Breakbeat Lou – The Unkut Interview

Here’s the full version of my Breakbeat Lou interview, some of which was used in my Ultimate Breaks and Beats: An Oral History feature.

Robbie: How did you meet Lenny Roberts?

Breakbeat Lou: Lenny I’d met at Saul’s Record Pool, back in the early 80’s. There was a feedback committee meeting that we had and everyone was talking about regular rap records and regular music. That wasn’t what he was really into, he was more or a less a ‘in the house’ kinda DJ. There was a comment about a particular record and I said, ‘Yeah, I know that record.’ He said, ‘How do you know that record? You don’t seem like you’re into that particular thing.’ I was already DJing regular stuff. I’ve been in the game a long time – a DJ since ’74, hardcore digger since ’78, producer since ’80. That’s where the connection with breakbeats came in between him and I. He was already involved in going to the jams, ‘cos Lenny used to hang out at Bronx River. First it was bootleg 12’s that were being released – we released ‘Big Beat’, before that was ‘Funky President’ and ‘Long Red’ on Sure Shot Records. We also released the guava ‘Apache’ copies, ‘Chinese Chicken,’ ‘Impeach The President,’ the [Magic Disco Machine’s] ‘Scratchin” one sided 12’, the ‘Rocket In The Pocket.’

The biggest factor in starting UBB was when we did ‘Fusion Beats’ – the Bozo Meko records, Lenny did that. ‘Fusion Beats’ is a pause tape done by [Afrika] Islam and the recording of ‘Flash To The Beat’ was Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five‘s infamous beat-box routine. The 12’s did alright, but when we out the ‘Champ,’ the ‘Get Up and Get Involved’ and the Dyke and the Blazers it seemed like people really wanted that. The Super Disco Brakes had already been released, but because Disco Brakes were inferior to everything else it was less appealing. So we decided to release the Octopus Breakbeats, which were the bootlegs we created. We released what we called the ‘foundation beats.’ – ‘Funky Penguin,’ the ‘Mary, Mary,’ the ‘Black Grass,’ the ‘Gibe It Up Or Turn It Loose,’ the ‘Apache,’ the ‘Got To Be Real’, the ‘Pussyfooters,’ then later on with volume 9 we used ‘Big Beat’ and ‘The Mexican,’ the ‘Midnight Scene.’ These were the Foundation Beats for the new generation that were coming out in the early 80s. There’s two tiers to the way hip-hop evolved, from the early 70’s to what I call the ‘Rap Record Era,’ when the ‘Rapper’s Delight’ came out. What started to happen was a lotta people started cutting up rap records instead of regular breakbeats, so we had to facilitate the original foundation breakbeats.

Were the bootlegs a reaction to all the drum machine rap records at the time?

Yeah. I started seeing early Cold Crush routines and all the guys – they were using ‘Love Rap’ as a breakbeat. ‘Feel The Heartbeat’ is another one they used to use. It seemed to be the norm for people rapping over other people’s records when there were a whole plethora of breaks from the original inception. If it was good enough for those guys, why can’t it be good enough for you guys? I felt if you really wanted to know about the culture you should know where the foundation really comes from, and the foundation is these breaks! If you notice from volumes 1 through 9 of the Octopus Breakbeats – which was the 1 through 9 also of the original UBB compilations – all those records were not no craziness of records that became the records afterwards, but 90% of the people growing-up within that timeframe knew about those records. They may not know the name, but they would know the beat. They would know ‘Apache’ and ‘Got To Be Real.’ ‘Dance To The Drummer’s Beat’? Everybody used to call it the ‘Let’s Dance’ record.

You also included some foundation breaks in the later volumes though.

It was two-fold. With the ‘Funky Drummer’ and stuff being in the later years, we tried to facilitate the records that could not be found through the original 1 through 9. You couldn’t find too many of the ‘Apaches’ because of the limited situation what it was. The ‘Got To Be Real’ version that you heard? To beef-up the album, to give it some more attractive, we put that there but it was available otherwise. It was records that were not available or were rarely available that we had to put out on the original 9 volumes. ‘Funky Drummer’ was still available because at that time you also had the Polydor Jungle Groove album that had ‘Funky Drummer’ on it. What we tried to put out was something that was rarely available or people didn’t really know the name of it, even though we heard it many times in the parks and in the jams. In the later volumes, we were trying to push the envelope in the sense to do your homework the same way we used to do our homework. We tried to give you the tools to let you know there’s more you can search for than just what’s here. You can do your homework and go to a store and find out what else can be on Stax records, what else can be on People records. We were the instruments for keeping hip-hop ‘hip-hop,’ and we were the college for diggers. The digging craze started with us. Mantronik would want to get a test-pressing as soon as we got them. He would say, ‘Whatever you want, I’ll give you for the test pressing.

In the beginning we didn’t care what kind of vinyl it was because we didn’t know any better, but the UBB stuff we made sure was pressed-up on virgin vinyl. Volume 1 through 9 we used to go through a commercial jingle studio in New York, and most early engineers do not like to push the envelope – are so technical that they will keep stuff a certain way. When I started getting involved with the actual recording and doing the editing myself, I decided to push the envelope on the levels. Dance music started coming into play, and there was a mastering guy named Herb Powers in New York that was responsible for having the ‘Omph’ in music – the way hip-hop was being interpreted, the way House music was being interpreted, freestyle music, soul or even R&B in that era – if you notice, it had a little more of a kick to it. Herb being a DJ himself, he decided to push the envelope, so that’s what I did. I didn’t mind going into the red when I was peaking into my recordings.

We went from recording at 7 ½ IPS when we did the first Octopus to going from to 15 all the way to 30 IPS on the UBB’s. Volumes 10/11 we did on 15 IPS, from 12 all the way to 25 we did all 30 IPS. I’d make sure the kind of machine I was using I’d record the tones from there and pass it on to the masters so they know what to calibrate their systems to. Then we started having our stuff mastered at Frankford Wayne, which was the best thing at that time to use, and the second-best engineer that they had was Carlton Batts, and he was the one that was mastering our stuff at the end. We took to it the extra level. If I had to run it through a board to beef it up a little bit i would do so, because I knew the levels I was meant to keep to maintain the integrity of the records. Plus when we were patterning the way the records we would go, we made sure we didn’t go past the seventeen minute limit per side so we had full sounding grooves. We really did our homework in getting the best sound that we can get. We didn’t worry about it being so ‘clean’ per say, we just made sure it was a powerful sound.

Everybody in the city had the Octopus Breakbeats. Around 1983, 1984, they died down, nobody wants them anymore. Marley Marl samples ‘Impeach The President’ – the sampling craze starts. Lenny and I were talking, he says, ‘I wanna create a label to do records.’ Chep Nunez and I were in the same record pool with Lenny, and Chep Nunez and I made a production company called The Original Beat Junkie Productions. Lenny said, ‘I’ll make a label and you guys can do my first record.’ The first record was gonna be called Classic Beat Junkies and the record was gonna be called ‘Get Up.’ We sampled ‘Give It Up Or Turn It Loose,’ we sampled the ‘Joshua Tree’ and Depeche Mode or something. It was one of those party records like Kenny Dope or ‘Shake Whatcha Mama Gave Ya.’ So Lenny goes to Downstairs Records, goes to Rock ‘N Soul, then he goes to Stanley [at Music Factory], telling him, ‘I run this label.’ He goes, ‘By the way, do you have anymore of those Octopus Breakbeats?’ Lenny says, ‘No, not really.’ He goes, ‘Do me a favor? If you could press up a few, cos I’m starting to get calls because everyone’s looking for some of these breaks again.’ He was the store where everyone knew to go and get them, but he wasn’t officially part of the Octopus Breakbeats or UBB. Anything else that was being done was Downstairs Records and a store in the Bronx called L.B.M. Lenny used to keep some records at the store in the Bronx cos he also lived in the Bronx. The main store in the late 70’s, early 80’s was Downstairs Records. That’s where Theodore got his name from as the Grand Wizard, because he also used to play pinball and he was a pinball wizard.

Can you tell when someone samples from a UBB record?

There’s a certain way that I edited ‘Impeach The President’ – there’s a slight pop on one of the edits that you can hear – and people tend to sample that and they have no idea that I can tell. It’s a little crackle. ?ustlove has pointed that out to me, ‘I know when somebody samples from you and when they use the original, because i hear the crackle and pop that they use.’ They’re identifiable sounds. Like with ‘Think’ – there’s a slight little swing to the way I looped the record, because I didn’t record it at the locked-in 45 RPM. the way I locked it in is maybe 46 or 47 RPM. All tape, straight editing.

‘UFO’ was always played that way [slowed down]. Bambaataa was the catalyst for all of this. He was the one who catapult us to using a lot of these obscure records. A lot of those records like ‘UFO’ and that sort of stuff, we heard first at Bronx River. We had the mentality where a record had to have a certain bounce to it, or a certain groove or a bop your head sound to it. Those records that had a dope beat but it was too fast, then we’d experiment and put it at 33 [RPM]. It took that extra ingenuity that Bam would put in, how he used to play ‘Rocket In The Pocket’ or how he used to play ‘Theme Of The Planets.’ Knowing how to experiment if the record’s technically a ballad so you put it on 45 to make it sound better. Like with the ‘Amen Brother’ – the song itself is played at 45 – but when the break comes in we edited it, slowed it down to 33, recorded it and put it back to 45.

What are your best memories of Lenny?

Lenny was a lover of music, a very caring man. Always very enquiring, subdued, always to himself. Very smart guy, knowing what can envoke certain things in people. The kind of person that was very organized. There was a time in my life that he was almost like a father to me cos I was always around him. It was a great loss when he passed on. He was a lover of music cos everything that came out after that he gravitated towards. He was true lover of music – when he followed the hip-hop he connected to it, when House music came on the scene he connected to it, when Freestyle music came on the scene he connected to it. His intuitiveness in finding digging spots – he would go to certain stores and look for certain records – and the whole looking at labels and that stuff I picked up from him.

We went digging out of town, and we used to set-up skids when we went in back streets to buy large allotments. We happened to see a real dusty pile of stuff, and we would always look to see what was laying there. It was the import version of the ‘Little Less Conversation’ yellow album [Almost In Love] of Elvis Presley, about 75 copies of it, dusty box and everything. So we put the skid next to that one and slightly put one of the boxes of our stuff to touch that skid, just to see what it would evoke. We finish our thing and were lining everything up, he says, ‘These boxes?’ We go, ‘No, we don’t know what it it.’ We knew what it was. The guy says, ‘Yeah, they’ve been here for a long time. Give me $1.50 for it.’ The Elvis Presley album was easily worth $7, $8 at the time – now it’s worth even more than that. We got it for 75 cents each for 75 copies. He was doing record shows after that and he ended up selling for at least $15, $20, $30 at a time, depending on what it was. He was the ultimate digger – he knew where to go, when to go – he would always come back with everything, and sometimes more, than he was even expecting to get. I remember I went to this jukebox place and I saw eight copies of ‘Just Begun’ 45, Italian copy. I bought all of them! They’re not leaving there without me. It’s that mentality that you tend to get cos you want to maintain that upper hand in having everything you have to know what to get.

Did Lenny have his own record store at any point?

Lenny had a storefront for Street Beat Records, which also he would keep the records that he would sell at the record shows, but he never had a real store himself. A selected few people were able to go – Diamond D, Biz Markie, Lord Finesse – guys that were diggers were able to go there. L.B.M Records is the store in the Bronx that myself and Trevor [TR Love] both used to work at. Lenny was like his uncle, but he wasn’t his uncle by blood. That’s how it was back in those days, we were all in the same tune with each other, I worked with Trevor in the Ultramagentic stuff early, with the Tim Dog album, so we all in the same kind of family situation.

What was the story with the cover artwork?

Kev Harris came to us via Danny Dan The Beatman, who does Dusty Fingers. We had another guy who did the first three volumes – 1, 3 and 9. It wasn’t really ‘hip-hop’ covers, they were more futuristic with the spaceman and all that good stuff. The reason why was cos he was looking at Bam at Bronx River, and Bam in the early days was very Parliament/Funkadelic, mothership, Sly and the Family Stone kind look. When I told Lenny we need to get better covers to reflect more what it was, we had one other guy that tried to do something – it wasn’t that good – and we had put the word out and Danny came back with Kevin. Kevin was the perfect fit, because one of the original artworks that he had was a skull, and we ended up modifying that, reflecting that hip-hop was dying – as we knew it. The symbolic gold chain of the skull with the kangol, then you had the MC on the tombstone and the b-boy on the other tombstone. I’ve been looking for him for a couple of years now, we have to find him.

How did you go about licensing the songs for UBB?

It was easier in those days to get mechanical licensing, cos there is a scale that you follow. You can go to Harry Fox Publishing and get all that stuff put into motion. Now, you’ve gotta get pre-approval, but in those days you didn’t have to. There’s a scale for certain records – it’d be like 5 cents for this, or 7 cents for that – and you say, ‘I’m pressing up 2,000 records of this, eight songs at five cents – that’s 40 cents – you’ve got 40 cents times 2,000.’ You give that cheque out and that’s it. It’s the same thing that K-Tel used to do, or the Time-Life records or the CD that you see that do the year’s best. You’re not using the artist, all you’re using is a song and taking advantage of the mechanical licensing. You’re not changing anything. After that more stringent laws came into place because of the sampling craze people were walking that fine line of mechanical licensing without paying for copyright infringement, so now you’ve gotta get the master’s rights plus the publishing rights.

Why did you stop releasing the UBB series?

We had already decided to do 25 and see what happens after that. We didn’t want to get out like we did with the infamous [Octopus Breakbeats] Volume 8. He penciled in 2,000 copies and it took years to sell those. Now everybody wish they had ’em, but it took years for them to sell – years. If you find a Street Beat version number 8, it’s a bootleg, because we never put number 8 out on Street Beat. Some of the records that were big on Street Beat [8] were released on other volumes – ‘The Mexican,’ ‘It’s My Thing,’ ‘Keep Your Distance.’ We decided to keep it 25, then it became more significant when Chep passed away in 1990. He’d been one of the pivotal parts for the company itself, that’s why you saw 25 was a grey cover – it was no artwork – as we were still mourning his death when we did that volume. That’s the reason we stopped. People thought we stopped because we didn’t have no more records, we didn’t have no more beats, so a couple of years ago I put out a CD called ‘The Diggin’ Expedition’ that had over 150 beats that were not used on the Ultimate Breaks and Beats. There’s records that I can play that people have never heard of to this day. That’s how serious it gets. Don’t get it twisted – we stopped because we wanted to stop.

When I came back, I found out that the records were extremely instrumental in shaping the music industry as a whole. In 1997, 32 of the weeks on Billboard‘s singles chart, the number one’s had some kind of element from the UBB compilation. That year you had Mariah Carey sampled ‘Blind Alley,’ Janet Jackson sampled ‘The Big Payback’ and [Hanson‘s] ‘MMMBop’ sampled ‘Substitution.’ To also see how my edit became a whole genre of music with Baltimore House and our introducing ‘Amen Brother’ enabled Mantronix to do ‘King of the Beats’ and then it became the whole Jungle craze in Europe. It’s very humbling for something that I did as a labor of love. To have Bambaataa and Red Alert saying, ‘If it wasn’t for you guys putting that out – it kept the culture going.’