Breakbeat Lou

Serko Fu

Welcome to this new lecture. This time we have a legend, a pioneer. Someone who’s been around since the beginning. Born in the Bronx; a creator, a co-founder of one of the most important labels. And many of us unknowingly grew up listening to records, dancing and in the DJs’ case, mixing records, that were sampled from the compilations edited by my brother and his colleague. Let’s please give it up for Breakbeat Lou. [applause]

Breakbeat Lou

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

Serko Fu

Well, welcome Lou. First of all I’d like you to tell us… maybe the question I’m about to ask is too clichéd for you. However, there have been very few opportunities for someone who’s lived hip-hop’s genesis firsthand to tell us about it, and in Spanish. So I’d like you to tell us what growing up in New York in the ’70s was like?

Breakbeat Lou

Thank you, thank you. Well, for me it started at home with my mom. She played records, and she called it ‘Cleaning Saturdays.’ And usually at 7.30 in the morning, the first thing you heard was music from the record player. And then she started to clean. And so I began to develop an ear and a taste for music.

We’ll fast forward to ’72. In ’72 there started to be what are now called graffiti writers, but back then we just called them writers. I started doing what they call tagging in ’72. It was a marvelous experience for me, because back then New York City schools didn’t have the funds to support art. So we started to put our names on what were called panel vans or on trains, or on any white wall really, to express ourselves. We’ll fast forward to ’73. In ’73 many block parties started – back then we called them jams – and there were always dance competitions. And as I remember it – I can’t talk for the whole state of New York – but I remember that it was mostly Latinos at them. In ’73 we started the dance competitions and instead of fighting, we danced. August 11 was the date [Kool] Herc started to play records in a different way. But what I’ll say is, if it wasn’t for Latin blood, hip-hop wouldn’t exist.

The reason I’m saying this is because what inspired Herc to play records like that were the dancers back then who mostly danced to the record’s break. [Some popular breaks] back then were “Apache,” “Give It Up Or Turnit A Loose,” and “The Mexican.” Those are the records I remember with that rhythm. And we waited for that break to start dancing. I think that if it wasn’t for Latin dancers back then we wouldn’t be able to call our culture hip-hop culture.

Serko Fu

Interesting. These parties you mention with Kool Herc back then, the block parties, what were they like? Do you remember the first party you witnessed?

Breakbeat Lou

Back then it was mostly a tightknit community. If someone had a hard time paying rent, or getting food, we would organize a party to get the money or something. We’d ask the police department for permission to close the streets and we’d just play music; not with the type of DJ that had a turntable and a mixer, just music. And we had fun; we danced from noon until they asked us to turn it off. Back then the community was tight, we helped each other.

And what Herc also did then was to found a community center, where he played that music so the young people wouldn’t get in gangs or anything like that, and they’d have fun instead, with something that wouldn’t be dangerous for them.

Serko Fu

Interesting, interesting. You say you started doing graffiti, then you were a b-boy. When did you start as a DJ?

Breakbeat Lou

Let’s see... When the boom of Herc playing that kind of music with that rhythm happened, there were two other people too, who started to make noise on their own, and those were Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash.

Everybody says that hip-hop started in the South Bronx. It actually didn’t. Kool Herc lived in the Northwest Bronx, that’s a completely different place. Flash did live in the South Bronx and Afrika Bambaataa was in the Northeast Bronx. Back then those were the three points that were really lively, and everybody wanted to go there and have fun, because it was something wonderful for us. There wasn’t any other kind of party that played that type of music, there wasn’t anyone who’d take the mic and communicate with people like that. It was something special for everyone. I couldn’t wait until the following week. It was amazing to go to those parties.

A friend of mine bought a turntable in ’74, with a group called the Paradise Crew, and that’s when I started playing as a disc jockey for the first time. Back then, I don’t know if it’s the same now, but back then there was something called “paying your dues.” I would practice in a room, but I couldn’t play outside until ’78. But they’d call me, and I used to carry the crates. My job was to make sure records got to where they had to be. I was a little kid, carrying a crate with records. But I didn’t care about the particulars of what I did. Because of my love for music and for culture, I wanted to be there. To be on the other side of the ropes was a thing of pride. And I was there. With my hands all dirty and full of scratches, but it was amazing. I felt proud to be in that kind of place – on the crew side, not on the other side.

Serko Fu

So you paid your dues.

Breakbeat Lou

I paid my dues.

Serko Fu

Well, so... We usually see you play with two Technics and your 45s, but how did you start? Because I doubt you started with a couple of Technics. How was it?

Breakbeat Lou

The way I started practicing as a DJ, and my mom wanted to kill me every time she saw me, was by having a record player on one side and an 8-track tape recorder on the other side. I’d use a switch to go from the phono receiver to the 8-track tape. Without knowing at what point of the song I was, but I had the idea of playing the two records at the same time and switching from one song to another. It really touched my heart and I said, “This is what I want to do from now on.”

And my first... My brother-in-law bought me my first turntable, because he saw me going to my friends’ houses to play and I’d come back with that fever, I couldn’t stop talking about music, and he said, “I’m tired of seeing you like this, I’ll buy you your own player.” And I still have it, the Technics [SL-B101], belt-drive turntable. And I have the mixer too, a Numark DM-500 mixer, that was the first mixer with cue point and crossfaders. He bought those for me in ’81. But before that my first turntable was a Pioneer, which was a wooden piece of furniture, and then I started with the [SL-B101], which they also bought for me. But I think God had this in store for me, because I remember the first record I bought in 1973. It was a Willie Colón record called “Che Che Cole,” a 45 I have to this day. And that made me proud, to have a vinyl record in my hand and say, “This is mine,” because back then, I don’t know if it was the same in the rest of the world, but in New York the pride of having a record meant that everybody would put their name on it. “This record is mine.” To have my own record and say, “Don’t touch this record, it’s mine,” made me feel really proud. That was the first record I bought.

The concept of being a crate digger started in 1978. It was a record called “Space Funk”, by Manzel. And the reason for that was because it came out that same year. It was a good record for DJs and b-boys, and as I was still a b-boy, I chose it. But after that I didn’t stop buying until ’95, ’96.

Serko Fu

How many records do you own?

Breakbeat Lou

Last I checked, after the purge... The most I ever had was a little over 100,000. And now I have 75,000. Those are just the LPs. Now, the 12”s, the singles, I have 12,000, and around 7,000 45s.

Serko Fu

So few!

Breakbeat Lou

Just a small amount.

Serko Fu

You told us about how it started, how you experienced it, how you started collecting, how you became a DJ. And in the ’80s it was a different story, right? Everything started to change. I know you were very close to everything. I know you have many stories; you were close to Scott La Rock and Boogie Down Productions. Could you tell us something about those days, some stories?

Breakbeat Lou

The first time I saw Scott La Rock, I don’t know if you remember but in the ’80s, the ’90s… I don’t know if they still exist, record pools. I met him back then. Columbia Records held meetings every Monday called The Best Club. And as he was one of the most popular DJs, like me, we met right there. He asked me, “Where do you live?” and I said, “In the Bronx.” And he said, “I’m going to hold a record pool in the Bronx.” And I said, “I go to one already, that’s why I know about them,” “OK, but please come to mine.” And we began our friendship after that, that’s how it started.

And Scott La Rock was someone who really lived the culture from the heart, truly. If you don’t know, he was the one who made the cassette recordings of Slick Rick’s “La Di Da Di” and “Treat Her Like a Prostitute.” At a club called Broadway 96. And back then, I remember that as I was already producing things, he called me one day and told me, “Can you come to my place? I know you’re doing quite a bit and I want help with something.” And I said, “OK, I’m on my way.” He’d bought an E-mu Drumulator, and he didn’t know how to use it. And as I was doing recordings already I taught him how to program that machine. And two weeks later he says, “I just signed a contract because I met a guy who’s a rapper and we’re going to do some recordings.” And I asked him, “Tell me how you met him?” And there was a drawing on his cassette and he said that this guy had made the drawing a long time ago, and the guy was called KRS-One. And he says, “He has a gift for recording. I met him at work,” because back then he was a social worker and KRS-One’s family lived in a shelter, so that’s where he met him. And he tells me, “I have a contract that I’m going to sign, and the recording is mostly finished, but I know this isn’t the end – soon he’ll make another record and I’ll call you.” Let’s move forward a bit. The record came out, “South Bronx”, “The Bridge is Over.” They got a contract with Jive Records. He called me a week before getting killed and he said, “I need help with this, let’s meet in two weeks, when I come back from signing the contract.” And I never saw him again. What I can say is that he was one of the legends, and he never saw the end of his career.

Serko Fu

Back then you were more involved in production and doing projects. In the studio, recording, etc. Hip-hop was already there, but there was a time, I don’t know in which part of the ’80s, when something existed that they called freestyle, but not the kind you do [points to audience], don’t get excited. It was Latin freestyle, right? What was Latin freestyle; what did they call Latin freestyle?

Breakbeat Lou

It started, if we’re going to talk about the beginning, with the fact that Latinos were always around hip-hop. Since the beginning. In the beginning, hip-hop records, the tempo was around 101 to 110, tops. And a record came out, called “Planet Rock” that reaches 120; it was faster music. And when that record came out, as Latinos liked to dance to salsa, bomba, cha-cha-chá – I mean, things with more rhythm – that record was really popular in New York with the original hip-hop crowd and the Latin hip-hop crowd.

On that same release John Robie and Arthur Baker also included a song called “Play at Your Own Risk,” by a group called Planet Patrol, and if you see the 2-inch tape, both songs are on the same tape. Both songs came out six weeks apart. The “Play at Your Own Risk” record was usually played at the Fun House, at The Roxy, or at Danceteria; the same Latin youth that usually danced to the hip-hop records lost their minds when they played this music. They started dancing. As if it was the same kind of music they danced to at Copacabana, or the Palladium.

So they started to call us “Latin Hip-Hoppers.” Because we usually dressed the same as the regular hip-hop crowd, but when it was time to dance to fast-paced music, mostly the Latinos were the ones who danced, not Americans or those kind of people. Back then the first name for that kind of music was freestyle, like the records we sang, Lisa Lisa, Trinere, Debbie Deb or that crowd, the first name for it was Latin hip-hop. Because back then, the records with that kind of music, that were incredible in my opinion, were C-Bank’s “One More Shot” and “Let the Music Play” by Shannon.

Serko Fu

Hey, we’re now approaching the late ’80s. Back then there was a lot of music that was barely being labeled, and someone names it, right? Be it for the dances or for the raps. You were involved in [the project] 2 in a Room, right? Can you tell us a bit about that too?

Breakbeat Lou

2 in a Room was a project launched by Cutting Records. They wanted to put two producers in a room to make songs. The first room was for me and Chep Nuñez, the second room was for Todd Terry and Little Louie Vega, the third room was for George Morel and another guy called Tony Maserati. And the last room was Roger Pauletta and Dose Material, who were the only ones with vocals. Those were real songs, not instrumentals. The record made by George Morel, called “As It Grooves,” was the first to be played, mainly on New York stations and mostly in England. What the Cutting Records president, Aldo [Marin], wanted to do was to, first, put a girl on it to sing, but they never got the singer. So he said, “Let’s put Dose,” who already has a record, with George Morel in a room and see what happens. The record was going to be “As It Grooves,” but what Dose wrote was called “Wiggle It.” And that song was a hit. It went gold in the US, gold in England, gold in Germany and gold in Switzerland. Many stories.

Serko Fu

So, that was your journey in hip-hop. And getting to Street Beat [Records], how did you found it? How did you decide, “OK, let’s make a compilation of breaks?” How did you conceive of it?

Breakbeat Lou

That was in two stages; the first was in 1980 and was a record called Fusion Beats, and the company was called Bozo Meko. And the reason for that were the two recordings that Bambaataa gave Lenny [Roberts] and me. They were both recorded in the Bronx. One was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five, and the other was what they called a “post tape” by a DJ called Afrika Islam, who no one knows is brown, American and Puerto Rican. And there’s Latin blood tied into all this again. That record was really popular in those times.

There was another compilation called Super Disco Breaks. But the recordings weren’t good. So we came out with a record called Octopus Breakbeats, that were pirate records from 1980 to ‘84. In ‘84 music was changing so much. What happened was that instead of DJs cutting up breakbeats, they were cutting up what they called “rap records.” Like “Love Rap”, “Feel the Heartbeat,” “Sucka M.C.’s,” and things like that.

If the foundation of something doesn’t stay true to what it’s supposed to be, I don’t think it’s going to last. So we both decided we’d give [DJs and producers] the materials for the records that played in the jams, that ended up being the first nine volumes [of Ultimate Breaks and Beats], so they’d at least have the songs that really started the culture. So that was from ‘80 to ‘84. In ‘84 everybody thought that hip-hop wasn’t going to last. That’s when Crazy Legs came and decided to make a movie, so he worked on Flashdance. And that’s when we could say the world saw hip-hop with new eyes. And it wasn’t a puppet show, or something to do with gangs, or something illegal. They saw this was a real art. When they saw the music touched the dancers’ souls, that’s when they could see it was amazing. And then Beat Street happened. And I think that was the beginning of what we now know as hip-hop.

Serko Fu

Speaking about those compilations, I know they’ve used many iconic breaks. Breaks used by people like Marley Marl and a lot more.

Breakbeat Lou

It’s an amazing thing, I never thought those records were going to be what they are now. At first, I thought it was going to be a tool for DJs, nothing else. It started in 1986, when Marley Marl discovered you could sample and pick out the drums individually, and put them in [productions], and an amazing thing began right then. At that time, when we came out with Street Beat Records, which was also in ’86, what everyone thought hip-hop was going to be had changed. And it changed so much that in 1995, in the Billboard top 100 singles chart, of the 52 weeks in the year, for 37 weeks there were records [charted] that sampled something from Street Beat Records. Mariah Carey sampled “Blind Alley,” Janet Jackson sampled “Impeach The President,” and the last group, which always annoys me, Hanson’s “MMMBop,” which samples “Synthetic Substitution,” if you watch the beginning of Hanson[‘s video] they play “Synthetic Substitution” and then the younger one plays on that same rhythm. 37 weeks in 1995, in those weeks if it wasn’t for those compilations we put out, those songs wouldn’t have been made.

Serko Fu

So, OK. You already told us a bit about the songs that were used for your compilations. There’s one especially that we all know, and I say it again, we may know it without realizing it, and that’s the Amen break, or the Amen, that many of us may not know by name but have surely heard it, be it in rap, in drum & bass, and you could say it made waves, right? Jungle…

Breakbeat Lou

I mean, it was appropriated for many songs. Chicago house, Detroit house...

Serko Fu

Do you remember when you found that break?

Breakbeat Lou

I didn’t find it, Afrika Bambaataa did. I credit Afrika Bambaataa, it was in 1980. The first time I knew what that record really was. And we put it in volume one. If you know and see volume one of Ultimate Breaks & Beats, that’s the second song we put in that compilation. And to me the really amazing thing about that record was that it was really fast. But because of how we played it, it was a 45 RPM [record], we played it at 33 RPM and it was what you call a real ‘bop your head’ hip-hop beat. So, that recording, this record itself they say is the most sampled record in history. There is no record that was more sampled than that one. If it wasn’t for us that record wouldn’t be in the world like it is right now.

Serko Fu

And when you listened to it, when you had it, did you think it was going to be anything special? Or did you see it like any other good break?

Breakbeat Lou

It was the “soup of the day” break, the music of the moment. We didn’t think that 30 or 40 years later it would have the history it has now. Remember that it was a B-side of a record that won a Grammy. And then we changed how it originally sounded, it wasn’t that way. It originally wasn’t fast, then slow and then fast again. The sound is something that, I can’t explain how it had such a big influence. If one looks now so many records that exploded, by N.W.A., Mantronix, Ultramagnetic MCs, EPMD, Public Enemy, all those people used that record in some way or another.

Serko Fu

What would your most precious record be? A record you’d say, “This is my jewel,” be it because of its history or the value it has for you?

Breakbeat Lou

The record is “Beggin’” by Frankie Valli & The Four Seasons, and the reason is because it belonged to my mom. And my mom... In 2008. I got out of the industry in ’95, because of my family and it’s like that, not because of something else. My mom tells me in 2008, “There will come a time when the world will recognize you for what you did.” And I replied, “Mom, I’m working in a bank now, what’s all that about?” That was in February 2008. In October 2008, God took her. In April 2009, I don’t know what happened but Kenny Dope wanted to know who the person was called Louis Flores who appeared on the records [credits]. And then began what we have now: Me being here, in all these places, in Cuba, which was a dream of mine, coming to this precious island. Like we call it, the twin island. And being around Latin hip-hop culture, as we are never given enough credit for being involved in this. And having the opportunity to tell the story. And reaching I don’t know how many people who are going to watch this recording. All because of... The love my mom had for music, the love my mom had for me.

And as for that record called “Beggin’,” it’s a 45 that I still have to this date, and that you can buy in any store in the secondhand section for six or seven dollars, or whatever. To me, that record is priceless.

Serko Fu

Talking about producing, about crates and about digging, you’re very close with Diamond D, Buckwild, people from Diggin’ in the Crates [crew], aren’t you? You were there, I imagine, since before the group was formed. Can you tell us a bit about that?

Breakbeat Lou

Yes, of course. As I’m a good friend of Jazzy Jay, of the Zulu Nation, or Jazzy Five, or Strong City Records. The first recording Diamond D did was for a group called Ultimate Force. I met him when I worked at a record store in the Bronx; he came around all the time. And he told me, “I know you make these records, listen,” he gave me a cassette, “I want to know what you think about this.” And to me it was something incredible because he used a record called... If I remember correctly... “How Time Passes.” But it was a breakbeat too, it was amazing. He said, “Jazzy Jay helped me, and I have many more that I’m going to make. I’ve got two more friends helping me with the recording.” The two friends were Showbiz and Lord Finesse. And those days with Lord Finesse we talked, usually, almost every day. Because we were colleagues, besides being music partners, and we played several times a year together in different places. He’s like a brother to me, because we’re of one mind in how we see music, as men, as third world people, in our opinions of what things should be like, or in seeing what we can do to improve our culture, called hip-hop.

They always tell me about Buckwild, Showbiz, A.G... That if it wasn’t for us inspiring them to be diggers… because they mostly didn’t have that knowledge until they bought the Ultimate Breaks & Beats compilation. It was then that they had that idea and said, “Oh, if these records are like this, let’s see what other records this artist has that have this kind of music. Or let’s see, if this person recorded with these artists, we’ll see what they did with these other artists.” That was before we could listen to records on a record player [in a shop], like we can now. You had to do it like I did. I went to those places, picked up a record, smelled it, I looked at it like this, put it down and walked away, went back to look at it again. I looked at the little paper again and I checked out the clothes they had on at the time, and the credits, and in what city it was recorded in, if their afro was a bit crooked. It’s an incredible thing how one looks for something that can tell you, “Yes, this is funky.” That’s how we bought them back then. And still, when I’m buying now, I never listen to the records, I look at them, I smell them, and if they look right I buy them.

Serko Fu

What would be your craziest story of finding a record?

Breakbeat Lou

Lenny and I went to a place, I remember it well, it was in Tennessee or something. We usually had a trick in those days. I don’t know if you know what a wooden pallet is, where they put the products, boxes, like this. So when we went shopping, we laid a pallet, and put the records we were going to buy on it. Back then many people didn’t know the record called “A Little Less Conversation,” by Elvis Presley. Normally, at that time the cheapest you could buy it for was 15 dollars. But the boxes were wet and very dirty. What I did was pick up the box and move it closer to where we were, and mostly when we went shopping, the place we went to, they didn’t look at the records that were on the pallet. They said, “If this is what you’re taking, this is what we’re charging.” At that time there was minimum 150 of those Elvis Presley records. Normally, if we bought it then it was going to cost us two, three dollars. We paid 55 cents for those records, and afterwards we sold them for 25 to 55 dollars each.

Serko Fu

What is the most you’ve paid for a record?

Breakbeat Lou

Nobody is going to believe this, let’s say the three best. I went to the Salvation Army; do you know the record “Vitamin C,” by Can? It’s a b-boy record. I don’t know if I remember... Let’s say the record cost at least 150 dollars, I paid three dollars for that record. Three dollars. Now, the most I’ve paid for a record was 75 dollars and it was an Italian promo only copy of “Take Me to the Mardi Gras.” Rare, very rare. Right now it’s at least 150 dollars, and that’s not mint, and I bought it mint.

Serko Fu

Following up, and picking up what you were telling me a little while ago. You were saying that if they take away the foundation, it would get lost and it wouldn’t be maintained. Do you think that now, with copyright issues and all that, creativity is being limited? Or is it pushing artists to seek new strategies? What do you think about all that?

Breakbeat Lou

I’m different from everyone else, I think that if music belongs to someone you have to pay them, because as an artist I would like to be paid. If you really have the gift of being creative, you don’t need samples or anything. If it comes from your heart, from your soul, you can make the best music that can be made. Because that music was made back then, and if it was possible then, why wouldn’t it be possible now? That’s my opinion. I’m very different, I’m not saying either that the ’90s are the best there is, music-wise. There was a lot of good music, yes, but there was a lot of bad music too. Like they say now about trap. To me, as a DJ, from the beginning to when I die, if I play music that makes the floor jump, it can be anything. My job is to do that, really. Like I say, a record like “Panda” by Desiigner, what are these guys saying? I have no idea what they’re saying, but when you play that record on an amazing system, it doesn’t give you any choice but to jump. Music gets to me more, before the lyrics. But there’s good music and bad music now, and there was always good and bad music.

Serko Fu

Speaking about 2019, I know you’re still working, you’re still producing and I noticed that currently, being from the East Coast, New York, you’re collaborating with one of the most important collectives, a group that is part of one of the most important collectives from the West Coast, which is Souls of Mischief, from Hieroglyphics. How did that come about?

Breakbeat Lou

Well, this is how it started. I’m good friends with Peanut Butter Wolf, who owns Stones Throw Records. There was a party called Motown On Mondays that you see there [points behind him]. I was at that party, and Opio was at that party and I met him. The next day we went out, as Opio’s girlfriend worked with Peanut Butter Wolf, and we went out to lunch. He asked me if I was still producing and I told him I was. He said, “Can we work on something?” And I told him, “Well, OK.” It was the same time of year as right now, it was around Biggie’s anniversary, and I was going to record a tribute for Biggie and I was looking for another MC to help, so I told him, “We can do this.” We went to the studio, recorded, and it was amazing. If people don’t know they never recorded together, but when you hear the recording it seems as if they were in the same place. We did that recording, and he says, “I want to do another project. Would you like to work with me?” I told him, “Let’s do a few songs, no problem.” Those songs were incredible. He says, “We should to do a five song EP.” We did the five songs, and it’s not because it’s me, but they were amazing. He’s the kind of guy I like, a type of artist who doesn’t have a problem with...

Serko Fu

Being directed?

Breakbeat Lou

No, you don’t produce him. Mainly all rappers now, MCs, they think it’s all in their mind and that’s how it has to be. That’s not right, we all have our jobs. There are beatmakers and there are producers. I know how to do both things, god gave me that blessing. But I like to work with an artist in person. I don’t really like to send someone a beat. So, with my own money I went to Los Angeles every month to see what he was doing. We came out with incredible songs. Right now we’re ready to record the last two songs, with Casual, with O.C., and god willing, either Styles P or Jadakiss. We’re on that. We finished recording just now with Havoc, Erik Sermon, Bahamadia, Pharoahe Monch, and they came out great. We have ’90s style hip-hop, yes. There are some trap-like songs that when people hear them they’ll say, “Louis doing trap?” Yes, Louis doing trap. To me it’s music. It isn’t music to everyone in this world, but we’re doing things right. You will soon hear something that will be, not the best project in the world, but a project to be remembered years and years from now.

Serko Fu

What advice would you give to everyone doing rap, hip-hop in Latin America or over here?

Breakbeat Lou

I’m glad you asked that question, because in our hip-hop culture everyone makes music about girls, money or getting high. To me if you don’t put your heart in it, your soul, like we say, if you’re not making songs with your blood, sweat and tears, don’t make them at all. Stop. Make something else. Or make that and don’t call it hip-hop, because hip-hop culture started from something like this, from using systems of different brands, like, everyone has two Technics and a mixer now, I remember when there was a Technics and a Fisher [Price], and a mixer with a channel working on something and another channel on something else. We had speakers of different brands, different sizes. We had receivers and amplifiers, and we had cables all taped up because they weren’t long enough. There was pride in doing things, we could say we did them together and we didn’t really have the resources. But we did it because it came from the soul, from the heart, from love, from culture. First from music, from culture, and from ourselves. Because I can’t say I did something... I can’t play this CD, and say, “I invented this,” if I never did. But if I play it, and say, “I like how it plays,” it’s more real. This is how it has to be, with pride but with respect too, for being part of a culture, hip-hop culture, DJ culture, MC culture, or musicians’ culture, whatever. It has to be honest pride and something from the heart, really.

Serko Fu

Let’s hear it for the legend Breakbeat Lou, please. [applause]

Breakbeat Lou

Thank you, thank you.

Serko Fu

Let’s do a Q&A session. I don’t know if there’s anybody who has a question or a comment for our guest. There’s one.

Audience Member

What’s up with all these cats putting out records with all our samples? What do you think about that?

Audience Member

What does that mean?

Audience Member

It means that DJ Premier was a bit angry at that time, after [Ultimate Beats & Breaks] albums came out there were other labels publishing albums full of songs ready to sample. And DJ Premier, producers like us, making an effort looking for samples and these are just there for the taking.

Breakbeat Lou

When he first came out with [the skit about sampling on the album Moment Of Truth] I confronted him and asked him, “What does this mean?” And he said, “Louis, this is not for you.” The reason was another record company. Let’s give an example. Like a food recipe given to you by your mom, your granny, whatever, and it’s your family’s. I take that recipe and I say, “I’m telling everyone your paella is made this way.” That’s what happened. Instead of putting out, “This is the recording, this is the artist, this is the year it came out, this is the label.” I think the reason we made [Ultimate] Breaks and Beats was so that the second and third and all the other generations of DJs after the first one, had the right tools to continue building hip-hop. What these guys did, was they wanted to pat themselves on the back and say, “If you got it, I can get it, too.” And no. “You don’t get it because you didn’t work your ass off, get your nails and clothes dirty searching for records, get it?” I asked Premier, I asked Diggin’ in the Crates, I asked Pete Rock. They said, “No, it’s not for you. If it wasn’t for you we wouldn’t be here,” but people taking the idea out of context and trying to make it something else to give themselves credit is not fair.

Audience Member

I’m from Spain, and what I’m seeing in hip-hop circles in general or urban music in particular, is that due to the internet, trends change very quickly. In fact, being a mainstream artist can last a few months. And after a few months, bye. And there’s a new trend. What I’m saying is that in the United States when an artist becomes trendy but doesn’t cross the mainstream line… I mean, Lil Wayne and Evidence aren’t the same. For example, Evidence, after a while, even though he got a good audience, a good-sized audience, he didn’t get to be like Eminem. Is it possible for him to keep making a living out of music?

Breakbeat Lou

Right now, yes. In the ’90s the most you could make from a record was 70 cents. And sell 6,000 copies. If you did it yourself you could make 2,50 and sell at least 40,000 copies. Which one gets you more money? Which one more control? Today, really, you can make music exactly like you want with no one telling you, “No, no, this is going to go badly, people won’t like it, I want you to sound more like Drake, I want you to be more like Lil Wayne.” Right now any kid can go to eBay, buy an Apple computer, used, for 700 dollars. It usually comes with GarageBand, right? You can record anything, put it on iTunes, and if you have an Instagram or Facebook account with over 150 followers, 10% of that, you can put out a song in less than a day or two, and 10 people can listen to it and say it’s awesome and your head gets like this [makes big head motion].

In our times, at first to release a song, you had to spend 250 dollars buying tape, 2-inch tape. After that you had to work again, and get at least 600 dollars to rent a studio, at least 10 hours, to record. No, to produce the album. Back then not everyone had an MPC, like what you can buy now, or [Native Instruments] Maschine or FruityLoops. You had to go to a studio that had the equipment, to work and try to get the production done in less than 10 hours, then keep at it for another 10 hours to record the song, and after that, like five hours to mix it. That’s 500, 500 and 250, 750 plus the 250 and now it’s more than 1,000 dollars just recording and mixing the song. If you want to release it you need to master it. Mastering costs at least 700 or 800 dollars. Finish that and you’re almost up to 2,000 dollars. Now you have to think, if it’s a 12”, if you’ll have a cover or a generic cover. Let’s go with a generic cover. You gotta press up at least a thousand copies which is gonna cost you another 1,000 dollars. Nobody has heard the record yet. You’re up to almost 3,000 dollars to make a recording and put it on wax or vinyl, and no one has heard it yet. Then you have to work again, and if you have a car, go to every mom and pop store and say, “Can you pick up five copies on consignment?” To see what happens with the record. Right now, if you have 700 dollars you can make a recording that doesn’t sound good at all, but if a friend says, “This is good,” it goes to your head. That’s why you think everything sounds the same now, because everyone wants to make whatever that guy did, or that other guy. If you can buy FruityLoops and you have an 808 sample pack and use the same rhythm, it feels like, [makes motion] “I’m scratching my head, I’m scratching my head.” That’s what happens, because now it’s not trendy to feel pride in making real songs. That’s what’s happening with trap, too, what I call “gun talk records.” No record is over 76 beats per minute. Just talking about drugs and shootings, and stuff like that. Nothing else. To me songs have to have knowledge, but they also have to talk to you. Records like... I can’t say it here because you will get angry, but if you rap and you don’t have hooks, you’re just making gun talk lyrics, and how many keys I have, and how many jewels I have, and I’ll beat you up. There’s no substance. I think these aren’t songs with a message, like “Eric B. Is President,” or something comical, like “Pickin’ Boogers” by Biz Markie, or Slick Rick “La Di Da Di,” things like that, stories, like Biggie Smalls. You can actually close your eyes, listen to “Warning” by Biggie Smalls and see what’s happening because the lyrics are amazing. And now, you know, [makes motion] “I scratch my head, I scratch my head.”

We have another one here.

Audience Member

Streaming music lowers quality, right? What is the best quality format, CD or vinyl?

Breakbeat Lou

The best sound, the proper sound is tape sound, reel-to-reel tape, and then vinyl. Because digital... In digital formats, voice is translated into a wave. Digital is zeros and ones, so sound plays like this [makes 0, 1 motion]. In digital it plays like this. It jumps. It’s not playing the whole sound, if you play in a wave it goes like this [makes wave motion]. And this is the complete sound, see this gap? There’s sound there. Digital doesn’t pick that up, digital is just this, zeros and ones. The sound wave contains the complete sound, high and low. So, tape or vinyl.

Audience Member

Thank you.

Breakbeat Lou

You’re welcome. Another question over here.

Audience Member

In Wikipedia, for example, the Spanish Wikipedia, it says that trap is a genre that is inspired by hip-hop, but a separate genre. In the English Wikipedia, however, it says it’s a subgenre of hip-hop. Which is what I say. Even if it sounds bad to some, or they’re scared of it.

Breakbeat Lou

Trap is generally live music, but music that talks about drugs. Because the trap is where you pay money to get drugs. That’s where the word trap comes from. But what happened when trap appeared, the liveliness of it has to do with drugs and strip clubs. Strip club music is very lively, dirty south music. So that’s where it comes from. To me, as long as it has musical quality and it makes you move... The only problem I have with it, my problem with the so-called trap, is the quality of the lyrics. I scratch my head. You see? If you give me the instrumental, I’ll dance to it all day. Because it sounds good. There’s bad trap and there’s good trap. I’ve heard music from T.I. that sounds incredible. Young Jeezy did stuff like that. Even Drake’s done pretty decent trap. J. Cole has done trap that’s pretty decent. It’s not the genre, or the title, it’s just that, mostly... Everyone generally picks the easy way out. If you made a trap song that sounds one way, then he comes and makes a trap song that sounds just like yours. I have to listen to a song at least 30 or 40 seconds to know who the artist is. Because in the beginning it all sounds the same.

Audience Member

What artist do you like the most, if you like any, of this new wave? Or do you not like any?

Breakbeat Lou

No, no, because the thing is, there are songs that may rock, Lil Boosie’s done songs that rock. It’s more about the type of rap song than the artist. Now, if you ask me for an artist from the ’90s, you can say Rakim, because his discography is something amazing. Public Enemy, EPMD. Now I ask you. Who do you think will be in a place in ten years that you will be able to say, “Ah, this guy was dope?”

Audience Member

Kendrick [Lamar].

Breakbeat Lou

But he’s not really trap. He does trap music.

Audience Member

From trap? That’s depends, really. Drake?

Breakbeat Lou

But he’s not all trap. That’s why I say there’s no artist that does only trap. Drake makes trap songs, Kendrick too, Jay Rock too, but not everything they make is trap. Because they put a little boom bap in there. No one does just trap, you know?

Audience Member

Migos? Kidding.

Audience Member

Why do you think trap started?

Breakbeat Lou

It’s dancing music. When there’s something that gets people into dance clubs, it’s gonna grow.

Audience Member

What did people who resisted hip-hop say about it when it came about? What criticisms did you face back then?

Breakbeat Lou

We’ll talk about lyrics, too. Big Daddy Kane didn’t sound like Rakim, Rakim didn’t sound like EPMD. EPMD didn’t sound like Public Enemy. Public Enemy did not sound like Salt-N-Pepa. Now I have to listen to a song at least 30 seconds to know who it is. And not even that. I mix up Future with Drake, all of them, I don’t know which is which. Because they all mostly sound the same, they all have the same producers. Imagine, with all the drum machine sounds you can use, but they just use the same tone and the same 808 sound. I don’t know, I don’t get it.

Audience Member

What rhythm is coming up next, after trap? That is, out of everything you know?

Breakbeat Lou

To me, I think that what should come back is regular R&B music. Dance R&B, something like a new jack swing, but not quite. I think that pride in creating music hasn’t picked up, because right now there’s isn’t any music in this generation of hip-hop. It’s hard to say that there’s something unique or something that opens your eyes and makes you say, “This is amazing!” There’s nothing original... But it’s not all like that, there are some amazing albums. Like in every genre. But in general, or in everything that is trap music there’s nothing that makes you say, “This really is music and it’s going to remain relevant over time and make history.” Not right now.

Audience Member

How would you advise us to have the patience to know that everything takes time? Sometimes you just want to see numbers. Sometimes you base yourself on them because people trust them. For example, if something has millions of listens even though it’s crap, on the radio they say, “Hey, have you listened to that?” People on videos, “Did you see that?” Fans themselves say, “I have to see it because they’re seeing it.” It gains some kind of credit. What advice could you give us so we have the patience to create something that hasn’t been heard before? You know what I’m saying?

Breakbeat Lou

No, I don’t think it’s about patience. Keep doing what you’re doing, because your time will come. Don’t stop, because if we’d stopped in the ’80s, we wouldn’t be here now. If we’d stopped in the ’90s, we wouldn’t be here now. Think that from ’79 to ’83 it was mostly musicians who played music for rappers. Then the drum machine era started, which is when the 808, the DMX and the LinnDrum came out. Every album had that same sound. Everything sounded the same, like trap right now. Then Marley Marl came out, sampling came out and he could pull out sounds and put them in individually. And play the same rhythm with sounds from other records, and that was the best time to create things because ideas weren’t constrained by equipment, but by people’s minds. You can think like Public Enemy thought. When they came out no one could understand… what was that sound, that at first is like something that’s going to give me a headache, but listening to it you say, “This is amazing.” Why? While Marley Marl used two or three sounds, Public Enemy used 10 to 15 or 20 sounds in one song. And they used a two-second sound in a way no one had heard before. They had that gift, like a jazz musician’s. In jazz music the drums play a rhythm and the bass another and the trumpet another, but everything sounds great. That’s what happened when the Bomb Squad did what I just said with Public Enemy. They didn’t wait for anybody. They kept on doing what they were doing. You listen to their first LP and then listen to It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back, they’re very different things. Because they weren’t waiting. They didn’t wait for EPMD to come out with them, they didn’t wait for Rakim to come out with them. They said, “Let’s do this and this is what it’ll be.” If you wait you’ll never get there. Like they say in English, “Don’t let the waves take you where it is, swim to where you need to go.” Like a salmon that swims against the current. You have to be like a salmon.

Audience Member

In our circles there are people who don’t listen to rap and even though they don’t listen to rap they like the battles because it’s a show that’s very easy to watch. It’s remarkable to me that in the US, a society characterized by quick consumption of these kinds of things, where this appeared for the first time, it’s remarkable that being from Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, we can go to Chile and get 20,000 people in a place just with freestyle rap battles, and people in the audience don’t even have to like rap. And in the US, which as a society is more into consumerism than ours, that doesn’t happen. Do you know why?

Breakbeat Lou

Like I say, community is different. Because in the US, rap is the only kind of music in which the OGs and new jacks don’t get along. In rock you don’t hear anything about Guns N’ Roses not getting along with Aerosmith, or saying Aerosmith is wack, or things like that. You don’t hear in R&B that Luther Vandross didn’t get along with Bobby Brown for some reason. It’s only hip-hop culture that’s like this. The weirdest thing is that even though there are grandparents with grandchildren who like the same kind of music, the grandfather doesn’t like the same music as the grandchild. But it’s all rap. I think it’s about pride, because I’m different, I have children your age, and I came back to hip-hop culture, as I am here now, because of my son, because he asked, “Daddy, if you want me to listen to the hip-hop you like, why don’t you listen to what I like?” And I said, “It’s true.” And like with everything, there’s good and there’s bad. I think, as a DJ, and I’m not the best, but I know that if you get in somewhere and I’m playing there, you’ll come out with three things: sore feet, wet clothes and the memory of Breakbeat Lou playing that record. Because that’s my job, to play records. Like, I hated the record “I Will Survive” by Gloria Gaynor, but I had to play it, because I had to. Like right now, if I have to play Lil Weezy, or whatever the guy’s name is, I’m gonna play it. Because my job is to make sure that everybody here has a good time. If I’m playing a record and I see him right there, and he’s all night like this, he is my target to make him change his mind about me. You know what I’m saying? Sorry I’m speaking in English, but it’s the only way I can explain it.

The problem with the United States, with music, especially hip-hop, is that we are so spoiled with it, because it was created by us. And we are so stuck up with it that we feel that only our opinion matters, no matter who we are. And it shouldn’t be that way. If I’ve been present since the beginning it doesn’t mean my vision about music is better than yours, you know? Or vice versa. That’s the problem. To me it’s not necessary to say that the music you have and like is not really music. What I say to all the OGs. In the beginning of battle rapping, which was Kool Moe Dee and Busy Bee, Kool Moe Dee is considered a lyrical rapper, Busy Bee not. But right now both are legendary. In the ’80s it was KRS-One, Rakim, Big Daddy Kane. And then you have Kid ‘n Play, Kwamé and Salt-N-Pepa, but they’re all legends now. Why do we now have J. Cole, Kendrick Lamar and Jay Rock, and we have Drake, Weezy or Lil Boosie, and we can’t say that they’re all good? You know? Being honest, it’s not cool, mostly with OGs. And in my opinion, as a grown man, how am I going to tell another grown man, “Your music is worthless.” Not at all. What I have to do, me being an OG, for example, is to point out to you more or less how to appreciate it. Because if I tell you I want to appreciate your music, you, as a human being, are going to say, “Put your own music on, let’s see if I can appreciate it too.” That’s the first problem, and I don’t think it starts with the young ones but rather with us old timers. We have to teach you. If we want you to understand, we have to teach you how to understand.

Audience Member

I wanted to talk about freestyle. I think by the time of Supernatural, Craig G and Juice, freestyle was going strong, right? I saw a video from when Super Nat competed with Craig G, and they said that they were watching from Japan, from South America, from Russia. I mean, everyone wanted to see that battle, and it was freestyle. What happened, I imagine, is that it had its boom and afterwards it didn’t continue.

Breakbeat Lou

It was only those two.

Serko Fu

It was a group, there weren’t that many people doing it.

Breakbeat Lou

Imagine, there was people from Canada, people from the US, I didn’t know there were Latin Americans. I had no idea until I’m watching this and I’m like, “Wow!” To me it’s an art, putting lyrics to something, some people write it beforehand, some people improvise, like Super Nat. Super Nat is amazing, because every time he sees me in the audience he always adds me to the lyrics, always, no matter what. He sees me 10 miles away, or nearby, he always adds my name in, and he improvises it, because he didn’t know I’d be there. I never tell him I’m going to be there. I stand at the front on purpose so people will know that what he’s doing really is art. I think it’s a gift if you can improvise stuff like that, because I don’t find it easy at all.

Serko Fu

Well, let’s hear it for Breakbeat Lou. Thank you very much, Lou. [applause]