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Freestyle the Art of Rhyme (Screenshot 4)

1580 KDAY Crenshaw Boulevard, south of Adams and North of, say, Manchester is symbolic of one of the last relatively functional African communities in the world, after the birth of Christopher Columbus—and I say this with the streets of Harlem and Atlanta in mind. It feels like it is shrinking every day. You would think that all of the chocolate-colored basketball players that passed through the Los Angeles Lakers would systematically organize some kind of multi-decade financial impact on the home-team turf but only one Laker, Magic Johnson sets this tone to a tune that I can almost hear. But that is now and this is then: 1580 KDAY radio station used to sit right in the Black heart of Crenshaw Boulevard. I recall it as one of the first radio stations to play hip hop music so I enjoy seeing the KDAY sign again in Freestyle—The Art of Rhyme. There were other Black radio stations up off Crenshaw but as Chuck D says on wax, “Radio stations: I question their Blackness. They call themselves Black but we’ll see if they’ll play this.” 1580 KDAY brought the noise.

Brian Coleman writes for Gentle Jones:

Aside from just breaking new music, KDAY was innovative in keeping their name and their faces out in the communities of Los Angeles, the kids who were the station’s core. But these weren’t friendly meet-and-greets at malls and industry gatherings. These were concerts and events in the deepest gang ‘hoods in LA, at the height of the city’s blood/crip warfare. The station’s head of public relations, Rory Kaufman, oversaw and attended these events, no matter where they were.

Back in the KDAY days of the Big Beat, Bryan Wilhite (a.k.a. rasx()) and R/Kain Blaze were two of “the kids.” Kain and I performed this rap song called “The Boom of the Bomb” at 190-something rec’ center in Compton. I am not going to tell you what I was wearing but these were the words I was saying:

Let the super powers summit. ’Cause we ain’t wit’ it. ’Cause it’ll only take a minute. I want a future time to get over—don’t want to learn just to be burned by an inter-governmental super nova. Peace get on it! Foreign policy for government! The red-white-and-blue-crew got a stealth bomber B2, thinking they can win it! But again—again I say: We ain’t wit’ it! I protest! I gotta rap it: The Boom of the Bomb!

Understand that these were the original words of a 17-year-old rapper, me. Do you think a big record company would want to celebrate this kind of inner-city mind? Do you think that this tone of Black thought in rap should become commonplace and expected in rap music? Would you hear these words on Clear Channel? Not all rappers coming out of the West Coast were like NWA. Tupac! Tupac! Why was yo’ big head so hard?

But understand that when I did perform this rap at the rec’ center, my use of the word “’cause”—a contraction of the word because was misheard by a few wanna-be gangsters in the audience. They thought I was making a reference to the Crips gang. The “Cuzz” were opposed to the Bloods. —So understand that there is an untold story about bright, intelligent, young people in hip hop music who did not envy the oppressor to incarnate oppressor violence and exploitation. Tupac, KRS1, Chuck D, Sistah Souljah and many, many others have said quite profound words that are not repeated because it does not fit in with the political ideology of the listener—and of course the media publisher. This is why I am never surprised that my work is rarely respected or confronted and often ignored. These words are here to dismantle you because you are trapped in this language. These words are here to break these words. There is a positive side to broken English—and many are afraid that they will never speak again without this language. Those that are keeping it real ain’t tryin’ to hear me.

You can hear a studio demo of the Boom of the Bomb (with R/Kain Blaze on a mono guitar) at rasx.megafunk.com under “College Experiments” (you might not find the song—I will improve the interface later). R/Kain Blaze is lately in collaboration at GarageBand.com. And to get back to the wardrobe issue: let me say that I am exceedingly pleased that no photographs of me were taken during my KDAY days—especially when I shared the same stage (separately) with Ice-T during a concert called “Back to Pacoima.” What was I thinking? Why was my big head so hard! To put this wardrobe issue into perspective, kids, extrapolate over to a brother I sat across the table from once in the KDAY offices, his Jheri Curl juice steady drippin’. Back then, his name was Shakespeare in a group called the World Class Wreckin’ Cru. Today, you know his monkey ass as Dr. Dre. When you look carefully, you can see how this 1980s ‘wardrobe issue’ came back to haunt Dr. Dre in Peter Spirer’s Beef or Beef II—I can’t remember which one.

rasx()