Dino Brave [The UN] – The Unkut Interview

As a founding member of The UN with Roc Marciano, Dino Brave has experienced a lot of Long Island rap history first hand. Inspired by the Spectrum City crew coming up (which would later evolve into Public Enemy), Brave had his time in the spotlight cut short thanks to bad timing in the crumbling music industry. But with the recent re-release of UN Or U Out, a new generation of rap fanatics are getting the chance to hear Brave, Laku, Mike Raw and Roc Marciano in action once again.

Robbie: How did everything start for you?

Dino Brave: It was kinda handed down to me, man. A lotta people in the family did music. My older brothers played instruments – they played guitar, they played the drums, made beats, keyboard players – all sorts of things. I grew-up with production studios in my house! I got into deejaying, it was the cheapest equipment I could get my hands on, putting two record players together and a mixer. I started deejaying around seven, touching official turntables. I was doing pretty everything that I wanted to do with the turntable, that I seen the great’s doing – it was boring for me at that point. So I decided to pick up the mic at thirteen. I heard “My Melody” and that made me want to write my first rap. I went to school with it, dude’s used to bang beats on the table and stuff like that. I kicked the rhyme, and my cousin who I was in school with loved it. He was like, “Run with it,” so I ran with it. I kept writing, did talent shows coming up and just start making tapes after school. I went to school with dude’s from The UN, so they were those guys at the lunch table, beating on the tables and making rhymes.

What were you calling yourself back then?

I was changing names every other day. I used to call myself Wiz, but that was then. Went through a bunch of street names and attributes coming up, but that was the first name.

Were you old enough to go the Spectrum City parties?

How do you know about all of that, man? I thought you was from London, man. You sound like you from out here! What you know about Spectrum City, man? Those dudes got me by about ten years. Those dudes came up with my brothers, ironically. My cousin Kyle Jason and my brother BT – god rest his soul – them dude’s was part of a group called The Come Alive Five and they used to battle against Spectrum City in the parks. I was too young to go to them jams, this was like ‘81, ’82. I used to sit there and have my tape ready though, when Flavor [Flav] used to be on the radio station at WBAU, and later on Wildman Steve came up with it. Original Concept was outta Westbury. I didn’t get to participate with those dudes but it was an intricate part of me learning hip-hop – I got it from that generation.

Did you go to the auditions that the Bomb Squad held for new groups?

510 Studios was the studio in Hempstead – Chuck and the Bomb Squad had one level, and Paul Shabazz had the downstairs. I used to go up in there as a kid, it was an honor. Ice Cube left NWA and came to Hempstead and did his first album at 510 Studio with Chuck and them. 510 was the spot back then. [Charlie] Brown and all of them got they names from Chuck, he started naming ‘em and helping ‘em with they project. Brown’s older brother’s an old DJ from back then, he had a lotta connections and got them going. Brown’s brother actually used to battle my brother. That Spectrum City family, man. Hempstead, Freeport, Roosevelt, Uniondale connection.

Apparently Eddie Murphy used to perform at those Spectrum City parties?

Yeah, Eddie Murphy used to come to the house. I went to school with his younger cousin, Rich. Everybody is sorta related in a funny way, whether they know it or not. My family’s been out here a long time, so it was nothing to see Eddie Murphy at the house, come through on his way to Saturday Night Live in the 80’s.

Going back to your story, what was the next step after high school?

There was always a battle going on, we came up battling. We wasn’t a group, I had my thing with my cousin. Rakeem, he was doing his solo thing – Roc Marc, Mike Raw was doing his solo thing. Raw had deals on the table – fresh outta high school – he was turning down. Laku was rapping, everybody was rapping. It was like, “Who didn’t rap?” almost. It was a cultural thing. As time went on, the EPMD’s, the Public Enemy’s, the Biz Mark’s and all of that – money was starting to develop. Run-DMC used to come around here; Jam Master Jay signed Serious-Lee-Fine from around here – that was The Choice Five – that was another clique that was part of that Spectrum City era. Woody Rock went on and did his solo shit up at Uptown Records. There was always rapper’s around here. We didn’t actively start looking for deals until the mid-to-late 90’s, and by that time we were out of school. We were out in the streets doing things that maybe we shouldn’t have been doing, but it made us who we are.

So you were just in it for the sport for a long time?

We was just never the type to go ask nobody for no favors. None of us were star struck, we were used to people who had money and were famous entertainers, it was nothing to see them in our neighborhood barbershops and parks and clubs. We wasn’t asking nobody for nothing – if it came it came, if it didn’t it didn’t – that was our attitude. Even the way we got on was sort of a fluke. Schott Free, we met up with him off the strength of another rap group – a dude that we was doing demos with around the way – he mistakenly played our stuff trying to cue up their stuff. It was I.G.T., it was their session. They were one of the last groups to sign with Loud Records before they folded, and my man G. Gary was up in the studio playing some beats for them and he played a song that The UN did, and Schott Free was like, “Yo, who’s that?” That’s how is started.

Who was I.G.T?

Schott Free and Matty [C] had signed them, but they didn’t drop. They recorded the album and everything, but by the time they were gonna come out Loud Records had closed their doors. Those were some good brothers though.

When did you decide to call yourselves The UN?

We came up with The UN around ‘98, me and him [Marciano], being that we all went to school in Uniondale, and fashioned ourselves after the political structure – people from different places, coming together. None of us were a group prior to that. We knew each other for rhyming and we put ourselves in that position, like, “We could do it by ourselves, but we choose to come together as one government and do it together to strengthen our chances of getting a deal.” We done played ball together, fought together, eat and drink together, fuck chicks together, all that shit. We grew up together, so it felt very natural. There was nothing made-up about it, we lived it. We lived all that stuff we was talking about. We were kinda tired of living it! We wanted to talk about it more! Tired of living the struggle, let’s just talk about the struggle! [laughs]

So how long after Schott hearing you did the deal happen?

It was a three year process between Schott Free hearing our stuff and when Carson Daley even came into the picture. It was a grind in between that. When Schott Free heard the stuff he was still working with Loud Records. He started calling for brothers to come meet him at the studio at Greene Street. We started recording a professional demo and it was there that we met Pete Rock. We didn’t have no deal, and it just so happened that we were in one studio and Pete Rock was recording in another. You know how it the studio settings is – you go into the lobby to get into your food and drink and allathat, and you’re hearing stuff. He was hearing what we doing, we were hearing what he doing. He was working on the Petestramental album at the time, he had the deal with BBE. We just started building with each other, and before you know it he threw a track out there for us to jump on – it was “Nothin’ Lesser.” He took it to the radio station [Future Flavas] and I guess he was getting a lotta good feedback, and before we knew it he said, “You know what? I wanna put y’all on the album. I wanna put y’all on the single.”

You were just “featured artists” at that stage?

Exactly, we still didn’t have no deal. That gave us even more light and we shopped and shopped and shopped at different spots. Loud folded, so [Schott] decided he was gonna start his own thing and we ran with him. The industry was changing though – a couple of other labels folded, studios started closing – music started going into the digital world and money wasn’t as lucrative. They weren’t giving the big deals like that no more. Before Loud closed, a $500,000 budget was nothing, anybody could get that. When we came in, it was deaded. It was hard to get a $100,000 deal unless you were a made dude already, so that’s how we ended up going the independent route. We ended up over at 4,5,6 with John Rifkind [brother of Loud Records’ Steve Rifkind] and Carson Daley.

What was the story with the World Domination CD?

Somebody leaked our shit! All of that material was recorded at Greene Street, so whoever leaked it got it from Greene Street. We were formulating a professional demo up at Greene Street, so the format of that demo sounds structured like an album because we were building it to be a demo. Somebody ran with it and started pressing it up, so I guess that was our welcome to the business – you get bootlegged and you get jerked. That nice little package, that starter kit.

There was some great stuff on there, like the remake of EPMD’s “Hardcore.”

That song was done with I.G.T, and Reek The Villian was on that song too, being that we from around here, and PMD even talked over it.

Why were you listed as Godfree on the cover of that bootleg?

My peoples in the streets out here, they call me Godfree. But Brave is the MC name. Pete ran with it cos we in the studio and he just assumed that was the MC name when it came time to put the names down, cos that’s what brothers call me. But it wasn’t like a misprint or I changed my name or anything.

Can you tell me about the process of recording the UN Or U Out LP?

Half of that album was originally recorded on reel-to-reel at Greene Street. The other half was recorded in Pro Tools over there at Daddy’s House – we was on the top floor, which was actually John Lennon’s old studio on West 44th, they were calling it Street Light. That’s the studio he left right before he got killed. Once we went to Pro Tools we ended up restructuring it so that everything was inside of Pro Tools – “Golden Grail,” “Mind Blowin,” a couple of other joints. Not to take nothing away from nobody but we would have been happy as we wanted to be if coulda just done that whole album by ourselves. We were sorta playing the political game – Schott Free felt, “If you collab with this person or if you get on this beat and you include these people, people will be quicker to look, listen and observe.” As opposed to, “Who are these guys rhymin’ on they own beats?” I guess it worked, it was a wise decision, but creatively we could have done it by ourselves, man. It would have sounded as good, if not better.

Were you happy with how 4,5,6 handled the project?

Once we got signed to 4,5,6 we had half of the album already done, so it was a fairly quick process. We knocked it out in maybe a month or two, then there was the process of doing the single. Honestly, they was rushing us. We were just getting warm and they pulled the plug. “We got enough, that’s the album!” 4,5,6 got into a beef with distributors and as a result the distributors didn’t even wanna mess with nobody else on they label. There was a bunch of rock groups on the label and we were the only rap group, and the distributors didn’t want to distribute them dudes, they only wanted to distribute us. 4,5,6 was like, “You gotta distribute everybody or nobody!” They was like, “Then we ain’t distributing nobody!” Whatever got pressed-up with that first little batch got sold, and nothing else got pressed-up no more, cos I guess those dudes had exclusive rights to the distribution.

So that stopped the album dead in it’s tracks?

Yeah. And not for nothing, but they were kinda slacking on releasing that joint. If it wasn’t for Strength & Honor they probably would have hemmed-in hard on releasing that album to begin with! We went back to my man D.O.A. house and we was recording over there. We did the Strength & Honor and that was all us. That’s what The UN album should have been, it was supposed to be our shit and it didn’t feel like it was our shit no more, and that’s the bitch thing of it. When we did Strength & Honor, man? That was my favorite shit. We put that out there to the street and that shit was getting mad love, and them niggas was like, “Fuck it, we gotta put out the album.” Then it was done, there was no talk about no videos, and we wasn’t as swift with the business as we were with the pen. Dudes was really frustrated with the way everything went down. To be doing this shit for so many years and to finally get to that point? It was discouraging. I love hip-hop, but I don’t love the business.

So you took up a trade?

I started my own business. I do heating ventilation, refrigeration, pipe fitter. Skills pays the bills, man. I’ve never stopped doing the music, but I wasn’t trying to pursue money musically, because the past showed me that the business is funny style.

What can we expect from you in the future?

You’re going to hear some solo stuff. I owe it myself, I owe it to the people to get a complete story from me. I got tonnes of material, I produce, I rhyme. People act like they wanna hear something from the kid.

Do you remember when Cam’Ron and Vado came out with their own UN crew?

I remember it. [laughs] That probably would not have happened if we were doing what we set out to do, I can’t fault them. They coulda got upset at us for calling ourselves UN when they was Diplomats! How can I be mad at them? It’s word association, for real.