What's good, y'all. We're back at it again, and I'm pleased to say that we've picked up our "History Of Hip-Hop" series again this year.We started the series with 1979 and took you on a journey though the first decade of hip-hop as seen through the eyes of The Rub. In no way is this to be considered a "Best Of" but more of a collection of personal favorites and songs that we feel really represented the year properly. But guaranteed you will be getting some of the best hip-hop songs ever created. - CosmoDownload or stream all the shows and get all the tracklists here: http://www.brooklynradio.net/shows/the-rub. The Archive of 79-89 shows is here: http://www.itstherub.com/radio.htm#historyBrooklyn Radio interviewed us about the series. Link here - http://www.brooklynradio.net/articles/flava-in-ya-ear
With The Rub spinning you through the 90s hip-hop explosion, we thought midway through the series would be a good time to catch up with them and discuss the decade. After the jump, we go deep into the craniums of DJs Ayres, Cosmo Baker, and Eleven to find the flava they???ve been putting in your ear buds on a weekly basis.
Hey guys, so you???re back to your History of Hip-Hop Series. Can you break the project down? (Ed. Note: The entire series, which started with 1979, will be back on the site with the conclusion of the 90s.)[/b]AYRES:We started doing the Hip-Hop History shows because we love all this music and want everyone to get to hear all the classic rap music that inspired us to become DJs in the first place. And we felt a year-by-year series of mixes was the most cohesive way to approach it, and Brooklyn Radio was the best place for it. A 20 or 30 CD box set just isn???t practical, and it will reach far more people if we just give it away on the internet.The way we???re doing this series is the three of us first split up the years, so for example in the 90s, I???m doing 93, 94 and 98. Then we make lists of all the songs we can think of from each year that we like. We organize all our hip-hop records and wmd's by year, look everything up on Discogs.com, consult the Ego Trip Book of Rap Lists, dig out old mixtapes from each year and just try to be sure we aren???t missing anything. Then we email our lists back and forth, to jog each others??? memories and trade music. From there I think we just approach it like a mixtape: we put on songs that were really big for everyone and songs that were just big for us, and try to balance the underground records with the hits.COSMO:Like Ayres said, hip-hop was the music that made us all want to start to DJing in the first place. Over the years we???ve messed with so many different styles and for a while there people were identifying The Rub with all sorts of other genres like dance music and club music, so doing the ???History??? series was a really good way for us to bring it back down to earth, letting people know what our roots are.Other than using books and the internet as a reference to what songs came out when, also just looking at the labels of the records that we have was a good way of organizing it. Being that we all use Microwave, this was a great opportunity to go back and rip a lot of the vinyl that we have to the computer. When we first started choosing who was going to do what year, we all pretty much picked years that meant a lot to us personally. For instance I chose 1995 because that was the first year I fully lived in New York and there was so much going on in hip-hop at the time that I was able to do a mix that was very personal to me.ELEVEN:I???ve got to echo their sentiments. We???re all hip-hip dudes originally. And, while we???ve all branched out in a lot of different directions, that???s still at our core. So, it???s been both to share the music we love, to delve back into something that we???re all very passionate about, and, more than anything, a chance to nerd out and have a great time with great music that we love!And, best of all, the feedback has been phenomenal! Every city we go to and just about every week, someone takes the time to tell us how much they???re enjoying it. For some, it???s because we???re educating them on things they missed. And, for others, they???re geeked to be going down memory lane again. And, that???s not even counting the emails we get about the series! That feedback has been a huge part of the reason we keep doing it.
After working through the 80s for the first part of the series, what have you found has been the difference between the two decades?[/b]AYRES:There was a lot more hip-hop being made in the 90s, not only in New York and Philly but also in LA, the Bay Area, Houston, Chicago and so forth. So for the series, when we were working on 1979 there weren???t too many songs to pick from, whereas in the 90s our job of editing down these lists to make two hour shows is a lot bigger chore. Musically, in the 90s producers had more and more freedom because the samplers had so much more sample time, so they could do really layered beats with a lot of samples or just use longer loops. Plus as hip-hop became more mainstream, the money meant access to better studios, better engineers, bigger budgets for guests, and so forth. Of course the down side of the money in some cases was that the labels were spending more so they expected a bigger return and so A&Rs were more actively seeking artists to make formulaic hits.COSMO:One of the things about the series is that when it???s all said and done people will hopefully be able to look at the thing as a whole and be able to see how much the art form progressed over the course of 20 years, and at the same time to be able to catch a feeling as to what some of the constants of the genre are. It???s education as much as it is entertainment. Is there a word for that ??? haha? Ask my man Kris! (Ed. Note: Infotainment.)ELEVEN:If we over-generalize about the two decades, I think the differences between are almost too numerous to mention. (Development of difference in regional sounds, advantages of advances in the technology, the increased complexity of rhyme schemes, the maturation of turntablism, and huge growth of the rap industry itself, to name just a few.)
But, the joy in this project is seeing the small differences. Like hearing the difference between the use of live bands in ???82 and synthesizers in ???84. Hearing producers go from using an SP1200 to an MPC to a full string section, in under 10 years, is just Frickin' cool!Since you guys came of age more in the 90s, did you learn more about 80s cuts when doing the last series?[/b]AYRES
ersonally, I started paying attention to hip-hop in about 1986 or 1987. Then I started DJing in the nineties when ???diggin in the crates??? was a big thing, so a lot of the music I missed when I was younger, I learned about from older DJs or just from seeking out old school records on my own. In that sense, we???ve all been working on the Hip-Hop History series for over twenty years. It???s kind of the culmination of being music geeks and obsessive record collectors for so long.
But I definitely feel like working on this was a great refresher course in hip-hop history for me, too. And certain
ly Cosmo and Joe showed me some joints I didn???t know.COSMO:I???ve been buying rap records since 1982 so I???m pretty familiar with a lot of the older catalog stuff, but of course when setting off on this trip we all had to do our history to find a lot of the lesser known songs. But the fact is that during the 90s we all were more in a position to have a different relation to a lot of the songs, a more mature relation. That???s one of the things that???s great about the series ??? people of all ages relate to it in a very different, and personal, way.ELEVEN:I bought my first rap record (actually a cass-single ??? haha) in ???84 or ???85 and have been buying a lot since 1990 or so. But, there were HUGE gaps in my knowledge. That???s one of the great things about hip-hop: As it has matured, there???s a longer history to it that you can go back and explore. We all got to track down and get to know joints that we never knew existed, even up in to the 90s. No one knows everything. (Okay. That may not be true. But, in theory, I like the sound of there being no one that can not be stumped in Rap Trivial Pursuit.)So does this part of the series seem more like a trip down middle school lane?[/b]AYRES:If only ??? we all graduated from high school in the early 90s.COSMO:The best thing about the 90s was that we were all a little older, getting into ???some shit??? so to speak (maybe I???m speaking for myself ??? haha!)
But yeah, a lot of the content really was speaking to what I was doing at the time. So when someone says something about ???smoking blunts??? or ???hitting skins??? it???s something that I could directly relate to!ELEVEN:Like Ayres and Cosmo said, this decade spoke to us a little more directly because of where we were at. Plus, we were at times in our lives where we could get crazily deep into the music. (Between 16-18 years old in ???90 with nothing else to spend our money on, you better believe it was going to records!) So, we KNOW this decade. This is our SHIT!
A lot of critics and fans see the early 90s as a Golden Age for hip-hop? Do you feel the same way?[/b]AYRES:Yeah I think the late eighties and early nineties were a great time for hip-hop, and ???Golden Age??? is definitely a meaningful term. At the same time I don???t want to suggest that there was some turning point where hip-hop got bad, because there is still a lot of great music coming out. And you have to take into consideration that a lot of the critics and fans who talk the ???Golden Age??? are in their thirties, and of course we???re going to feel the music we grew up on is the best. In 2012 the oldies station will probably be playing Eminem and Jay-Z and critics will be calling it the Platinum Age.COSMO:The ???Golden Age??? is approximately 1987 through 1994. I guess that it???s really subjective, though, because to a 20 year old listening to this, could they relate to a golden age when they were 7? Probably not. But with me it was because that encompasses my junior high and high school into the beginning of my college years. And there was such an energy at the time. It really felt very fresh and new and alive at the time.ELEVEN:I agree that calling something a ???Golden Age�? is a little dangerous because it assumes that things have gotten worse at a certain point. While hip-hop in the 90s spoke to me in a very specific and exciting way, I love a lot of new hip-hop. In a youth driven art form like hip-hop, there???s great music in any time period.Why do you think it exploded commercially so much in the 90s?[/b]
AYRES:I think the people who grew up on hip-hop in the 80s took over the music business in the 90s, not to mention the kids who grew up on rap in the 80s now had more disposable income to buy CDs at the mall. And it was a little less of a rebellious thing in the 90s: It wasn???t as much of a subculture, but it still had that dangerous edge that appeals to teenagers.COSMO:It definitely was a coming of age thing. Radio had been playing the same ???contemporary R&B??? format for the longest time, and let???s be honest, kids that were 16 and 17 weren???t really relating to Anita Baker and Luther Vandross. New Jack Swing was a step in the right direction but also that was just a bridge from the old school R&B to hip-hop. It was in the 90s that we as a community definitely took a hold of things for ourselves. Think of all the upstart imprints, magazines, clothing labels, all that shit at the time. Before hip-hop became ???big business??? it was a commerce free-for-all and everyone was trying to get in where they fit in, but not in a way that was co-opting it or the essence of what the community stood for.ELEVEN:I think it exploded because there was just a sense of possibility. Much in the same way as the dot com boom, anyone with a mic, turntables, a record to put out, an idea for a t-shirt, an idea for a radio mix show, etc. could dive in. Some made it and some didn???t but there was so much enthusiasm from producers and consumers that it just HAD to explode.
When we start talking about the business of hip-hop in the 90s, I think of one name. A lot of hip-hop heads have nothing but scorn for Puff Daddy. But, then again, he might have produced the decade???s biggest hits and introduced the world to the genre???s biggest star, The Notorious B.I.G. What influence do you think Bad Boy, Puff, and B.I.G. played on the rest of the decade? Musically, was it positive?[/b]AYRES:Yeah it was definitely positive, a lot of those Bad Boy records are great and really withstood the test of time. And as with anything great, it inspired a lot of copycats and haters. From a moral or intellectual standpoint, Bad Boy isn???t as inspiring as Public Enemy or Ice Cube or Poor Righteous Teachers, but that music isn???t as fun to party to. Notorious B.I.G. is probably my favorite MC of all time, and I still check for new stuff by Lox and Faith Evans, and that Diddy album last year had some good, interesting music on it. Puffy also popularized R&B/Hip-Hop crossover records by pairing up Biggie and Mase with Mary J Blige, 112 and Total. That???s still pretty much the formula for a big radio hit, for better or worse. I???m definitely not mad at Justin Timberlake and Timbaland working together, and that type of pairing might not exist without Puffy. Then again, neither would Making the Band 4.COSMOuffy has been so important to this whole thing. Love him or hate him you can???t deny his positive contribution to this thing we call hip-hop. The man made CLASSIC records, he broke legendary artists, he changed the game in relation to sampling, and he broke the business of hip-hop wide open. Plus, I always say that if he wasn???t instrumental or important then he never would have made the cover of ???Midnight Marauders.???ELEVEN:I think Puffy is one of the great POP producers of our time. He has the rare ability to tap into popular culture and reach people. Without a personality with that trait, hip-hop wouldn???t be what it is today. Sure, Russell took it so far, but Puff was able to take it further. Plus, he had the good sense and solid ear to surround himself with amazing producers and artists. I think hating him is taking the lazy way out. Maybe there???s specific things he did or what you THINK he stands for, but you can???t hate the man who brought out Mary J & Biggie. That???d be ridiculous.If
Puffy represented the pop slice, the rest of the decade seemed to be split into two camps: The positive force of the Native Tongues, like Tribe, De La, The Jungle Brothers and the harder edged gangsta rap of Wu-Tang, Dr. Dre, Mobb Deep, etc. The more raw hip-hop started coming out in the early to mid 90s. Do you think there was a certain reaction to the hippie love of earlier rap groups? In the 80s, hip-hop was about the party. Then it started getting more violent.[/b]
AYRES:Ehhhh, that???s kind of simplifying it. Eazy E came out in the 80s, and he was violent as hell. I think gangster rap started with Schooly D in the mid 80s. NWA, BDP and Kool G Rap inspired a lot of baby gangsters in the late 80s. I agree it definitely was more the exception to the rule in the 80s. But in the 90s you had you had lots of rappers who would do a gangster song, a song for the ladies, a hip-house song, and a ???check out my dj??? song all on the same album. De La Soul was trying to escape their ???hip-hop hippies??? label by the second album, and that was in 1991. I don???t think that the gangster rappers were so much reacting to the non-violent rappers as they were reflecting what it was like where they grew up. And glorifying it, when they realized it would sell, like Tupac.ELEVEN:The bigger any art form gets the more variation you???ll see in it. I think you could trace some direct lineages like that, but most is a function of there being more room for more people to express more individual visions.Who was the producer of the 90s? Who do you think defined the decade???s sound?[/b]
AYRES:God, there???s a bunch of them. There was such a wide variety of sounds between 1990 and 1999. The Bomb Squad, DJ Pooh, Pete Rock, DJ Premier, DJ Quik, Dr Dre, Large Professor, Trackmasters, D-Dot, Timbaland, who else? Sorry, I can???t pick just one.COSMO:So many to say. Those are the big ones. Other dudes like Diamond D of course, and Ski and T-Ray and Tumbling Dice and J-Dilla. Off the top of my head if you were to ask me to name one though I would say Pete Rock.ELEVEN:For me, it???d be Premier. His maturation through the 90s was so profound and important and the impact he had on me was just too great to name anyone else. That being said, I wish I could go back and put my money on Puff.Of course, which MC?[/b]AYRES:I???d have to say Biggie.COSMO:Call me crazy but I???ll say Busta Rhymes. He was relevant all throughout the decade, starting with Leaders and the tie-in with Native Tongues. Not only did he stay consistent but also he progressed with his own sound and music as the sound changed. Plus he was on every single important remix ever. Like there was definitely a time when you heard Busta on a track and you would be like ???OH SHIT??? cause he just brought his own energy to a song and revved it up like crazy. Dude is a legend.
ELEVEN:I can???t ever pick one person or do top 5s, except ones of the moment. Right now, I???m stuck between Ice Cube and MOP. From ???Amerikkka???s Most Wanted??? through ???Death Certificate??? he was just too good to not deserve mention. And, MOP, while they are often forgotten or dismissed as just screaming, actually have some pretty intricate rhyme patterns. Plus, they???d fuck you up.What was your favorite year?[/b]AYRESrobably 1995, when that first wave of Wu-Tang solo albums came out.COSMO:That???s so hard to answer ??? Ayres said 1995 so I???ll say 1996 because that was the year that myspace records started to make a bigger impact on me, and I was working at a record store at the time so I was directly involved with buying a lot of these records and getting them out to folks, and dealing with the records and distributors as well. It was at that time that a lot of us knew that the myspace thing was going to be like this huge wave and it was very exciting.ELEVEN:???92. Gang Starr???s ???Daily Operation??? and Showbiz & AG???s ???Runaway Slave�??? are two of my favorite records of all time.Who do you remember seeing live that really moved you in the 90s? Any tour? Small act in a small club? DJ?[/b]AYRES:My first concert was Public Enemy, Naughty By Nature, MC Lyte and Geto Boys. That must have been 1991 or 1992. That was in the coliseum in Jackson, Mississippi and it was just an incredible show. What???s funny is that I just took Eleven and Cosmo to see a rodeo in the Jackson coliseum last year and it blew their mind! Once I was living in New York I saw a ton of great acts. De La Soul and Jungle Brothers were so good live. Pharcyde and Souls of Mischief had a really memorable show, too. The Roots of course, I got to see them several times from 1995 on and they were always super. Beastie Boys were great, Ice Cube too.
COSMO:First thing I thought of was the De La Soul, A Tribe Called Quest and Leaders Of The New School show in 1991 at The Ritz I think, in New York. It was amazing. ???Low End Theory??? and ???De La Soul Is Dead??? had just dropped and all the groups were at the top of their game. It???s the same concert where the got the live footage for the ???Scenario??? video. Plus there were live performances in between sets by Large Professor, Chi Ali and Serch. Definitely cool as hell. It was my first real ???big??? show in New York and in a sense it was like me making my pilgrimage, and to have it to see this particular show made an incredible impact on me.ELEVEN:Seeing Common and the Beatnuts open for The Roots was definitely a high point to me. Also getting to catch the Outkast/Goodie MOB guys and the Boot Camp crew the first times they stopped thru the Bay Area. Seeing Rakim lip sync was a very low point though.Who has been your favorite artist from the 90s that you???ve performed with?AYRES:Hmm, maybe Redman, we played a show with him for The Fader at SxSW and he was really good. A while back at The Rub we brought out Jeru unnanounced and he did ???Come Clean??? and that was really fun. I think this is a better question for Cosmo, but I???d phrase it ???Who was your favorite artist you performed with IN the 90s????COSMOerformed with IN the 90s? Probably The Roots because we did mad shows together, in basements and in warehouses and shit like that. That was a great time in Philly ??? the early to mid 90s. Frickin' incredible, we were all just kids at the time too. But other than that there???s tons. Jay-Z is a ???90s??? artist, right? Doing a Jay-Z show in front of 15,000 people was dope.
ELEVEN:While it wasn???t in the 90s, Ayres and I getting to open for Nice & Smooth was a huge highlight for me. Those dudes??? energy is just too dope. They could???ve been the Simply II Positive MCs instead of Organized Konfusion.AYRES:Yeah I was going to mention that, Nice & Smooth was great. I think I ended up DJing for Special Ed at that show. Man, he???s a hell of a live vocalist, buttery smooth.Ayres, you did a small tour with Ghostface this year. What was that like?[/b]AYRES:I???ve done a couple of those tours and they are always really fun. Ghost is such a character and his catalog is deep. Plus he performs with a band, Rhythm Roots Allstars, and they do an excellent job of playing the beats in a way that also draws on their knowing all thos
e original soul songs that RZA sampled on all that classic Wu shit inside and out. But, yeah, Ghost is a genuine dude, and he puts his heart into it so it???s always fun to see what he???s going to do. I???m jealous of Cosmo, he???s going out on a similar tour with Brand Nubian in a few weeks.COSMO:Brand Nubian has so much material, collectively and as soloists, to do an ill show. Hell, I mean they can just do the entire ???All For One??? album and it???s a wrap!ELEVEN:Cosmo ??? if they don???t do ???Concerto in X Minor??? can you do me a solid and only call him Derek?As always, you guys are out on the road and performing. When do guys get a chance to put the series together?[/b]AYRES:I don???t know, we just block out time when we???re home and make it happen. We don???t sleep much. But I like doing this, it feels like a serial accomplishment, because it really is a ton of work to do it right, to not feel like we missed anything, and to do the music justice. I???m sure I overthink it, like everything, but part of the fun to me is sort of challenging the canon of old-school classics and reminding other DJs that you can do a great old-school hip-hop set and make it a little more interesting that just the staples. I love joints like ???They Reminisce Over You,??? ???I Got It Made,??? ???DWYCK,??? ???Passin Me By,??? etc, but DJs lean on these tunes so much, I could go without hearing them again for a while. Dig deeper! That???s what keeps shit fun. (Ed. Note: Kids! Words of wisdom!) So I hope people will refer to these shows in the future the way we did to the our old Tony Touch and Doo Wop tapes when we were doing them.COSMO:Fuck it man, we love doing this. Straight up. We love this music and like I said there???s such a personal connection to it with us, it???s a labor of love.ELEVEN: The sense of purpose keeps us going. We HAVE to do it and we HAVE to get it as right as we???re capable of. What the fuck else are we going to do? Not do it justice? Fuck that! We might as well go get jobs instead.To get the History of Hip-Hop series, go to http://www.brooklynradio.net/shows/the-rub. The Archive of 79-89 shows is here: http://www.itstherub.com/radio.htm#history
ersonally, I started paying attention to hip-hop in about 1986 or 1987. Then I started DJing in the nineties when ???diggin in the crates??? was a big thing, so a lot of the music I missed when I was younger, I learned about from older DJs or just from seeking out old school records on my own. In that sense, we???ve all been working on the Hip-Hop History series for over twenty years. It???s kind of the culmination of being music geeks and obsessive record collectors for so long.
ly Cosmo and Joe showed me some joints I didn???t know.COSMO:I???ve been buying rap records since 1982 so I???m pretty familiar with a lot of the older catalog stuff, but of course when setting off on this trip we all had to do our history to find a lot of the lesser known songs. But the fact is that during the 90s we all were more in a position to have a different relation to a lot of the songs, a more mature relation. That???s one of the things that???s great about the series ??? people of all ages relate to it in a very different, and personal, way.ELEVEN:I bought my first rap record (actually a cass-single ??? haha) in ???84 or ???85 and have been buying a lot since 1990 or so. But, there were HUGE gaps in my knowledge. That???s one of the great things about hip-hop: As it has matured, there???s a longer history to it that you can go back and explore. We all got to track down and get to know joints that we never knew existed, even up in to the 90s. No one knows everything. (Okay. That may not be true. But, in theory, I like the sound of there being no one that can not be stumped in Rap Trivial Pursuit.)So does this part of the series seem more like a trip down middle school lane?[/b]AYRES:If only ??? we all graduated from high school in the early 90s.COSMO:The best thing about the 90s was that we were all a little older, getting into ???some shit??? so to speak (maybe I???m speaking for myself ??? haha!)
uffy has been so important to this whole thing. Love him or hate him you can???t deny his positive contribution to this thing we call hip-hop. The man made CLASSIC records, he broke legendary artists, he changed the game in relation to sampling, and he broke the business of hip-hop wide open. Plus, I always say that if he wasn???t instrumental or important then he never would have made the cover of ???Midnight Marauders.???ELEVEN:I think Puffy is one of the great POP producers of our time. He has the rare ability to tap into popular culture and reach people. Without a personality with that trait, hip-hop wouldn???t be what it is today. Sure, Russell took it so far, but Puff was able to take it further. Plus, he had the good sense and solid ear to surround himself with amazing producers and artists. I think hating him is taking the lazy way out. Maybe there???s specific things he did or what you THINK he stands for, but you can???t hate the man who brought out Mary J & Biggie. That???d be ridiculous.IfPuffy represented the pop slice, the rest of the decade seemed to be split into two camps: The positive force of the Native Tongues, like Tribe, De La, The Jungle Brothers and the harder edged gangsta rap of Wu-Tang, Dr. Dre, Mobb Deep, etc. The more raw hip-hop started coming out in the early to mid 90s. Do you think there was a certain reaction to the hippie love of earlier rap groups? In the 80s, hip-hop was about the party. Then it started getting more violent.[/b]
robably 1995, when that first wave of Wu-Tang solo albums came out.COSMO:That???s so hard to answer ??? Ayres said 1995 so I???ll say 1996 because that was the year that myspace records started to make a bigger impact on me, and I was working at a record store at the time so I was directly involved with buying a lot of these records and getting them out to folks, and dealing with the records and distributors as well. It was at that time that a lot of us knew that the myspace thing was going to be like this huge wave and it was very exciting.ELEVEN:???92. Gang Starr???s ???Daily Operation??? and Showbiz & AG???s ???Runaway Slave�??? are two of my favorite records of all time.Who do you remember seeing live that really moved you in the 90s? Any tour? Small act in a small club? DJ?[/b]AYRES:My first concert was Public Enemy, Naughty By Nature, MC Lyte and Geto Boys. That must have been 1991 or 1992. That was in the coliseum in Jackson, Mississippi and it was just an incredible show. What???s funny is that I just took Eleven and Cosmo to see a rodeo in the Jackson coliseum last year and it blew their mind! Once I was living in New York I saw a ton of great acts. De La Soul and Jungle Brothers were so good live. Pharcyde and Souls of Mischief had a really memorable show, too. The Roots of course, I got to see them several times from 1995 on and they were always super. Beastie Boys were great, Ice Cube too.
erformed with IN the 90s? Probably The Roots because we did mad shows together, in basements and in warehouses and shit like that. That was a great time in Philly ??? the early to mid 90s. Frickin' incredible, we were all just kids at the time too. But other than that there???s tons. Jay-Z is a ???90s??? artist, right? Doing a Jay-Z show in front of 15,000 people was dope.
e original soul songs that RZA sampled on all that classic Wu shit inside and out. But, yeah, Ghost is a genuine dude, and he puts his heart into it so it???s always fun to see what he???s going to do. I???m jealous of Cosmo, he???s going out on a similar tour with Brand Nubian in a few weeks.COSMO:Brand Nubian has so much material, collectively and as soloists, to do an ill show. Hell, I mean they can just do the entire ???All For One??? album and it???s a wrap!ELEVEN:Cosmo ??? if they don???t do ???Concerto in X Minor??? can you do me a solid and only call him Derek?As always, you guys are out on the road and performing. When do guys get a chance to put the series together?[/b]AYRES:I don???t know, we just block out time when we???re home and make it happen. We don???t sleep much. But I like doing this, it feels like a serial accomplishment, because it really is a ton of work to do it right, to not feel like we missed anything, and to do the music justice. I???m sure I overthink it, like everything, but part of the fun to me is sort of challenging the canon of old-school classics and reminding other DJs that you can do a great old-school hip-hop set and make it a little more interesting that just the staples. I love joints like ???They Reminisce Over You,??? ???I Got It Made,??? ???DWYCK,??? ???Passin Me By,??? etc, but DJs lean on these tunes so much, I could go without hearing them again for a while. Dig deeper! That???s what keeps shit fun. (Ed. Note: Kids! Words of wisdom!) So I hope people will refer to these shows in the future the way we did to the our old Tony Touch and Doo Wop tapes when we were doing them.COSMO:Fuck it man, we love doing this. Straight up. We love this music and like I said there???s such a personal connection to it with us, it???s a labor of love.ELEVEN: The sense of purpose keeps us going. We HAVE to do it and we HAVE to get it as right as we???re capable of. What the fuck else are we going to do? Not do it justice? Fuck that! We might as well go get jobs instead.To get the History of Hip-Hop series, go to http://www.brooklynradio.net/shows/the-rub. The Archive of 79-89 shows is here: http://www.itstherub.com/radio.htm#history
