Freshco – The Unkut Interview, Part 2

Concluding my talk with Freshco, he details what went down in the New Music Seminar in 1990, teaming up with DJ Miz, the mutual respect he shared with other top-tier lyricists and why his career as an MC didn’t turn out the way he’d hoped.

Robbie: How did you get involved with the NMS?

Freshco: DJ Clark Kent said, “Fresh, you need to join the New Music Seminar”, and that sent chills down my spine. Everyone that knew me knew how good I was, but the world didn’t know. I think Clark Kent was trying to say, “There’s a way to do this. Go into the Seminar and show everybody”. And that’s what I did. In July, 1989 I won the New Music Seminar, and people were like, “Oh my god, we didn’t know!”. Everybody was there, it was the perfect platform. Diddy, Just-Ice, Ice-T. It ended up being a really nice thing for me.

Can you break-down how the battle worked?

I think it was 8 rounds, 16 verses, so you went two verses against each person. That contest started somewhere around 9am and it wasn’t over until late that evening, so I was battling all day long. People would say this is a contest that rapper’s who have records out on the radio were afraid of. If one of the big rappers entered the New Music Seminar and lost? It would be a problem for them. You don’t enter this thing if you are already out there, because it’s just too dangerous.

I interviewed Uptown and he suggested that the Tommy Boy guys had asked him to let you win that battle. What are your thoughts on that?

There’s no truth to that. I haven’t seen Uptown in years, but I consider him a friend, but nobody let me do anything. No one was ready for what I was going to do! These guys went into the contest with maybe a good rhyme here and maybe a punchline on bar eight and a punchline on bar fourteen. I went into that contest with a punchline every two bars. It was like if somebody takes a razor blade and starts slashing at your face. There was nothing anybody can do! I went up against Mikey D. I went against him, and I beat him. Kool Moe Dee dissed Busy Bee back in the day, and every bar was a death blow. So when I went into the New Music Seminar I tried to do the exact same thing as Kool Moe Dee, from which there’s no coming back from! All these guys looking at the wall, and make-up a rhyme about the wall? I ate them all up! Mikey D was supposed to be “the guy”, like no one could beat him. Before he went against me, he was thinking he was gonna eat me up, and I’m thinking, “You are not going to be able to survive this! Not with these little raps about ‘garbage cans’ and all this stuff. That’s not gonna work against me!” The guy that I battled in the finals was MC Serge, and he was from Cleveland. I think I did my best stuff against Serge. I was a fan of Serge, after the contest. When I watched the footage, his style and performance were the smoothest thing ever. I still believe I rightfully won, because every other bar I was coming strong, and Serge kinda did that thing – every few bars you would hear something cute – but I was going for heads.

Was Bango in it the same year?

I can’t remember if he was in earlier round and lost to somebody else. The year after I won, Treach from Naughty By Nature lost to a guy from Celeveland. This white guy… I can’t remember what his name was. This guy out-rhymed Treach! That’s one of those stories that people don’t know about. This white guy, who was a friend of Serge, he was so comfortable – he talked about Treach’s du-rag. He was just funny! If some guy gets the crowd, that can be it for you. Treach did not lose because he wasn’t good enough. He lost because that guy was just comfortable at being able to roll with whatever the hell was happening. The crowd was like, “Oh my god, this guy has no fear!”

Did you meet DJ Miz at the NMS?

When I put out “4 At A Time” I did a show in Philly and I was introduced to DJ Miz by a guy from Tommy Boy. I just gathered that Miz was a popular Philly DJ that would start playing my record for me. I did not know that DJ Miz could do all that shit that he could do! Even when I saw him the day at the contest, I had no clue that he could do all that stuff. “Oh, you’re in this too?” We were watching each other all day long. The MC Battle would happen, and then the DJ Battle would happen – it was back and forth all day long. The final was against DJ Aladdin, and Aladdin is incredible. Miz just happened to pull a rabbit out of a hat and beat him.

When did you decide to team-up with Miz?

It was friends. Clark Kent might’ve been one of the people who said, “There’s never been an DJ champion who partnered with an MC champ”. But Miz and I didn’t even know each other that well – he lives in Philly, I live in New York – so that idea, initially, was kinda far-fetched. Then we thought about it and we ended-up doing it.

How much time did you spend in the studio once you got started?

We spent a lot of time pre-recording at Miz’s house in Philly, and then we spent a lot of time at a studio in Philidelphia, Third Story Recording Studio, where The Roots were later working at, Grover Washington and all these people. We had so many ideas, we almost couldn’t find time to find the right label and the right management and square away what we needed to do. We were so into our craft that some of the other things took a backseat, believe it or not. We felt like everyone was trying to get a piece of us, and it was very confusing. The only thing that wasn’t confusing was making music.

Because you guys were the NMS Champions?

I can you tell you so many stories about interactions I’ve had with some of the world’s greatest MC’s. Hurricane Gloria brought Redman to my house, and Redman watched the New Music Seminar in my house. He introduced himself as Reggie. He looked at me and said, “Dude, you are one of the best I’ve ever seen!” He gave me his number and Erick Sermon’s number, and he said, “If you ever have a problem, call Erick and he will take care of you”. I thought it was cool, but you gotta understand, I was hearing this from everybody! When I was hanging with Big Daddy Kane, he would put me on speakerphone and have me rap for the guys he was hanging out with, and he would say, “How the hell do you that?” Trust me, Kane is a friend of mine. I’m not trying to start anything here.

That regular check for one thing!

I was engineering at Soundtrack Studio – I got a job doing sound for television commercials and TV shows – that’s one of the things that kept me away from hip-hop. I found a career where my work was on television every day, and a lot of people didn’t understand that. They didn’t understand how I could leave hip-hop. I was getting a regular check, I had a newborn daughter, I was getting benefits. I’ll give you a couple of more examples. I remember Busta saying to me, “Fresh, you’ve gotta come back. The game needs you”. This is the same thing Redman told me after he came out. He said, “Dude, we need more Freshco songs”. I did the audio edits for an album called El Nino for Erick Sermon, Keith Murray and Redman. When Keith Murray came into the studio, Redman said, “Do you know who this is? This is Freshco!” Keith Murray said to me, “Yo, you are the reason that I started rapping”. DJ Enuff will tell you when Biggie was in the car saying, “Yo Fresh, I listen to you all the time!”, and Biggie started rapping the verse to “Now You Know”.

One time I went to introduce myself to LL Cool J and he said, “I know who you are. I’ve been watching you on MTV all weekend long”. LL was an idol to me, that’s major. These stories almost haunt me today, because the mass media doesn’t know about any of these stories. The last time I saw Jay-Z, he said, “What happened?” I said, “I got this job, I got my own audio studio at Soundtrack”. And he was like, “Well that’s great!” That was the last time I spoke to Jay-Z. I didn’t know that Jay-Z would end-up being who he is today. When people tell me, “You should have just stayed with Damon and Roc-A-Fella”, I tell them, “If you had found me an income, instead of hanging out on 90th street and 1st avenue (where Damon lived), maybe I would have kept hanging out with Damon”. But Jay-Z didn’t blow-up until three years after I stopped hanging out with them, so I would’ve had to wait at least two years to start making some real livable money.

Is this when Damon managed Original Flavor and the Future Sound?

Exactly. It was nice being a popular MC, but I wasn’t a drug dealer so I didn’t have any “other” money. I had to find another way. Before I came out, I used to go over Howie Tee’s house. Howie Tee – before Special Ed, before Chubb Rock – he was a popular Brooklyn DJ, he had this group of four MC’s. What he did with Special Ed and Chubb was not new to us. That was just regular Howie Tee that we were seeing everyday for years. Chubb Rock did the chorus to one of my first demos that Howie Tee put the beat together for. No one knows about that. I did a song called “Mega Thought”, and Chubb Rock did the chorus. Chubb Rock did not have a deal yet. I remember one time I was going to The Rooftop, and Jaz-O – the great MC – stopped me in front of the Rooftop and said, “Fresh, kick a verse”. I kicked a verse and Jaz right after me kicked a verse. We shook hands, like, “Hey, that was hot”. Jay-Z stood right next to Jaz and did not say a thing. Now that I know Jay-Z, that’s typical Jay-Z. He can be a very quiet guy. He just takes in everything and when it’s his time to shine he does it well. He was there but he did not rap after me and Jaz. I just bring that up to say that it’s unfortunate that Jaz did not get what he deserved. If you hear Jay-Z and say “How did he come up with that?” If you hear Jaz, you’ll say, “Oh, I get it now”. I would never take anything away from Jay, I love Jay and I admire that guy, but I wish people knew. That “Originator” style? Jaz is one of the unsung MC’s in hip-hop. It almost hurts me that Jay-Z rose to where he is without bringing that guy along.

How did you meet Biggie?

DJ Enuff went to pick him up, and I was with DJ Enuff that day. Biggie and I ended-up freestyling together and Biggie tried to get the track on his first album, but Puffy said they had enough songs for the album so our freestyle together didn’t make it.

Years before I got my record deal, I ended up at Cut Creators house in Queens. I never heard of LL Cool J, Cut Creator did not have a record out. Cut Creator said, “The best DJ’s are from Queens”, and me and my friend Freedom B (Redhook) were saying, “No, they’re from Brooklyn”. Cut Creator invited this guy over, his name was Drew-Ski. His nickname was Drewcember. When I first heard the record, “I Need A Beat”, I said to myself, “Who the hell is LL Cool J and where is Drewcember?” Everything that you heard on “I Need A Beat”, Drewski was able to do, if not better. There’s a guy out there named Drew-Ski who we never got to hear, and he was incredible.

Is that the same guy who became Dr. Butcher and worked with Kool G Rap?

It could be. I don’t know the details of LL’s crew, but at Cut Creator’s house, Drew-Ski came over, and when I heard him rap, I left Cut Creators house shaking my head, like “He was incredible! All those big words!” I’d never heard that before. Similar to Jaz-O, these are guys that the world just missed out on. People tell me that too. “Gosh, you could’ve been where Kanye and Jay is”. The track that me and Biggie rhymed on, and somehow some of the songs I produced, people thought that DJ Premier produced them. All this crazy stuff that some of the guys today are famous for – producing and rhyming – I was doing that back in 1992.

Back to Part 1.

Freshco & Miz – “We Don’t Play”

Freshco & Miz – “Ain’t You Freshco”

Freshco & Biggie Smalls – “Freestyle”