DJ Great – DJ Hollywood
DJ
HOLLYWOOD: STRAIGHT NO CHASER
by Mark Skillz
Every musical genre has its folk hero. In the tradition of the
Delta blues men, it is said that the great Robert Johnson made
a deal with the devil to give him the power to be the best blues
man ever. In the early days of the rap scene, there was one name
that was constantly evoked as the prime creator of the new sound
of the street called rap, and that name was D.J. Hollywood.
For party-going New Yorkers in the ’70’s there were certain spots
you had to hit, like The Loft, Paradise Garage, Justine’s, and
Zanzibar’s. But for those that wanted to party in Harlem and the
Bronx there were places like Charles Gallery, the Hotel Diplomat,
Smalls Paradise, and Club 371. If you frequented places like these,
you know doubt came upon a young man with crates of records and
a golden voice.
Today at 50 years old, the original rhyme king is still doing
his thing, he was recently honored on VH1’s: "Hip Hop Honors
Show" his latest mixtape will be have him spinning house
and reggae as well as classics.
"I first made my name in Harlem because of a dance called
the "Bus Stop"; I could "Bus Stop" and I could
"Hustle". I was nasty at it. I wasn’t Puerto Rican nasty
at it- but I was good at it. I was making moves – looking good-
I was really good at it. Every party I would go to people would
say, "Let me see you Bus Stop! Before that, I had a rep as
an entertainer; everything I did back then was theatrical. That’s
how I got the name Hollywood.
I was 14 years old when I left home, my mother and I just didn’t
see eye to eye. She had a lot of rules. My drive to go to school
wasn’t there. I wanted to breathe. I used to see the hustlers
man, and I would just marvel at the hustlers. That was the world
I wanted to be in.
I lived in the after hours clubs around Harlem. It was a whole
lot of fun back then too. What they use to do in these places
was: they’d cover the windows with big dark sheets, so that it
would be dark as hell in there. I mean it was completely dark.
You could go in there at night and not leave until like 3 o’clock
in the afternoon the next day. Hustlers used to be in there playing
cards, getting’ high, drinking – whatever…it was an after
hours spot.
I used to run errands for them, at 8 o’clock in the morning everybody
in the spot would give me their keys to move their cars, they’d
be like, "Here kid, go get me some cigarettes, and while
you’re at it, here’s my keys go move my car." I was moving
and parking Cadillac’s at 14 years old.
When I was 14, maybe 15 years old, I went to a spot on 167th
and Amsterdam where this guy named W.T. used to play at. He was
my first real inspiration to be a deejay. He had the two turntables
and a mike mixer; with no cueing; see, what he would do was, between
the records, as one went off and another came on, he would talk
– I really liked his delivery.
I started playing at a couple of spots around Harlem; one was
called Jet Set it was on 132nd St. and the other was called Lovely’s
it was on 148th St. I played at these spots 6 nights a week. I
was partying all I wanted, and had all the "get high"
I wanted too. That stuff later ruined my life.
A guy named Bojangles taught me how to mix. He played soul and
disco stuff. Stuff like "Knock, Knock on Wood", "Melting
Pot", and Sam and Dave’s "Who’s Making Love to Your
Old Lady", stuff like that.
One of the greatest guys in Harlem though was named "Thunderbird
Johnny", he was the greatest guy in existence, and he owned
one of the after-hours spots I played at. I learned a lot from
him.
I was a singer before I ever became a deejay. I had a natural
flair for talking over the records. Before me everybody was just
announcing. I had a voice. I used to like the way Frankie Crocker
would ride a track, but he wasn’t syncopated to the track though.
I liked Hank Spann too, but he wasn’t on the one. Guys back then
weren’t concerned with being musical. I wanted to flow with the
record. As a singer that’s what you’re supposed to do. I guess
I had a natural awareness of when to start talking and when to
stop talking over a record.
Around 1972 I started making tapes of what I was doing in the
after-hours spots. I would record them onto 8-track tapes, and
sell them for like 12 bucks a pop. I went around to barber shops,
restaurants anyplace where there was a bunch of brothers with
money- I was there selling my tapes. Back then though; there was
no dubbing, so I had to record each individual tape. It got to
the point where, as soon as I would come outside, and say "I
got tapes!" brothers would roll up and be like, "Yeah
gimme one of those!"
My tapes would be gone in a flash. People would rush me for them
tapes. That was the real start of the mixtape game.
When the Rooftop was hot back in the day, man all them cats that
had money was bidding on my tapes right there in the booth; I’m
talking about your AZ’s, and Rich Porters, and Alpo’s and people
like that, those brothers were buying the tapes for 150 – 200
bucks right out the booth – and I’m talking about cassette tapes."
People talk about me not being hip hop, well, it’s because I
spun the whole record, when the "get down" part would
come on, I would keep it going. They practiced playing the obscure
parts of records. I played stuff like "Paradise" and
"Mambo Number Five" and "Scorpio"; but that
wasn’t a big part of what I did. I played for hustlers. I played
for people that came sharp to the party. You really had to come
correct at the spots I was playing at. Harlem was on some smooth
@#%$ way before the Bronx.
I had heard of Kool Herc and his partner Coke LaRock from a couple
of friends of mine named Al and Coop, they used to play at the
Hevalo on the nights that Herc wasn’t playing there. They would
come back and tell me about the obscure records they were playing
and people diving on the floor and @#%$.
In 1975 I went to the Bronx and started playing at a spot called
Club 371. That’s when the Bronx got hip to what I was doing.
Around the time that I first started playing in the Bronx, there
was this kid that used to hear my tapes. There was this friend
of mine named Gary, he had a 98 Oldsmobile, he used to buy a whole
lot of my tapes. I mean he had a lot of them. One day, I can’t
remember where right now, but there was this kid who was sitting
in Gary’s car listening to one of my tapes while Gary’s car was
parked in front of a basketball court. Later, I started hearing
about this kid, people would come up to me and be like "Yo,
Wood man, there’s this kid named Starski, man he gets down just
like you do, he sounds just like you and everything!" I call
that an indirect influence.
Now there were two guys that I can say that I did teach. One
was D.J. Smalls and the other was Junebug, god bless him. Junebug
was the baddest deejay I ever saw. Period. He was a Puerto Rican
cat that guy could blend his ass off, he could cut, he was the
baddest deejay ever, and I taught him.
DJ Smalls kind of reminded me of myself. He was a kid who had
a whole of determination; he just wanted to shine. I put a lot
of cats down. I guess it was because people like Huey Newton influenced
me. I always had a strong sense of black awareness. I was always
about unity you know what I’m sayin’?
One day in 1975, I was at home playing records, and one of the
records I pulled out was the "Black Moses" album. It
was not popular at the time. So, there I was listening to this
album, and I put on a song called "Good Love 6969".
Isaac Hayes was singing this part that went "I’m listed in
the yellow pages, all around the world, I got 30 years experience
in loving sweet young girls." That record stopped me dead
in my tracks. You see, before that record I had been doing nursery
rhymes. But after that record: I was doing rhymes.
And not only was I doing rhymes but I was talking about love.
This was another level.
I thought to myself, what if I take what he’s doing and put it
with this? What would I get? I got fame, that’s what I got. I
got more famous than I could ever imagine. Everybody bit that
rhyme. I would go to jams and people would be saying that rhyme,
and none of them, not one of them, knew where it came from. It
blew my mind.
Had I known that this was gonna be a billion dollar thing – I
don’t think that I would’ve been as good at it. God sent someone
to show black kids a different way. I never knew saying rhymes
over a phat beat would lead to all of this. But God knew it. God
used me as a vehicle. It was something for everybody to have.
When a lot of people are thinking on the same wavelength, you
get a multitude of sounds. It says in the Bible "Let’s make
a joyful noise unto the Lord", well my joyful noise came
as a James Brown record".
