world flying in to be part of the Rock Steady Crew Annual Anniversary at Rock Steady Park, aka The Goat, which is where I grew up. It was a special time. Then I started DJing towards the mid-‘90s and the late ‘90s, and Legs put me down at Rock Steady. Not because I was a dancer, but because Rock Steady is not just a dance crew, it’s an organization to advocate for all elements and the experience of hip-hop.

I was a natural selection for him, ‘cause it’s also a family, too. There’s a lot of talented B-boys or B-girls out there that aren’t in Rock Steady. Rock Steady is very much about, “OK, we get along, we support each other.” So that’s how I got down back then.

Julian Brimmers

It really nicely ties in with what you already said, that everything happened on the playground and on the courts. It was like a whole cultural hop there, basically. What we just saw on this short sequence, coming back to you as a filmmaker, the gentleman before Crazy Legs also appears in your second film, The Stretch and Bobbito film.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, his name is Anthony Alonzo.

Julian Brimmers

And how do you know him?

Bobbito Garcia

Hosting shows with Rock Steady and [hosting] the radio show with Stretch led to me hosting events across the board. And in ‘93 I started hosting the very first showcase, which combined hip-hop, spoken word, and jazz. It was originally called Bebop and then it became known as All That, and moved to the Nuyorican Café. There I met a ton of poets, some of whom became very well known in the space. And many of whom, the first time they ever performed, I had brought them on stage. Again, this is going to be detailed with archival footage and archival photos in my next film Rock Rebel 45s.

But NymFlow 9 was one of those spoken word artists. His real name is Anthony Alonso. He was one of my favorites when I was doing the Nuyorican and unfortunately, in ‘96 I believe, he got incarcerated. He was inside for 14 years and I stayed in contact with him the whole time, wrote him letters, visited him, and when he came out, as a first-time film maker I felt that perhaps there was a way to help expose his forgotten talent. ‘Cause he was part of a class in the Nuyorican that included Saul Williams, anybody heard of him? He’s like the premier spoken word dude. You know, Lemon Andersen, a Tony award-winner with Def Jam Poetry, Suheir Hammad, another Tony award-winner. Nymflow 9 was part of all these, he was their contemporary and they all had a lot of respect for him.

So, I asked Anthony, “Are you still writing?” I knew he was still writing ‘cause he would write me letters from prison, some of which had contained poetry, so I felt like it was a good platform for him, ‘cause he loves basketball. I invited him and I thought he killed it. And he does a poem in the second film, Stretch and Bobbito. I don’t know that we’ll have him do a spoken word in my next film, ‘cause I don’t want to, you know — you can’t run it to the ground. But lovely dude, very different. I just wanted to give him the props that he deserved.

Julian Brimmers

So, the very interesting approach that you took for Doin’ It In The Park, for the history of pick-up basketball in New York City, is that you and Kevin Couliau, the director from France, just hopped on a bike and played on courts all over New York. You have a slightly similar approach for the second movie that you made, the Stretch and Bobbito movie, because once again you and a friend go on tour in NYC to meet some famous people and we have video footage of that. It really is nice to see how it transcends a well-known audio file, to see how people react. So maybe we can play the second video please?

(music: Big L and Jay-Z freestyle, The Stretch & Bobbito Show, 1995)

So that was very young Jigga Man when he was still with Jaz-O, going back like an oldie but a goodie — a goldie. It’s really nice to see — this is very iconic moment by now, this audio file took on a life of its own basically after the fact. You guys said before publicly that you didn’t realize at the time that you’d just witnessed some iconic moment. How could you at that time, right? So when that happened, now you have the footage to it, it seems like Jay-Z is not 100% aware that people in the common narrative think that he got a bit killed on that freestyle by Big L.

Bobbito Garcia

Well, I mean, that moment was not a battle. It’s been misinterpreted as one. People have surely taken sides and have an opinion about who had the better verse. Just as you would on many group cuts, like back in the ‘80s, the symphony cuts — like, where you have G-Rap and Big Daddy Kane, Craig G, and Masta Ace. And you’d be like, “Yo, who had the better verse?” “G-Rap had the better verse!” “Naw, Kane had the best verse!” That’s a long-standing tradition in hip-hop, to argue. I mean, who’s better: Lebron [James] or Michael Jordan? You know? So that’s something that is just fun and healthy for people in the community to discuss. But it was not a battle, they didn’t go up there to see who was nicer. They were just two great MCs sharing the moment.

And, yeah, I think it’s unfortunate that Big L was murdered. Some people don’t know at this point that he was shot in his face on his block in front of his home, and it was just terrible news. You know, terrible news.

Julian Brimmers

Apparently didn’t have anything to do with street stuff, right?

Bobbito Garcia

I don’t know the whole story. Honestly, I don’t even want to know. But he lived in a volatile and violent community and time, and, you know, we would all have loved to have seen Big L reach his full potential as an artist. That’s never gonna happen. So as great as this freestyle was, I think what really catapulted it to the extreme stratosphere is that there’s that continual question mark about L. Like, what would he have become if he was still alive? ‘Cause look at who he’s rhyming side-by-side with, and look what he became. Jay-Z became, you know, this multi-millionaire, 75 million records sold entrepreneur, you know — just taking over so many facets of multiple industries. And L was a good businessman. A lot of people don’t realize L had a phenomenal ear. Like, you know how they put Jay-Z as the head of Def Jam at one point? L brought up Jay-Z to our radio show. L brought up Killa Cam and Murder Mase to our radio show. They wound up selling millions of records too, as Cam’ron and Mase. L was the kind of dude, like, he loved our show. He loved being on it. He loved our audience. I mean, we have the same approach with him, Finesse, anybody we liked. You didn’t come up to our show to promote an album. You came up to our show to be a part of hip-hop and express yourself. Here’s the platform. Here’s the mic. Go nuts. And that’s what L did. And that’s what Jay-Z did that night. And so it was great. It took about 18 months to get Jay-Z on camera for the film, but it was worth it, and the fact that he shared what he did was mind-blowing.

Julian Brimmers

The reaction of these people is really priceless. Like the concept, and the reaction, to see the reaction of these people to their own own old verses, that’s pretty priceless. It’s a pretty priceless concept.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah. It was a deliberate decision to play the freestyles off cassette, to bring them back to their childhood, like when we used to play cassettes and put them in headphones and you could hear the crackle in the cassette cause it aged and some of the freestyles are like a dub of a dub, you know? That’s the only copy that exists anymore. Making both films was just so much fun. Making my next film has been a complete joy, although it’s been the most vulnerable I’ve been of the three because now because Rock Rubber 45s is going to be an autobiographical documentary, I have to give the backstory of my career. So I’m going into my childhood and my relationship with my parents and my family and things that aren’t always comfortable to share in public. I’m gonna be an open book.

Julian Brimmers

You’ve gone on that journey by yourself, or do you have another straight man?

Bobbito Garcia

Yes. Well, I mean I’m interviewing a lot of… My mom is in it and my brothers are in it and my best friend from childhood, my best friend from high school, my best friend from college, and then of course the Rosie Perezes and the Michael Rapaports and the Lin-Manuel Mirandas and the people who I’ve collaborated with professionally as well. Quincy Jones is in the film, Scottie Pippin, Charles Barkley, Patti Labelle, who was a mentor to me in high school. These are things that a lot of people don’t know about my life, but are gonna discover all these injections of really well known people who have had an effect on my life, and I’ve had an effect on them as well.

Julian Brimmers

And to wrap things up I wanted to ask you about the influence of Eddie Palmieri, ‘cause he’s coming back in various stages of your life, and especially in that film as well, right?

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah. Well, Eddie and I have a really beautiful history. In 1995 I was invited to Copenhagen, Denmark, with Stretch and we performed out there. The promoter, DJ Typhoon, wound up booking me in his country like 14 times in the next seven years. One of those bookings was Eddie Palmieri, who was on tour. First of all, let me backtrack. Eddie Palmieri has been recording albums since the 1950s. He is a treasure of Latin music. He’s won 10, or maybe 11 Grammy Awards, so we’re talking about one of the most accomplished musicians in Latin music history. Anyway, so I opened up for him there. He didn’t know who I was. I closed out afterwards, and the first song that I played after their set was “Azucar,” part two and part three, off of the Live At Sing Sing album, and one of the members of his band came up to me and was like, “What do you know about that?” He thought I was Danish. And I was like just, “Yo soy Boricua, I’m from New York.” He was like, “Oh, shit! What’re you doing out here?” I was like, “Yo, they flew me out here to do this event.” He was like, “Damn!” He was really impressed.

That was like the beginning of the bond that I had with Eddie and Eddie’s band. Then, man, what year was it? I don’t recall the exact year, but I met with his lawyer/manager and they were like, “We want to redo Harlem River Drive. We would love to have you involved in it somehow.” I was like, “Yo, let me know.” Nothing happened to that. Eddie hadn’t recorded for many years, and in 2011 I was asked to be the opening DJ for his 75th birthday. At the time I was directing, writing, producing, doing In The Park, and I just kind of threw it out there. I was like, “Would you want to score the film?” Not knowing anything.

Julian Brimmers

As you would do, ask an 11-time Grammy winner to score your independent movie.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, yeah — “Hey, Quincy Jones, would you like to score my film? I’m a first time filmmaker doing a film with a budget of like $5, but you know…?” The thing was that he had never scored a film, he had never been asked to do one, and he really loved who I am and what I represent and what the film was gonna represent, and he jumped onboard. It turned out that he hadn’t made any original compositions in years. What I asked of him was, like, "I want you to create a vibe that is similar to your Harlem River Drive album from 1971.”

That started something that none of us could’ve predicted, because he did the three songs, we put them in the film and it lit a flame underneath him and he got really inspired and he kept on composing. He has a new album out called Sabiduría, and in the process there started to become this sort of revitalization and interest in the Harlem River Drive album. Then Red Bull got behind it and funded the Harlem River Drive revisited concert. In 2016 I was again asked, it was like the fourth or fifth time I was asked to open up for Eddie Palmieri. I closed afterwards. That’s weird. The DJs here, you know what time it is. You don’t want to go after a legend. It’s like, when Eddie Palmieri’s concert is over, I feel like, just get on the mic, say thank you to everybody and say goodbye, but I’ve been asked to perform afterwards as well. I asked him to be interviewed for my film and he blew me away by what he shared. He’s a brilliant soul, provocative mind, and again I encourage all of you in 2018 to keep on your radar, the film titled Rock Rubber 45s. There will be a lot revealed in it that is gonna be mind-blowing.

Julian Brimmers

Perfect, and no one has seen any of it so far, except from one dude on the plane who’s sitting next to you.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah. I was telling him yesterday, I taught myself how to edit on Adobe Premiere, and the beauty of modern technology is I can edit anywhere as long as I have my external hard drives. I’ve been editing on flights, but on my flight from Nice to Rome, the dude sitting next to me was all up in my laptop, like [peers forwards]. When I was editing he stood there with his mouth open for like 30 minutes. Then finally I was editing the Eddie Palmieri concert that Red Bull produced and towards the end, you finally get some footage of me going through my 7”s and the dude was like, “Oh, you’re a DJ.” I said, “Yeah.” I was like, thanks for having your ass all up in my face.

Julian Brimmers

I think I speak for everyone that we are as curious as he was to see that. So thanks so much for sharing all that with us.

Bobbito Garcia

For sure. You can go to rockrubber45s.com or follow @rockrubber45s on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, to see production photos and information and everything.

Julian Brimmers

Thanks Bobbito.

Bobbito Garcia

Are we gonna open it up for questions from the crowd?

Audience member

When you talked about Big L, I remembered MF Grimm and the story about the recording of the song in Large Professor’s Live At The Barbecue. I know that MF Grimm got shot when he’s on his way to the studio. That’s the first appearance of Nas in a song. I’m impressed by this story because, if that hadn’t happened, maybe MF Grimm would be in the place of Nas nowadays. Are there any artists or MCs that have been on your show that you thought were very dope but they stayed underrated?

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, I mean, in the eight years that me and Stretch did the radio show — and I continued to do the show for four years after that, so, I was on radio for 12 years — in the eight years of me and Stretch being on air together, we had 300 unsigned artists come to our show, and I can tell that there was no shortage of phenomenal MCs. So sure, some went into the stratosphere with record sales and awareness and shows, but there were many who were well deserving. Just not in the right place at the right time, or didn’t have the right producer, or didn’t have the right manager, or didn’t have the right record label. That didn’t take anything away from their performance on our show. For example, the longest freestyle in the film, Stretch and Bobbito: Radio That Changed Lives, is not Nas, is not Biggie, it’s not Jay-Z, it’s by O.C. He is someone who we felt completely embodied the ethos of hip-hop and the best it could present. He was compelling, he was authentic, he was spirited, he was intelligent. Great presence onstage. Great live show. I mean, he had everything lined up to be a star, and it didn’t happen for him.

And that’s fine, you know. It’s not meant for everybody. I didn’t get paid to do the radio show. I did it anyway. The best artists, in my estimation, didn’t rhyme so that they could get a contract and get millions of record sales. They rhymed, as O.C. said in the song “Times Up”: “It’s the principle of it, I get a rush when I bust some dope rhymes I wrote, that maybe somebody will quote.” In a very innocent way, that’s why we came to hip-hop. Stretch and I didn’t do the radio show to become globally renowned. We did a radio show because it was the principle of it. We wanted to play dope music and help great artists be exposed. So, yeah, there’s a lot of artists, a lot of artists.

Audience member

Can I ask you feel about nowadays on your shows — is there anything you’re missing from them, like live performances and freestyles? Because we have a lot of popular shows nowadays but there are already sets which they play. They are not many live appearances, like in your show.

Bobbito Garcia

I can’t really say. I stopped listening to radio about 15 years ago. That’s FM radio, and online radio is even more difficult for me. That’s not to… there are still great radio shows out there that are worthy of your attention. There are amazing artists out there who are making songs that are worthy of your attention.

When I retired from radio, I felt like I’d done my duty to the cause and had to move on and do other things, and focus on other things and put my attention into other things that challenged me, like filmmaking. Filmmaking is a challenge for me because, as Julian said, I had no experience. Writing a book challenged me. I had never written a book before. Producing TV shows. It’s other ways of expressing myself. Each of those things, because I always strive for excellence in everything that I do, that requires that I’m gonna — just the same way that me and Stretch listened to hours and hours, hundreds of songs a week — that’s what I do now when it comes to filmmaking, or when it comes to my basketball tournament, Full Court 21, which is presented in four continents around the world and 20 international cities. Everything I do is always original and challenging. I don’t have the time or the interest to really tell you what radio shows are missing now or what they should do. I don’t know. Actually, it would be better if you answered that question yourself, if you’re in that mix.

Julian Brimmers

But you also meant live shows, right? Like, did you also mean hip-hop live shows, or just regular shows?

Audience member

I mean live on the radio.

Julian Brimmers

Right, that kind of live element.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, I mean, it’s interesting because the impetus behind us having so many MCs live back then was that you couldn’t hear them otherwise. Like, if you were unsigned, there were artists on our show who didn’t even have demos. Like Big Pun, when he came onto the show as an unsigned MC, he did not even have a demo. He had never recorded in a studio. We gave him a platform. But now, I know artists who — look at Chance The Rapper, this dude doesn’t have a record label deal. He’s putting out mixtapes. He’s not even putting out vinyl or CDs, it’s just digital release and that’s it, and he’s world famous, winning Grammys and everything. So, you know, the whole model has changed. That doesn’t take away the need for live.

Audience member

Thinking about Chance The Rapper, are there any names…

Bobbito Garcia

Hold on, hold on, hold on. [To host] You gonna let her ask a third question? Does anyone else have questions? [Laughter] I’m just messing with you.

Julian Brimmers

I also really want to hear what you have to say about Chance The Rapper.

Audience member

No, I don’t want to talk about him. I would like to ask about which are your personal favorites from now, new school MCs.

Bobbito Garcia

I can’t really say.

Audience member

Do you follow the scene?

Bobbito Garcia

I don’t. I’m a vinyl dude, right? I’m a hip-hop head who grew up dancing. So a lot of the current rap, I don’t find it danceable. As a DJ who only plays vinyl, that cuts. Like, when I go record shopping, if I happen to be like, “Oh, that record looks interesting.” If I listen to it, nine out of ten times, the record is not going to be danceable at all. It’s just gonna be a hip-hop record that’s more like head-nod, you know, more about the lyrics. Which is great, but because I have limited time to listen to records and because I have limited time to get my records ready to DJ, I prioritize records that I can dance to.

Audience member

Did you hear about Anderson .Paak?

Bobbito Garcia

And that is the fourth question. Oh my god, why don’t you just sit here? Julian, go back to the crowd! She’s taken over your job.

Julian Brimmers

I reckon the answer is probably no, for Anderson .Paak? Do you know Anderson .Paak?

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah, I’m aware of him. I don’t know his music well, but I’m aware of him.

Audience member

Thank you.

Julian Brimmers

Thank you. Are there any further questions?

Bobbito Garcia

Wait, give her a round of applause, please. [Applause]

Julian Brimmers

So, it’s an open mic. Sir in the Quasimodo shirt.

Audience member

Hi, my question is about the record label, Fondle ‘Em. How did you decide to start it and what was the idea behind it? Was it to get big, like Def Jam? Or was it just something to do with people you know?

Bobbito Garcia

I had the great fortune of working for Def Jam, as I mentioned, one of the prominent record labels in music history, right? Then I left in ‘93 to start a label with Pete Nice, from the group 3rd Bass, called Hoppoh. We released and artist named Curious, we also released Count Base D. When KMD got released from their deal with Elektra, when the Black Bastards album was rejected by the label, we actually tried to grab KMD and put them out on Hoppoh, which was distributed by Columbia. I think they were still Columbia CBS, they hadn’t become Columbia Sony yet. But Columbia didn’t allow us to sign KMD.

We also discovered a group called Mudbones, who had a phenomenal MC. Back to [the question about] the unknown MCs who never really made it, Mudbones had a lead MC in the group who was a kid named Cage. Cage used to come up to me and Stretch’s show, crushed it. He became a sort of underground all-star, if you will. We tried to sign Cage to Hoppoh Columbia as well. None of that happened. It was frustrating for me and Pete, quite honestly.

I was on the radio with Stretch, playing a lot of demos when Stretch wasn’t there, because I still had to put forth great music in the absence of my favorite DJ in the world. There was a dude named Rich King who worked at Big Daddy Distribution in New Jersey. He was like, “Yo, you got all these incredible demos. What are you doing with them? There’s people around the world that would love to have more vinyl.” I was like, “I don’t know.” First of all, we had artists on the show that were sticklers about us playing promos but only playing them once, which was really annoying for our listeners, because they’d be calling us up for a year, like, “Yo, please, play that Godfather Don/Kool Keith record.” We’re like, “Nah, sorry.”

It’s totally the opposite of the today, right? You’d be like, “Oh, let me do a Google search, Godfather Don/Kool Keith. Oh, word. It’s there.” We would fuck with people. It’s like, “You want to hear that? We’re never playing it again!” [Laughs] Rich was like, “Yo, speak to Godfather Don and Kool Keith about putting out the Cenubites.” That was their group. I spoke to them, and it took some convincing, but they were like, “Yo, cool. Go for it.” We pressed up, I don’t know, 2,000, 3,000 copies of the Cenubites. That was the first release. That was in December of ‘95.

It turned out that I was really ahead of the curve, because in ‘96 or ‘97, Rich King and Joe Abajian partnered and started Fat Beats Distribution, and Fat Beats Distribution became the first company that was really just pushing hip-hop and independent hip-hop. This is what we’re about for the culture, because we’re from the culture, and we are the culture. They had the Fat Beats store as well. Then ABB came out, and Stones Throw, and Eastern Conference, and Def Jux, and all these incredible independent labels from ‘96 to ‘97 on.

I’m a little bit before that with Fondle ‘Em. I put out Siah & Yeshua DapoED, and I put out MF Doom, his first release, and Cage’s first release, and the Arsonists’ first release. All these groups did very well in the independent scene. I was just in the right place at the right time with the right vision. Fondle ‘Em was a great label, but around 2001 I decided to dead it, and I started my second label, which was Fruitmeat. I started putting out music that was more representative of the full scope of what I love. I put out Spanish Harlem Orchestra, Vinia Mojica, who sang on a lot of hip-hop records. I put out Binkis, a dope hip-hop record. Then my last label was Alala, which has been a strictly 7” label.

I’ve only put out records when I’ve felt strongly about them. I never had the label to pay my rent, so I never was like, “Oh my God. I got to get another new release. I’ll just put out anything.” It’s always been really spaced out, and just, “This record is incredible. It’s not on vinyl. Let me put it out.”

Julian Brimmers

You said your last label was Alala. Is that defunct now?

Bobbito Garcia

I haven’t put out… my last release on Alala was a song featuring myself. What are you laughing at? That’s not funny! [Laughs]

Julian Brimmers

It’s just like the first catalog number of Fondle ‘Em as well.

Bobbito Garcia

Yeah. I was on that, too. I wrote a song. I wrote a spoken word piece called “Park Pick-Up Player” for the film Doin’ It In The Park. I had Mark De Clive-Lowe, a really talented producer based in LA, remix it. We couldn’t find the right place for it in Doin’ It In The Park: Pick-Up Basketball, NYC, so I decided to release it as a 7”, and that was the last release that I did on Alala. It’s still available, around, if any collectors or DJs want to scoop it up. I believe it’s available on iTunes, too, although, I don’t know. I’m not a digital dude. Check it out. All right? Thanks.

Audience member

I have another one, if it’s okay.

Bobbito Garcia

Oh my God.

Audience member

It’s my final one.

Bobbito Garcia

He should sit here. Julian, you’re out of a job, man.

Julian Brimmers

I’m done. Yeah.

Audience member

You’ve worked with MF Doom. Can you share something, like a story with him, or something from the creative process?

Bobbito Garcia

Sure. Of course. Do you know the song “Rhymes Like Dimes”?

Audience member

Yeah.

Of course, right? Yeah. “Rhymes Like Dimes” is a very prominent song in Doom’s career. It’s on his first album, Doomsday, which I released on my label, Fondle ‘Em. He called me up and said, “Yo, Bob. I need to sample ‘100 Ways’. I don’t have the record.” It’s not a rare record. It’s sold millions of copies, off a Quincy Jones album. I said, “Sure. Come over.” He comes over with his sampler. He plugs it into my mixer, puts the record on. I’m watching magic before my eyes. He’s looping it, he loops it in 10 minutes, puts the drums on [sings melody], he does the rhymes. He’s like, “Yo, I got the microphone. Why don’t you just hop on the end of the record?” I was like, “Nah. What am I going to say?” He was like, “Just do it for me.” I said, “All right. Whatever.”

He throws a beat, and he gives me the mic, and I’m talking nonsense at the end of the record. Still, to this day, everyone’s like — when did that come out? ‘99, I think, so it’s almost 20 years later — and people on Twitter are constantly like, “Mashed potatoes, applesauce,” quoting the most nonsensical appearance in rap history. It just made no sense. It made no sense. For a minute, I just talked out of my ass, and people loved it, which, I don’t know what that says for the fans of Fondle ‘Em [laughs]. It was a fun moment. I was glad to be a part of it. That record has been re-released a bunch of times. I’ve never seen any royalties off of it [laughs], but it’s cool.

Audience member

Thanks.

Julian Brimmers

Last question maybe.

Bobbito Garcia

Hey, everybody give Irina a round of applause.

Julian Brimmers

Yeah. Give it up for Irina, please. She’s a wonderful host over here.

Audience member

My question is coming just from curiosity, maybe it’s a funny story about why you picked up DJ Cucumber Slice?

Bobbito Garcia

Oh, yes. Well, so I was known as Bobbito the Barber, the Edge Up King, the King of Swing, back in the early ‘90s on the hiphop show with Stretch. I started DJing around ‘95, was very light with it initially. The first woman to give me a weekly gig at Coney Island High said, “Yo, Bob. You gotta...” And we weren’t thinking about branding back then, or marketing, nothing like [that]. She was just like, “Yo, you got to come up with a different nickname for you as a DJ. Bobbito the Barber doesn’t really quite fit.” I was, “Ah, yeah. Good idea.” She was like, “How about Cucumber Slice?” It’s literally the first thing she said.

Now, have any of you ever heard of Claw Money? She’s got a clothing line. She’s a famous graffiti artist now. She’s done design collaborations with Nike. She’s well-known streetwear. It was her. She wasn’t known at the time. She was Claudia, my homegirl Claudia. Yeah, Claw Money gave me the nickname Cucumber Slice. I just ran with it. I was like, “Word. I’m Cucumber Slice.” When I turned 40, I retired Cucumber Slice. It just didn’t feel right, being 40 years old, being like, “My name is Cucumber Slice,” so then I shifted back to Kool Bob Love, which was the earlier nickname that MC Serch, from the group 3rd Bass, had given me. All this will be detailed with archival footage and photos in my next film, Rock Rubber 45s.