King of the Beat – An interview with Pumpkin’s nephew

Little is known about the legendary drummer/producer behind classic rap jams from Enjoy, Profile and Tuff City, so when his nephew Koolie Kookoo hit me up this past December I jumped at the chance to find out more about the great man. Here are some of Koolie’s favourite memories and anecdotes of his uncle.

Robbie: What are your first memories of your uncle?

Koolie Kookoo: I was born in ’86, but due to my research It’s almost like I was there. Pumpkin was a multi-instrumentalist. When he was younger – from going to school and all that – he just loved music. My grandfather had three sons – my father, another brother by the name of Mike and Pumpkin. They were all musicians, they all played some kind of instrument, but Pumpkin was able to pretty much master any instrument he touched. Drums happened to be his favorite instrument.

Speed up to the late seventies, about ’77, ’78, Pumpkin used to practice with Funky 4+1. They were like the first group on Enjoy, if I’m not mistaken, and he did their very first record, ‘Rappin’ and Rockin’ The House.’ They used to practice at his garage in the Bronx. Pumpkin used to always have a crowd of people watching him in the garage. What was funny was there was a church across the street, and after a while the church people and the pastors just had no problem. As loud as the music coulda got? Pumpkin was just that funky. ‘You hear that beat that’s going on outside? That’s Pumpkin. He’s okay!’

Somebody in the Funky 4+1 told Bobby Robinson, who was the owner of Enjoy Records, about Pumpkin and Bobby Robinson actually came to the Bronx to see Pumpkin in the garage. That’s actually how he auditioned for him. All those red label records from Enjoy, anything that does say ‘Produced by Bobby Robinson’ or ‘Music by Pumpkin and Friends’? Pumpkin was solely responsible for all that music. He was their head producer. He was very young – when he got to Bobby he was at least sixteen years old.

He was a band guy, he was more like, ‘Put me in a band. I may know about the bass guitar, the piano, but I’d rather be in a band.’ Pumpkin had a great idea for what hip-hop should sound like on wax. Back then, what sampling was for a guy like Pumpkin was replaying records that were out already. The Funky 4+1’s first record, ‘Rappin’ and Rockin’ The House,’ I believe Pumpkin replayed Cheryl Lynn’s ‘To Be Real’ to where it had a familiar sound but it kinda had it’s own feel. The reason why a lotta those records say ‘Pumpkin and Friends’ is because Pumpkin knew a lot of musicians, so Bobby left it up to Pumpkin to gather musicians when necessary for these records, ‘cos he couldn’t play all the instruments at the same time. They had to record the tracks first, then the rapper’s rapped on them. That’s how they did it, back in the day.

Did Pumpkin play the congas on ‘Love Rap’?

No, he did the drums. There was another musician, who’s actually related to Spoonie Gee and Bobby Robinson. His name was Poochy Costello. The actual drums is from Tower of Power, from that record called ‘Squib Cakes.’ The drummer of Tower of Power, his name is David Garibaldi, and he was actually a big influence to Pumpkin.

Pumpkin was able to replay anything he heard – whether it was a drum beat, keyboard, bassline. Fearless Four’s ‘Rockin’ It’ is actually Kraftwerk’s ‘Master Machine;’ ‘Heartbeat’ is a replay of the original ‘Heartbeat’ [Taana Gardner]; Fearless Four ‘It’s Magic’ is a replay of ‘Does A Dog Have A Doughnut?’ [Cat Stevens]. He put his own spin on these records. In the breakdowns you’d hear a lot of drums, a lot of patterns. That’s Pumpkin!

Was Pumpkin getting paid what he deserved for his work at Enjoy?

Greg G from the Disco Four said that Pumpkin received $600 for him and his band over at Enjoy. Now I don’t know if it was an annual thing, I don’t know if it was a once every month kinda thing, but there was definitely some money involved. I spoke to an engineer named Frank Zellar who engineered all of those red label Enjoy Records. Bobby Robinson’s been around since the doo wop days, and had a record store down in Harlem. Bobby didn’t get out of the record store until late at night, and Frank told me that they did these sessions from like ten pm until five in the morning at a music studio within Manhattan. Bobby would always come in to see what was going on, but give him twenty, thirty minutes? He was passed out on the couch. He was an old guy! So Frank told me it was really up to him as the engineer and Pumpkin as the lead musician. They were the ones constructing the music and making sure that things got done. They did like two records a month.

Pumpkin was with Enjoy maybe until ’82. There would be like thirty to forty kids just running around the studio, this was before the entourage. These were just the kids who were rolling with the kids that happened to be rappers. They would just record the reaction to the record by the kids. The kids wouldn’t even be in the recording booth, they would just be in the control room and they would hit the mic. It sounds like a party’s going on, but that’s the feedback that they wanted for certain records. Those are the ‘party tracks.’

A lot of the people on Enjoy went over to Sugar Hill – Treacherous Three, Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. Pumpkin did their first record at Enjoy, which is ‘Superrappin’.’

Even Spoonie Gee left, and he was Bobby’s nephew!

Yes! I don’t know if you’re familiar with a record called ‘Spanglish,’ by Spanish Fly and the Terrible Two. That was the first record with a Latin influence, and it was almost like a diss record, because he was calling out the names of the groups that were on Enjoy and went to Sugar Hill! Pumpkin produced that as well. Pumpkin came from Hispanic descent, my whole father’s side were Costa Rican and Panamanian. Pumpkin spoke Spanish fluently. He was able to communicate with everybody and he was loved by everybody because he was black and Spanish.

It was more of a singles driven market at that point. Pumpkin was the first producer to sell beats to labels and kinda make it a fashion. He did a record, the Nice and Nasty Three on Holiday Records. He did ‘Million Dollar Legs’ by the Outlaw Four, all the Fantasy Three stuff. Fearless Four was the first group to get picked up by a major label, they went to Elektra after Enjoy and did ‘Something New.’ Pumpkin went over and he did that music for them [‘Just Rock’ and ‘Turn It Out’]. Greg G was the one that told Pumpkin to come over to Profile Records.

Right, because Disco Four had signed a deal over there.

Yes. Greg was like, ‘I know you aren’t getting paid what you’re supposed to be getting paid over at Enjoy, why don’t you come to Profile?’ They gave Pumpkin twelve thousand dollars up front, and back then that’s like a million dollars! He was an exclusive producer to Profile, and Profile only. That’s what his deal consisted of. He produced for Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, he did the ‘Gettin’ Money’ record. ‘King of the Beat’ was his own first single, ‘Here Comes The Beat.’ The Masterdon Committee ‘Funkbox [Party]’ and ‘Funkbox 2’ and ‘Gonna Get You Hot.’ ‘Throwdown’ and ‘School Beats’ from the Disco Four, he did that as well.

‘Here Comes That Beat’ had Disco Four’s Greg G, Mr. Troy, had the Fresh 3 MCs, it had Fly Ty-rone and also had DJ Galaxy and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. They tried to make that a compilation record, that’s why it was called Pumpkin and the All-Stars. It was meant to bring everybody on the label together for one record. Pumpkin wanted to do that. Greg G was like, ‘I’m not really messing with Profile right now, they owe me some money.’ Somehow, someway Pumpkin convinced Greg to come down, Greg heard the beat and was like, ‘I’ve gotta get on this!’

Now you have Mr. Aaron Fuchs. Aaron built Tuff City not off of just rap, he traveled a lot and he was able to gather up different genres of music to create a humongous catalog of music that he sells. Aaron’s in the business of re-issuing music. They had a little label war going on between him and Profile Records. If I’m not mistaken, Aaron did some work over there – Cold Crush Brothers’ ‘Fresh, Fly, Wild and Bold’ – Pumpkin did that as well. There must have been something that happened over at Profile that just gave Aaron a burst of inspiration, like, ‘I’m gonna go get my own label and I’m gonna get back at these guys.’ He started Tuff City Records and he had a few artists – Funkmaster [Wizard] Wiz, Traedonya – and these people were connected to Pumpkin.

What’s funny about Traedonya was she just knew Pumpkin from the streets. I think he knew her father or something like that, because she was like thirteen, fourteen. But she had a grown appearance about her, Pumpkin used to have her just tag along to studios and just show her the business because she wanted to rap. He just took her under the wing. The first record she did was a Spoonie Gee record where the hook is ‘Spoon, spoon, spoonie!’ That’s her. Pumpkin had a session with Spoonie Gee, he didn’t tell her she was recording or anything, the way Pumpkin operated back then was you just listened to Pumpkin. No matter who you were, if it was in regards to the musical direction of what we’re about to do? You just listen to Pumpkin. So if Pumpkin says, ‘The girl that’s sitting there on the couch? I know nobody knows her but I want her to be on the record.’ Then that’s what’s gonna happen!

He said, ‘Hey Pumpkin, I’m gonna give you some money for some of this music that you make for me. I’m gonna underpay you without you knowing that you’re being underpaid for your services. I’ll also give you credit on these records, but because of your deal with Profile, the records can’t say “Produced by Pumpkin.”‘ If you go back now, you’ll see records that say ‘Produced by B. Eats.’ You’ll see records that say, ‘Produced by Jack ‘O Lantern.’ You see where I’m going? Pumpkin’s real name was Errol Bedward, certain records say, ‘Produced by Berrol Edward.’ That was Aaron throwing it in Profile’s face. ‘I got your producer over here, working for me, and you guy’s don’t even know it. Even if you do know it, that’s not what the record says!’

Aaron set Pumpkin up with studio equipment. When the Linn Drum came out, Pumpkin mastered the Linn Drum in a very short time. Anything he could play on a live drum set he could play on the drum machine. His main equipment was the [TR] 808 and the Roland keyboard synthesizer. Silver Fox told me that sometimes he couldn’t tell if it was a drum machine or a live drum that Pumpkin was playing because it sounded how you wanted it to sound. I don’t know if he caused the fallout between Pumpkin and Profile, or if that had already been in the works, but Pumpkin had an album that was supposed to come out on Profile called Pumpkin Presents Errol Bedward.

What was the story with Puffy Dee and the ‘Joe Blow’ song?

Pumpkin was a lady’s man, so Pumpkin would go out, find a girl. That’s the kinda girl she was. ‘Ride around with me, come to the studio.’ They had relations and everything like that, Pumpkin brought her over to Tuff City, but from what I understand she was very difficult to work with. That picture that you had [on the site]? That’s not her. She’s has a lot more of a street image to her.

He knew he couldn’t just be confined to this hip-hop thing because as a musician he wanted to broaden his horizons. Pumpkin played classical music, Spanish music, jazz, fusion, so I think Profile was going to be that platform. The album never came out and I’m the only person I know of that has that album. I have the tape with his handwriting on it and I listen to everyday. The music on that album is R&B stuff – music that he wrote and music that he produced. You have different vocalists on there, and one of the one’s that I know of is a guy by the name of James ‘Crab’ Robinson, the singer that replaced Luther Vandross in the group Change. Pumpkin couldn’t be confined to this rap thing and I think as the years were going on he was just getting more and more frustrated with the business.

Andre Harrell and Pumpkin were good friends and they did music [together]. There were times when Pumpkin called up Andre Harrell during his Dr. Jeckyll and Mr. Hyde days and said, ‘I can get you a show right now. Come on down, I’ll get a hundred dollars in your pocket.’ A guy like Andre Harrell will turn around and he’s doing shows and putting Pumpkin’s name on the flyer and Pumpkin’s not actually gonna be there – shady stuff like that. He got that big label deal for Uptown Records through MCA, and that was meant to be a business opportunity for Pumpkin through Andre, and something wasn’t right about the business and Pumpkin said, ‘Nah, I don’t even want to do it.’ This is per DJ Galaxy, the DJ that was doing the scratches on ‘Here Comes That Beat.’

Pumpkin lived next door to Vincent Davis, the owner of Vintertainment. Him and Pumpkin were good friends. Vincent knew how to sell music and Pumpkin knew how to make it. Vincent discovered Keith Sweat. Towards the later part of his life, I would say maybe ’87, ’88, ’89, he was just like, ‘I don’t really wanna do the rap stuff no more.’

Was he still making music in other genres?

That’s what I’m saying.

His last credit is on Busy Bee’s album from 1992 [‘Jail Bait’]. Do you know how old that track was?

I spoke to Busy Bee and what he told me about that record was that was the start of that record, music-wise. They never finished the track, but because Pumpkin passed he wanted to put it out regardless. My grandfather – he was a barber – drove a Cadillac, and his friends used to always say, ‘Man, I seen your Cadillac down in Brooklyn at four in the morning! Was that you?’ My grandfather’s like, ‘Nah, that wasn’t me. It was Pumpkin!’ The amount of parking tickets that my grandfather received was ridiculous. Pumpkin would park the car and do his sessions, come out and you’ve got a ticket on your car. That just goes to show how much music he actually did.

How did he pass?

Pumpkin supposedly died of pneumonia. I talked to a lady by the name of Sandra Williams, Pumpkin was in a band with her and traveled to Japan with her. He had a cough and wasn’t looking too good, he came back and a few weeks later he passed.

How old was he?

Pumpkin was about twenty eight, he was very young when he passed. When you hear somebody passed from pneumonia, it could be something else. Or it could be they passed for reasons that somebody doesn’t want the world to know. Unfortunately he’s not here, but his legacy will forever live.