Egyptian Lover

Noz

We are sitting here with a pioneer of Los Angeles hip-hop and electro. Everybody give a round of applause for Mr. Egyptian Lover. (Applause)

Egyptian Lover

Thank you.

Noz

So for those of us who weren’t fortunate enough to see the set last night, tell us a little bit about who the Egyptian Lover is.

Egyptian Lover

Well, the Egyptian Lover is a DJ who wanted to make a record to catch women, so I made a record called “Egypt, Egypt” with my name all in it, so all the women could say, “That’s his name, now I can go ask for him as a DJ.” That’s it. (Laughter) I just got lucky and sold four million copies, but that was it.

Noz

Now, what first drew you to turntables and DJing, other than the women, naturally?

Egyptian Lover

I started out making mixtapes back in the day. We used to make our own pause-button mixtapes with the cassette. Like, if they come on the radio, you pause it, then it’ll break down. After the breakdown you pause it, wait for it to come on again, then you unpause it and you make a long breakdown with the cassette tape. Then I got started buying vinyl and making my own mixtapes with my own vinyl, and it just went on from there and I started rapping onto the breakdowns. That’s back in the ‘80s before the mixtapes came out, it was like the original mixtapes.

People started asking for my record and I said, “Well, I don’t have a record, I just have this mixtape,” so my goal in life was to make a record. When I joined this group called Uncle Jamm’s Army – they were really huge in Los Angeles, they used to do parties for like 2,500 people – and I said, “Man, if I got with them, I can get popular enough to make a record.” So I got with Uncle Jamm’s Army and we were on the radio advertising the parties and we got more popular and more popular, but my DJ skills made us even more popular. We started doing parties for 10,000 people at the LA Sports Arena and right then I knew that it was time for us to make a record. I played the [Roland TR-]808 live at the Sports Arena and everybody freaked out and thought it was a record and was asking me where can they buy it, and I was like, “You’ll buy it soon.” And we went to the studio and made a record and that was how it all began.

Noz

Going back to the mixtapes stage, what sort of records were you playing in those days?

Egyptian Lover

Like, Vaughan Mason & Crew, “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll.” I was making instrumentals of “Give It To Me Baby” and “Super Freak” - anything I could find instrumental, or I’d make my own instrumental to.

Noz

Now, there is also an emerging dance culture in Los Angeles at the time.

Egyptian Lover

At the time, the only dance in LA was called ‘The Freak’. (Laughter) The guy would get close to the girl and just bump and grind all night long. All the guys wanted to do that, so everybody came to the dance to get their freak on. (Laughter) Some guys would have brand new jeans and they’d dance with a girl with some white pants on. By the end of the night, her whole white pants would be blue from the brand new jeans. (Laughter) What 16, 17, 18-year-old kid don’t want to grind all night with a woman? That’s the easiest way you can do it, so that’s how it got done. A lot of girls got pregnant, I don’t know how. (Laughter)

Noz

They just left the club pregnant? Came in not pregnant?

Egyptian Lover

That dance was like foreplay and after the party it was like, “Hey, let’s continue” – without the jeans. (Laughter)

Noz

Do you remember your first DJ gig?

Egyptian Lover

My first DJ gig, I was in high school. A girl said her father owned a club and wanted me to do my mixtape at the party. And I’m like, “Well, I did that with a pause button, I don’t know if I can do that with turntables.” She said, “Well, he’s going to pay you $1000.” I said, “I’ll learn.” (Laughter) So I got the turntables and I tried to figure out, how can make this pause-button a real mix? On Cameo, “Shake Your Pants,” it goes, “Shake, shake, shake, shake.” On the mixtape, it went, “Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.” I was like, “How am I going to do that live?” I knew I could do it twice then bring it up to the other turntable, but how am I going to do it a third time? So my brother said, “Why don’t you just turn this one back while that one’s going forward and then put it forward on the beat?” So I tried it: “Shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake.” I said, “Damn, that’s nice, I can do it.” He said, “Yeah, call it the Triple Threat!”

So my brother actually taught me how to do the mix. He couldn’t DJ at all, but he taught me how to do the mix and I did the mix live at the party and everybody freaked out, like, “Damn!” It was like the first time any DJ could ever do something like that. I learned how to do it really quick, at home, on my little Pioneer and my, whatever, Realistic turntables. But they had Technics at the party, like, “Damn! This turntable’s kind of nice, I can do anything on this turntable!” So I had to be real careful at home on the little cheap turntables, but at the club they had these big, expensive Technics turntables. I could do anything, so I started doing all kinds of stuff, playing records backwards and just whatever I could think of, I would do it. I became a good DJ just because of that.

Noz

Did you start booking gigs pretty quickly after that?

Egyptian Lover

Well, I was still in high school, so I had to wait for high school to be over. I did a couple of little house parties in high school, but right after that I joined with Uncle Jamm’s Army. They were already huge and then the [World Class] Wreckin’ Cru was here and the LA Dream Team – everybody had dance party crews, but Uncle Jamm’s Army was the best one. I tried to do a party the same night as Uncle Jamm’s Army and it didn’t work out too good. They had like 1,000 people and I had like 150. If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em – so I joined up with Uncle Jamm’s Army and we became legends in LA.

Noz

Can you tell us a little bit about Club Radio?

Egyptian Lover

Club Radio was a small club in Echo Park in LA. There was a DJ named Afrika Islam and people were telling me he was doing pretty good scratching and said, “You should check him out.” So I went to the club and Ice-T was there. He said, “You want to get down?” I said, “Sure.” Uncle Jamm’s Army, we were limited to what we could do because we had a lot of gangsters at our parties, so we couldn’t mess up while we were mixing. You had to be perfect, because if you mess up that gets them out of their groove and then they start thinking stupid stuff... there you go. So the party had to continue to be rocking all night long. But at Club Radio it was just a bunch of spray painters and breakdancers, so you get to be more creative.

So I started DJing a little bit more and started doing a lot more scratching and creating a lot more stuff. That was my practice – I never really had good turntables at home, so that was my practice, at Club Radio. One time I was DJing real good at Club Radio and somebody from the LA Times came up and said, “Man, you DJ better than Egyptian Lover. What’s your name?” I was so pissed off I said, “DJ Sperm Cell.“ The next day in the LA Times it said, “DJ Sperm Cell DJs better than Egyptian Lover,” and it had a picture of me. (Laughter) Stupid ass.

From there on, some people wanted to do a documentary. They did a documentary on the club and it was called Breakin’. From Breakin’ they went and did Breakin’ ‘n’ Enterin’, and then from Breakin’ n’ Enterin’ they went on to do Breakin’ and Breakin’ 2.

Noz

Well, let’s see a little bit of Breakin’ ‘n’ Enterin’.

Egyptian Lover

Alright. Any time now.

Noz

Y’all going to have to bear with me, this is foreign technology.

Egyptian Lover

See, back in the day we just pushed play on the VCR and pow, it was there. He’s looking for a mouse. A VCR didn’t have no mouse, it just had ‘play’.

(video: excerpt from _Breakin’ n’ Enterin’)

Ice-T, y’all. He used to come up to the DJ booth in Uncle Jamm’s Army and beg to rap. I never let him rap, but at Radio he could rap because there wasn’t no rules. There wasn’t no gangsters at Radio, so he could wear red at the Radio, but he couldn’t wear red at Uncle Jamm’s Army. He would have got shot.

Noz

Now, who else was around in those days?

Egyptian Lover

Everybody was around in them days: Wreckin’ Cru with Dr. Dre, Yella and Lonzo. LA Dream Team with Snake Puppy and Rudy Pardee. Mixmaster Spade. Toddy Tee. The whole West Coast was just there making mixtapes, but nobody ever really made a record until Uncle Jamm’s Army made a record, then everybody else kind of followed on the coattail.

Noz

You guys did that purely independently, correct?

Egyptian Lover

Definitely, independently. We all went through a pressing plant called Macola Records. All the money went to Macola and everybody got paid, and I was the first one to go in there and say, “I don’t want you to get my money, I’ll collect my money and I’ll pay you per record.” Because somebody told me, “Why is somebody else collecting your money?” So I decided, just out of the blue, I’m going to start a record company and I’ll collect my own money and I’ll just pay you per vinyl. I’m glad I did that before “Egypt, Egypt” came out, because that would have been a lot of money missing.

Noz

So how did you transition then to being a solo artist and putting out “Egypt, Egypt”?

Egyptian Lover:

Well, when I was with Uncle Jamm’s Army we were on Freak Beat, which was half my label and half Roger Clayton’s label, who was the owner of Uncle Jamm’s Army. I never got a dollar from “Dial-A-Freak” and “Yes, Yes, Yes” so I said, “Maybe I should start my own record label so I can get a dollar.”

Noz

Let’s listen to “Dial-A-Freak” quickly.

Egyptian Lover

This is very first record we ever made, me and Uncle Jamm’s Army, back at the end of 1983, and it came out in 1984.

(music: Uncle Jamm’s Army – “Dial-A-Freak”)

Just the 808, one keyboard and a [Roland] SH-101, a vocoder and a mic – in a real recording studio, so it was very new for us. We didn’t know what to do and this is what we came up with. That sound right there was inspired by Orbit’s “The Beat Goes On.” Now, this was a new sound for LA at the time. I mean, they had “Planet Rock” and “Electric Kingdom” but this was a little bit different. This was like a freaky electro sound, nobody had ever heard this sound before, so this was brand new for LA. Yeah. (Applause)

Noz

So who was recording the moans on there?

Egyptian Lover

Different freaks, whatever one was good at the time. Some lucky freak. (Laughter)

Noz

How did you go about sourcing these freaks?

Egyptian Lover

You wouldn’t even want to begin on that little subject. This is not the Playboy channel, right?

Noz

We’re going to have to have the “Up All Night” XXX version after this. Moving forward, so about Egypt – what was it that attracted you to Egypt?

Egyptian Lover

Wow, well, growing up in the hood, the first thing you want to do is get out the hood. So in my mind I took myself out the hood and I just took myself to any place I could find, which was probably just Egypt at the time. So it was going to be Egyptian Lover or Jerusalem Jerk, and I just chose Egyptian Lover. (Laughter) That was actually my name before I started DJing or anything like that. All my friends were gangsters and they had their names put on the back of their jackets in old English writing – you had Mr. Guns, you know, that was guy with the guns, Mr. No Good, he was treating all the women bad. Knock You Out was a big old strong dude. And I had Egyptian Lover on the back of my jacket, like, “You ain’t no gangster.” “But I’m dressed like y’all, so don’t beat me up.“ And I was a big dude, I was 6’1” back in the day so nobody ever came up to me like that. But the women liked the name Egyptian Lover, so I stuck with the name.

Noz

At the same time you’re reaching back to this ancient tradition, but also making super-futuristic music.

Egyptian Lover

Well, the name was way before the music started. When I was in high school I started making mixtapes and doing raps with it with the name Egyptian Lover. Everybody thought it was very creative and very different, so I just stuck with the name. Then when I made the record “Egypt, Egypt,” for the women, Egyptian Lover stuck. And not only in LA, it just started spreading really fast. The pressing plant, Macola, actually started bootlegging the record, sending them out without me knowing about it, but that in the long run actually helped me promote the record. So he sold 50 to New York that I didn’t know about. That was 50 promo copies, to me personally, that I didn’t get paid on, but it helped me get noticed in New York. When they sold the 50 records they would actually call the number on the record, which was my number, and say, “We want to order 100 now.” “Well, how did you get the first 50? Well, actually, that don’t matter. If you want 100, this is where you send the check.” All these different places around the United States are re- ordering this record and I’m like, “Damn! How did they get the first records?” So I never even worried about the first records. Probably it was 100,000 that went out. I never worried about that because we sold four million after that. And it was my own record label, I was the distributor. There was no middle man, it was just me and you guys and that was it.

Noz

Let’s listen to “Egypt, Egypt.”

(music: Egyptian Lover – “Egypt, Egypt”)

Egyptian Lover

Now remember, this was to get the chicks, OK? (Raps over music) “What’s my name?“ [Egypt] “What’s my name?“ [Egypt] “What’s my name, baby?“ [Egypt] “My whole name?” [Egyptian Lover] (Applause)

That was actually a riff from “Planet Rock.” I just played it half-speed. Instead of doing the whole “Planet Rock” thing, I played it half-speed and came up with that. Being a DJ I wasn’t a good composer or producer or anything like that. I just made the record as I would DJ – “I’m going to cut this record in, now I’m going to cut this record in.” So it had no arrangement on the record. Everything was cutting like a DJ and that was kind of rare back in the day because nobody did records like that. So this one had no verse-chorus breakdown, this is just all over the place, and it was a good party record because this is how DJs cut the records back then, so that’s what I did. The quality of the record was pressed so good because the engineer I was using at the time was getting paid by the hour, and he stretched the song out so long, EQing this beat, EQing this snare, EQing this clap, just to make more money for him, but in the long run he made the record so clean that it sounds this good 30 years later.

And, of course, I was talking about DJing because I was a DJ back then. A lot of people didn’t know was a DJ until they’d see my show and see me mixing and cutting a record up, but that’s how I started, DJing.

Now this part of the record – I was planning to do a video and I wanted an escalator into hell. We never shot the video, though. All my friends was calling me the devil and I was like, “Alright, let’s not shoot the video.” It’s a long story. Even the first record I made, the serial number was DMSR-661, because one day I knew there would be a 666. But when it came to being that number 666, I said, “I ain’t putting my name on that damn record,” so I gave it to Jamie Jupitor. (Laughter)

A lot of people think I got the breathing from Kraftwerk, but I actually got it from Prince, because Prince would always breathe in his records. So Kraftwerk got the breathing from me. Now, the record should have faded and ended at this time, but being a DJ – and I didn’t have any business sense – I said, “I’m going to make it longer,” and I did this breakdown. What you’re listening to right now is the first bass record ever recorded on wax. When I went to mastering, the guy Bernie Grundman, who was a real popular mastering engineer back in LA, said, “We can’t put this on wax, the bass is too loud. You got to go back in the studio and bring the bass down.” I said, “I can’t do that, I don’t have no money to go back in the studio and bring the bass down.” He said, “Maybe I can spread the grooves out.” Like, when you go from one record to another record they spread the grooves out to make it stretch. So he spread the grooves out on the breakdown and the bass fit on the record, and it was the first record ever recorded with bass.

Hear that little clicking noise? That’s also from the 808. And while I was in the studio they had a bunch of toys, outboard gear. There was one thing called the Harmonizer. I said, “Can I breathe through the Harmonizer?” And the engineer said, “Yeah, let me set it up.” He wanted to add another hour to the session, so we set up the Harmonizer and I breathed through it. It was real fun making this record.

Thank you very much. (Applause)

Noz

So you mentioned Prince and Kraftwerk. I know you’ve cited them as two of your primary influences.

Egyptian Lover

Definitely.

Noz

But they’re very different, needless to say.

Egyptian Lover

Well, the Kraftwerk side came with the beats and the Prince side came more with the lyrics and the subject matter, so you mix those two together and you’ve got Egyptian Lover.

Noz

It’s a dangerous combination.

Egyptian Lover:

Hey, I’m a dangerous man. (Laughter)

Noz

Tell me a little bit about the first time you encountered an 808.

Egyptian Lover

Wow, well, when I went to Club Radio I was talking to Afrika Islam and he said he knew Afrika Bambaataa, like, “That’s my pops, man.” And I was like, “Yeah? Well, how did they get that sound on ’Planet Rock’?” Because I wanted to do that sound – in my mind I’m like, “I want to do that sound.” He said, “Well, they used a drum machine called the 808.” I’m like, “Damn! A drum machine? What is that?” He said, “I’ll show you, they’ve got them at the Guitar Center.” So we went over to the Guitar Center and I saw the 808 and the guy at the place taught me how to program a beat. And so I programmed “Planet Rock” and I heard it and I’m like, “Oh yeah, this shit sound nice.” So I bought it right then and there, went home, programmed the whole 808 full of beats, brought it to an Uncle Jamm’s Army party and played it and that was it right there.

Noz

Do you still own that specific machine?

Egyptian Lover

I own that one and five more, so I’ve got six total.

Noz

Do you rock multiples?

Egyptian Lover

She does. (Laughter) Oh, you mean the 808? When I went on tour and played it live, we used to have to set up four 808s because “Egypt Egypt” took one whole 808, because it had so many different changes. Then “Beat Goes Boom” and “What Is A DJ” had two 808s and then “Girls” had one and “You’re So Fine” was in one, so we had to have four 808s to play all the songs live. Today I just bring one with me on tour and we just rock different beats and do different songs.

Noz

Now, the crazy thing about the 808 is, it really doesn’t have that large a palette of sounds, and yet it’s created so much music over the last 30 years.

Egyptian Lover

It’s what you do with it, man. Just like the programs, the VSTs, all the things the kids have today. It’s not what you got, it’s what you do with it, or even both. So if you got a lot of programs and you don’t know what to do with it, you’re not going to make a good record. You might only have one program – you might have FruityLoops and that’s all you’ve got and you make a hit record. It’s all about what you can do with your imagination and whatever you got. You can have a bucket and a stick and make you a beat. If it’s nice, people are going to like it, you know. (Laughter) True. They didn’t have 808s back in 1919, but they made records, right? Somebody was in the club (scats) and it was rocking. Whatever you got, as long as you can think of it, you can do it. And say: “Booty.” Booty. (Applause)

Noz

I would really love to hear that record form 1919 that sounded like that. Now, you mentioned bass music. When did you become aware of all these parallel movements that were coming up around the country?

Egyptian Lover

There was no bass music when I made “Egypt, Egypt.” When I went to Miami for the first time, a guy named Luke Skyywalker was the promoter and he booked me to do a show in Miami. So I did the show in Miami and I showed him how to programme the 808. Then he called my friends 2 Live Crew, from LA, to come do the show the following month and they actually stayed with Luke and made this group called 2 Live Crew. The 2 Live Crew learned how to DJ by watching me at Uncle Jamm’s Army, and Luke learned how to do the 808 by watching me program the 808, so they kind of both came from me, but made themselves a different, unique style by being together.

Noz

There’s a lot of overlap in terms of subject matter.

Egyptian Lover

Yeah, well, back in the day in Uncle Jamm’s Army I used a lot of curse words and did a lot of things, but I never put that on record in the early days. But they put it on record, like, “We’re going to go all out with this.“ And so they said whatever they wanted to say on record and said, “We can get away with it, we’re on an independent label.” So they did it and, well, they did pretty good with it.

Noz

Now, did you get a chance to tour?

Egyptian Lover

Oh, all the time. Not out of the country, but inside the United States. Since ‘84 I’ve been non-stop doing shows all the way until today. I started touring Europe in 2004 because of the internet – the promoters found an easy way to get in touch with me. I started doing tours in Europe since 2004 and I haven’t stopped yet.

Noz

What was that like, realizing you had this international audience that late in the career?

Egyptian Lover

Well, I knew I had the audience because I got fan mail and things like that. As soon as I joined MySpace all of these guys from Germany and all over the world start telling me about their experiences, about first buying my records – either on electro or 12”s they found through imports. I was like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool.” I’ve already got fan mail from them but now hearing it from all these different people was pretty cool. Then the first promoters hit me up saying they wanted me to do shows out there. I was like, OK, this is going to be this, this and this, and I started doing shows for them and it was wonderful.

Noz

Have you heard a lot of music from out that way that is inspired by you?

Egyptian Lover

Definitely, a lot of music, inspired not only by me but all the West Coast scene, the East Coast scene. Europe has really evolved and they’re doing really good music right now.

Noz

Tell me a little bit about the evolution of West Coast rap, because you kind of had the electro thing in the ‘80s and then it went...

Egyptian Lover

We didn’t call it electro, we just called it hip-hop back in the day. Uncle Jamm’s Army, World Class Wreckin’ Cru with Dr. Dre, LA Dream Team, everybody else, we was just making music to keep the party going. The only real underground records were like Mixmaster Spade or something like that, but then Dr. Dre, he got tired of doing the electro thing. He wanted to do something more like Mixmaster Spade so he started doing the slower speed, gangsta-type rap and it did pretty good. When I first heard the N.W.A. album, the first thing I thought was, “Wow, this stuff was not recorded good at all. You guys are not going to sell a copy. Better go back in the studio and mix it down and make it sound good.”

We were on tour and we were the next band to go on, and one band just went off, and they had an intermission for like 15 minutes. They put on the N.W.A. record and everybody in the audience was singing every word on the record. I’m like, “Damn, they know this record,” so I knew they had a hit because down there they loved it. And I came back home, I said, “Man, they love y’all record here and here and here,” and they said, “Yeah, we’re starting to get sales.” It just got more and more and more because everywhere around the world there’s a ghetto and people want to hear somebody from the ghetto, and that wasn’t happening back then. So when N.W.A. came out it was like, “Wow, that’s me, I want to buy that.” Just like when you’re in love, you hear a slow song, a love song, you’re going to buy it because you think it’s about you. So now all these ghetto guys was buying these ghetto records because, “Hey, that’s my life, that’s about me.” Just like the freaks buy my record because they want to have menages à trois and freaky encounters. You’ll probably buy one tomorrow. (Laughter) Make sure you get the 12” single.

Noz

Well, I’m going to play another video, on that note.

(music: Egyptian Lover – “Freak-A-Holic”)

Egyptian Lover

This was my first video, in 1986. (Applause) I was doing the “Egypt, Egypt” type records and “Girls” and “You’re So Fine,” and all of them were like electro. Somebody came up to me – it was probably some girl – and says, “Why don’t you make something different?” I’m like, fine. So I went to the studio and I heard Jesse Johnson’s “Free World” and that beat was just banging, right, the same exact beat. I went to the studio and I got the Linndrum and I changed it up and I made that song from Jesse Johnson’s “Free World.” I made that one and also a song called “The Alezby Inn” from Jesse Johnson’s “Free World,” so thank you, Jesse.

Noz

Have you recovered from the sexaholism?

Egyptian Lover

Nah, I can’t find no cure, man. There’s no reverse to Viagra, and I got a natural Viagra thing going on. (Points to his leg) This is not a leg. I just put a shoe on it. (Wild laughter)

Noz

But you’re a family man now, right?

Egyptian Lover

What else could I be?

Noz

What do your kids think of this career?

Egyptian Lover

Well, I adopted 35 17-year-old girls and waited two years. (Laughter) Is that bad? I put them through college, that’s all, Freak-A-Holism University. Nah, just kidding.

Noz

I’m going to just let you do the stand-up routine. So, getting back to the music, one of the things I appreciated about your set last night – and I imagine a lot of your sets – is that you did rock entirely with vinyl.

Egyptian Lover

Definitely, I’m trying to keep it old school.

Noz

What are the advantages to that?

Egyptian Lover

Well, as soon as you played that video I heard the digital sound, and I hate the digital sound. I love the warmth of the vinyl. You can hear the highs, the lows, the mids, and the soul and the warmth in the vinyl. The digital people of the future call it a mistake that the vinyl doesn’t sound real, but that’s what our ears were listening to all these years, so we got used to this analog sound and we love it. I mean, our ears are analog - we’re not robots, we’re not digital. Then they came out with this digital sound and the digital, when you go from format to format, it has this roughness to it and it sounds terrible. I mean, all you hear is highs and lows and it’s really distorted in the middle, and I cannot stand that sound, so I’m not going Serato, I’m not going CDs, I’m going straight vinyl every time I do a show until the day I die. (Applause)

Noz

Do you run through your records, though? I imagine they get torn up.

Egyptian Lover

I got the same records I got from 1980 to right now. One of the reasons I use vinyl, I figured out how to play a record backwards by using vinyl, and no other DJ can do this in the world, and I can actually play a record backwards and bring one in forwards at the same time. I did at the show. How I discovered this, I was in the studio and the turntable was off and I was making it go forward by looking at the lights without the power being on. So I said, maybe I can do it backwards at the same time, so I started playing a record. (Plays a record backwards)

And this is why they call me the devil, because I used to play all the records backwards at the parties. And I keep it on beat, bring in another one on the same beat. I’ve tried to teach a lot of DJs how to do this, they just can’t keep it going. A lot of guys can’t do a lot of things for a long time, but I can (laughter). So I can keep this record going from the end to the beginning and have another one mixed in. I usually do “Planet Rock” backwards and bring in “Electric Kingdom” on beat. It’s a pretty good show for all the DJs - they like to see DJs do different things and this is one of the things I’ve started doing and nobody can do it but me.

Noz

Other than the changeover from analog to digital, what other changes have you seen in DJ culture?

Egyptian Lover

I’ve seen a lot of changes. It first went from vinyl to CDs and then CDs to MP3s, and I don’t know what the next thing is going to be, probably just a memory. Music sales [were] really hurt from the Internet, from people stealing music. I mean, back in the day, you get a record and you put it on cassette and you sell it to a few friends. The more you put it on cassette to cassette to cassette, the quality gets lower and lower, and eventually somebody’s going to buy another record. And back in the day, the DJs bought two records so they could mix it, and now today they’re just buying one MP3, if they buy it at all. They’re buying one MP3 and they split it and they can mix two records, or they buy one MP3 and they give it to all their friends and it’s the same quality.

So the artists and the record labels are really hurting behind this, and nobody sees it as a big deal, but I’m pretty sure everybody in here has got a record free online and it’s really not cool. I never stole anything online, I always bought everything, and I always promote – you know, buy your music from iTunes, Beatport, whatever. You have to support the artist because the artist is what’s making you happy, and one day you might be an artist too and you want to be supported. So keep it going, so in the future 20 years from now, the kids making records, even if it’s on their own bedroom record label, you can keep them going by buying their music. Why steal it? Buy it so you can own it, you have it legit.

Noz

What is the essential record in your collection?

Egyptian Lover

I would have to say… Prince made a record called “Sexy Dancer,” and I came across a long version back in the day. I never heard it before and I was a big Prince fan, so that’s probably the most prized possession I ever had.

Noz

Cool, well, maybe we should open it up to some questions from participants.

Egyptian Lover

Yes.

Audience Member

Thank you for coming and talking with us and being here today. I wanted to know, what are three songs you listened to in the past day? Just for fun.

Egyptian Lover

I don’t listen to anything new, really, because I don’t like the stuff they play on the radio right now. I don’t know if it’s because I’m old or if it’s because I just don’t like the style of music that they’re making right now. So I listen to old stuff. I may listen to some Rick James, some Prince, some Kraftwerk, some old school hip-hop, Run-D.M.C., Whodini. I maybe listen to some World Class Wreckin’ Cru, who knows? I like the old electro albums, all the greatest hits they put out on vinyl records, stuff like that.

Audience Member

I was wondering if you could possibly tell me how you get the rhythmic, zapping, clicking noise out of the 808, because I’ve tried to figure it out on a friend’s [machine].

Egyptian Lover

Well, that happened by mistake in the studio. In the back of the 808 they have all the outputs from all the sounds, right? It’s maybe like 16 sounds. Well, the second engineer not only plugged the 16 sounds, but he plugged three more that’s on the back of the 808 and they were called the accent, cowbell and there was like triggers for keyboards. But he plugged them in and put them through the soundboard. When I pushed play I heard that (imitates a rhythm) I said, “Damn, wait a minute, what’s that?” He was like, “I plugged in the wrong one.” I said, “Leave it there,” so we EQed that trigger, zap sound that was supposed to trigger another keyboard and I just programmed the rhythm with it and made it my little click noise. It was by accident and it sounded great so I kept it and it became my sound. Good question.

Audience Member

This is sort of a geeky question, but could you tell us a little bit about the soundtrack for Breakin’ ‘n’ Enterin’, which is supposedly one of the rarest hip-hop records ever made?

Egyptian Lover

Well, it was rare because it never was supposed to be a record out for the public. We made 25 copies just to scratch and mix for the documentary with Ice-T, and Ice-T was going to rap live over it. So I brought the 808 into the studio and we made several beats and scratched over it and put a couple of keyboard lines on it, just so Ice-T could have a bed of music to rap on. We only made 25 of them so we could scratch them live in the documentary. That’s why that record is so rare, because it never was a record for the public.

Audience Member

But do you own one?

Egyptian Lover

Yeah, I own like six. Why, you want to buy one? $200,000, that’s it. I’ll give you a deal: $199,000.

Audience Member

I’ll trade you for the Rick James record right there.

Egyptian Lover

Alright, we got a deal. (Laughter)

Audience Member

Good evening, sir. Thanks for the encouragement earlier on today. For someone who sold four million copies at a very young age, I think, I want to find out whether money was the motivation for music – or what keeps you going, even until now?

Egyptian Lover

Thank you, good question. Money has never been the motivation for me. My friend right here, he’s been with me since before I made records. He came up to me one day and says, “Man, I don’t know if you have $10 in your pocket or $10,000 in your pocket. You’re still the same person every day.” And when he told me that, I realized how some people can get posh with the money and I never was that kind of person. Like right now, I’m just one of you. I’m a DJ and a producer just like most of you guys, I’m human just like you. I’ve seen artists who’ve got that attitude like, “Yeah, I’m better than you.”

I’m not no Justin Bieber, know what I’m saying? I’m you. I’m not trying to be all (leans way back in his seat), “Yeah, you motherfuckers ain’t shit. I made all this shit. I’m the man, motherfucker, yeah. Damn, baby, what’s your name?” Now, sometimes I get like that, but today I ain’t like that, because everybody here is creative in their own way. That’s why you’re here, that’s why you’re in the music academy, because you have something to do with music, so we’re all on the same page right here. Now, if it was at some coliseum or something with a bunch of groupies or whatever... You can jump in that mode like, “Yeah, I’m the man,” because you have to sometimes, but not all the time. Whether you have a dime or whether you have $10 or $100 or $1000 or $10,000 or a million, you’re still the same person. Try to be that way when you guys get all that, because you will.

Audience Member

Hey there. When you record music nowadays, are you using a computer or do you still use a traditional recording studio setup with 808s and everything?

Egyptian Lover

Very good question. I’m doing a new album right now called 1984 and we’re using all the old 808 and [Roland] Jupiter-8 and all the old analog equipment. The only difference is we’re not recording to tape, we’re recording to ProTools and we’re going to mix it down to a 1/4” tape. The 2” is a dinosaur now and you can’t really use it, even though I love the sound of the 2” tape - because all that did was kind of distort and round the music off a little bit more. So we’re thinking if we put it down to a 1/2” tape it may give it a little bit of that analog edge, before we go back to digital to record it. But we’re trying our best to keep it as old as we possibly can, because I’m not doing it for the money, I’m doing it for the sound and I’m doing it for the future. So the record that I’m putting out at the end of the year, into next year, is not for next year. It’s for 10, 20 years from now.

Audience Member

And it all comes out on vinyl as well?

Egyptian Lover

Definitely, always. I’m glad you still collect vinyl. Remember, vinyl becomes collectors’ items, MP3s become deleted.

Audience Member

I was just wondering, when you started making hip-hop or what we call electro or whatever, and then other artists who you were making music with then went on to make more like what hip-hop is now, were you ever tempted to experiment with anything like that?

Egyptian Lover

Well, when I made my music, I made it because I loved Kraftwerk and I loved “Planet Rock” and I just felt that that’s what I love, so when I made music I made what I loved. I didn’t make what was popular at the time, I just made what I loved and I continued to keep making music that I loved. I mean, I never thought I’d be almost 50 years old still doing concerts, but since I made what I loved it became my sound and I can still do that. So when my new album comes out it’s going to be the music that I love. It’s going to be the same music that I’ve always been making, so it’s going to be my sound and I’m going to keep on doing it.

Audience Member

Glad to hear that.

Egyptian Lover

Cool, thanks.

Audience Member

There have been a few references to sex and music and you told us to remember that this was to get the chicks. Why didn’t you pick something like food or sports or finance, why was it music?

Egyptian Lover

Well, I didn’t see food as being sexy, I didn’t see everything else you said as being sexy, at 17, 18 years old. I know you’ve never been a 17-year-old boy, but 17-year-old boys think about sex all the time. The first thing I wanted to do when listening to Prince – I mean, I wanted to create that sound, that freaky sound, and those freaky lyrics and let them know I’m a freak just like you. I’ve met a lot of women who are freaks but they didn’t want nobody to know, so by me making this music they can let their freakness come out on the dancefloor. And dancing is a form of showing that yeah, I can do that too, I can do those moves, I can do this, I’m a freak but don’t let nobody know. It’s just a dance, but it’s actually a form of showing your inner self, so when you’re dancing out there and you’re grinding those hips and you’re doing all that, the guys notice that and say, “Hey, I like her.” And it’s all about being a freak, so I like that sound and I wanted to help those girls out – making all these freaky songs with all these freaky lyrics – just let them show themselves at the club, show themselves to be real in the club. And it worked.

Audience Member

Much respect first of all, first and foremost. You’ve mentioned “Planet Rock” a couple of times and obviously that’s a record that was very important to you. Do you feel like the work that you were doing in Los Angeles was influential outside of Los Angeles? Because a lot of times the history of hip-hop is told as a New York story, it’s a Bronx tale. But do you feel like what you have done has impacted outside of Los Angeles, and do you feel like that fact is well-known, and that people understand and respect the contributions of Los Angeles hip-hop to the whole of hip-hop?

Egyptian Lover

Well, me personally, I never considered it an East Coast, West Coast or New York sound. I just made what I liked, which was the Egyptian Lover sound. I didn’t consider myself ‘West Coast’, I just considered myself Egyptian Lover and that was whatever it was. The music being out there, I don’t know who liked it and who didn’t like it, so me just growing up and hearing different people who liked it and who got inspired by it, it kind of blew me away. Some people really blew me away. Like one time I did a tour with Rebbie Jackson and, you know, Michael Jackson was huge. I’m like, “You think your brother heard of my music?” She said, “Yeah, yeah, he heard of your music!” She said she was at his house and he was actually dancing in the mirror to my song, the whole side A, flipped it over and danced to the whole side B. I’m like, “Damn! Michael Jackson knows my music!” She says, “He buys every record in the top ten and plays it. He knows every top record there is.” That’s how he was so creative – he listened to all the top stuff and he stayed up there like that. I mean, he did a lot of homework and that’s why he was the baddest one ever.

Audience Member

Did you hear from other hip-hop artists who had been checking your work?

Egyptian Lover

All the time. Uncle Jamm’s Army brought a lot of guys out like Run-D.M.C. and all them, and then later on, all of them come back to me like I was somebody bigger. It was like, “I’m the same person,” but they were like, “Man, we’ve been hearing your record here, here, here, here,” and it just kind of took off beyond all control. I never knew that record was going to be that big, but it just ended up being that big, and then I started making more records and more records, but it’s just that sound, everybody loved that sound so I just stayed with that sound.

Audience Member

Rock on.

Egyptian Lover

Thanks, man.

Audience Member

You talked a little bit at the beginning about how in Los Angeles, before people were making records, all of the DJ crews were doing DJ mixes. Can you talk a little bit more about that? I mean, I’ve heard some of the Roadium swap meet mixes. Especially with availability on the Internet, are those things that there’s a renewed interest in? I’m just curious how people got the mixes, what people were putting on them, that sort of thing.

Egyptian Lover

Back in the day, the Roadium swap meet made a lot of mixtapes, like bootleg tapes of everything that was happening, like Uncle Jamm’s Army parties and the Wreckin’ Cru parties. People like Dr. Dre would make mixtapes and sell them at the Roadium swap meet. That’s where everybody was known to go get the new music without buying anything, so it really was a bootleg. LA was just on a freak tip, everybody wanted to be a freak, everybody wanted to express themselves and all the parties were like that. I mean, we gave parties for 10,000 people and all 10,000 people out there were doing the Freak. You had to be there to see it, everybody was just grinding on each other.

It just helped the DJ make more music for these people, and Dr. Dre making mixtapes for people who didn’t go to the parties, because they were too shy to show their inner freakness, so they bought the mixtapes and played it around LA. And not only just the freak music but the gangster music and everything else, because we had a song called “Batterram.” The LAPD had this actual little tank that would go through the dope houses and break the screen door, made of iron with this little thing called the batterram. So a guy named Toddy T made a song called “Batteram.” So everything that was happening in LA, we just made songs about it and that’s everything that was on the mixtapes and it became popular. You might find somebody putting it on the Internet, but it was all bootlegs.

Audience Member

Do you still have copies of your old tapes?

Egyptian Lover

I may have one or two.

Audience Member

You going to put them on the Internet?

Egyptian Lover

Nah, never. (Laughter) I mean, that was a different time, a different life for me back then. I was rapping to, like, “Bounce, Rock, Skate, Roll,” and I was saying a lot of stuff that I never said in my records. It was just me saying whatever a 16, 15-year-old kid will say. I listened to one the other day and I was like, “Wow, that’s pretty cool, that’s pretty cool... that’s not too cool.” But that’s just me, I say whatever’s on my mind, so take or leave it. But on the records I made professionally I could erase the stuff I didn’t want to say and keep only the good stuff on there, so you never heard about really deep, deep freaky stuff, only the pop-freaky stuff. You never heard about the light bulb and the vaseline and all that. (Laughter) Or did you? But you know, you can erase that off the tape and put the good stuff on there and keep it real.

Audience Member

If you talk about the influence of Good Fred Handsome Dude Pomade and the rise of LA electro, that’s a great story. I remember you telling that a while ago – when you’re all at these parties and you’re all throwing the little vials of the Good Fred Handsome Dude Pomade onto the crowd while you’re DJing. If you could talk about that for a little bit.

Egyptian Lover

Yeah, Good Fred was like the man in LA. He was one of the guys who first started the Jheri curl, and he had his own Good Fred oil that you spray in your hair and it keeps it kind of relaxed. Even before the Jheri curl, you could use the Good Fred oil and it would keep your afro kind of shiny and soft. So Good Fred taught me about the business in an all-around way, saying you don’t need no middle-man. He was the first one to tell me that. He said, “You can do everything yourself. Why get somebody else to do it when you can do it yourself?” So he was the one that inspired me and talked me into making my own record label with no middle-man, and I thank him for that very much.

He used to come to the dances and he had this new thing called pomade, which is like vaseline with some kind of scent in it that guys could put in their hair and slick it down. He was like, “I want you to pass this out, because you guys are so popular. Pass this out in the audience.” So we were on the stage, me and one of my friends named Iceberg, and we throwing these suckers hard as hell. Good Fred’s son walked up to us and said, “Hey, man. Don’t throw ’em, toss ’em.” And I kind of understood, “Oh yeah, we hurting people, let’s just toss these, OK.” People were coming up with one eye like, “Well, I got one.” And that kind of taught me later on in life, too, that when I threw out my records in the audience, don’t fling ‘em, toss ‘em. I got a little bit of human resources right there, so that was a good thing. And Good Fred, he’s passed on since then, but he taught me that and I’m glad he taught me that too.

Audience Member

You ever had a chance to meet Prince?

Egyptian Lover

Yeah, I met Prince several times. Prince is a very intelligent and creative person and, man, he’s up there. Him and Michael Jackson, they’re one and two, and I don’t know which one is one and which one is two, but both of them, man, they’re there, especially in LA. I mean, Prince was so huge in LA – according to Uncle Jamm’s Army. I mean, when we played his records the freaks’ inner freakness came out, and that’s what inspired me to make records like that, because we’d play songs like “Head” and “Let’s Work” and “Lady Cab Driver” and “Sexy Dancer” and the freaks were just going crazy. I saw that and I wanted to be a part of that and that’s why I started making freaky records.

Audience Member

What’s your favourite?

Egyptian Lover

My favourite Prince encounter? One time I was at a club – this was before I ever met him – and I was dancing with this chick and somebody said Prince was in the VIP. I’m like, “Damn! Prince is in the VIP. Wow, I’m in the same club with Prince.” Then, all of a sudden he came walking down the VIP stairs with this beautiful chick – he always had beautiful chicks – and he started walking my way. I was like, “Damn! Prince is here, let me get a good look!” He stood right next to me while this chick was dancing. I’m looking at the chick, I’m looking at Prince like, “Damn! He’s dancing next to me. People are going to think I know him, that’s cool.”

So now all these girls are surrounding us while we’re dancing. I’m like, “Yeah, they think I know him, that’s cool.” So I’m doing a dance, I look over and Prince is doing the same dance I’m doing, like, “Oh shit, let me change my dance up.” So I change my dance up, look over to him, he changed his dance up to the same one I’m doing again. I’m like, “He doing the same dance on purpose.“ He just looked at me and smiled. That was his way – because he’s real shy – that was his way of saying, like, “What’s up, Egypt?” But I didn’t know that then. Then I looked at the chick and we just danced and that was cool and he went back to the VIP. Years later a friend of mine ended up being his bodyguard and I told him about that encounter. He says, “Yeah, man, Prince knew who you was and that was his way of saying hello, when he came down and danced with you and did that.” I was like, “Oh, really?” He was like, “Yeah, he plays your music all the time. He might even be making a record for you.” This was right before he changed religions, so maybe we would have made a record back in the day, but that was cool.

Noz

We got some Jamie Jupitor input.

Egyptian Lover

You guys heard the Jamie Jupitor song “Computer Power”? This is a song we made back in 1985. He came in the studio and we was getting ready to do a song and we pretty much did half the song. And then he was called off to the military and he went to Germany in the military. So I went back to the studio and I finished the whole song and I mixed it, put some vocal on it and I sent it to him, like, “Here’s your record.” And he had never heard the finished version of it. I put more vocals on and did all kinds of stuff and freaked him out. That’s my own boy Jamie Jupitor. (Applause) Well, thank you guys for coming out tonight. I know it’s crazy doing a lecture at night, but thank you guys for coming out anyway.