The rap world remembers Prince Be of PM Dawn…the good and the bad times

Prince Be of PM Dawn passed away on 17 June, 2016. While best remembered for Whisper Rapping over a Spandau Ballet loop by most music fans in the nineties, rap fanatics most commonly associate him as the victim of KRS-One being pushed too far by the disrespect of his peers. He was also an avid record collector, much to the chagrin of certain other vinyl convention attendees, and later turned his hand to producing indie rap acts such as Mood Swingaz and MC Paul Barman. Since Prince Be has been mentioned in a number of Unkut Interviews over the years, I thought it might be interesting to remember his life in the rap game through the words of others…

Phil Most Chill: He was one of the biggest collectors, I’ve got nothing but good things to say about Prince Be. But a lot of the other producers? They could not stand him! They did not like him at all, cos he would come and he would buy records. He wouldn’t play around, he would spend money! He wouldn’t say, ‘Hold this for me and I’ll get you back later’ like a lot of the other dudes would do a lot of the time, he was always straight up. He would come with the money and buy the records, so they would cater to him and a lotta other dudes did not like that one bit. Like what you were saying, ‘He’s not even using these records for his production, so he’s taking all the good shit and we could actually be utilizing it!’ That, combined with his persona from the kind of records that he’s making and the incident with KRS-One – a lotta people didn’t like him. But he was real cool to me, he knew his music and he would buy his records, he wouldn’t bullshit around. He was just a collector, he had done pretty well in the music world so he had money to spend. From what I understand he also did some production under a different name, so he did actually use them for certain joints but people would never know.

Robbie: Didn’t Prince Be from PM Dawn try to reserve everything at those things?

Pete Rock: He used to do that a lot. I’m like ‘Dude, you’re not even a producer! I don’t see a track record of anything you produce, any beats that you’re makin’ for anybody. Why you in here, buying-up all the beats and records and shit? If you’re not doin’ nothing with it!’ What used to make me mad was that at a record convention, you see a record, and then the guy that’s selling the record tells you ‘I’m holding that for somebody’. You know? ‘I’m holding that for PM Dawn’. Like ‘Who the fuck is PM Dawn?! Yo, I’m Pete Rock, dog! Give me that fuckin’ record!’ I don’t care about no PM Dawn.

Cappadonna: PM Dawn had a couple of good hits, too. They wasn’t the greatest but they had a couple of joints

Sadat X: Like when PM Dawn tried to come on stage in New York City and they tried to come on stage with that fluffy bullshit and KRS-One and his people kicked them right off the stage. I was there for that. That was a heroic moment in hip-hop, ‘cos that stopped the first flow of the bullshit. It was like, ‘Nah, we not gonna have that here, mate.’ The crowd loved it.

DJ Kenny Parker: When Kris was doin’ a interview, he heard about PM Dawn. A writer say, ‘So how do you feel about PM Dawn dissin’ you?’ and he was like, ‘I don’t know what you talking about.’ The guy repeated what he said in the article, so Kris was like, ‘Damn! Now I got a dude like PM Dawn tryin’ to diss me! And he said my name! What’s goin’ on? OK, now I’m gettin’ pissed off.’

So now that was the climate. Maybe two weeks or a week after he heard this, I found this flyer at some party, and it was the MTV party. I think it was Leaders of the New School, Nice & Smooth, Supercat and PM Dawn, and I think somebody else was on the bill. And I came to Kris with the flyer, we were in the studio, and I said, ‘Yo, PM Dawn got this show!’ So he was like, ‘You know what? I’m gonna go there and I’m gonna challenge him right there on stage. I’mma throw on a couple of my records, hype up the crowd, then I’mma challenge him to battle me right there.’ That was the initial mindset. ‘I’m gonna go up there, and I’m gonna be like “KRS One’s a teacher, a teacher of what?” I’m gonna show you right now!’ That was the initial mindset that we talked about – me, Kris and Willie D.

The first plan involved me – to get control of the DJ booth. ‘By any means necessary – Kenny, you get control of the booth.’ That was the only real plan we had. And Kris says, ‘When I get the mic, you throw on “Still #1”.’ I had a couple of guys with me, we went to the DJ booth around twenty minutes before PM Dawn was meant to go on. Clark Kent was deejaying, so I went up there and I said to Clark, ‘In about ten minutes I’m gonna need the turntables for a second,’ and he was kinda reluctant. I remember I had ‘Still #1’ on a big acetate, ’cos there was no instrumental of ‘Still #1’ on wax. It’s really hard to cue-up those acetates – I had to keep checking to see if it was ready, ‘cos you have to really move it to get it started. In my mind I’m like, ‘Yo, this acetate is gettin’ on my nerves! What is Kris doin? Is he gonna do it?’

Then all of a sudden, ‘Set Adrift On Memory Bliss’ comes on, and PM Dawn starts doin’ his thing, and then you see Kris comin’ up – there was like a ramp comin’ up the stage – and you see people comin’ up the stage, so I start cuing up. Now let me say this – Kris actually never hit PM Dawn. I think that’s like a big misconception. The guy who actually did – I’m not gonna repeat his name – but there was one guy in our crew, his attitude was like, ‘I’m wylin’ out!’ Right when we came in the club, he said to Kris, ‘Whatever happens Kris, make sure you bail me out,’ and we all started laughin’. So they rushed the stage, and PM Dawn’s music…he had a DJ up there, but the music wasn’t on his turntables – it was on a DAT – coming from somewhere else, maybe the side of the stage. So this guy with us takes the record off the turntable and smashes it, but the music is still playin’. I guess whoever saw what was goin’ on stopped the DAT. PM Dawn had some girl dancers up there – this guy pushes one of the dancers into the crowd – hard! She tried to sue Kris a few months after that.

While this guy’s doin’ this, Kris comes up. PM Dawn is not knowin’ what’s goin’ on – imagine, he’s in show mode and his music stops – and Kris grabs the microphone, so they both have it. Like a tug-of-war for a second, and then Kris pushes him and takes the microphone in his hand. Right at the same time, the guy who pushed the girl into the crowd punches PM Dawn in his face – POW! Then he punches him again – POW! In the face, twice. Then, if I recall, Just-Ice pushed him off [the stage] and Prince Be fell into the crowd. I don’t remember dudes jumping him and beating him up. The crowd in the front backed-up when he fell – you couldn’t really see what was goin’ on, it looked like a robbery. Then Kris has the mic and he goes, ‘BDP is in the motherfuckin’ house!’ And then everybody was like, ‘Ho!’ The whole crowd was like that, and right at that moment I threw on ‘Still #1’ [does the horn part]. It was over! People was jumping up and down and they was goin’ crazy and screamin’…it was like a riot!

Clark Kent turned to me and he said, ‘Yo, that’s the greatest thing I ever seen in my life!’ Where I’m at is across the room, upstairs on the second level, looking down. That’s how the DJ booth was set-up. When Clark Kent said that, I remember bending down to get ‘The Bridge Is Over’ out of my bag, and when I came to cue it up, Clark Kent had already left the DJ booth, went downstairs and ran across the crowd to climb up on stage! I think Queen Latifah was on top of a speaker, just whylin’ out. Everybody was goin’ crazy.

So I threw on ‘The Bridge Is Over.’ Kris was supposed to rhyme but it was just so wild that he never even rhymed! He was just goin’ ‘Jump! Jump!’ and everybody was just goin’ crazy. All I remember him doin’ was, ‘The Dawn is over, the Dawn is over!’ I think the third record I threw on was ‘Duck Down.’ That hadn’t even had a video or nuttin’, I think that was really new when I threw it on. Kris was just talkin’ shit. He was goin’ ‘What?! What?! Anybody that try to diss BDP! What?!’ The crowd was so wild that they started fighting amongst themselves – it looked like you could throw raw meat out there.

If you was there at the club at that time? Then you was with it. If there was a thousand people there – nine hundred of them was like, ‘This is the greatest thing I’ve ever seen!’ But after you read the [Source magazine] article, if you wasn’t there and you just read what people said and you read Kris saying, ‘I am hip-hop’? People was just like, ‘Fuck him!’ And you know what else? MTV was like, ‘You’re banned from MTV forever!’ Cos it was their party and PM Dawn was their guy!

If Kris knew in hindsight? He wouldn’t have went to that thing at all. People say, ‘Why didn’t he step to Ice Cube? Why didn’t he step to these other people like he stepped to PM Dawn?’ After that PM Dawn incident and the amount of heat that Kris got – he wasn’t in the position to step to nobody! He had to really chill after that. After that thing, you probably coulda said anything you want about KRS for like a year, and he might’ve had to eat that, because there was so much flack.

KRS-One: I don’t even have beef with PM Dawn. I did apologize to PM Dawn on numerous occasions….

Robbie: It’s funny you should mention that because Kenny was telling me that even with that whole incident, you weren’t even the one that kicked him off the stage. That was Just-Ice and a few of the crew that got physical with him.

Right! But see, that’s the truth of it all, but the folklore is: ‘KRS grabbed PM Dawn and threw him off the stage!’

By the seat of his pants…

‘By the seat of his pants.’ I picked-up a three-hundred pound dude and…[laughs] But this is the point though. There is mythology and folklore – which works for our culture, it keeps us together, but then there’s real scholarship and there’s real truth when you get down to it. And Kenny is correct – I didn’t really even touch PM Dawn. But at that moment I was the lead of that whole brigade. I was giving the orders, so when the cops come around? ‘Yeah, it was me.’ I’m not gonna tell them, ‘Oh, it was this guy over here. He did it.’ No, it was me. I’ll take full responsibility. This is not a ‘No Snitching’ campaign – this is a military campaign, and the general is usually the one who takes responsibility. So for years, I took the responsibility, I apologized to PM Dawn and tried to make amends with them, and no one probably will ever know…well maybe now they’ll know, those who do their homework or listen to you or your articles or whatever you’ve presented – they will know, but for the rest of the mainstream world? They don’t need to know. Let ‘em have the image in their mind that if you spit that wack shit, KRS is gonna step on your stage and toss your ass off the stage! That’s what hip-hop needs to hear and know.

PM Dawn got tossed off the stage, OK – but if three years later it turns out that he was a child molestor? Which he was – he was convicted for child molestation. He was caught in the bed with his younger cousin.

Wasn’t that his DJ?

I don’t remember. I don’t even like repeatin’ it! [chuckles] I’m just sayin’…