Growing up in the Bronx at the age of 15 in the late 70's and playing the drums, break beats have always been part of my life. Being influenced at the time by well known DJ's like Grandmaster Flash, Kool Herc and Afrika Bambaataa, I started my own DJ crew(Phrase II Crew) and collecting break beats. These break beats which help shape Hip Hop's foundation and culture consisted of Rock, Jazz, Soul, Funk music and these records were kept in milk crates for easy access. I remember Flash and other known DJ's at the time setting up their music equipment inside of parks or school yards and turning their performances into block parties and the music sounded so loud that if you stood a few feet away from the sound speakers the bass and kick drum sounds were felt on your chest .This was the start of what is known today as Hip Hop. Few people knew that Hip Hop was the way of life for a few Blacks and Latinos mainly living in low income areas like the projects. In these areas graffiti writing, B-boys break dancing, DJ's mixing and battling other DJ's and MC battles were popular. Even the clothes like Lee jeans, AJ pants, Kangol hats, Pumas, Adidas, Pro Keds and Converse sneakers puffed up with thick laces is what we used to wear. At the time we all thought that Hip Hop was a fad and that soon it would be replaced with another in time. To my surprise after 50 years, it is still here! Who ever thought this would happen?

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After giving DJing a break, I wanted to explore more about music by composing and producing combining some knowledge of mixing and drumming.  

Just to give break beat music a modern twist, I wanted to create some remixes adding some of the old school hip hop sound for today’s audience. As I mentioned earlier, since playing the drums have always  been  part of me , I have decided to brush up on my skills by playing some popular drum covers and posting it. Also I have posted a video compilation of the most popular b-boy movies with break beat music, a Converse online video from Target featuring Crazy Legs from the Rock Steady Crew using one of my old school break beats, an online Progressive commercial short audio clip featuring one of my most recent beats, a short home video dating back from 1976-1978 and a surprising video that shows that b-boys and b-girls may have exited in the 30's and 40's. Plus new videos celebrating 50 years of Hip Hop with DJ Grandmaster Flash performing old school break beat mixes, DJ Kool Herc talking about the history of Hip Hop break beats, a video showing the 50 years of Hip Hop creators from the beginning until now, the history of B-Boys, the art that came up from the Bronx, the begginings of Hip Hop, the origin of B-boy culture and a digital virtual crate with over 9 hours of 218 original old school break beat mixes just like back in the days before MCing came into the picture. These mixes were about 95% of the music we had in our break beat crate collection and heard on mixtapes. In order to extend the break beat we had two of the same vinyl record for each turntable. Some of these break beats can be heard in some of todays TV commercials and in Hip Hop songs from the 80's to now.


 

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