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My coworker Mike recently passed along a bunch of old recordings that he made from the mid- to late-80's, including a great set from Chuck Chillout's old radio show on Kiss FM (98.7), taped back in 1987. These days Kiss FM in New York is devoted to playing bland R&B music from days gone by, music that seems best suited for waiting room sound systems. Back in the day, however, the station (along with WBLS 107.5) played a huge role in the development of hip hop, and Chuck Chillout's show was a big part of it.
For today's post, I'm throwing up a promo from the show that was put together by a group that Chuck was promoting at the time, Deuces Wild. I just found it to be a great snapshot of what hip hop radio was like back in the day. If a rapper does a promo spot for a station these days, it's typically little more than a five second soundbite with the artist spending more time dropping his own name than the name of the dj or radio station. Of course, nowadays you only need to have your record label send along some payola money to the station to get your song played so there's a lot less incentive to put together something like the following promo:
Deuces Wild - Promo for Chuck Chillout / Kiss FM
The promo samples Herbie Hancock & The Headhunters' Watermelon Man, several years before Jesse West (aka 3rd Eye) and Puffy got around to using the same loop for the remix of Supercat's Dolly My Baby (a song notable not only for being one of the best fusions of dancehall and hip hop, but also for marking the first collaboration between Biggie and Puff). Watermelon Man has been sampled by a wide variety of rappers - from a young Jay-Z and Original Flavor on Gumdrops to Shaquille O'Neal to the U.M.C.'s - but Schooly D was the first person, that I'm aware of, to use it. He liked it so much, he flipped the sample on two separate songs for his album Smoke Some Kill.
Deuces Wild had a brief flirtation with mainstream success in the late 80's with their song Five Times the Rhymer. The group got a fair amount of play on WBLS, largely because Deuces Wild's dj, Funkmaster Flex, was interning for Chuck at the time (I believe the emcee in the group was Kool Chip, but feel free to correct me if I'm wrong). Chuck Chillout spent a lot of time promoting the group, but Deuces Wild eventually disbanded and their dj, Funkmaster Flex, went on to bigger and better things after he got his own radio show on Hot 97 (97.1).
5/08/2007 07:00:01 PM posted by Fresh